Day Forty-Seven Sober
From: Charlie Jones
To: Charlie Jones
Acknowledging the Charlie obsession has not helped with the Charlie obsession.
She’s in the bath right now. “I’m just going to chill and read,” she said, drifting by with a paperback, and then she undressed on the other side of the door and slipped into the water with a long, soft sigh.
We won’t live together, soon. Whatever happens, come October 6th, one of us will move out—if we’re both staying, it’ll be easy to find accommodation elsewhere by then, with tourist season ending.
A bit of space between us should be a good thing.
It’ll help with the obsession, surely. But it doesn’t feel like a good thing.
I spend almost every minute of my day with Charlie, and honestly, I don’t know how I’ll be able to handle a minute less of her.
CJ
From: Charlie Jones
To: Charlie Jones
Subject: Day forty-eight sober
I just had a conversation with Toby.
This is big news. Toby is an astonishingly accomplished conversation dodger. He has done hours—days—of shifts with me and has still managed never to utter more than five words at a time in my presence.
It’s not that he’s unfriendly—he’s just very shy, I think.
Everything I know of him is impressive: rumor has it he’s doing well in an Open University course, and he’s a runner, and we occasionally cross paths around the island when I’m out mountain biking (though he does often turn around when he sees me and run the other way).
Most impressive of all, though, he’s a hugely gifted artist. Marly showed me the mural he’s painting at the farmhouse when I was there the other night, and it’s incredible—this massive stylized depiction of the Nicole family’s history on the island right through to the present day.
Anyway, today, Toby came to me. He sidestepped over from behind the till while I was sorting the fridges and cleared his throat.
I was so surprised it took me a while to realize he didn’t just want me to move out of his way.
Toby’s hair was, as usual, gelled to cover as much of his face as possible; I could see about half an eye.
“I need some advice,” he whispered.
“Sure. What can I do for you?” I said.
“I don’t know if you’ve…noticed…” Toby trailed off, playing with the laces of his hoodie.
I suggested we could sit down in the sunshine, grab a hot drink. As we are—famously—not yet up and running serving coffees, we’re all still making our own in the back room, and the picnic benches are languishing, generally used to store things or lean bikes against.
Toby remained completely silent as I made us both a coffee and we sat opposite each other on one of the benches.
It was warm enough to sit out here, just—there’s a bite in the wind, now, and I was grateful for the latest of Galoshes’s hand-knitted jumpers I’d acquired.
Everyone knows Charlie has changed her look since getting here—the sweet ribboned dresses are long gone, and she’s always in a pair of chunky boots under some sort of long skirt or her favorite jeans—but I have, too, really.
I am very much a woolly jumper man these days.
“So what’s up, Toby?”
“You may have noticed…some tension…between Red and me.”
I said something vague like, Oh, really? As though I didn’t have this very issue written on my to-do list.
“The thing is…the only person I can talk to about stuff is my mum,” Toby said, his voice getting smaller and smaller. “Well…my mum and Red. Before. But…something changed. And I have…no idea what.”
“With Red?”
He nodded.
“You guys were friends? Or more than friends?”
“More than friends,” Toby said, in such a quiet whisper I had to duck forward to hear him.
“Really!” I said, then tried to dial down the surprise.
Why was I so surprised? Toby is a good guy, and I’d have guessed that Red is just the sort of person to see through things like shyness and bad hair to spot herself one of those.
“I know,” Toby said miserably. “We had the most amazing few weeks together when she arrived. We stayed up all night talking, camped under the stars…I’ve never been so happy.
She made me feel…enough. More than enough.
” He hung his head. “Then she stopped talking. And I figured…she’d just seen sense…
and gone off me. But she won’t…even look at me.
I think she’s…upset…but I don’t know what I did… ”
“Have you asked her?”
He blinked across the table at me. What I could see of his face was a picture of desolation. It was a helpful reminder that while life in your thirties has its challenges, anything beats being a teenager.
“Any time I try to speak to her…she just runs off. And she leaves all my messages on read. I don’t know…what to do…but you seem…you know, you seem like you’ve probably…dated loads of women…”
I choked on my coffee.
“I mean, I have dated some women,” I said. “But I wouldn’t say I’m an expert in romance. I am single, for starters.”
“Right, but…you’re good at talking to everyone…and Charlie always stares at you when you’re not looking…and I’m pretty sure the girl tourists hang out in the shop more when you’re around…”
I was keen for him to elaborate on this.
“Like that one earlier…who was trying to choose a yogurt for like…ten minutes? Oh, you meant Charlie? Yeah, she’s always looking at you, and finding reasons to be near you, that kind of thing…”
This delighted me far too much. With a great deal of effort, I returned my attention to Toby’s love life and suggested he could write Red a note.
“A note?” He stared at me, perplexed. “But I don’t…I don’t even know what I’d say.”
Which is how I ended up helping a nineteen-year-old write a love letter this afternoon.
And now, ridiculously, I’m off to deliver it. Toby went wide-eyed with terror at the thought of pushing it under Red’s door at the B&B, so I took pity.
I’ll write again soon, when I’m done playing Cupid with the staff.
So much for not getting emotionally involved…
Bye for now,
Charlie Jones
From: Charlie Jones
To: Charlie Jones
Subject: Day forty-eight sober (cont.)
Here’s how that went.
“Jones,” Marly said in surprise when she found me on the farmhouse doorstep.
Ginger shot out from behind her, colliding with my shins in her enthusiasm to say hello. I scratched her ears.
“Sorry, I know it’s late. I need to hand deliver a love note. Is Red in?”
“Red? No! What about Charlie? Red’s way too young for you—Charlie’s a proper grown-up. She could handle you. Here, Ginger, it’s only Jones, have some composure, girl.”
“I’m not giving Red a love note from myself, Marly. For one thing, I’m her employer.”
“Oh. That, too.”
“It’s from Toby.”
“Oh, that lovesick little pup—I wondered why he’d stopped coming around. They had a falling-out, have they?”
Marly opened the door and let me into the hall, Ginger racing ahead of us. The fire was crackling in the living room—their first of the season, Marly told me—and there was a large cast-iron pot bubbling on top of the Aga stove in the kitchen.
“He’s not sure what happened, actually,” I told her. “Red kind of ghosted him.”
“You can’t ghost someone on the Isle of Ormer. It’s impossible. The old guy who used to own the tourist tat shop tried to do it to Rog to avoid paying him for something, and news got around so fast it was discussed at the next night’s parliamentary meeting.”
Intrigued, I asked what happened to him.
“I told you when you arrived, Jones—we look after our own here. And we have our own rules.”
“Swimming with the fishes, is he?”
“Ormer Parliament created a new law just for him. They made it illegal to sell figurines, just for a bit. Don’t laugh, he’d have rather been thrown in the ocean, I reckon.
The man had a shop full of china he had to ship back to the mainland.
Anyway, Red’s working at the pub tonight,” Marly went on, looking down at the envelope I was holding. “You want me to take the note for her?”
“Toby asked me to push it under the door. I was given very specific instructions.”
Marly grinned. “Third door on the left as you go up.” She headed back toward the kitchen, Ginger at her heel. “Come by for pudding once you’re done playing postman—Karyn’s been testing new chocolate pots, Rosie wangled all the duds for us!”
I headed up the stairs. And look, it’s not that I went snooping.
I just did some math on my way down the corridor.
I know everyone who’s staying at the B&B at the moment—they’re all long-term guests and they stop at the shop now and then.
There’s Red, then a couple of older guys who served in the US Army and struggled to find their feet afterward, an octogenarian living out her dream of island life, a lawyer just out of a nervous breakdown, and that’s it.
Five guests. But as I walked along the corridor, I noticed six rooms. There was another door, labeled Private, which I assumed led to Rosie and Marly’s room, and then the bedrooms were all numbered, with B&B-style room names.
1. Fritillary, 2. Kestrel, 3. Minke, 4. Fulmar, 5.
Gannet, 6. Puffin. A small name card had been added below each room name with the guest staying there, in Rosie’s curly handwriting.
But Puffin room had no guest, and the door wasn’t clicked into the frame.
When we first got here, we asked Rosie if there was a spare room, and she said no. Marly promised she’d tell me as soon as anyone moved on from the B&B, since their booking system is “unofficial,” which I think means it only exists inside Rosie’s head.
So I was surprised to find a seemingly unoccupied room. And it was so easy, as I walked past, to give the door a gentle push and check inside.
The double bed was made, but untouched. There were no personal possessions visible, just a clean towel waiting on the chair beneath the window and a little stack of books on a shelf by the bed, with titles like The History of Ormer, The Channel Islands Through the Ages, Ormer Families.
It looked like the perfect B&B bedroom, waiting for its guest.
I pulled the door closed and made my way to Red’s door, kneeling to push Toby’s note beneath it. When I headed back downstairs, I went into the kitchen to find Marly with her holey socks up on the dining table, eating a chocolate pudding from what looked like a recycled yogurt pot.
“G’day,” she said. “Mission accomplished?”
“Yeah, thanks.” I took the pudding she nudged my way. “It’s lovely up there. I’ve never actually been upstairs before.”
“Oh, thanks—all Rosie. I’m not really the decor type. Give me a tractor any day. Hard to believe she’s the one with the farmer genes, sometimes.”
I considered finding a subtle way to ask the question, but honestly, Marly’s my friend, she’s a straightforward person and I’d so much rather be open with her.
“Who do you guys have staying at the moment?” I asked.
Marly ran through the list of names.
“Five people. But six rooms?” I said.
I kept my tone as light as possible, but still, she stiffened.
“Puffin’s not available.”
I just about swallowed back on saying It looked pretty available—I didn’t want to confess to looking behind a closed door.
“You keep a whole room empty?” I said instead. “Why?”
“It’s not empty. It’s…reserved.” She sighed. “I know how it sounds. You need a room, we have a room spare…But I can’t give you Puffin.”
I told her I get it—it’s none of my business. But the pudding kind of stuck in my throat.
Marly looked at me for a long moment. “It could be your business,” she said. “I know Rosie said you can take as long as you need to open up to us about why you’re here, but it’s been almost two months, Jones. It’s time to find out who’s the best fit here, do you understand me? You or Charlie?”
She was giving me this look. As though she was trying to tell me something without saying it.
“Sorry, what? What does the shop have to do with the empty room?” I asked.
“No, nothing. It’s not about the shop. It’s about you.”
“Me?” I backtracked. “What do you mean, me or Charlie—we’re hoping we can both stay, aren’t we?”
“Forget it, Jones,” Marly said, getting up and chucking the yogurt pot in the sink. “You want to carry on playing games, then carry on playing them. But keeping your cards close to your chest might not be the best way to manage the hand you’ve been dealt.”
She just walked off after that, leaving me to show myself out. I stood for a moment in their farmhouse kitchen, absolutely bewildered. What game did she think I was playing? What did she mean, It’s about you? And what the hell did an empty room at the B&B have to do with me and Charlie?
So long,
Charlie Jones