Charlie (15 page)

‘What’s the point in even thinking what I want to do?’ she said sharply. ‘I’ve got no choice, have I? I’ll have to look after Mum.’

‘You don’t
have
to.’ Ivor shook his head. ‘If you refuse they’ll get her a home help. No one would expect a girl of your age to look after her alone.’

‘She’ll expect it,’ Charlie said. Her lip quivered and Ivor knew then that this was the real reason behind today’s panic attack, even if she wasn’t aware of it.

Minnie moved to sit between Ivor’s knees, but she continued to look at Charlie, her head on one side, almost as though she understood what was being said.

‘My father always expected I would stay fishing with him,’ Ivor said, fondling his dog’s ears. ‘My mother thought I would always be around to mind the little ones. But I fell in love with a girl, married her and made a home of my own. They had to accept that.’

‘But your parents had each other and neither of them was crippled.’

‘No, they weren’t crippled, but my father was getting frail and my mother’s legs were so swollen that she couldn’t climb the stairs, so I was in much the same position as you, and I had to choose. I chose to be with Sarah. I still helped out when I could, but I distanced myself, and they managed okay. You must do this too.’

‘But I’d feel mean.’

‘You’d
become
mean if you allow yourself to be forced into something which will make you unhappy. Perhaps that’s the reason your mother is the way she is, Charlie. As you said yourself, she didn’t ever get any choice about anything, did she?’

The sun came out later and Ivor suggested they went out in his boat. Charlie made some sandwiches and a flask of coffee and they set off. Once out at sea Charlie’s spirits rose. The sea which had been a dismal grey just a couple of hours earlier was suddenly blue again, and the wind whipping her hair off her face was exhilarating. Ivor let her take the helm for a while while he fished for mackerel at the stern with Minnie sitting up beside him. The utter peace, broken only by the cries of seagulls and the slapping of waves against the bows, was very soothing.

They were just about to go about to sail back to the harbour when Charlie caught sight of a sleek yacht speeding in their direction. There was something about the scarlet flash across the white bows which looked familiar and she pointed it out to Ivor.

He shaded his eyes and looked. ‘I’ve seen it moored in the harbour but I don’t know who it belongs to.’

Charlie sat in the stern watching enviously as the yacht came closer to them. She could see two men wearing nothing but shorts leaning out on the port side as they flew along. She thought it must be thrilling to harness the wind to drive you. Ivor’s little fishing boat was lovely, but even at full speed it only chugged along, it didn’t have that excitement factor.

As the yacht came alongside them and sped on by, she suddenly realized why it looked familiar. The man she’d sold the fishing rod to was at the tiller. It was Guy Acton-Bond.

He must have spotted her at exactly the same moment for he turned and waved.

By the time she and Ivor had moored the
MaryAnn
and walked back to his cottage, Guy’s yacht was already moored and there was no sign of anyone on it. Ivor asked if she wanted to stay and share the mackerel.

‘No, you eat it all yourself. I’ve been enough of a burden today,’ she said with a grin. ‘Besides, my jeans are wet and I promised Beryl I’d be there at seven to help out. I’ll see you later.’

Back at the Victoria Inn Charlie took a shower and washed her hair. She didn’t usually bother about her appearance in the evenings, in fact she usually did the washing-up wearing the same clothes she’d worn all day. But her mind was on Guy, and just in case he came into the pub later she was determined to look her best. She knew this was a bit silly as she only popped in and out of the bar to collect glasses, but she wasn’t going to be caught out looking messy.

If she was to wear a dress, Beryl would immediately suspect she had her eye on someone. She decided on her best white shorts and a white sleeveless tee-shirt, with a red belt to give the outfit a lift. Then she blow-dried her hair carefully, turning the ends under in the now very fashionable page-boy look. Finally she put on several thick coats of mascara and some lipstick; her face was so tanned nothing else was necessary.

‘You look pretty tonight,’ Beryl said as Charlie came into the kitchen. ‘What incredible legs you’ve got. Mine were never like that even when I was sixteen.’ She lifted her dress enough to reveal sturdy pale legs with little shape. ‘See what I mean?’

One of the things Charlie liked most about Beryl was her complete lack of vanity. She took the rise out of herself all the time, she even seemed totally aware she had awful dress sense. Her interest was people, she cared about each and every one of her customers, took their troubles to heart, shared their moments of good luck and happiness. She had a very big heart.

‘They don’t look too bad to me,’ Charlie said. ‘Besides, you’ve got a lovely face and that’s all people see behind the bar.’ This was true. Beryl wasn’t a beauty, she probably hadn’t been even as a girl, but her happy disposition made her so.

‘You little charmer.’ Beryl pretended to swat her with a tea-towel. ‘Then tell me why I don’t get any proposals of marriage?’

Beryl was a widow. Her husband Roger had died of cancer some ten years earlier. She often spoke of him, never in a maudlin way, but with laughter and fond memories. It was her favourite long-standing joke that she was looking for a replacement, but everyone knew she was just joking. She was content running the pub alone.

‘Because all the men in Salcombe are afraid you’d think they were after your money,’ Charlie said with a giggle.

‘Go on with you, everyone knows I’m as poor as Ivor,’ she said.

‘Well, marry him then.’ Charlie laughed. ‘You’d make a fine pair with your matching hair.’

Beryl laughed. Really laughed, holding on to her sides and making great snorting peals of raucous laughter. ‘Oh, Charlie,’ she said eventually. ‘What a thing to suggest!’

Charlie was still giggling about this as she emptied the dishwasher from the lunchtime session. She had never laughed so much with an adult as she did with Beryl, and daily she was growing almost as fond of her as she was of Ivor.

Around eight Charlie made her first visit to the bar to collect glasses. The first person she saw was Ivor, standing at the bar talking to Beryl. But although they were laughing together and she suspected Beryl had told him what she said, her attention was distracted because Guy was at the other end of the bar with two other men, both with dark hair.

She had remembered him as being very handsome, but during the time that had elapsed since she last saw him, she had come around to thinking she was probably exaggerating his good looks. But there was no exaggeration, he was gorgeous. His long blond hair was streaked almost white in places from the sun, skin the colour of mahogany, and angular bone structure like a male model’s. He wore a white short-sleeved, open-necked shirt and faded Levis; even his eyes were the colour of new denim. She grabbed some glasses from a table to hide her confusion.

‘Hi there,’ he said, raising one blond eyebrow. ‘It’s the fishing-rod queen! Don’t tell me you work here too?’

‘I live here, so I help out,’ she said. She thought that was quite smart, he might think she was a relative of Beryl’s.

She saw him glance along the bar to Beryl and Ivor. He obviously recognized Ivor as being the man she’d been in the boat with.

‘He isn’t your father, is he? he asked nodding towards Ivor.

‘No,’ she laughed, amused at such an idea. ‘I just work for him. Do I look like him?’

‘No, I can see no resemblance,’ he said. ‘Actually I can see no one in this bar beautiful enough to have been either of your parents.’

Charlie picked up a few more glasses. As she turned to a table she knew he was studying her bottom and legs and she blushed furiously.

‘Back to work,’ she said as she turned and found him staring at her. ‘See you later.’

She had never found it hard to stay in the kitchen before. Mostly she disliked going out into the bar because she felt people whispered about her. But tonight she wished more than anything that she had a good excuse to go out there.

It wasn’t busy in the bar, it didn’t look as if it was going to get busy. She guessed that before long Beryl would come in and say she didn’t need her any more. Sure enough Beryl came in around nine, saw that Charlie had cleaned everything in sight and suggested she had an early night.

There was nothing Charlie could do. Beryl had never said she couldn’t stay in the bar, but somehow she knew she didn’t really approve of under-age girls being there. To ask if she could stay would make her suspicious, and anyway she couldn’t really talk to Guy under Ivor’s watchful eye.

As Charlie went slowly up the stairs, she willed Guy not to disappear at first light. She felt she was being a bit silly, but just the thought of his tanned angular face made her go all hot and cold.

She was round at the harbour before nine the next morning and she smiled to herself when she saw Guy’s boat was still there, and no sign of activity on it. Every other boat owner was busy. Getting ready to sail, taking fresh water and provisions aboard, swabbing the decks, painting or cleaning.

‘Glad you got here early today,’ Ivor said as she walked into the shack. ‘I’ve got a party waiting to go out fishing. Can you cope on your own?’

She assured him she could, helped some children pick out buckets and spades, and as Ivor went off to the
MaryAnn
with Minnie to meet his group waiting further along the harbour, she saw Guy come up from the cabin.

He stood on the deck stretching. He was wearing what looked suspiciously like only a pair of underpants; blushing, she looked away.

An hour later Charlie had tidied up the shack, blown up a few more swimming rings and tied them in a big clump to hang outside, and unpacked more buckets and spades. She was just going to nip into Ivor’s cottage to make herself some coffee when Guy appeared in the doorway. He was wearing proper shorts now and a spotlessly clean white tee-shirt. He looked like an advertisement for a washing powder.

‘Hullo, Charlie,’ he said.

‘How do you know my name?’ she asked, thrown by his sudden appearance.

‘The time-honoured method. I asked,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry I called you Suzie Wong when I first met you. I only knew the name, I didn’t know who she was. You must have thought I was being insulting. I certainly didn’t mean to be.’

Charlie’s heart began to race. That meant he’d thought about her after he’d left. She was excited, nervous, embarrassed and thrilled all at once.

‘It’s better than calling me Chinky Charlie as people did at school sometimes,’ she said.

‘I wouldn’t dream of calling anyone as beautiful as you something so rude,’ he said. ‘I was often called Guy the Gorilla at school and I hated it. If I’d been covered in black hair it would have made some sense, I could have beaten my chest and roared at people. But as I looked like a weedy little choir boy it wasn’t very apt.’

Charlie was even more struck by him now she knew he was well-mannered and had a sense of humour. She could imagine him as a little boy. She guessed he’d been angelic-looking.

‘I was just going to make some coffee,’ she said. ‘Would you like a cup too?’

‘Best offer I’ve had all week,’ he said with an impish grin.

‘Well, mind the shop for me a moment,’ she said. ‘I have to nip into Ivor’s cottage.’

He was helping a small girl in a red swimsuit select a rubber ring as she got back with the coffee. Just the way he had put it round her waist, checking to see it wasn’t too big for her, made Charlie’s heart lurch.

‘There we are, sweetheart,’ he said, patting the little girl’s head. ‘Just right for you. But don’t go out of your depth in it, rubber rings are only meant to help you learn to swim, you mustn’t rely on them to keep you safe.’

Guy passed the money over to her. ‘You like kids then?’ she said as the little girl went running away still wearing the ring.

‘Yeah, I guess I do,’ he said. ‘I’ve often thought of going in for teaching.’

‘What do you do now?’

‘I work in the city,’ he said with a smile. ‘The Stock Exchange actually.’

‘Do you wear a bowler hat and pin-striped suit?’ she asked, handing him his coffee. She couldn’t possibly imagine him in anything other than jeans.

‘Only the old chaps wear bowlers now,’ he laughed. ‘Could you see me with my long hair in one?’

‘No,’ Charlie giggled. ‘Not unless you tucked it up inside.’

‘I wear it tied back, otherwise I’d be out on my ear, sometimes I wonder how I get away with it. I’ve got the pin-striped suit, though. I look one hell of a prat in that.’

He liked Ivor’s brand of coffee. He sipped it reflectively and said his nanny used sometimes to give him some of hers which was just like it.

Guy sat down on Ivor’s upturned tub, Charlie took the stool, and they’d only been talking for a short while before Charlie realized he’d been born with the proverbial silver spoon in his mouth.

His father was a director of several large companies. He lived at home with his parents and two younger sisters in Henley-on-Thames. He had been educated at Eton, but as he wasn’t particularly academic he’d been nudged into working at the Stock Exchange because his father wanted him to gain experience before finding him a position in one of his companies. Charlie got the feeling that Guy wasn’t entirely happy at having his career mapped out for him. He didn’t say so, but the way he preferred to talk about sailing at weekends and holidays gave her the idea he lived for those times.

The yacht, his father’s, was named
Chloë
after his youngest sister who had been born just as his father bought it, five years ago. Charlie thought having a baby sister was probably another reason he had been so nice to the little girl earlier. Guy said she’d been something of a surprise to all of them, he was twenty-one, the next sister was eighteen and his mother had been forty-two when Chloë arrived.