Brian Freemantle - Charlie M

‘Why not leave her?’

‘What for?’ challenged Charlie. ‘Would you have me move in here, a worn-out old bugger of forty-one without a bank account of his own who can only afford Spanish plonk.’

She reached across, squeezing his hand.

‘From the performance so far, you’re hardly worn out,’ contradicted Janet. ‘But no, Charlie. I wouldn’t.’

‘So I’ve got to stay, haven’t I? — tethered to a job that doesn’t want me. And at home, to a wife who’s not very interested.’

‘Poor Charlie,’ she said. She didn’t sound sad, he thought.

He gestured round the apartment, then nodded towards her.

‘All this will end, when I’m transferred, won’t it?’

‘I expect so,’ she said, always honest, looking straight at him.

‘Pity.’

‘It’s been fun,’ she said. She made it sound like a skiing lesson or a day out at Ascot when she’d picked a winner.

‘Shall we go to bed?’ he suggested.

‘That’s what you came here for.’

They took a long time with each other, exploring; like children in bicycle sheds at school, thought Charlie, biting at her thigh. Just more comfortable, that’s all.

‘Don’t. That hurts.’

‘So does what you’re doing. I can feel your teeth.’

‘Want me to stop?’

‘No.’

‘Charlie.’

‘What?’

‘Your feet are a funny brown colour.’

‘My shoes leaked. The dye won’t come off.’

‘Poor Charlie.’

Then:

‘I like what you’re doing, Charlie.’

‘Where did you learn to do that ?’ he said, with difficulty.

‘At school.’

All that and cooking too, reflected Charlie. He winced, conscious of her teeth again. He should have washed his feet a second time, he told himself. She’d bathed, after all.

Charlie and his wife crossed on the following night’s ferry from Southampton, so they were in Cherbourg by 6.30 in the morning.

Charlie liked driving Edith’s Porsche, enjoying the power of machinery performing fully in the manner for which it was designed. I perform best fully extended, he thought, looking sideways at the woman as they climbed the curling road out of the French port and thinking of the previous night. Had Janet been acting her whore’s role when she’d cried, he wondered.

Edith was a handsome woman, decided Charlie, as she smiled back at him. She had wound the window down, so that her naturally blonde hair tangled in the wind. She was definitely very lovely, he thought, her face almost unlined and no sag to the skin around her throat. He was very lucky to have her as a wife.

They stopped at Caen to look around the war museum and still easily reached Paris by noon. While Edith sipped kir on the pavement outside Fouquet’s, Charlie telephoned their lunch reservation.

They ate at the Tour d’Argent, fond of the view across the Quai de la Tournelle to the Notre Dame. With the filet de sole cardinale, Charlie ordered Corton Charlemagne and then — ‘we’re on holiday, after all’ — a half bottle of Louis Roederer with the souffle vallesse, which he later agreed was an ostentatious mistake.

‘You enjoy spending money, don’t you, Charlie?’ she said, as they unpacked at the Metropole-Opera.

‘Do you begrudge it?’ he asked, immediately.

‘You know I don’t,’ she said, quickly, frightened of offending him. ‘But I saw the bill. It was over?50.’

‘But worth it,’ he defended.

He sat watching her change, enjoying her body. She was very well preserved, he thought, admiringly. Her waist was bubbled only slightly over the panty girdle, which he didn’t think she needed anyway, and her legs were firm and unveined. Her full breasts fell forward as she unclipped her bra and she became conscious of his attention, covering herself like a surprised schoolgirl.

‘What are you looking at?’

‘What do you think?’

‘Don’t,’ she protested, emptily, pleased at the attention. She loved him very much and it frightened her sometimes.

Janet liked him admiring her body, Charlie compared, even insisting they made love with the light on. Edith always wanted it dark. Women were funny, he thought: his wife had much the better body. She should learn to be proud of it, not shy.

Edith was a comfortable women to be with, he decided, the sort you didn’t have to talk to all the time. With Janet three minutes of silence was construed either as boredom or boring so there was always a frenzy of meaningless chatter, like annoying insects on a summer’s picnic. He definitely preferred Edith, he decided. They were friends, more than lovers, he thought. But very much lovers; Edith had a remarkable appetite for a woman of forty.

She backed towards him, the zip of her dress undone.

‘Do me up.’

‘Why don’t we undo it?’

‘There isn’t time.’

‘For what?’

‘Don’t muck about, Charlie. Tonight.’

He fastened the dress: she didn’t bulge it anywhere, he saw.

He gave every indication of loving her, she thought, patting her hair into place before the dressing table.

‘Promise me something, Charlie,’ she said, crossing the room to him and placing her hands upon his shoulders. She was very serious, he realised. Her eyes were quite wet.

‘What?’

‘You won’t leave me because of this office business, will you?’

‘You know I won’t,’ chided Charlie. ‘I’ve told you not to worry.’

‘I can’t help it,’ said Edith, who ten years earlier had occupied the position that Janet now held as secretary to Sir Archibald Willoughby. Charlie had told her in detail of his treatment since Cuthbertson’s arrival.

He stood up, coming level with her.

‘I love you, Edith,’ he insisted, putting his hands round her waist. ‘I promise you that everything will work out. They’re bloody fools.’

‘They can’t be as stupid as you think.’

‘You wouldn’t believe it!’

He kissed her, very softly, and she clung to him, head deep into his shoulder.

‘I’m so worried about you, Charlie.’

He stroked her neck, lips against her hair.

‘I’m a survivor, Edith. Don’t forget that. I always have been.’

She shook her head, dismissing the assurance.

‘Not this time, Charlie.’

‘We’ll see, darling. We’ll see.’

Edith had allotted?100 a day for their holiday and Charlie drove eastwards from Paris the following morning? 10 under budget, which pleased her.

Financial security meant everything to Edith, he knew, as it always had to her family. She couldn’t temper her attitude, despite what had happened to her father. He had been a bank manager in Reigate, a respected Freemason, church deacon and treasurer to the local Rotary Club. And he’d embezzled?600 to cover stupidly incurred gambling debts he was too proud to ask his rich wife to settle, shocking her and Edith by the knowledge that he feared their contempt and attitude to money more than the ignominy of a jail sentence.

Edith had never forgotten the barrier that money had created between her parents and tried desperately to avoid it arising between her and Charlie. She was terrified that she was failing.

Charlie had planned the holiday with care, determined they should enjoy themselves. In Reims, they stayed at La Paix but ate at Le Florence, on the Boulevard Foch, dining off pate de canard truffe and langoustine au ratafia, drinking the house-recommended Maureuil. The next day, Charlie drove hard, wanting to reach the German border by the evening. They stayed in Sarreguemines, where Charlie remembered the Rotisserie Ducs de Lorraine on Rue Chamborand from an operation eight years earlier.

‘The duck is as good as it ever was,’ he declared at the table that night.