Charlie and Pearl (17 page)

Tonight’s the night. I’ve been planning it for two weeks solid for every waking hour it feels like, and Charlie has been super supportive from the sidelines. I got the idea from an evening
a friend of mine
went to once and told me about. It was held at a book store and they got to drink champagne and listen to some well known authors. She said it was great, although she drank so much champagne and refused to buy any of the books (because they were
utter
crap she said) so they asked her politely to leave.

I proposed to Charlie that we hold one here, but he said it sounded a bit ‘fancy’ and wasn’t really something he thought our ‘clientele’ would go for. So I thought about it some more and suggested that we make it a Books and Beer night instead, and instead of well known authors (because I didn’t know any) we get some local talent in and make it a competition night of sorts, like Karaoke but with short stories and poems. The audience would be the judge and the prizes wo
uld be vouchers, or something
. 

“Ok,” he said, “But how about we call it Poetry, Piss and...What’s another word starting with P?”

“No”

Getting people interested proved difficult at first. I made posters up on the computer at work and put them up in other shop windows.

“How lovely” said Julie from the gallery next door, and a glint came into her eye, “I dabble in the art of the written word myself, as it happens, erotic poetry.”

“Er...great” I said

“I suppose it’s not quite what you had in mind though”

“Not at all!
Please come, we’d love you to
read us something”

“Oh well if you insist my dear, now, however will I
narrow it down to choose
just one?”

Putting the posters up at the pub produced the response Charlie predicted. “We’ll be laughed out of town,” he said, “You wait and see”.

And laugh
they did. These big, burly men
drinking beer out of jugs watched with interest as I pinned the posters on the board and cello taped them to the windows.

“What’s this?” one asked.

I explained.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha, they all said.

“As if!” one hollered.

“That’s sissy stuff!” said another.

“Poetry’s for nerds”

“I
aint
never even read a book and you expect me to write one?”

“There will be free beer,” I said, “and
probably
chips”

There was a pause while glances were exchanged.

“Which day is it again?”

CHARLIE

Oh how I’ve loved watching Pearl plan this Books and Beer night. She’s been obsessed with it, planning, preparing, ticking things off her list. Several times I’ve heard her mumble stuff in her sleep that makes me think she’s planning it
during that time as well
.

“Do you really think it will work?” she asked me for about the hundredth time, as she hauled a giant chilly bin we borrowed off Raj in the fish’n’chip shop behind the table she had set up, ready to distribute the beers. She’d roped Cushla in to do the distributing, and Rangi was on door duty.

“Don’t let anyone who’s obviously intoxicated in” she
’d
told him.

“In this town?” he
scoffed
, can of Tui safely nestled in one hand. “I thought you wanted people to come”.

“It will be great babe” I reassured her. Although secretly I was worried that no one would turn up. Really worried. I’d known these people longer than she had.
I was worried it was a little too far out even for them and
I couldn’t stand for her to get her heart broken.

I take it all back. These people I have known my whole life, who think wearing jeans to the pub is “flashing it up” and who voted against doing up the heavily potholed road around the roundabout last year because “we’d rather the money was spent on fireworks for the New Years display”, really came through for me tonight.

At 6.30pm, the time advertised on the posters, the street was empty, and Pearl was downcast. At 6.50pm, a steady trickle of people started wandering in, laughing and joking and clearly ready for a good night.

And a good night it was.

People I never expected in a million years got up on the makeshift stage and read out their stories, admittedly mostly hunting yarns, and long ones at that, but the audience was respectful and appreciative.  Whistling and gasping
and jeering
at the right moments. Clapping and cheering.

Julie’s poem went down a storm. Whew, the language! When she finished I looked around the room and more than a few of the toughest guys in town were looking at the floor and blushing.

We judged the winners by the volume of the audience cheers and Pearl presented them with a bottle of wine each with a red ribbon tied round the neck, and a $40 voucher for the shop, “not redeemable on lotto tickets” I hurriedly got up and added.

By
ten,
most people
had left
,
although
a few hung around to help us clean up and rearrange the furniture back into place. The general consensus as people left was that it was a “choice night” and even “worth missing Shortland Street for.” High praise indeed.

Pearl was tired though,
completely
worn out by it. She slept heavily that night and the next morning she didn’t stir at all when the alarm went off, or when I got up and showered, dressed, boiled the jug.

Besides, Pearl can be a bit, what’s the word, dramatic some mornings when things don’t go her way. For a start there’s the whole timing thing. A typical day goes like this: When the alarm goes
off I nudge her, and she mumbles back at me “Just ten more minutes...” So I push snooze, and we cuddle. When the alarm goes off a second time I try and encourage her to think about getting up. “It’s alright,” she says, “I know what I’m wearing, I only need 5 minutes to do my makeup and my hair can go another day without a wash, I’ll just stick it up in a ponytail or something.  It’ll be fine.”

Then she finally gets up and the reality is much, much different. The top/skirt/jeans she planned on wearing are nowhere to be found, and after ten minutes of fruitless searching during which she gets more and more hysterical, telling me that she is “over this crap” and that it is “ten minutes of her life that she will never get back!” I finally find it underneath the mountains of clothes casually thrown into the corner but it’s wrinkly and doesn’t smell too fresh so substitute top/skirt/jeans must be found, and as we haven’t done any washing for, oh, about two weeks, pickings are slim.

Makeup goes quite smoothly, although for some reason she always chooses mornings like this, when time is already stretched to the limit, to try ‘something different’ and her hoped for smoky eye effect that she has tried to replicate from a magazine looks more like she went ten rounds with David Tua in the ring, although of course I don’t tell her this. Instead I tell her she looks “lovely” wh
ich as we all know is code for ‘
you’re
teetering
on the
very
edge
of the precipice
and I know I have to tread
very
carefully
, so please don’t yell at me’
.

So I crept out and left her sleeping, a note on the table
signed simply with a kiss.

PEARL

The Books and Beer night really took it out of me. You know how sometimes when you’re so excited about
an event, be it a birthday party, wedding or graduation,
you pretty much live on excitement and anticipation
in the build up to it
? That was me and afterwards I was totally depleted. Spent.

I woke up at 11.50am the next day and Charlie, kind, considerate Charlie had gone to work and left
me to rest. He might act like an idiot
most of the time, but he’s
my sweet idiot
.

I dragged my duvet out to couch and curled up there. Winter rays of sun
shine shafted though the window, casting stripes across the floor and my face
and
lulling me back to sleep with their warmth.

I slept again until Charlie came home.

I didn’t even make the connection. Or maybe I did but didn’t want to admit it?

Either way, I was stupid.

CHARLIE

When I came home she was still sleeping; knackered, she told me, from all the preparation she’d done for the night at the Book shop. She was warm and toasty and soft when she reached up her arms and wrapp
ed them around my neck, muzzling her face under my chin
and causing me to forget any concerns.

“I’ve got plans for us tomorrow” she murmured

“Oh yeah?”

“Yep, hope you’ve got your strength up”

“For...?’

“I guess you’ll have to wait and see”

I cooked her spaghetti and meat
balls, my own secret recipe (ok,
BBQ sauce and grated cheese INSIDE the meatballs
make them moist and to die for
) then we watched the Biggest Loser (Australian) and went to bed.

“Are you sure we’re up for this?” I asked her the next day as she zipped up her lifejacket.

“Well I am. Are you chickening out on me?”

“No, not...chickening out. Although, are you sure these guys know what they’re doing?” I looked doubtfully at the bronzed, wiry men dragging the rafts down near the entry point to the water; the black, (apart from the
churning
white frothy bits), bottomless, furious water.

“Of course they do, they’re pros”

“Right”

She looked at me, knowingly, “Charlie, millions of people do this every day and they survive”

“Millions?”

“You know what I mean”

“This is not what I had in mind you know, when you said you had a surprise for us”

“Why? What were you expecting?”

“I don’t know, just not this”. I did know though. I had been expecting another romantic remote picnic somewhere, just the two of us. And when she had said I needed my strength I’d hoped she’d meant for...you know...touchy feely stuff.

“Right everyone” the instructor called, “let’s get going shall we!”

“Um” I raised my hand, like I was back in high school. I’m sure I heard a few groans from the group.

“Yes?” Ken (our lead instructor) asked.

“Can we maybe just run over the safety protocols one more time? Just to be sure I’ve got them down pat”.