Virtual Strangers (3 page)

It was called
Touching the Void
. ‘So?’ I shrugged. ‘You know me.’

‘Well, pratting about in Timberlands is one thing, and I know you love all this stuff, but I wondered if harrowing is what you really need right now. Do change it if you like -’

‘Nonsense, Rose! I can be harrowed with the best of them!’

‘Hmm,’ she said. ‘Don’t be so sure of that, Charlie girl.’

We watched Phil approach, bearing mugs and two cushions. ‘Damp grass,’ he said.

‘Therefore, damp arses,’ Rose countered, dismissing the coffees.

We then laughed uproariously, clutching our tummies, despite us both knowing that, at least for the moment, life wasn’t particularly uproarious at all.

Phil looked disdainful and re-proffered the mugs.

‘We need
wine
, Phil!’ Rose told him firmly.

Monday. Sixish. Exceptionally stressed.

The unholy trinity of my current working life consists (in no particular hierarchy of tedium) of a) the property from hell, Cherry Ditchling, b) the delightful but mad pensioner, Minnie Drinkwater, and c) Estate Agency not being remotely connected with anything I ever really wanted to do.

Thus Mondays, particularly, throw most sharply into relief the huge gulf that exists between Charlie Simpson, intrepid sort of explorer-mountaineer / geology enthusiast / right-on anthropological and Everest expert etc., and Charlie Simpson, Willie Jones Jackson (Independent Estate Agents) negotiator.

Thus it is that my first utterance on returning from work is a heartfelt ‘sod that,’ albeit in mime.

Among my Father’s many and varied parts, lies an incongruous fondness for syrupy sentiment. Thus a side effect of his residence has been the arrival of a small clutch of little heart warming books about the place, which he seems to consult on a regular basis, in an attempt, I presume, to lend thoughtful profundity to his daily routine. Opening the one on the hall table tonight at random, I was, I noted, instructed to be especially kind and courteous to older people. Hmmm. The word Sod seems understatement indeed.

Why, oh why, oh why did I do it? My brother, God bless him, has about eight million bedrooms. And a Jacuzzi bath. And a hectare. And a shed. And a Mediterranean style verandah-type thingy. And an antipodean address. And patience. So why?
Why?
Someone tell me, before I burst with the pressure of the terrible injustice I have done to myself.

My home was once an unpretentious but cosy Georgian semi; not a palace, but certainly a comfortable refuge, a place that was
me
, that I could
bring
people to. But no longer. Not now my father has filled it with strange and terrible smells. Today’s is reminiscent of the bat cage at Bristol Zoo. And this is simply an overlay. Beneath it, the date chutney poo smell still lingers, competing with the stale-vomit quince-relish stench. I live now, like that fictional nursery rhyme woman, in one enormous Branston pickle jar. Or was it vinegar bottle? Whatever. Every room seems to sag under a fog of malevolent molecules. Every piece of clothing is infused with noxious fumes. No wonder we need windows with one hundred percent air containment integrity. Or people would talk, no question.

My father is driving me mad mad mad.

‘You’re driving me mad, Dad.’

There. I’ve said it. He smiles indulgently as I throw down my handbag and keys.

‘Tsh! Good day, dear?’

Dreadful. Depressing. Unproductive. Sad.

‘All right. I’ve had better. What are you making?’

He herds a heap of pips and slime a little further away down the worktop and returns to stirring the vat of bilge he has on the go.

‘Jam,’ he says, smiling happily, clinking sterilised coffee jars. ‘It’s my own adaptation. Windfall Surprise!’

Sounds gross.

‘Sounds entertaining.’ I say, scanning the debris for clues. ‘This wasp an escapee?’

‘Tsh! Don’t be daft, dear.’

My kitchen has become a malodorous hobbit hole. ‘I need a drink.’

‘Tsh! Before dinner, Charlotte?’

Oh,
Christ.
‘Before dinner,
yes
. I generally do.’

I bang around stroppily, lobbing pots at the sink as I go. ‘Like one?’

He shakes his head. ‘Shepherd’s pie’s bubbling up nicely. There. Get yourself sorted. I plan to be straining at seven-o-five.’

I return to the hallway and kick off my shoes.

‘By the way,’ he calls out. ‘Your friend Rosemary telephoned. Says they’re in now, but in chaos, and she’ll try to call later. I told her to make sure it’s not after eight thirty. There’s a preserves programme -
Bottle it! -
on BBC2.’

I return to the kitchen and open the wine. Which is already three days into changing to vinegar, but my taste buds have now lost the power to tell.

So this is my lot for the foreseeable future. I am missing my son, I am missing my space, and my best friend is now two hundred miles away. In exchange for these losses, what compensations do I have? A father who inflames me, a man friend who doesn’t and (and I checked at the cashpoint on the way home from work) a scant forty pounds for my Everest trip.

Evening. Calmer.

I assume I am less stressed due to a blood supply re-route; I’m still digesting a half ton of massacred mince. I feel as if I now live in parallel universe version of my previous home. I decide to hole up in the least smelly region with hardware and hummy noises and blinky lights and modem and a very large glass of restorative wine.

Two very large glasses of restorative wine later, I decide that I must make some serious lifestyle changes. I have simply
no-one
to send an email to. I spend a few consoling minutes visiting various pages at the BBC, but soon realise that it’s a strange sort of grown up that pores over Blue Peter Summer Expedition reports. So I re-activate the search engine with buzz words ‘tectonic’, ‘mountain’, ‘Everest’, and ‘summit attempts’. But bring up, depressingly, George Mallory’s body, plus an in depth account of recent Himalayan deaths.

Frozen mountaineers are not greatly uplifting so I make the search a touch more pedestrian instead. End up (as one does) at the Sainsburys website, which at least gives me the opportunity to send a terse little email regretting their removal of French Vanilla polish from stock. After which, well - what to do? Who to email? And then I remember. You silly cow, Simpson! Of
course
you can send email! You can send one to Rose!

[email protected]

Dear Rose,

Tra la! Tra la! Found your address, and here I am, at last. Many, many thanks for
Touching the Void
. I’ve read the whole thing, cover to cover, and feel one hundred percent more confident that if I come across a void of any sort (physiological or otherwise) on my trip, I’ll know just how to deal with it. Though doubt whether I’ll look as fetching in bobble hat. And hey! How about this! Simpson on line finally! Impressed, or what? Doubtless you’re knee deep in packing cases and cleaning, but, as the principal leavee in your life, I have simply nothing to do but wail and weep and wonder what the hell I’m going to do without you. What
am
I going to do without you? In fact, I have an inkling I will be spending a lot of time in this study - which my father insists on calling the dining room, despite that fact that no-one’s dined in it in a decade, bar flies. I think it’s a rearguard action towards re-instatement, actually. He doesn’t approve of eating in the kitchen. Which is rich considering he’s the one causing the stink!!

Great party, by the way. I know I looked like I’d rather be pulling hairs from my nipples most of the time, but I was in a real emotional nadir last week, having lost a big chunk of all the stuff I hold dear, and having, it seems, picked up an early seventies daytime cookery programme for a lodger instead.

Bless him, but
God
, Dad is sending me nuts!

Email back soon.

Love Charliexx

I have not, as yet, any sense of the cyber-space-time-logging on and off again-continuum, but am still somewhat surprised that I have not received a response by the weekend. I imagined that happening people dealt with cyber-mail daily. But apparently not. Or else mine got lost.

But I do remember that moving house is not only busy, but is also the most stressful thing on the entire planet after shopping for trainers, and decide instead to phone again. I’m greeted, however, by a jocular ansafone message by Rose, reinforcing that
‘hey, we’ve just moved. Think we’ve got time to chat?’
followed by much family guffawing down the phone. Return to computer and send another email instead.

Dear Rose,

Guess you’re pretty busy!

And it’s all happening this end. We
already
have our invite to the Stableford firework night barbecue party. A record? And that’s we as in me, Phil, Ben
and
Dad. Though as Phil is on a Brontë awareness (or whatever) coach trip that weekend, and I will therefore have to trail around flanked by offspring and parent like a novelty wallflower, don’t know if I’ll bother to go. It’ll only be the same old crowd, and much as I love Caroline, you know how I feel about what she puts on her skewers.

Still a bit fed up without Daniel/with Dad. Uncharacteristically fed up, in fact. Can’t remember feeling like this since Felix and I decided to file for divorce. Though I guess I do know where a lot of it stems from; not quite being able to quite believe that I am less than a year from my birthday and haven’t even come close to fulfilling my one big ambition. Which is ridiculous - I could have started saving five years back! And it’s not as if I want to climb the wretched mountain even! Just stand at the bottom - how hard can that be? Ditto the new kitchen, come to think of it. The one that I didn’t inherit. The one that doesn’t have cat claw trails up the cupboard fronts and wodges of brown stuff in the cutlery drawer corners. The one that I went into a shop and
chose
. The mythical, mystical, X-files, Star Trek Voyager kitchen of my dreams.

I must make a serious mental note to ask everybody I invite to my birthday party to bring me an MFI voucher (must check if exist!) or Nepalese currency, or high energy biscuits and so on. Do you know what Phil said to me this morning? He said ‘I thought it might be fun to go on one of those Murder Mystery weekends,’ and all I could think was ‘Weekend from hell’. We are so pathologically unsuited! And, nice as he is, he can be such a prat at times, don’t you think? Have we a future, Rose? Seriously?

Still, on a lighter note, here, as promised, is my latest shag list;

New at 6: Hugh Chatsworth (who I’m afraid you’ll just have to take my word for. He’s the new boy at Willie JJ - Only 19! (Bless) Very short hair. Very long limbs. Bit nervous of me. Nervous of
me
! Lots of scope for a dom/sub scenario...)

5: Richard Potter (Who I spotted in town in his hard hat and boots last week. Yum yum. Would have climbed to number four if it hadn’t been for....)

4: David Harris-Harper (WOW or what?)

3: Adam Jones (bedside manner on top form, as ever.....)

2: Your Matt (except beard tendency a worry, I have to say.)

1: That new IT teacher at your party. Forgot his name/marital status. What
is
his name/marital status?
Must
know. Can’t ask Ben for obvious reasons!!!

Email back soon,

Miss you.

Charliexx

PS Really sorry to dump all my moans on you. Humour me! I promise I will snap out of it soon.

Saturday lunchtime. A response at last! Though, has to be said, a disappointingly short one. Expect she is bogged down in dibbing or dobbing, or whatever it is that new post-downshifting ruralites do.

[email protected]

Dear Charlie,

Sorry you’re feeling morose. I expect you failed to establish either status because you had lost the power of decipherable speech before ten.

Why Adam Jones at number three?

Rose.

Teatime. Tried calling Rose for qualification of this worrisome and hitherto unremarked aspect of humiliation status, and possible further detail on the IT guy. New ansafone message (Matt, this time);

Hi Guys,

Matt and Rose are just too busy chilling. Hang up if you like or hold tight for the bleep. Leave a message by all means - then call again later. You know what we’re like. Hah!

Chilling? Hah? A s
eriously bizarre, yet somehow spookily inevitable development, Matt-wise. Didn’t bother again, as I’m complete crap at talking to ansafones - saying well! there we are than! so! well! anyway! yes! anyway! so! well! ho ho! yes! ooh! listen to me! anyway! etc. etc. ad nauseum, and sounding like an utter dingbat. Plus ansafones are seriously old-hat now anyway. Booted up (getting slick now) and sent an email instead.

[email protected]

Dear Rose,

Didn’t think much of your new ansafone message. Have you gone all ironic on me? (
Please
say yes). Or is ‘chilling’ Kent-speak for watching
Neighbours,
perhaps? Oh, and has Matt started tilling the courgette bed yet? (only ask as I saw a brilliant and stylish recipe for deep-fried courgette flowers on celebrity
Ready Steady Cook
yesterday). As for the doc, I dithered about putting David Harris-Harper at number three, actually, as he’s seriously shaggable and has a nose just like Antonio Banderas. (His wife, apparently, is a very good friend of Davina’s, by the way. Hmm.) But I think AJ has the edge, doesn’t he? Even if (or because, perhaps!!) Davina is being such a baggage right now. Have I told you about that? She is permanently irritable about the impending image-enhancement make-over Willie JJ are undergoing as a stand, I presume, against Metro Homes swallowing them up. God, it’s
awful
. They’ve drafted in this woman (who looks like a cross between Katherine Hepburn and Wilma Flintstone), and who is called Ianthe, of all things, and who will apparently wave her sartorial and space enhancement wand and bring Willie JJ into the twenty first century. I’ve never seen Davina so fired up about fabrics. You know her - half a dozen Austin Reeds and she’s normally sorted, but just lately - well, suffice to say, it’s like working in a Moroccan bazaar. (Not that she’ll have to wear any of it anyway, so she can afford to completely cavalier about styling.)