Chapter 11 #2
Charles used to follow him, back when Milton’s proximity didn’t reduce his brain to a single petrified cell.
His father requested silence while he reviewed his trial pleas, but Charles felt closer to him in the shared peace they found beside Sofia.
His only regret was that Fred no longer joined them.
He was incapable of setting his alarm this early, when he only sneaked back into the house at dawn.
Incapable of approaching Milton without challenging his authority.
‘Does he trust The Mind of Wonders?’
‘Who…?’
One morning, they crossed paths outside the art room. Fred reeked of alcohol. His shirt was torn and his face bruised from a club fight. Milton lost it, Fred lost it, and Alice dragged Charles away from their violent argument.
‘Your father.’
‘Yes, I… I believe so…’ Charles coughs himself back into the quiet of the flat. ‘We’ve never discussed it.’
‘Okay… Does She still amaze you?’
‘What do you think?’
‘That we’re all guilty of getting used to perfection. When you’re in front of Sofia, you can’t feel what you’d feel if you saw Kaunas. Like, do you still cry?’
‘Who says I ever did?’
‘Facing a Land doesn’t turn you into a sobbing mess? Sounds fake, but okay.’
Charles chuckles and snuggles more comfortably. ‘If I cry, it’s not from what Sofia makes me feel, but what She helps me feel. In a way, it’s like that quote you sent. When I’m near Sofia, I face my lies and find my truths. She makes it a tiny bit easier to ask the unpleasant questions.’
‘Such as?’
‘You don’t have the clearance to know that.’
‘Yet.’ Loris stands with a smile and shuffles towards the kitchenette. ‘Hungry? I’ve got doughnuts from the deli.’
‘No, thank you.’ Charles puts his mug down. He turns around on the sofa, to follow Loris with his eyes, and crosses his arms on the backrest. ‘I’ll try one of their quiches with a pint later. If Patty allows food to be brought in.’
‘You’re gonna come to the pub?’
‘After a spooky walk, yes. If it’s alright.’
His parents are hosting their annual Christmas tree lighting party tonight.
Charles got out of the event by showing the theatre tickets he bought for him and Elsy, apologising for double-booking himself.
Elsy will go to the play with her friend Divya and will send him a detailed summary of the plot, in case he’s asked about it.
He told Elsy he would spend the evening with George.
He hasn’t told George anything, but George can cover for him without warning.
‘I might be busy serving actual customers.’
‘I’ll come for the selection of beers, not for your company.’ Charles catches a projectile-doughnut in mid-air. ‘Rude. Are you done with your Sofia questions?’
‘No! I’m— Wait.’ Loris swallows a mouthful and wipes sugar off his lips. ‘Far from done. There’s something I don’t get. Your grandfather moved into that manor in Surrey with Sofia. But then he sent Her back to your house in London? Why? Did he get bored of Her?’
‘No, it’s because of my psycho aunt. She’s always been vocal about turning family treasures into cash. So after my grandfather had a heart attack and understood he wasn’t immortal, he gifted Sofia to my father, to pre-empt future fights at the solicitor office.’
‘So you were born when She moved in?’
‘Yes…’
‘Do you remember?’
Charles frowns, wringing the doughnut. ‘How do you know about the Surrey manor and all that?’
‘Google. I was looking for a picture of Sofia taken at your place. I’m sure I saw one in an article back in the day. In the end, I didn’t find it, but I read some other stuff. Stuff I had read before, but everything hits different now that I know you.’
‘Alright... So yes, I was born, but I… I didn’t get what the fuss was about and… You googled my family?’
‘In my case, the I in VIP stands for impatient!’
‘What did you read?’
Loris loses his smile and hesitates for a beat. ‘Some articles from art magazines that covered—’
‘What else?’ Charles drops the doughnut and pushes himself back as the flat begins shrinking around them. ‘Tell me.’
‘It doesn’t matter what I read. It’s gone until you bring it up and—’
‘Fuck that! You’re not a goldfish!’
Loris recoils with an anxious look that reduces all the concern he’s shown so far to plain indifference. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.’
‘You read about Frederick, didn’t you? You saw the links and you clicked!’
Old headlines are popping up around the room, capitalised and bold on the shrinking walls. Words are overlaying each other. Letters are merging to form other words. To spread all the lies.
‘Why did you click?!’
Charles’ vision tunnels until all he can see is a front page, glitching between them above the sofa backrest.
‘Because I like you. I care about you. I couldn’t ignore something like that. But I agree you should have controlled that narrative, I’m really sorry I mentioned your family. But it doesn’t change anything, it’s—’
‘It changes everything! It does! It will, because you didn’t know.
And it helped! You didn’t know Frederick, you didn’t know Fred either, you didn’t know any of them, any of the— They’re all made up.
They’re all fake! But you, you had no clue, so he was— He could come alive again.
The real him! You were bringing him back and it helped.
It helped me! But now it’s all ruined! It’s— It’ll get all blurry, because you’ve read the lies.
They’re in your eyes now. In the way you’ll look at me! ’
He can’t see Loris’ eyes. Only the front-page photo, filtered with faded colours for dramatic effect, to transform Frederick Ledwell into a figure worthy of being canonised. The picture of obedience and ambition, his lips curved up by the strings Milton was pulling.
‘All I read was—’
‘Lies! All you read was bullshit! Because they bribed people and rewrote history after the accident! That’s what you read?
A tragic unfortunate accident. The patch of ice and the sideslip beyond his control.
Poor Frederick, robbed of such a promising future.
That’s the tearjerker you read, isn’t it?
You didn’t read that he was pissed out of his mind?
That he went— That he stole the keys of a street rod not meant to be driven by a guy trying to speed the fuck away from his life!
There was no ice! He was unhinged! He was drunk! Drunk and speeding and— He was— He—’
Was he?
Charles lets out a wheeze of pain, his brain splitting into pieces that don’t fit together.
‘Charles…’
Loris is near him, but his voice is muffled.
The voices were muffled too that night, behind the door of Milton’s study.
From the bottom of the staircase, Charles couldn’t make out what his parents and the police officers were yelling about.
He had no context, no one had shattered his world yet.
The step he was sitting on felt like quicksand, but he wasn’t aware that it was about to trap him in a suspended state of half-truths.
‘If you say it’s bullshit, I believe you. Whatever you tell me. I trust you more than some—’
‘But you can’t trust me! Don’t you get that? I don’t know! I’m— I don’t remember! I thought I knew, just then, I knew, but now I don’t know. It’s all fake again. It’s all dark. And it’ll stay dark because you know! It’s— I’m—’
Charles tugs at the collar of the polo shirt and gasps for air, but there’s none left in the flat. The walls thrusted it all out when they shrank. He stumbles aside, plucks his pen out of his coat and starts clicking it frantically.
‘Slow down, Charles. Please, slow down and breathe.’
‘I can’t, I—’
‘Look at me. Hey! Look at me!’
Charles blinks to chase the specs of light twirling between them. Loris is right here again, hesitant to touch him. But when Charles nods, afraid his legs might give way, Loris slides a hand behind his neck and wraps the other one around his fist to cover his thumb.
‘I’m here. Respire.’
Loris prevents him from clicking the pen too fast, forces him to wait for the next exhalation and to adapt to his pace.
‘Doucement.’
His voice is blowing away the echoes coming from Milton’s study, but Charles’ distress increases.
It’s the debilitating situation he wanted to avoid at all costs.
‘Don’t do that. Don’t… care like this.’
‘Bit too late for that.’
‘Don’t care like I’m… Like I need to be cared for. I’m…’ Charles shuts his eyes closed, his head spinning. ‘Why do you have to know that I’m fucked up?’
‘Charles, listen to me.’
‘I was less fucked up when you didn’t know that everything is.’
‘Listen to me!’ Loris holds him firmly as they sit down sideways, facing each other. ‘I’m gonna tell you a story. It’s important, I need you to listen.’
‘A story?’
‘Are you listening?’
‘Hmm…’
‘Okay, so, one afternoon, a man walked into the North Haven. He sat on a stool. Not the stool you always pick. The one on the far left. You know the one, right? Can you visualise which stool I’m talking about?’
‘The one… near the snack basket?’
‘Exactly. He sat there, on that stool. And he was the spitting image of the man in the painting. You know what I’m talking about? The painting in the pub?’
Charles opens his eyes. ‘The horseman?’
‘Yeah, the horseman. That customer had the same moustache, the same monocle and the same kind of stag-hunting outfit. Can you picture such a man showing up at the pub? And my face? Can you imagine my face, as my head was turning back and forth from him to the painting?’
Loris’ head is still, his eyes looking deep into Charles’ eyes.