Authors: J.E. Warren
Charlie
January 16
th
2010
Waving Lucas off, so very thankful for the peace and quiet of the flat for the rest of the weekend, Charlie prepares the pasta sheets for the lasagne he’s attempting to cook for the first time in an effort to impress Anna once she arrives.
He knows she’ll be shattered from travelling up from Lyme in the morning and that she’ll very likely be tipsy from her lunch date with Daisy. Still, he hopes that Anna will remember she hasn’t seen him for close to two weeks and that this is to be their last night together before she had to leave all over again.
As always, she likes to make promises, however big or small, and break them again in the next breath. Charlie can’t quite make sense of how flippant she’s become about their infrequent time together, as if being with him again is always almost an afterthought.
He’s spent a lot of time thinking about the promise of promises, especially in the weeks that followed on from the disastrous Christmas holidays where he’d divided up his time between his parents’ house in the countryside and Anna’s down by the coast. An ill-timed argument on Christmas Eve down in the beer garden of her local pub had started a chain of petty disagreements and tense situations made all the more strained by her parents’ constant fussing.
Like most of their fights, it had all kicked off over an unwelcome guest and paranoia.
Sat in the corner booth of the low-beamed tiny pub on the outskirts of the Cobb with Janice, Tony, and Anna’s sweet but brash grandma, Charlie tried to make conversation and get into the festive spirit. Aware he had to make a real effort and join in with all their customary traditions, like pre-Christmas quizzes and early present giving. All was going well, until a tall guy with big, cartoon-like muscles approached Anna at the bar and seemed intent on not leaving her side all night. Even when Charlie introduced himself in an attempt to put a pause in their long conversation about life in Lyme, the guy still didn’t get the hint.
And even though he’d witnessed random strangers try to hit on her before, this time it felt different. It niggled away at his rational side, and at the trust he’d held on tight to in the months since she’d left.
The guy didn’t pay Charlie much attention, but he had it in buckets for Anna, who giggled and laughed along to his atrocious jokes. And Charlie’s heart sank at how she saw nothing wrong with inviting him to come and sit with them. Clearly not fussed about how inappropriate it was for him to sidle up close to her, put his arm round the back of the chair as if staking his claim. She didn’t even object to Charlie having to make do with the small stool at the end of the long table.
And for the rest of the long night, she sat and chatted, retelling stories about the heydays of her youth to the delight of her parents and to Rick—Shelia’s oldest son, with the tacky neck tattoo and gold chain. A guy who was in the process of doing up his second flat and drove a black BMW, owned his own building supply company and holidayed five times a year. There really was no way Charlie could compete with that.
Still, he’d kept up with the cheery mood, fake smiles, and laughter, all the while wondering if Anna even cared that he’d made the effort and long drive down from his parents’ just to be able to spend Christmas with her, their first together.
He’d never felt like the jealous type, but he suspected it wouldn’t be long before that changed too. Because every time Anna would post something about a night out with her work colleagues or old school friends on Facebook—something he utterly resented—he’d wish to be there, if only to know what was really going on behind the scenes of blurry drunken photos. All of them bred paranoia and tension because however hard he tried to get on with his own day to day life, Charlie couldn’t change the fact that she was out there, often having fun with a bottle of wine, whilst he remained at home, rejected.
When Anna won’t return his missed calls, he plans in activities of his own to have something to look forward to, even if it is only an open mic night at his local or a poker game at Eddie’s. However, no matter how hard he tries, all thoughts eventually lead back to her.
Constantly wondering what she does with her free time when she isn’t here to speak to, to hold, or to kiss.
It’s the main reason why he’s spent most of his Saturday in the local supermarket, picking up essentials and candles, Anna’s favourite sugary treats and a smart tablecloth. It’s why he’s stuck in a tiny kitchen trying to fathom a way to make lasagne less bland and sloppy looking.
She still isn’t returning his calls, nor has she given him a rough indication of when she’ll be round, and it’s well and truly starting to grate.
As Charlie tends to the oven to set it to the right temperature, he thinks about all the worrisome questions that whirl in my mind, in his veins. Because something feels off, and it isn’t just the change in the seasons, how cold and dark nights always make it feel less bearable to be apart.
It’s something else entirely and it hurts to admit to it. That maybe he’s been naïve to believe it might just work out or continue on like before. That Anna might finally come to realise that all the promises she’s made need to be fulfilled. He really can’t stand the uncertainty of her indecisions and all the off-the-cuff remarks about just staying for “another couple of months.” He’d felt sick during the New Year’s Eve’s toast round Anna’s parent’s dinner table with neighbours and friends. Where Janice had raised her glass to ring in a special New Year, thankful for having her daughter back.
When he overheard her talk later on about the possibility of her only daughter moving into Rick’s newly renovated flat down the road, his stomach turned. Because sweet, well-meaning Janice thought Anna might not want to remain under her parents’ roof forever, and she should have her own place, with a friendly landlord. One with stupid, shit tattoos and an unhealthy interest in her.
Charlie had to excuse himself and regain his composure out in the chilly garden, away from the watchful eyes of people he’d never met before and didn’t feel comfortable around. Of course, Anna didn’t bat an eyelid or reassure him that it was just her mum being a mum. If anything she seemed to entertain the idea, spurred on by the cheap rent Rick was apparently willing to take, and it all clouded any sense of joy for the New Year ahead.
That night, in the early hours of morning once Anna had fallen into a champagne slumber, Charlie wished for a miracle, one that might bring them back closer, like how they once were.
Now, two weeks into the month of January, he’s come to the conclusion that miracles are a fool’s game and that even when he tries his best, it still isn’t ever good enough. Not when Anna’s constantly split in half, dividing her time between old friends, her life in Lyme, and him.
Putting the lasagne in the oven, he sets the table for two and calls her for the fourth time, ready to hang up as soon as her predictable voicemail kicks in. However, this time it’s her actual voice he hears, not an automated one.
“Hey, what’s up?” she says loudly over a racket of background noise.
“Just seeing if you’re on your way round yet or if you’re still out with Daisy.”
There’s a long pause and he hears Anna answer “yes” to another glass of wine that Daisy’s busy ordering. “Uh, well I will be coming to yours soon. It’s just you know what it’s like—us two gals gassing, gossiping away. We’re making up for lost time!”
He silently nods, knowing she’s been keen to catch up with her old work colleague. She told him that she felt like a bad friend for coming back to London and not making time to see her because she was always with him. Something that cut deep but wasn’t untrue.
Charlie realises Anna still finds it hard to organise her minimal time, that she’s often tempted by other offers but has for the most past turned them down. However, it still doesn’t make the uneasy feeling in his stomach pass. It continues to linger.
“Hey, Charlie!” Daisy’s voice cuts in and he’s sure she’s stolen the phone away too. “Do you think I can steal your lover away for just a couple more hours? I’m busy plotting a way to keep her here forever, so it’s in your best interests too!” Loud laughter follows and he pulls away from it.
“I guess.” It’s a lie but he’s not in the mood to argue with her. “So long as you’re both having a good time.”
“We are. It’s lovely.” Anna’s back and she sounds drunk. “My train was stupidly delayed, didn’t think she’d still be waiting for me but she was! I’ll probably get a cab back to yours, babe, although we might stop off before to get some food. We’ve had too much wine!”
Charlie’s stomach sinks and he eyes up the oven, thinks about switching it off in defeat. “I thought you said you’d be round for dinner, though? I’ve made us something.”
“I said I’d be with you around ‘dinner’ time. Not that I’d need dinner. Shit, I’m sorry.”
“Right…”
“Ah crap, Charlie,” she says, sounding a little apologetic but not as much as he’d like. “Well, this is awkward.”
“Tell me about it. But you know what? Don’t worry. I’ll just have it for myself or keep it tomorrow for lunch.” His voice sounds less patient with every word. “I mean, you don’t even have to stay here tonight if it’s that much of an effort.” He’s trying his luck, pushing her, and Anna just sighs back, letting silence linger before her eventual reply.
“You think?”
“If you want.”
“Charlie…You know I haven’t seen Daisy in months. Why are you making this difficult?”
“I’m not. I actually don’t care right now. Do what you want.”
Anna groans. “Are we really arguing about the fact I want to spend some time with my friend?”
“It’s not about that.”
“It’s about the dinner, then. Because you thought I’d be coming over for it? Hardly my fault that you misheard what I said,” she replies, and it makes his blood boil hotter than the heat coming from the oven.
“I don’t think I want you to stay here now, not tonight.”
“Well then.” He can hear the sarcasm in her voice rise. “Fine. I’ll stay at Daisy’s tonight. I’ve actually had a really long day at work and then on the trains. I need some sleep. I can’t be arsed with stupid arguments right now. I’ll just come to yours tomorrow morning, that’s if you’ll let me in,” she says and he doesn’t protest. He’s done with trying, though he knows he hasn’t helped matters. That he’s pushed her buttons way too far this time.
“Sure, whatever you want, like always.” Charlie doesn’t wait for her reply, and wraps up the call by wishing her a fun night in a thinly veiled sarcastic tone before hanging up.
Instead of waiting for a message, perhaps to say sorry again or berate him for putting the phone down, he takes his winter jacket and gives Eddie a call. Turns off the oven and leaves the half-cooked lasagne to stew on the counter.
“Buddy, talk to me,” Eddie answers.
“Hey dude, are you about tonight?”
“I am indeed, although I’m at the King’s Arms right now—open mic night, but there’s an after party at Joey’s friend’s, you should come.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, it’s going to be crazy. You know that chick that did that open mic night years ago, at The Bull?” Eddie says in a hurry.
“No, not really?”
“The pretty blonde, killer smile, voice of an angel…You don’t remember?”
Again Charlie says no.
“Okay, well, it’s at her place, this party. I’ve had my eye on one of her mates for far too long. Tonight’s the night, my friend.”
“You always say that.” Charlie laughs.
“Fancy being my wingman, just this once? For old times’ sake?”
Charlie pauses, his mind racing to think about all the awful possibilities such an invite might bring. Yet his thirst to drink away problems trumps any desire to be sensible or responsible, like the good stay-at-home boyfriend he’s been resigned to be.
And so he takes up Eddie’s offer, tells him he’ll be there in twenty, rushes to leave the flat and the bad feeling of Anna, her blasé attitude, and unfair behaviour towards him behind.
Breathing in the cold air, he turns his phone to silent and heads out. To forget just for a few hours that even when the distance between them gets shorter, the worrying state of their strained relationship doesn’t.
Anna
February 18
th
2010
As the hum of background music plays out through the tannoy system, Anna aimlessly follows her mum round the brightly lit supermarket, keeping her hands firmly on the wayward trolley with the dodgy broken wheel.
She half listens to her mum’s insistent moaning about how expensive vegetables are, because Anna’s mind is very much elsewhere—thinking about blond hair and blue eyes even though it only serves to complicate matters.
Following the grey ceiling panels of plasterboard above, she keeps pushing past each aisle until she feels a familiar vibration deep in her coat pocket, remembers she’s forgotten to turn it off.
“Darling, is that your phone or mine?” Anna’s mum asks, rummaging in her own pockets to check.
In the chilled food aisle, she winces at just how upbeat the ring tone she’d once assigned him sounds as it echoes through the supermarket loudly. She hates how flipping cheerful it is, ringing out from inside her coat.
“It’s mine.”
Chucking in a packet of chicken nuggets, her mum says, “Are you not going to pick it up? What if it’s Charlie? You know, he tried calling the house earlier, but I told him you were at work like you said to do.”
With a shrug, Anna continues to push the trolley and ignores her mum’s worried expression. She doesn’t want to get into it or have to tell her why she’s ignoring his calls and just why she can’t bring herself to hear his voice.
“You do know you’re going to have to answer it at some point, to talk to him,” her mum mutters, in her usual tone that suggests she’s probably right.
Anna pretends she doesn’t hear nor care, just keeps on walking away. “I’ll meet you at the checkout, got to get a few things for lunch tomorrow.”
Taking off, she narrowly misses the stacks of reduced to clear Valentine’s cards and heart-shaped chocolate gift boxes, has to keep a firm grip on the trolley. Wonders how she’s even got the energy or ability to keep upright when her mind is so heavy with confusion. Filled with the image of him, thoughts of what he’s been calling to say.
When she trudges back to meet her mum she feels her phone vibrate again. Almost as if it’s there to act as constant reminder that she can’t hide from him forever. Still, she pays it no attention, lets it ring through to voicemail, which she knows can easily be forgotten about.
As Anna helps her mum pile food up onto the conveyer belt, she busies herself by arranging it all neatly, hoping such a mundane task will make her forget everything for just a moment.
Until like the looping belt, she comes to a grinding halt. Stops sorting tins of baked beans into an orderly fashion because she hears it.
A song so unexpected, she almost drops all of them to the ground. For a long moment she’s sure it’s just her imagination playing tricks or some unfunny, cruel joke. Pushing the hair away from her ears to listen better, she tries to work out if she’s really hearing it right. If it’s what she thinks it is, playing all around her from every speaker like an alarm bell going off in each direction.
She can’t decide if she’s crazy or not, and just why it’s causing her chest to feel tight. Why she suddenly feels incredibly clammy under her scarf and coat.
Anna has a desperate urge to throw down all the groceries and run even though her head feels weirdly light and off-balance. Finds that she can’t feel the weight of her feet on the floor either but knows that if she stands still for too long the panic will only get worse, with every beat and every strum.
“Can you go a little faster please, sweetheart?” her mum asks, oblivious, pulling the trolley away to pack carrier bags, which causes Anna to lose her footing.
“I need to get out. I need some air.”
“Why? What’s wrong?”
She doesn’t have time to talk, not least because her throat threatens to seize up and her stomach lurches in its own threat to throw up all over the neatly stacked vegetables.
“Keys. I need the car keys. Now.” It must be the look of sheer panic that spurs her mum into handing them over so fast, Anna thinks before she snatches them so hard they scratch the delicate layer of skin on her knuckles that’s gone translucent white.
Sidestepping casual shoppers, toddlers in harnesses, and dithering old dears, Anna finds her feet come back and she sprints for the exit. And with every step she hears the same jaunty beat, just without any words, like they’ve been erased or forgotten. Her stomach turns again when the chorus plays out, because it sounds so wrong. Stripped bare of its original meaning and intent.
As she follows the speckled pattern on the shiny floor, head down, onwards to the rotating doors, she thinks about how something so perfect and beautiful could be so easily ruined. How they’re butchering a song that was once meant for her and how it doesn’t sound right. How nothing feels right.
Just like Charlie had said.
Upon reaching the darkness of the car park, she remembers how his words felt like pins, pushing in deeper each time he spoke. How she’d been expecting their weekly call to be just like all the others—an ordinary, mundane routine. But like the supermarket’s twisted serenade, Charlie’s resolute admission that he thought it was time to call it quits came down on her like a ton of bricks.
In just as many words, most of which Anna’s ears refused to accept, he had told her that he was tired of nothing feeling right. How he needed to get his sanity and some sense of normality back because being apart had made them and him fall apart.
He said that her declarations of it only being temporary left him in a state of limbo that got worse each day and it hadn’t eased or relented. Anna had reminded him that they’d made it into the New Year, still riding on a wave of long-distance love. Told him that surely they were doing something right to make it to five months, and tried in earnest to remind him of all the time invested.
But listening to him talk about being painfully exhausted of all the mistrust and guilt, the constant nagging uncertainty and the lack of her presence, made her realise he’d pretty much made his mind up. All the arguments didn’t help either, or the sense of depleting trust. He was a complete mess about it.
And to make matters worse, in a panic after their last call she’d hung up the phone and ignored any further calls until she could find the right moment to breathe and assess the situation without feeling like smashing her phone against her bedroom mirror.
She now knows it’s unlikely to put her back in his good graces, that it’ll do her no favours when it comes to actually trying to sway his feelings back, but the crushing pain and sense of betrayal keeps her from doing otherwise. All she wants to do is pretend that all’s still right with them.
It’s why she’s agreed to help her mum with the weekly shop on a cold February night, picking out peppers and processed nuggets in the supermarket. Hiding away from the reality that Charlie will try to ring again and again until he gets to say everything he needs to.
To tell her again, in between sobs and sighs, that nothing has felt right and it’s been that way for a long time. Anna knows that he wasn’t happy to hear of her plans to stay in Lyme until the end of spring. Incensed even that she was weighing up the idea of moving out and into a flat share instead of making her long-promised, overdue return.
Using the wing mirror on her mum’s car to regain some balance, she thinks about his reasons again and figures that the erratic beating of heart and attack of dizziness is because it’s finally dawning on her.
Quickly and all at once, because some stupid supermarket attendant had decided to play a subpar instrumental version of “Brown Eyed Girl” throughout the store right whilst she was standing there trying to block out any and every memory of him—because Charlie was right and it is shitty and so terribly humiliating to admit to it.
As Anna fumbles with the keys, she rests her head against the seat once inside. Waits for her mum to return, which she does only moments later, with a worried look as her little legs quick step across the car park.
She’s breathless when she pulls open the door, and proceeds to brush Anna’s hair away from her sticky, sweat-covered face. “Darling, are you okay? You had me really scared, I tried to pay and pack as fast as I could.”
“It’s all right. I feel a bit better,” It’s a complete fib but she doesn’t want to stress her mum out any further. “Just felt a little sick, wobbly.”
“Is it because he keeps calling? Because of what’s going on between you and—” her mum says quietly, as if she’s afraid to speak Charlie’s name in case it causes her to black out or crumble completely.
“Kind of, just had a moment back there.”
Anna sits down and feels the car start to move. Thankful that the journey back home will give her some time to reflect and think about what she really needs to say to him. When she returns all his missed calls and finally stops playing pretend.
As they drive back with the radio down low, she fiddles with the woven bracelet on her wrist, a long-ago present from him that she’s worn ever since she left London. Thinks about how it’s started to fray in the hundred and sixty-three days they’ve been apart. Just like everything has, Anna thinks as she reminisces back to the beginning and all that came after.
How it hadn’t always been so bad. Not at the start when she made good on her promise to call each day, morning, noon, and night. Racking up a hefty phone bill just so she could hear his voice before she fell asleep and listen to Charlie play all his classic songs like he was there in bed with her still.
She had even started to save money again, proud to arrive home and land a part-time casual job as a fill-in receptionist at the local veterinary practice. She couldn’t quite believe how much she enjoyed working again. How not all colleagues had to be miserable old hags, and just how fun it could be to make cups of tea for them all, indulging in chitchat. It felt great to have a purpose.
Charlie had seemed pleased for her too, at least to begin with. She knows it was because it allowed her to buy the train fare to see him every other weekend. So she could arrive on a Friday night and throw her arms round him.
And it was great and good, Anna remembers. Even if he didn’t always make it down to see her as often as she would’ve liked. Instead, she made a conscious effort to savour every fistful of hours they had. Usually time spent together involved going out for dinners, staying up late. Always sinking back pints and bottles of wine at some pub or bar until they stumbled back to his little flat to have great but often emotionally draining sex because they were forever counting down the hours until she’d have to get back on a train and wave goodbye.
It’s when the real distance began to seep into every tiny crack, slowly breaking them further apart month by month until there was little foundation left.
Anna hates to think about the many times she’d sat at home waiting for him to call, just how needy she’d become. It worried her that he’d eventually find someone else if she didn’t come back and that there’d probably be another admirer, watching him busking from the across the street like she once had.
There were a lot of missed calls and lack of signal during late night chats. Something they’d come to argue about, trying to place the blame on each other for the bad reception or when calls would drop out, not connect. It became difficult to think of speaking every day as anything but a chore, a task that was scheduled into both her and Charlie’s lives because otherwise the cracks would deepen.
And they argued—a lot, over silly trivial matters, but each time it took longer to make amends, and it clouded the excitement of seeing each other again with resentment soon creeping in its place.
All the trips back up to London and the mind-numbing rides back down again started to take their toll too. There never seemed to be enough time to catch a breath and just be together, like the old times.
Five and a half months in and the strain of it all has really started to show.
Anna thinks that whoever once claimed absence made the heart grow fonder was an outright liar and had probably never had to spend time away from someone like Charlie, because it just makes her own ache. And his has been hurting too, clinging onto the slippery promise of her living back at home being only temporary.
As her mum pulls into the driveway, Anna takes a deep breath and understands that she can’t pretend to him any longer that it is only temporary. So she makes a cup of tea before heading to her room. Gets safe and warm under the covers, wearing one of Charlie’s old shirts he’d left over Christmas because it still smells of him.
Finally, after a few failed attempts she takes out her phone to tell him just what he wants and needs to hear.
That she agrees, that he’s right.
“I’m so sorry,” Charlie says, and she thinks he might be choking back tears because he sounds croaky and more quiet than usual.
“I’m sorry too.”
She wants to reel off the mess of questions that spin round in her mind because she really has no idea how to separate herself from him. The notion of it makes her feel sick, empty. She also wants to ask if it’s maybe best to meet up and put an end to the complicated jumble of heartache in person, instead of over the phone. She wonders too if he’d be okay with her picking up the clothes she’d left at his, or if he’d prefer to just box it up and post them.