The Ghost (3 page)

But she sounded exasperated when she answered. No, I am not having a baby with him. I'm trying to have a life, of my own, and with him. And I don't want to screw up your life any more than I have to. Charlie, why don't you just let go of it? Something happened to us. I'm not even sure I understand what. Things just work out that way sometimes. It's like if someone dies. You can't argue with it. You can't change it. You can't turn the clock back or bring them back to life. We died. Or at least I did. Now you have to go on living without me.

I can't. He nearly choked on the words and she knew just how much he meant it. She had run into him the week before, and he looked terrible. He looked tired and pale and exhausted, but oddly enough, she realized that she still thought he was incredibly attractive. He was a very handsome man, and even in misery, he was very appealing. I can't live without you, Carole. The worst thing was that she knew he believed that.

Yes, you can, Charlie, you have to.

Why? He couldn't think of a single reason these days to go on living. The woman he loved was gone. He was bored with his job. He wanted to be alone all the time. Even the house he had once loved seemed to have lost its spirit. But in spite of that, he didn't want to sell it. He had too many memories with her there. There was too much Carole woven into every fiber of his life. He couldn't imagine ever being free of her, or wanting to be. All he wanted was what he couldn't have, what he had once had with her, all of which now belonged to Simon. The bastard.

Charlie, you're too young to act like this. You're forty-two years old. You have a whole life ahead of you. You have a great career, an enormous talent. You'll meet someone else, maybe you'll have kids. It was a strange conversation and she knew it, but she didn't know how to let go of him, although she knew that her talking to Charlie like this seriously annoyed Simon. He thought they ought to divide up the spoils, get divorced, and get on with it, as he put it. They were both young enough to have jolly good lives with other people. He thought Charlie was being an incredibly bad sport and putting a lot of unnecessary pressure on Carole, and he was very outspoken about the fact that he didn't like it.

These things happen to all of us at some point in time, or most of us anyway. My first two wives left me. I didn't lie on the floor having tantrums for a year, I can tell you that. He's quite spoilt, if you ask me, he said irritably. She tried not to talk to Simon at all about Charlie. She had her own guilt and conflicts to contend with. She didn't want to go back to him, but she didn't want to leave him bleeding by the side of the road either. She knew she had run over him. But she had no idea how to fix it for him, how to make it better than it was, or release him gently. She had tried, and she wanted to make it easier for him, but Charlie absolutely refused to let go of her, and every time she talked to him, she had the feeling he was drowning, and if she let him, in his desperate thrashing he would drown her. She needed to get away from him somehow, just for the sake of her own survival.

At the end of September, they finally divided up their things. Simon had family business to attend to in the north of England, and Carole spent an agonizing weekend going through their old house with Charlie. He wanted to discuss each and every item, not because he was trying to keep anything from her, but because he used every moment with her as an opportunity to try and talk her into leaving Simon. It was a nightmare for both of them, and Carole hated hearing it as much as Charlie hated himself for what he was saying. He almost couldn't believe it. But he just refused to let her slip away from him without making piteous screams and hideous noises in the hope that she would change her mind. But she was far from that.

On Sunday night he apologized to her before she left. He smiled ruefully at her, as he stood in the doorway. He looked just awful. And Carole looked almost as bad as he did.

I'm sorry I've been such a horse's ass all weekend. I don't know what happens to me. Every time I see you, or talk to you, I go crazy. It was the most normal he'd seemed since they'd started inventorying everything on Saturday morning.

It's okay, Charlie. ' I know this isn't easy for you. But it wasn't easy for her either. She wasn't sure if he understood that. And he didn't. As far as he was concerned, she had left him. It had been her choice. And she had Simon. She had walked into another man's arms, and she was never alone for a moment, never without company and comfort. Charlie had nothing. He had lost everything he had ever wanted.

It's a rotten deal, he said, looking into her eyes again. For everyone. I just hope you don't regret what you're doing.

So do I, she said, and then she kissed him on the cheek and told him to take care, and a moment later she drove off in Simon's Jaguar. Charlie stood staring after her, trying to make himself believe that it was all over, that she was never coming back again. And as he walked back into the house and saw the piles of her things everywhere, and their china stacked high on the dining room table, there was no escaping what had happened. He closed the door and just stood there and stared, and then he sat down in a chair and cried. He couldn't believe how much he missed her. Even spending the weekend with her, dividing up their things, seemed better than nothing at all.

And when he stopped crying finally, it was dark outside, and in an odd way, he felt better. There was no denying it anymore. No running away from it. She was gone. And he was letting her take almost everything with her. It was all he had left to give her.

But by the first of October, for Charlie, everything was worse instead of better. The man in charge of the New York office of his architectural firm had a heart attack, the partner who could have taken his place announced that he was leaving to open a new firm of his own in Los Angeles, and the two senior partners of the firm, Bill Jones and Arthur Whittaker, flew to London to ask Charlie to come back to New York and take over. It was everything Charlie had never wanted. From the moment he had moved to London ten years before, he had known he never wanted to work in New York again, and he had spent a decade thrilled to be working in Europe. Charlie thought design was far more exciting abroad, particularly in Italy and France, he enjoyed his Asian forays as well, and he had every intention of remaining in Europe.

I can't, he said with an intractable look when they proposed the idea to him. But both of his senior partners were prepared to be tenacious. They needed him in New York to run the office.

Why not? they asked with candor. He didn't want to tell them he just didn't want to, but he didn't. Even if you want to come back here eventually, there's no reason why you can't come to New York for a year or two. There are a lot of interesting developments in the States right now. You might find that you actually prefer it. He didn't want to explain to them that there was no chance of it, nor did they want to point out to him that, now that his wife had left, he had no reason not to take the job. Unlike the other men they'd thought of, he wasn't tied to anyone, and was free to go anywhere. He had no wife and no children, no family ties anywhere. There was no reason whatsoever why he couldn't rent his house for a year or two, and go to the New York office to keep it on an even keel, or at least until they could find someone else to run it for them. But Charlie was in no way intrigued by the idea, or inclined to do what they asked him.

It's very, very important to us. Charlie, there's no one else to turn to. He knew that that was true. They were in an awkward spot. The man in the Chicago office couldn't move, his wife had been very sick for the past year. She had breast cancer and was undergoing chemo, and this was no time to ask them to relocate. And no one else in the hierarchy of the New York office was really capable of taking over. Charlie was the obvious choice, and he knew that it would probably alter his professional situation permanently if he categorically refused to go. We'd really like you to think it over, they insisted, and Charlie was appalled at the realities it entailed. He felt as though an express train were heading for him and were about to hit him. He couldn't believe what was happening, and he just didn't know what to say. He wished he could call Carole to discuss it with her, but he knew that Was out of the question.

It was incredible to him that in a matter of months, he had lost his wife, and now he was being forced to give up the life he loved in Europe. Everything around him seemed to be changing, and it was an agonizing two weeks while he mulled over the decision. The senior partners went back to New York after two days, and he told them he'd give them an answer as soon as he'd thought it over. But no matter how much he thought, he couldn't figure out a way to avoid giving them what they wanted.

He couldn't even tell them his wife didn't want him to go. As they knew very well, the decision was all on his own shoulders. And halfway through the month, he knew he had no choice. He had to go. They would never forgive him if he didn't. He tried to negotiate for six months, and they told him they'd try to find someone else to run the New York office by then, but they pointed out that it could easily take them a year, or even more. Important architects following exactly the right path in their design careers were certainly not easy to come by. They were going to replace Charlie in London with his second in command. Dick Barnes was a good man, and Charlie was sure he would do the job. In fact, that was even a matter of concern to Charlie, because Dick Barnes had been lusting after his job for a long time, and this might well prove to be an unexpected opportunity for him to get it. He was equally talented and almost as experienced, and Charlie was afraid that after Barnes had run the London office successfully for a year they might not be willing to let Charlie come back and take over. And the one thing he didn't want was to get stuck in New York. In the end, they signed a contract with him to go to New York for a year. And before he knew it, Charlie felt as though his life had come to an end and he was preparing to move to New York. They had insisted he be there well before Thanksgiving. Carole called him eventually when she heard the news from a mutual friend whose husband worked for Charlie. She congratulated him on the new appointment, although she was surprised to hear that he'd been willing to leave London.

I don't exactly consider it a step up in the world, he said, still sounding gloomy, but glad that she had called him. It had been a bad year for him, and he could hardly remember the carefree days of happiness and good humor. Ever since she'd left, something terrible seemed to happen every day. The last thing I wanted to do was go back to work in New York, he said with a sigh. He really hated to leave London, and she knew it. She knew full well how much his life there meant to him, and how happy he had been in London, which was why she had called him. In spite of everything, she wanted to cheer him up, although she knew that Simon would have disapproved of her calling. He spoke to at least two of his ex-wives fairly regularly, but they had been married several times since leaving him, and they weren't clinging to him as Charlie was to Carole.

Maybe the change will do you good for a while, she said gently. A year isn't forever, Charlie.

It sure feels like it, he said, staring out his office window, seeing her far too clearly in his mind's eye. She was so damn beautiful, and still so desirable to him, although he was beginning to wish she weren't. It was going to be so odd being so far away from her. He wouldn't be able to think about running into her anymore. Now there was always the chance he might run into her in a restaurant or a shop, or coming out of Harrods. But not when he left London. I don't know how I got myself into this mess, he said, thinking about New York.

It doesn't sound like you had much choice, she said practically.

I didn't. He had no choice about anything anymore, not about her, or moving to New York. None of it was what he wanted.

And then she asked him what he was going to do about the house. Legally, she still owned half of it, but she didn't mind his living there. She didn't need the cash, and she certainly didn't plan to live in it with Simon. There was no reason why they couldn't just hold on to it for the moment.

I thought I'd rent it, he said, and she agreed with him. But then she called him back two days later. She had thought about it, and discussed it with Simon at some length, although she didn't say that to Charlie. And it was one thing, as far as she was concerned, if Charlie was living in the house, but she didn't want tenants destroying it, or devaluating the property by causing damage to it. Under the circumstances, she preferred to sell it, and she asked Charlie to put it on the market before he left London.

He felt as though he had lost yet another dear friend when she said that to him. He had loved their house, they both had. But he didn't have the energy to argue with her this time, and he was beginning to understand that there was no point hanging on to any of it. The past was gone, and he might as well let their house go too. He thought about it for a few days, and then put it on the market. And much to their joint surprise, it sold within ten days for a good price, but that was small consolation to him.

By the time he got on the plane, the deal was closed, the house was gone, and everything he owned had been put in storage. Carole had come around the week before to see it for the last time, and to say goodbye to him, and, predictably, it was a painful reunion, filled with grief from his end, guilt from hers, and silent recriminations that seemed to fill the room like people.

It was hard to know what to say to him, as she walked from room to room, remembering little things and funny moments, and finally she just stood in their bedroom, with tears rolling down her cheeks, staring out the window. The garden was bare, the trees were bereft of leaves, and she didn't even hear him walk into the room behind her. He just stood there, looking at her, lost in his own memories, and when she turned to leave, she was surprised to see him.

I'm going to miss this place, she said, wiping away tears, and he nodded. For once, he wasn't crying. He had been through too much pain, he had lost too much now. He felt almost numb, as she walked slowly toward him.