Chapter 31 Villiers Automotive
In the three weeks since he had returned from France, Charlie had been searching for a moment to have the most terrifying conversation in his marriage.
As he installed new shelves for displaying gear shifts, it dawned on him that he probably wasn’t going to find a better moment than this current one.
The children were out with their cousins and the shop rarely had many customers in the middle of the afternoon. Betty was behind the long counter, ledger open, pencil in one hand and ruler in another, going through the week’s accounts.
What’s more, the shop floor of Villiers Automotive was where Charlie and Betty were at their best as husband and wife.
Their strengths naturally fit together—Betty’s keen attention to detail, Charlie’s ability to put customers at ease.
Charlie’s family joked that their marriage made the business a success, but to Charlie it had always been the other way around, their business was the core of their marriage.
“The first woman I was ever with was a shopgirl from the florist down the street,” Charlie said as he reached for a screwdriver, without looking up at Betty. “I was sixteen and thought I was taking an innocent’s virtue, only for it to become rapidly clear that June knew exactly what she was doing.”
Betty snorted with laughter and put her pencil down to look at Charlie, waiting for him to explain where he was going with this.
He took a deep breath for the next bit, continuing to screw in a shelf.
“The first man I was with was in a bar in Ypres in ’15.
Don’t know his name. I’m not sure which one of us was more drunk, but we managed to get our hands down each other’s trousers nonetheless.
He had dark brown eyes, almost black. The next week I was in the same bar and saw some of his mates.
Asked after their friend, and they said he had gone over the top and never came back. ”
Betty had gone rigid but didn’t interrupt.
“The first person I loved was Ned.” Charlie clenched his screwdriver and fought the urge to hurl.
“It started in the war, much like my first bloke. When I was injured, he saved my life. I hated him and loved him for that.” He risked a brief glance toward Betty, who looked on the verge of speech, but if he didn’t finish this now, he never would.
“I didn’t see him again until ’23,” he continued.
“For a while we were together, and then it was just too impossible.” It took all of his remaining scraps of courage to say the next words.
“I told you I saw him again in France. We went for a drive, and then dinner, and then, well, I almost kissed him. We didn’t, but came closer than we should have. ”
“I don’t understand.” Betty had gone pale, her hands gripping the countertop.
“Anything you want to know, I will tell you.” Charlie had already decided he would lay himself bare for her.
“You like to fuck men?” There was no warmth in her voice, but not revulsion either.
Charlie fought his blush. “I’ve fucked men.
I’m not like Ned, though…” He stopped that line of argument.
He wasn’t here to expose Ned. He would explain a different way.
“I like women and men. People who are confident, but who also break the rules. Who are a bit feminine and a bit masculine. Maybe I’m too picky, or not picky enough. I’ve never figured it out.”
“Do you find me attractive?” Betty’s voice wobbled.
The sunlight through the big shop windows caught the greys and blondes in her auburn hair, creating an ever-shifting set of colours.
Betty had never been one for the fanciest fashions, but Charlie had always enjoyed the way her dresses followed her curves, sweeping in and out.
“You are stunning. Your hair’s like fire, and you have a smile that makes me go weak in the knees.
Making you gasp is one of the best sounds in the world. ”
“How would you even? I mean, where does it all fit?” If he wasn’t so terrified, Charlie would have laughed. This was how Betty saw the world, starting with the mechanics.
“I’ll tell you if you want, but it’s less different than you would think.”
The only response was silence.
“You’ve every right to be angry.” Charlie didn’t hate himself, didn’t hate what he had done with men, but he knew how others felt. If she was repulsed, he would live with the consequences.
“I’m a good deal more than angry, Charles Villiers,” Betty answered crisply.
The tension in the shop probably could have sparked the start of a dozen engines alone. Charlie fought the urge to say more, explain, argue, justify. He’d already dumped enough on Betty. So he turned back to his shelves and began turning the next row of screws.
Behind him, Charlie could hear Betty's shoes on the scuffed wooden floor as she stepped out from behind the counter, walked to the shop door, flipped their sign to ‘closed’ and turned the lock.
It was probably for the best; neither of them were in any state to serve customers.
Betty walked up behind him and his almost finished shelves.
Charlie placed his screwdriver back in his toolbox and turned to face her.
“Why are you telling me this?” Betty’s arms were crossed, the shock of what Charlie had said replaced with an anger that flashed in her eyes and reddened her cheeks.
“I didn’t want to keep secrets from you.”
“You seem to have been able to do so just fine for the past decade.” Betty swung her words like a brawler.
Charlie tried again. “When I was in France, I realised how many things I thought I had understood, and how wrong I had been. I saw how much keeping secrets hadn’t just cost me, but cost the people around me who I cared for the most.”
Moments from his week in the Somme flashed in front of Charlie: laughing with Smythe, Ned’s tears on the top of Thiepval Gate.
“There were so many assumptions, and none of them were true. It would have been a hell of a lot better if I’d just been upfront in the beginning.”
Ned wouldn’t have spent years thinking that he was part of the reason why Charlie tried to off himself, instead of the thing that kept him alive.
Charlie barrelled on, “Secrets eat away at you. I didn’t want that for us, for our family. You are far too important to me for me to not tell you the truth about what almost happened. And if I was going to tell you that, I needed to tell you everything.”
Betty crossed and then uncrossed her arms again. “I’ve known you weren’t happy. I’ve known it for years.”
“I want so much the life that you and I’ve built together. Our children, the shop.” Charlie tried to put everything in those last few words. If nothing else, he needed Betty to believe him on that.
“You weren’t happy, and I didn’t know why!” Betty snapped, raising her voice for the first time since they had started down this conversation. “I’m your wife! We share our burdens!”
Charlie was now rubbing his thumb over and over his right wrist, a sure sign that raw emotions were bubbling to the surface. “I didn’t want you to think I was a perversion.” His face was wet by the last word.
A white handkerchief, perfectly washed and pressed, was thrust into his vision. “Take this. Blow your nose.”
Charlie did as instructed and tried to gather himself. Dust mites, disturbed by Betty during a vigorous clean earlier in the day, danced in the air, caught by the sunlight coming through the windows.
Betty watched him, and then in a single movement she spun on her heel and stormed into their back room.
Charlie was still working out whether it was worthwhile to go after her when she stomped back in, a bottle of gin and two glasses in hand.
With little concern as to where she was, Betty plopped herself down in the middle of their shop floor, right between the shelves of motor oil and seat covers.
Following her lead, Charlie sat down, although more gingerly, leaving his legs splayed out in front him.
“He told me to marry you,” Betty said, as she popped the top off the bottle and poured two generous glasses. “I could tell you were about to propose, and I was nervous.”
She extended one of the glasses to Charlie, who took it but didn’t drink. He waited and listened. Whatever came next was her story now.
“After New Year’s in ’24 you’d become so determined, talking about setting up your own shop, talking about the future.
I knew your mother and sisters kept asking you about marriage, and I could tell what was coming.
I didn’t know what to do. It felt like such an awful thing to be so uncertain when you were such a nice man.
I had never thought I would want to marry, after John.
Eventually my mother told me that I should go talk to someone that knew you, who could help put some of my fears at rest. I think she meant Kitty or Mary, but the person that jumped into my mind was Ned, after seeing the way he made you laugh at Claridge’s.
So I looked up his address and went to his flat. ”
Charlie gaped. He’d had no idea.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a man so hungover in my entire life.
He answered his door in his dressing gown and looked like he hadn’t shaved in a week.
But he invited me in and offered me a sidecar cocktail at eleven o’clock in the morning.
I ended up making him tea in his own kitchen.
I asked him straight out if he thought you would make a good husband.
He was really very kind and understanding, for all that he looked like he wanted to die. ”
“What did he say?”
“He gulped his tea down in one go, and then it was like he was quoting poetry or reading from a book the way he talked about you. These beautiful words about how he thought you would make an exceptional husband. That you give everything you have for the people you love. He said that you both had lost the ability to dream, but that he thought you had re-found it, and that your dreams included building a life with me. He told me I would be hard-pressed to find a more honourable or giving man.”
Charlie looked at his half-built shelves and found himself blinking rather rapidly. He could only imagine what it would have cost Ned to have said those words, especially at a moment when both of their hearts had been so newly smashed. Charlie didn’t think he could have done the same.
Betty took a long drink of her gin. “Do you want a divorce? Is that what this is all about?”
“No! God, no!”
“But you kissed him,” Betty insisted.
“Almost kissed him. We were both drunk on memories and wine.” Charlie took a sip of his gin for his own Dutch courage. “Do you want a divorce?”
“All that cost and fuss? Can’t see how it would be worth it. What you told me, about what you like, about Ned, it does change things, though.”
“How?” It was time for Charlie to find out the price he would pay.
“I didn’t think you knew,” Betty spoke almost absent-mindedly, like when she was pondering a complex invoice.
“When I married you, I knew I was marrying a good man. Ned told me so. I didn’t think you knew what it meant to be in love, though.
That you would even want romance. I thought it didn’t matter that I’m not in love with you. ”
She only said a truth he had always known. Still, to hear the words out loud pierced Charlie. This wasn’t the loss he was expecting when he’d started the conversation.
The defeat must have shown on his face because Betty put her hand to his face. “Oh, Charlie, I might not love you, but you are the best friend I’ve ever had. The last thing I’d want is to make you so unhappy. If what you are telling me is that you want an affair with Ned, well, I’d live with it.”
Charlie almost dropped his drink. “You can’t be serious!”
“Don’t be such a prude. Plenty of people have affairs. I mean, Mrs Gasby and the butcher boy…”
“And the neighbours gossip!”
Betty slammed down her glass, steely resolve in her eyes.
“What kind of nonsense excuse is that? Half the street says I’m a harpy every time I sit in the driver’s seat of a car.
Or that Frank and Ellie shouldn’t play with the Aberforths’ children, just because they have skin a different colour.
These are the same people who told me I could only wear black after John died.
When did my Charlie start caring about what the damn neighbours thought? ”
As if Charlie needed more proof of why Betty was his dearest friend as well.
“I don’t think I could go after Ned.” He forced the words out, refusing to let himself hide from himself or Betty. “He’s got his own life now, and the risk of a scandal… well, he could lose everything.”
Ned also had George. He didn’t need working-class Charlie anymore.
Betty pursed her lips but didn’t argue.
“If you say so.” She cocked her head at Charlie. “Anyone else catching your fancy?”
Charlie violently shook his head. “No! That’s not what I want at all, I just wanted to tell you…”
“That you have a broken heart,” Betty finished his thought. Then she gripped his had tight. “But you promise me, Charlie Villiers, if you ever do get a chance to mend that heart, be it with Ned or someone else, man or woman, that you take it. Life is too damn short not to be happy.”
Betty stared right into his eyes. “John taught us both that.”
“I promise you.” Charlie met Betty’s stare and made that vow with all his heart. He doubted such a situation would come to pass, but it wouldn’t hurt to have a little hope, look for a little joy.
Betty had taught him that.