Chapter 12 Charlie
CHARLIE
“Charlie?” Freya calls out, the front door slamming behind her.
He remembers a time when just hearing her call his name sent a rush of blood to his head.
Now, he can’t help his chest from collapsing under the weight of their problems. He wishes he could feel the way he used to when he looks at her, and he’s tried so many times to re-create the passion they once shared—not just between the sheets, but in everything they used to love doing together.
Going to see their favorite bands, scouring flea markets looking for the perfect vintage pieces for the house, testing recipes, drinking …
He pulls himself up. Somehow it always ended up back there, and he hates the way their relationship was so clearly dependent on it. But as much as he tries to pretend that alcohol is all that stands in their way, he’s not na?ve enough not to know that there are far bigger problems to overcome.
Last night proved that. Seeing Coco again had brought it all back with such a searing clarity that his brain is desperate for a reprieve, exhausted from the guilt that it’s spent all night battling.
“In here!” he says, hoping he’s able to hide it.
Freya stops in the dining-room doorway, unnerving him with the way she tilts her head. “You okay?” she asks, her voice thick with concern. “You look different.”
A strangled snorting sound emanates from the back of his throat. It’s as if she knows. “Yeah, all good,” he says. He looks at his watch to avert attention. “Where have you been?”
“I stayed at work for a bit longer,” she says, throwing her bucket bag onto the oak table. “There’s a children’s hospice that’s come onto our radar, and I’m just looking at ways to help them. They’re such lovely people, and it sounds as if they’ve got a fabulous setup.”
“But no money?” says Charlie.
Freya rolls her eyes and shakes her head. “Same old, same old. The council promises it with one hand and takes it away with the other.”
She goes around to Charlie’s side of the table and puts her arms around his shoulders, breathing him in. He immediately tenses, wondering if she can smell his shame.
“How was last night?” she asks.
“The same as every other year,” he says, coughing to clear his throat. “Men getting drunk, making fools of themselves.”
“But not you?” she asks casually, even though there couldn’t be a more heavily loaded question.
“Obviously.”
“Were there women there as well?”
Charlie’s glad she can’t see his face, although he fears she might be able to feel the involuntary tensing of his jaw against her temple.
“A few, but they don’t behave any better.”
She laughs throatily. “I missed you.”
He takes hold of her hand as it moves down his chest and toward his crotch. “I’ve got tons of work to do,” he says, hoping it’s excuse enough, but knowing it isn’t.
Freya pulls herself away. “You know this isn’t normal, right?” She stands in front of him, so he’s unable to avoid eye contact.
He sighs. “I’ve just got stuff to do.” He signals to the paperwork strewn across the table, never imagining for a second that he would use it as a reason not to make love to his wife.
“You’ve always got stuff to do,” she says tearfully. “You haven’t touched me in months. And every time I come near you, you seem to be repulsed by the very idea of it.”
“That’s not how it is.”
“Is it me?” she croaks. “Do I repulse you?”
“No … no…,” he says, making a feeble attempt to reach out to her. “It’s difficult … after everything that’s gone on … to feel how I’m supposed to feel.”
“About me?”
He sighs dejectedly. “About anything.”
“Is there somebody else?” she asks, her chin wobbling. “Because if there is, I’d rather you just say, and put me out of my misery.”
He gets up and takes her in his arms. “Of course not,” he says, swallowing away the temptation to tell her that there is.
Knowing that an admission would put them both out of their misery.
“There’s just a hell of a lot going on at the moment.
The restaurant is taking up all my time and energy—not to mention money.
It’s not easy to juggle everything, but I’ll find a way through. ”
Charlie can feel the weight of her relief as she falls into him. “So let me help,” she says. “Surely, there must be something I can do. What about if I get another job to help pay the bills?”
He doesn’t want to tell her that it will take more than she’s able to give to keep the wolf from the door.
He doesn’t want her to know that they’re in debt up to their eyes, and with the house as personal collateral, there’s a very real chance that it could be taken away from them if he doesn’t manage to turn their fortunes around. That’s why he has to find another way.
“I’ll tell you what you can do,” he says, releasing her to reach across the table for some forms. “You can sign these.…”
Freya takes the papers he’s handing her. “What are they?”
“Just indemnity forms and insurance stuff to do with the house,” he says. “They should have been submitted when we remortgaged, but they somehow got lost in it all.”
“Do I need to read them?” she asks, as he hands her a pen.
“Not unless you want to bore yourself to death,” he laughs.
“Okay, where do I sign?” she asks, trying to make out the blurred small print.
Charlie takes them from her and lays them on the dining table. “Here and here,” he says.
“But this is okay?” she asks, looking to him for reassurance. “It doesn’t leave us at risk of losing the house, or anything like that?”
“No, of course not,” says Charlie. “It actually protects us, if anything happens.”
“Like what?”
“Well, if I should fall down dead, then you won’t have any financial issues. The house will be paid for, the restaurant will be sold off … you’ll be set.”
“And if anything happens to me?” asks Freya.
“The same applies,” he says.
“This feels like that game we used to play,” says Freya.
He forces a smile, remembering the nights they used to lie in bed, imagining a million-pound bounty on someone’s head.
“So who shall we kill first?” Freya would ask.
Charlie had smiled in the dark. “Am I allowed to say your mother?”
“You’d kill my mother for a million pounds?” said Freya, in mock horror.
“If I knew I could get away with it.”
“So how would you do it?” she asked.
There was a momentary silence as he gave the question far more consideration than he should.
“Am I getting the million pounds anyway?” he asked.
“Only if you get away with it,” Freya laughed.
“Okay, so I’d get Anita to sign a million-pound life insurance policy,” he said.
“What for?” Freya asked, sounding oddly intrigued.
“Because then I’d get double,” he said, chuckling.
Freya had smiled at his ingenuity. “Clever. Then what?”
“I’d take her out on a boat. Somewhere cold and unforgiving. Maybe I’d wait until January or February when I was sure that hypothermia would get her before she had any chance of being found.”
“Wouldn’t that create suspicion?” Freya asked. “How would she have gotten herself out there?”
“I’d park her car at a notorious suicide spot on a cliff’s edge,” said Charlie, getting into the flow. “So when her body washes up a few days later, people would assume that she’d jumped off.”
“Mmm,” said Freya, seeing a fault in his plan. “But I’m not entirely sure insurance would pay out if they thought it was suicide.”
“Ah, good point,” he said. “So maybe we’d have to make it look like an accident.”
“We could start a fire,” offered Freya. “We could wait until she’d fallen asleep, and have a lit cigarette fall onto the curtain, engulfing her in a blaze she couldn’t escape from.…”
Charlie turned on the bedside light and looked at her in shock. “You’d kill your own mother in a fire?” he exclaimed. “You’re sick.”
“And two million pounds richer,” she laughed, as he put his hands around her throat, play-fighting.
“So you think I’m planning the perfect murder,” says Charlie now, with a chuckle.
“You might be,” says Freya, blindly signing where his finger’s pointing to.
“Well, it would certainly make my life easier,” says Charlie, smiling as he slides the forms away from her.