SAM
It was two days before I saw Charlie again. Two whole days. Although technically speaking from the time Charlie asked me out for a drink to the moment I said yes, I’d actually only held out for thirty-two minutes. But in my head I was sticking to the two-day gap. I had to hold onto something, some shred of evidence that I wasn’t – how did Mara put it – ‘a wet dishcloth, squeezed by Charlie’s big hands’. Thanks, Mara, that’s really adding to my self-confidence here, I thought. Followed swiftly by: why am I always the first one at the pub, no matter how late I arrive? I chewed the inside of my lip. He’d just better show up, and before I lost my nerve.
And there he was, striding across the room.
‘Sam! So sorry I’m late, had a devil of a meeting, what can I get you?’ He leant down to kiss my cheek. His coat shifted as he bent over, releasing a slight puff of man and sandalwood. A killer combination. I mumbled something about it being all right and promptly felt annoyed with myself.
Focus, dammit! I am not all right. He is most definitely not all right and he doesn’t smell good enough to eat. I yawned and eyed the table. I pictured laying my head on it and drifting off, there and then, and escaping the task ahead. Battling with my will was exhausting and not made any easier by this bloody virus hanging around, sapping my energy. Stop making excuses. I steeled myself as Charlie returned with drinks. The last drinks we would be sharing as lovers.
‘You look miserable,’ he said, setting the drinks down and slipping in opposite me.
‘Do I? I’m not. Miserable that is. I’m still a bit ill, that’s all . . .’ I teetered off.
‘Well, you don’t have the vim you displayed on Saturday night, that’s for sure!’ Charlie chuckled.
‘Oh God,’ I groaned, ‘please don’t remind me.’
‘What do you mean? It was hilarious, hands down the funniest scene I’ve seen at Dunbourne for years. Ma’s mouth was so pursed I wondered for a moment if she’d actually eaten her lips!’
I groaned again, head in hands.
‘But Dad, he loved it, I think. He’s never had much time for Ma’s airs and graces anyway, and he loves a good set-to. I haven’t seen him that animated for ages. I mean, you really didn’t hold back, did you?’
‘I don’t really remember it, Charlie, and I don’t want to.’
‘That’s a pity.’ Charlie paused for a moment. ‘Actually I think the old man has a real soft spot for you. He could probably have done with a daughter, especially a fiery one like yourself.’
He was right – I knew it. The ride home the next morning was a one-sided conversation conducted entirely by Charles Snr, his eyes flitting up to his rear-view mirror, constantly hopeful of catching my eye while I sat there mute with shame. Meanwhile, next to him in the Jag, Lydia had sat straight as a post, barely saying a thing the whole way. It had all got so out of hand. I couldn’t keep embarrassing myself like this. Chasing Charlie was one thing but shaming myself in front of my friends, and now his parents, was something else. I was turning into someone I didn’t recognise.
‘Charlie—’
‘The thing is, Sam, I know I’ve always teased you about your political views.’
‘Charlie, I—’
‘But I’ve never really understood how explosive you are. You’re practically boiling inside, aren’t you?’
‘Well, I don’t know about that, but—’
‘It’s really very, very sexy. And the reason, I think, that I’ve always been attracted to you. I like your passion, Sam. That’s you, a passionate, expressive, brave person—’ Charlie held his fingers in the air as if he was holding something important.
‘The way you just rocked up to Dunbourne like that, unannounced—’
‘Actually your dad found me in the pub up the road.’
‘—and brandished your views around the place, not caring a toss what other people thought. It was gorgeous. You’re gorgeous. Do you know that?’ Charlie reached across and grasped the top of my arms, staring into my face more intensely than he had in perhaps the whole time I’d known him. Then he let go of me suddenly.
‘But I’m being so rude, sorry. You were saying something?’
‘Oh, it was nothing.’
‘No, please. Say what you wanted to say.’
But my will, no stronger than ten-denier tights at the best of times, had fled the room, leaving my legs – and heart – completely bare. And Charlie waded in, boring those earnest eyes into mine and now, oh no, there he goes with the head shot, clutching my thigh under the table. I sighed.
‘Is that a sigh of pleasure?’
‘No. Well, maybe a little. Actually it was one of resignation.’
‘I’m flattered.’
I smiled at him. ‘You really are a smooth bastard, aren’t you?’ Charlie leant across and kissed me, an insistent, perfect, just-juicy-enough kiss that resulted in an all-too-familiar hot-cold whoosh of hormonal lava, flooding every limb. Then he pulled away, as if kissing like that was a normal occurrence, and asked me, ‘Are you free to come to a gig this weekend?’
I was sure that in that moment I’d follow him across any number of sharp, cutting surfaces to the ends of the earth if necessary. Which, if my memory served me right, was exactly the mentality one had to have to survive one of the ‘gigs’ that Charlie liked attending.
‘Who’s playing?’
‘Only Coldplay,’ Charlie answered, completely chuffed he’d beaten the masses to two tickets. I tried to swallow my disappointment. The masses were the important feature here. Masses and masses of boring, soulless twats who couldn’t think for themselves. Well, not musically anyway. Not in my book (I chose to ignore the fact that Claudia and many other people I respected love them too). This was music for consumers. Music for conformers. Some of the most irritating, boring music on the planet.
‘Sounds awesome, I’d love to go!’ I said.