Chapter 12 #2
‘Abstinence does wonders on you, it’s—’ She’s cut off by a muffled crash of glass, and her teasing smile morphs into a desperate wince. ‘This is why we never host, isn’t it?’
‘Yes…’
She gets off the desk, wiggling to help her dress fall down, picks up her knickers and walks to a blind corner to put them on. Charles doesn’t question her sudden modesty and keeps his back turned to the camera to neaten himself up.
Now that he’s buzzing from heady post-orgasm effects, what came out as a vague answer to Elsy’s surprise echoes like a puzzling fact. It had been a while. He didn’t consciously feel sex deprived, but perhaps it played a part in his unbecoming compulsion in Loris’ flat.
And perhaps he shouldn’t mentally be back there, when he’s yet to leave the room where he had ecstatic intercourse with Elsy.
In need of a glass of anything heavily alcoholic, Charles follows her out of the study, leaving his coat inside the room to ensure that Spencer’s search for his drugs will fail.
‘Good evening, kids!’
George forks into the hallway, holding hands with his date, whose presence and allure distract Charles from tormenting thoughts.
Like most of George’s exes, she has blond hair, brown eyes and fancy taste in clothes.
Unlike any of George’s exes, her hair is shaved on one side, her left eye is crowned with piercings, and her cowl neck t-shirt reveals a full-chest tattoo.
‘Meet Hannah. Hannah, this is the irritatingly good-looking pair I told you about.’
‘Nice to meet you,’ they say in unison, equally astounded.
Hannah smiles mindlessly, looking behind them. ‘I bet you half a bitcoin that I can crack that door code with the TV remote!’ She kisses the corner of George’ grin and faces Elsy again. ‘Sick place, I’d love a tour. But first, could you please point me to the food?’
‘Nibbles are in the main room. But what did you mean you can crack—’
‘Thanks!’
George whirls around as Hannah retraces her steps, watching her with his hand on his chest. ‘I will marry this woman.’
‘She will hack into my security system?’
‘Most certainly, if she finds a TV remote.’
‘Damn it, Downes! Why do you have to bring chaos everywhere?’
‘Personal trademark.’
‘Hannah!’ Elsy scurries towards the entrance hall. ‘Wait up!’
As soon as she disappears, George whistles and clasps Charles’ wrist to examine his watch. ‘Nice new leash! Present from Milton, right?’
‘Yes, he gave it to me during a freaky exchange this morning.’
‘Wonderful. And how many strings are attached to it?’
‘That’s the freaky thing. None, I think.’
George sniggers. ‘Good one.’
‘What? Is it so hard to believe? That for all my best efforts to be a complete waste of space, I’m worthy of my father’s admiration?’
‘Blimey!’ George takes a step back. ‘Tell me, Charming, on a scale of terrible to awful, how well are you doing?’
Charles moves back in turn, slapped by the primary conclusion he outlined in the afternoon, which is how terribly awful he’s doing on the whole. ‘Sorry, I’m… I’m losing it.’
‘Alright, let us in.’
‘In?’
‘What’s the code? Something related to your fake love life?’
‘We can’t go into the study, there’s a camera.’
‘Didn’t you guys just shag in there?’
Charles shrugs, his post-coital bliss a distant memory. George nods, visibly impressed, then tugs him into the library.
It must be free of recording devices considering this is the room where Elsy and her father curse and break Catriona’s house rules with impunity.
‘Spill your guts.’
George sits on a green velvet chair and crosses his legs – a Milton-like vision Charles turns away from instantly. He walks over to one of the bookshelves, sinking a nail into the raw skin of his thumb.
‘I’m just so tired of… pretending and being on edge, always, because I’m stuck between accepting and refusing my life. It’s like I’m walking a tightrope, constantly losing my balance but without ever falling. It’s draining.’
‘Time to jump and embrace the right side of the force to become Charth Vader.’
‘What good would that do me?’
‘Let’s see… You’re at a party with your best mates, you just got laid, but you’re tearing up in front of a collection of first editions. And it has nothing to do with your passion for boring literature. It’d do you all the good to tell your parents to—’
‘My parents aren’t the problem.’
Charles spins around and George’s brow rises to his hairline.
‘The problem is that I decided, at some stage, that I didn’t want this life.
So being miserable as things stand has become my identity.
But there’s nothing I want to do instead.
No one I’d know how to be. And I’m starting to feel like…
I feel like a stubborn kid who’s stated he hated spinach, because an imaginary vegetable was better, and makes himself sick when he eats spinach, instead of admitting that it’s tasty and rich in—’
‘Stop! What’s your non-culinary point?’
‘My life isn’t perfect, but it’s pretty close, so why do I fight it?’
‘Pretty close? What number did Milton do on you over breakfast?’
‘It’s not about him.’
‘The hell it’s not!’ George hits the armrests and leaps up. ‘He’s the reason why you haven’t got a clue what to do with yourself! Because he scared you into crushing your dreams before they could even take shape!’
‘This is a dangerous overstatement.’
‘I saw it with my own eyes!’
‘Why are you yelling?’
‘Because I feel like it! That’s what I call a perfect life. When you feel like doing something, you do it.’
‘But let’s not go round in circles, I don’t know what I feel like doing. And it doesn’t matter who’s to blame for that. I can’t keep going this way, sitting on the fence at all times. I’m going mad, I... Yesterday, it was bad. Can’t breathe, can’t see, can’t stand, bad.’
‘What?’ George’s eyes shift from exasperation to extreme concern. ‘How about opening with that?’ He pats Charles’ shoulder, surveying his face in search of lasting effects. ‘What triggered it?’
‘In a nutshell… Do you remember the… rugby guy?’
‘The Pavel fan I told you to befriend?’
Charles cracks a smile despite the minefield he’s broaching. ‘How do you retain so many useless facts and still have room for—’
‘I’m George Downes. What about him?’
‘Well, we’ve been hanging out, and somehow, because he knew nothing about me, it helped, and I started questioning something that’s always felt off. But in the end, it was another deadlock, it confused me and resulted in a full-blown panic attack.’
‘Could you please, please, please stop speaking in riddles? Question what?’
Each ‘please’ came with a squeeze, so for the sake of his collarbone, Charles murmurs, ‘The truth about Fred,’ and walks to the velvet chair to sit down.
‘Right… I’ve got enough dirt on you to concede that I’m a bit lost right now. What truth?’
Charles rests his elbows on his knees and presses his chin against his joined fists. ‘Who he really was and what he wanted. If he was at war with my father. The reason why he crashed into that damn tree. If the accident has been polished. If he was… Was he pissed that night?’
‘There’s no way I can know that.’
‘But do you think he had an alcohol problem? In general?’
Part of Charles is hoping for a positive answer, which reawakens his nausea. It’s sick. He’s sick.
‘I saw him drunk on occasions, but we’re about to sip cocktails from teapots, so…
Besides, what I think shouldn’t influence your memory.
What I know is that Fred was an opinionated nerd.
But did that make him problematic by the Ledwells’ standards?
No idea. You guys aired your dirty laundry behind closed doors, and if Liv managed to take a peek, she never told me. ’
‘What about her, then?’ Charles clasps his pendant, desperate but unable to pinpoint what he’s desperate for. ‘Were they together? Fred and Liv? Even though he paraded around with Heloise?’
‘I believe… But bear in mind that such belief is based on couldn’t-care-less teenage perceptions.
I believe Liv hated Heloise’s guts. But I can only speculate about the why, and you don’t need speculation.
What’s certain is that Liv lost her best friend that night and withdrew into a silence even our mum couldn’t break.
Fred’s passing pulled my two favourite people into a dark place where talking about him only increased the pain.
And because Liv had my parents to help her find light elsewhere, I focused on shining some on you. ’
‘Why do you sound apologetic?’
‘I’m just explaining why I haven’t got any answers for you.
’ George squats in front of Charles to look into his eyes.
‘We talk more since she’s made a fresh start in Manchester, but she’s buried this so deep, I’m not sure it’s a great idea to dig for details.
Unless it could make a difference in your—’
‘No! No, don’t risk hurting Liv with my theories. That’s all they are. Crazy conspiracy theories. I’m the one rewriting history with fake narratives to demonise my family. To build new baseless justifications for hating the life they provide me with. That’s what it is and it’s twisted.’
George frowns and grips Charles’ knee. ‘Careful, you’re muddling things up. I can’t imagine how messy it is in Charland, with Fred resurging and other stuff you’re clearly not telling me. But you’re trying to shortcut your way out of it with radical conclusions.’
‘I have to! I have to quit fighting pointless battles before I lose it for good.’
‘And your chosen solution is to accept your parents’ wishes as your definitive command?’
‘Why not? What does it matter that something wasn’t my choice to begin with if it’s right for me?’
George stands and tenses up. ‘I love you, but if you use the bloody Rolex as an example, I’ll blow my main fuse.’
Charles pushes himself back up. He will never manage to argue his point if his friend overlooks him from the top of his contempt for all things Milton-related.