Guildford, Nine Weeks Earlier
One day, Charlie returned home from Vintage, Please to find that Oliver had let himself into her flat.
This was not in itself unusual. They still had keys to each other’s places, still hung out most nights, might let themselves in if the other person wasn’t home yet.
More surprising was the state of chaos around him.
He was sitting on the floor at the end of her bed. Half the clothes from her wardrobe were strewn across the duvet; he’d upended some old shoeboxes, sending the heels she’d worn in her twenties splaying across the bedroom carpet like snapshots of old nights out.
“What the hell?” she said, standing in the doorway. “Oliver?”
“Brianna called me,” he said. “I’m freaking out about you.”
For the last month, Charlie and Oliver had settled into a sweet, platonic friendship that was in some ways more intense than their relationship had ever been—sometimes they would still sleep in bed together, or hold hands, and often they would cry in each other’s arms. He knew about the job she had been offered on the Isle of Ormer, and he’d encouraged her to go.
It had been a long time since he’d fretted about her the way he used to, when they were a couple. So what the hell was this about?
“What did Bri say to you?” Charlie asked carefully.
“I can help you,” Oliver said. “You can talk to me, Charlie.”
“I know I can,” she said. “What did Brianna say?”
“She said…to look around the flat for anything you might be trying to hide from us.”
Charlie was shocked to feel a spike of fear—until that moment she’d genuinely felt she had nothing to keep from him.
His steady, beseeching gaze told her he saw that truth in her face.
She smoothed down her canary yellow dress, busying herself picking up high heels.
Her head was suddenly buzzing. It was very important that she did not think too hard about this.
“Wow, I’ve not worn these since…Oh, way back—before I was even married. Berty used to love them.”
“Charlie…”
Charlie could feel that inner voice trying to elbow its way into the room. You’re awful, you’re a piece of shit. Oliver is going to find out, and he’s going to stop caring about you, just like Berty did. Just like your parents did.
“These crystals on the straps! So adorably 2010. I probably wore these with a bandage dress.”
“Brianna says…She says you’re not OK, Charlie.”
Oliver stood and made his way through to the kitchen. Charlie’s heart began to hammer as he started searching through the cutlery drawer, then the cupboard of mugs.
“Oliver, stop it!” She grabbed his arm as he reached for the cupboard under the sink, but he shook her off and opened it.
He pulled out the cardboard box behind the cleaning products.
Charlie let out a sound so thick with shame it was almost animal—a whimper, a mew. With teeth-gritted force, she pulled herself together.
“That’s no big deal, Oliver! It’s just my backup box. It’s just where I keep spares.”
His expression was grim as he placed the box on the kitchen table and took off the lid.
Three half-empty bottles of spirits lay inside. Vodka, gin, whisky. She’d hated the taste of all three of them, once, but these days she wasn’t fussy.
—
When she had first begun the backup drinks box, Charlie had congratulated herself on her forethought.
She was notorious for running out of alcohol—for running out of everything, actually.
It had been a favorite inside joke with Fearne—whenever she came for dinner, she’d message beforehand to say, What’ve you not got enough of, then?
Want me to pick up some milk? Bread? Eggs?
And running out of wine was the worst. The evening would just be getting started—they’d just be warming up. Who wanted to pop out in the rain to the corner shop then?
At first it had been two bottles of wine.
A red, a white. Then she’d drunk those herself, on a couple of evenings when setting up the shop had been stressing her out and she’d needed something to help her relax.
So she’d replaced them a few times, and then, when that had become tedious—she would still end up running out—she’d opted for gin. It was more space efficient.
“I can’t believe I didn’t see it,” Oliver said, closing his eyes. “You’ve been…Oh, God, I used to worry about you so much, but I never thought…The slurring, the forgetfulness, all the times you insisted on bringing coffee in your own thermos from home…”
Charlie would do almost anything to escape from this conversation. She stared at the kitchen window, contemplating jumping from it.
“It’s my fault,” Oliver said, sitting down unsteadily. “I should have noticed. Of all people, I should have noticed. But I’ve been drinking too much, too, since Fearne died, probably even before then, really, and I just…I’m so sorry, Charlie. I let you down.”
Charlie leaned forward on the table, looking at the backup box. Her heart seemed to be beating behind her eyes, a pulsing, awful thump. She’d had a drink already today. There was a backup box at the shop, too.
She was not surprised that Oliver hadn’t noticed her drinking—she was extremely good at hiding it. In fact, much of the time, even she could go about her day without looking directly at it. It took a lot of mental effort, but it was possible.
Oh, God, she thought, and there was the voice, the one that came to her at three a.m., when the night stripped her bare and she could not hide from herself. You’re a disgusting addict. You’re useless, you’re worthless. No wonder nobody wants you.
You’re an alcoholic. You have to stop drinking.
“It’s OK, Charlie,” Oliver whispered.
She began to cry.
Berty had said it, too, when he’d left her. I don’t know what else to do, Charlie, he’d said, as he’d packed up his suitcase, face red with crying. I’m so sorry. But you’re an alcoholic. And I can’t be with you unless you stop drinking.
Oliver, by contrast, had made it so easy.
His friends from the downhill-racing scene were fun—thrill-seekers and adrenaline junkies—and her drinking seemed tame in his context; he was chill, flexible, had always been happy to stay at his place if she wanted him gone.
He also, crucially, did not know her the way Berty did, so the drinking had been much easier to hide.
She’d thought that was why the universe gave him to her—to make life easier, softer, more fun.
But as she slowly lowered herself down into the chair opposite and looked into those gray-blue eyes, with the crinkles at the corners, the thought occurred that perhaps the universe had brought Oliver to her for this moment.
The moment when more than anything she needed a kind friend who knew what it was like to be ashamed and miserable.
“I’m so sorry,” she sobbed, laying her head on her forearms. “I’m so sorry.”
“Why are you apologizing? Charlie, shh, it’s OK.”
He leaned across the box to stroke her hair.
The kindness almost undid her. For a very long time, almost all of Charlie’s mental energy had been consumed by the dance of denying her addiction.
Those awful, truthful three a.m. moments, when she had lain in the darkness and known she should stop drinking alcohol, had become harder and harder to delete each morning.
Every time she reached for her favorite gin glass—the tumbler that sat just right in the palm of the hand—she faced the cognitive dissonance that came with very badly wanting to regain control over her life, and very badly wanting a drink.
It was exhausting. And now, at last, she was letting some of that go.
Oliver let her cry. Eventually she lifted her head and looked at him through swollen, bleary eyes.
“Thank you,” she said hoarsely. “For being so kind.”
“Here’s what we’re going to do,” he said, squeezing her hand.
At some point in the last half hour he had removed the box from the table; Charlie felt a wild lurch of panic at the thought that the bottles might be gone, until she spotted them on the floor by his feet.
“You’re going to go and talk to a doctor about quitting alcohol. I am, too. You’re going to go to the Isle of Ormer, to that amazing farm you showed me, and…”
He trailed off; Charlie was shaking her head.
She wanted that more than anything—more than Oliver could possibly know. But she wasn’t ready for her dream life, her family. This wasn’t how the Isle of Ormer chapter was supposed to start.
“I can’t go. I don’t want to take it. The job.”
“But you’ve been so excited about it,” Oliver said, frowning.
“No.” She shook her head again. “I need to sort myself out. I can’t go right now. It’s not the right time. You’re right: I need to stop drinking.” She could barely get the sentence out, it terrified her so much. “That has to be the priority. I can’t go now.”
“You’re sure? It’s such an amazing job, Charlie—it’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing, isn’t it? A total fresh start, in your dream location…You’ve been fascinated with that island ever since I’ve known you, and I doubt many chances come up to work there. Maybe it would help you get sober.”
She stared at him across the table. He looked exhausted, too, she realized. And he’d just told her he was also drinking too much. He had lost not just a close friend but his passion—he hadn’t been on a bike since Fearne’s death. He’d had a truly awful time, too.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered again. “You deserve so much better than all this. Than me.”
“What do you mean? Charlie…”
“You know, we were so badly suited,” she said, wiping her face.
“You’re so driven and determined, and I can never stick to anything.
You’re all cool and understated, and I’m…
” She gestured down at her outfit: a yellow seventies dress she kept meaning to shorten, but never got around to sorting.
“And you’re steady. You’ll be someone’s rock.
A family man, maybe. You know I don’t even want kids? ”
Oliver’s surprise was evident. “You don’t?”
“I never did. Berty and I were on the same page about it from the start, so I guess I…I didn’t think to bring it up with you, and…” She was making excuses. She swallowed and lifted her chin. “I should have told you straightaway. I’m sorry.”
“Right. Huh. Well, I guess I didn’t bring it up, either.”
“You want a family?”
“I do,” Oliver said after a moment. “When I feel like I’m good enough for one.”
“I want that for you. I want you to start over, and figure out who you could be without me and Fearne and booze, and meet somebody who’s the perfect fit for you…”
She was crying again, partly for Oliver, and partly, she realized, for Berty. Brianna had finally caved and given her all the details of his new relationship, and it broke Charlie’s heart to know that he had done exactly that—left her, found himself, found someone who fit him better.
She stood, needing to escape the table and all its intensity, and wandered to the fridge, where she had pinned the handwritten letter that Rosie Nicole had sent her, offering her the job at Bramblebay Farm Shop.
Dearest Charlie, it began. Thank you so, so much for your application. I was so thrilled to read it.
Brianna had laughed at it when she was here last, reading out the charming instructions on how to get to the farm—Head for the dairy, but be sure to turn right before you reach the field of Jersey cows.
“This is the job offer? That’s it? You just turn up with this letter and say ‘Hi, I’m Charlie Jones’?”
“I wasn’t even going to bring the letter,” Charlie had said, with a grin. “I don’t think they have an HR department, Bri, I think this is about as official as it gets.”
“Fuck me,” Bri had said, snapping a photo of the letter. “Might nick this note off you and take it myself. I quite fancy an idyllic new life. Hello, I’m Charlie Jones! Honest!”
At the time Charlie had been giggly and playful, laughing along—drunk, unbeknown to Brianna, though perhaps that was when she’d guessed at it. Fearne hadn’t known, either. Lovely Fearne, who had always been drunk on life and never thought it was strange when Charlie was a little giddy, too.
Charlie stood in front of the fridge now, running her finger across the signature on the bottom of the letter. Rosie Nicole.
Brianna’s words popped back into her head. That’s it? You just turn up with this letter and say “Hi, I’m Charlie Jones”?
Charlie glanced over her shoulder at Oliver.
He looked so broken. Did anyone need a fresh start more than him?
And if he were there, at the farm, becoming part of that community…
then she wasn’t losing this chance altogether.
She could live it vicariously. If she let Oliver take the opportunity instead, then she could ask him to tell her everything, and that way when the time came, when she was finally ready, she’d be so much more prepared.
“I’ve got a crazy idea,” she said. “Hear me out, OK?”