Charlie and Pearl (11 page)

After the crematorium we went to the RSA and had drinks and nibbles consisting of club sandwiches
with the crusts cut off
and mini quiches and meat pies and squares of lamingtons, chocolate and strawberry. Charlie
did rounds of the room and
made small talk with the people there while I hung at the back and felt out of place.

And after that we went back to Charlie’s house, to his single bed
with its navy blue sheets and cream duvet
, and we made love.

CHARLIE

Pete would have approved, I know he would have.

Not that I gave him much thought
during the, you know,
happenings
.

Human nature is a weird thing isn’t it. Death makes us think of life.  There is nothing like a funeral to get the blood pumping through your veins, to make every sense stand up tingling and take stock.

When Pearl came back to my house after the funeral I was questioning everything. My life, what I’d done so far, what I hadn’t done, what I should have done. I’m not old but I’ve noticed that the older
I
get the faster time seems to pass. Pete was gone and who was going to miss him? I would, obviously, and his sisters. But they were old woman too and who knows how much longer they would live? Would I still mourn Pete in ten years time? What was the point of Pete’s life?

Questions like this could drive you crazy if you let them. Back at my house I sat on the couch while Pearl found a bottle of Jack Daniels whiskey in the cupboard and poured us a shot each. My mother was still at the service, would probably stay for hours yet with the other old biddies from around town, the ones that only caught up at funerals and weddings.

I had the shot
she gave me
, then another. And then I started telling Pearl about the first time I met Pete, when I walked in off the street
when I was thirteen
and asked him for a job and he
had looked me up and down and
asked me who won the battle of Stalingrad
,
and
of course
I said I had absolutely no idea because really, who does?, and he told me to get the hell out of his shop. So I went back a week later having read up all about it on the internet but this time he wanted me to list the top 10 strategic moves of World War 1 and
said
then
and only then would he
hire me but of course I couldn’t so he told me to get lost again. It
went on like that for the next three
weeks until
finally,
he told me he admired my determination, although not my knowledge of history, and gave me the job.

While I told Pearl this story I started crying, I know, attractive in a guy right, and she started rubbing my back and I leaned into her shoulder and I could smell that coconut smell again and entirely without any control I started to feel aroused so I started to move away from her but then she, and I still can’t believe this bit, she climbed onto my lap until she was straddling me, and she started kissing my tears away. Her breath was hot on my face and my hands were on her hips and she was straining against me.

I can’t tell you what happened next without losing all control of forming sentences and general grammar.

So I won’t
,
b
ecause I can’t, and
also
because a gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell.

But I will say this
.
I
f I didn’t know before today why I was put here on this earth I do now.

PEARL

Who’d have thought it? Not I, that’s for
sure
.

With Adam there was this insane kind of passion between us, this thirst for each other and life and making every minute count for something. With time and hindsight I can admit it was maybe a little bit forced, like we were trying to make something be what we thought it was supposed to be.

I said I wasn’t predisposed to the dramatic. But every boring Nellie wishes for a little more excitement don’t they? And that’s what I think it was with Adam. I loved him like I thought I was supposed to love him. I put him a pedestal because of his ridiculous good looks and I lapped up the envy and admiration we got from other people who saw us as ‘the perfect couple’. 

I may be wrong but I don’t think love is supposed to require so much
thought and
effort
into keeping up appearances
.

I think it’s just supposed to
be
.

Maybe what I needed all along was a normal decent kiwi guy with blond curly hair and baby blue eyes. Too bad it took me so long to realise it.

Watching Charlie speak about Pete with such obvious affection, I had this whole body recognition that here was a guy who would never let me down. Here was a guy that, when he loved someone, he loved them
truly and deeply and
loyally.

So I climbed on top of him and I started kissing his face and then we were in his bed and I was nervous, but I looked into eyes and remembered that this was Charlie
, who had never given me cause for concern but instead spent every minute we were together worrying about me
. And I forgot every single body hang up I ever had, every imperfection suddenly didn’t matter and I wanted him to know me, to see me, to feel me, but at the same time I couldn’t wait a second longer to have him inside me so I guided him into me and then, well,
then I had the most intense
experience of my life and
I
honestly
thought I might cry from the beauty of it
.
I watched him in wonder
while he moved inside me
,
his eyes
locked
into my eyes, except
for
when he
climaxed
; then they rolled back into his head and his mouth formed a neat O and a drop of sweat from his forehead dripped onto mine which, normally, I would be disgusted by but because it was Charlie’s I
wasn’t at all grossed out so I
took it as a sign that
my
body was
accepting
his
and I clenched myself
even
tighter around him.

After our breathing got back to normal he
snuggled in
beside me
and pulled me in tight against him, tucked under his arm. I liked that he automatically moved me to the wall side of the bed. Protected. He nuzzled his face into my hair, inhaling me. His tummy pressed into my back.
Under a roof painted with glow in the dark stars, in the bedroom of a boy I’d known for a short time
but who was already more familiar to me than myself, f
or the first time in a
long time I feel asleep easily
.

“I love you” he whispered as I drifted off.

And I had nothing I could say to that, so
I pretended not to hear.

CHARLIE

I will never be able to sleep al
one in my bed again. How can you go through life,
not know
ing
that you have been missing somethin
g so fundamentally important
until
suddenly
you
have
it
,
and then the acute sense of being without it for so long is suddenly
also
there but dulled by the fact it’s there now
? The feel of Pearls warm body nestled in
beside
mine, my knees tucked into the curve of hers. I lay awake for ages just listening to her breathe. It amazes me how deeply she sleeps; she didn’t even wake when mum opened the door to check on me, which I would like to point out is not normal behaviour but a one off thing because of Pete
’s passing
.

“Mum!” I hissed.

Her eyebrows lifted as she clocked the situation, “Sorry! Sorry!” she whispered, smiling, backing out
clumsily and
knocking a hanger off the back of the door which clattered noisily to the floor. We both winced.

I tightened my grip around Pearl, listened to her murmur in her dreams, smiled, and slept.

It got even better after that first time, when we weren’t clouded by grief and Jack Daniels. Every time we climbed into bed together I felt like I was unwrapping a Christmas present, and I would gaze at her and feel like the luckiest man in the world to be able to touch her, kiss her. Her body
thin, graceful
, her ribs sometimes poked me when we were arched
together, but she was gorgeous
.

I couldn’t believe how natural it felt to make love to her. Past experience, admittedly limited, made me think that making love was rather a quick, awkward, sticky affair. Both times I hadn’t felt the girl particularly wanted me there,
sensing that
the face looking over my shoulder
was
kind of bored and clearly wanting me to just get it over and done with quickly, to which I, eager to not disappoint, obliged. With Pearl we stared into each other’s eyes; we made love with the light on.

PEARL

We went from zero to one hundred overnight, and you know what? It felt...normal
, nothing out of the ordinary, just an everyday occurrence. We slipped into coupledom as easily as if it had been our intention all along.
Even so, we are like chalk and cheese.

I like romantic movies, chick flicks. At a stretch I will watch an action movie, like a cop or spy one.
He likes horrors, and seemed surprised when I didn’t want to watch all the Saw movies in a Friday night marathon. I hate horrors; they scare the shit out of me.

“They’re not real” he said

“They
could
be though, that’s the scary part”

“Just
watch
one, I promise I’ll protect you”

But I refused. “You can’t unsee something once you’ve seen it” I told him, “I’d have nightmares forever”. I didn’t tell him that I still checked the toilet for baby crocodiles before sitting on it as a result of a movie Tania and I snuck out of our rooms and
saw
some of
when we were about six. We hid behind the couch and watched it and I have NEVER forgotten it. Parents underestimate the damage something like that can do to a kid.

He hates my girlie films.

“Girls don’t really think like that” he scoffed watching Bridget Jones and her friends
plotting ways
for attracting, and keeping, men. Then he looked at me,
slightly worried,
“do they?”

There are other differences between us as well.

I eat my food fast, Charlie takes forever. He joke
s
that I have must a cast iron mouth, because I
can
wolf my food down and be done in less than
ten
minutes while he
will
still be blowing on his to cool it down.