Charlie and Pearl (9 page)

-
             
About 30 travel brochures for locations as diverse as Thailand, Alaska, Eu
rope,
South America.
I went through a lot to get them as
things
had changed since last I ventured into a shop.
Brochures, from memory, used to be freely available on shelves. Not anymore.
I had to sit down and give over all my details (I gave a fake name, address, DOB – last thing I need is to end up on another
database) and explain where I wanted to go and why, and because I wanted brochures for
a variety of places
I had to pretend I was some kind of ditzy backpacker planning on travelling the world
but without any money issues whatsoever
. The travel ‘consultant’ was a chubby bleached blond with some serious raccoon eyes; mascara smeared
halfway down each cheek and halfway up to her eyebrows
. A corner
shelf on
her desk was piled high with food; miniscule tins of baked beans, packets of biscuits, crackers, all of it
the distinct blue and white weight watcher brand
. From the look of her I didn’t think it was working. The top button on her shirt was straining,
pulled
apart
by
opposing forces, I was scared it was going to pop off and ping me in the face, so I kept leaning to the left a little, out of the direct firing line.

-
             
A new hair cut. Sleek, bobbed, just under my chin. A stupid choice really
, with my naturally curly hair,
as
I would need to straighten it every morning or risk it curling out like
an afro
.

-
             
A packet of hair dye, bitter chocolate brown No# 851

And other assorted goodies such as chocolate (the good stuff, 70% cocoa), more wine, a gorgeous pair of ocean blue fisherman pants (so comfy), Bridget Jones Diary DVD (volume one and two) and a CD of hits from the 90’s, girl power
ballads
.

It was time for a revamp.

I put o
n the CD, cranked it up to LOUD,
dyed my hair, accidentally dying the shower curtain and a couple of spots of the lino as well, (sorry Gran), and boogied
my way round the house.

It was fun, but there was something missing. So I
text Charlie to get
Cushla’s number and shyly sent her a text, asking if she wanted to come over for a bit of a ‘girl’s night’.

“Hell yeah!” she text back, “b there
soon
”

I was worried she might not be into the same things as me, but
I needn’t have. As
it turned out we got on awesomely. Drank some wine, ate some chocolate, drank some more wine, painted out nails. I felt girlie, and pretty again, and carefree, like one of those travelling pants sisterhood girls, or Britney in that crappy road trip movie she made (that I secretly enjoyed).

Later though, when the CD had finished, the chocolate and the wine were all gone and we had watched Bridget drink nine hundred gallons of chardonnay and make out with Colin Firth, Rangi picked
a tipsy
Cushla up and I was left to my own devices once more
.
I walked down to the beach in my fisherman pants, barefoot, the sand cool
and coarse
between my toes
.
I looked at the moon, fat and heavy in the sky, blue on the water, the breeze caressing, and I had a moment where I could have waded out into that water and just...kept on swimming.

CHARLIE

So autumn turned into winter.

Leaves fell, nights
shortened;
dews got heavier, frosts crunchier
.
Y
ou know how it works.

I had a few more ‘non dates’ with Pearl. I couldn’t get past that friends stage.

I picked her up one Sunday and we went to a small beach that I knew at this time of the year would be secluded.
The walk there is
over private land; the owner is a nice enough guy, rarely seen in town
. A real salt of the earth local, bearded and self sufficient.
He doesn’t mind locals going there but he’ll threaten to shoot any out-of-towners who dare try to cross in summer. When we got to the beach she was puffed, breathing heavily and quickly and leaning on the fence. I thought for a second I might have to carry her back but she came right after a few minutes rest. I had planned everything carefully. Wanted to it to be romantic, but not romantic, if you know what I mean. I had a backpack in which I’d packed lunch; breadsticks, fancy crackers, camembert cheese, cracked pepper pate, some sundried tomato hummus (which I tried once and thought tasted like wet paper but which I knew she liked).  A jar of green olives (gross), some Italian Salami (yum), and a chilli and garlic flavoured cheese whose price I was still reeling from
-
$9.89!! for a small round cheese!! But Rangi told me that Cushla bought it every week as her treat so I was hoping Pearl would like it too.

She did.

I also took a bag of twisties, as a backup in case everything else turned out to be yuck. 

We ate the food on a tartan blanket I’d
borrowed from mum’s long unused picnic basket,
and drank a cheap bottle of red wine (I’d blown
my money on the damn cheese
) out of plastic glasses.

After we ate we lay back on the blanket and I watched her adoringly out of the corner of my eye until she dozed off and then I could openly stare.

I’d never met someone so seemingly untouched by the sun before. Did she even tan I wondered? Her face was angular, not what you would think of as conventionally prett
y but pretty all the same. I watched her breathe, her lips slightly parted, the air whistling ever so softly as it passed between. I could have listened to it for hours.

Another
night we drove to the hot pools and hopped from the Jacuzzi (hot) to the big pool (not quite as hot) until our skin wrinkled and turned pink and we laughed because we looked like a pair of 70 year olds. She wouldn’t let us sit in the Jacuzzi for more than the ‘recommended ten minutes’, in case it left us with lasting brain damage.

“It’s true” she insisted, ‘it happened to a friend of a friend”

I gave her a look, “What was his name?”

“Ok so maybe it was a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend, but still, it happened” she said stubbornly.

I’d heard that urban legend myself, growing up, but I didn’t disillusion her.

And then there was the night I drove us to the city and we watched a depressing movie called Revolutionary Road. God it was terrible. I picked it because it had Leonardo Dicaprio and Kate Winslet in, and any guy who knows his stuff knows that girls went gaga over the two of them in Titanic
so
I figured it might be romantic. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Pearl physically stiffened beside me while watching it. I felt her body tense, then sag
wearily
.
Leaning slightly away from me.

Afterwards we drove home in silence. I kept trying to look at her sideways, gauge her mood. I couldn’t
work
out why the movie
had
affected her so much.

I still have no idea. It was just a movie after all.

When I saw her two days later at the weekend she was over it, happy again, smiling. I took her some crayfish that Rangi gave me and we ate it
on her
deck, rugged up in blankets.

We
had a shared love of
food, Pearl and I.
I don’t understand people
who ‘forget’ to eat meals, or who eat because ‘they have to’. Food is an indulgence. Sure, we need to eat to survive, but choosing what we eat is one of life’s greatest luxuries.

Other nights s
he came to my house and I cooked her and mum omelettes, with mushrooms and tomatoes and cheese.
Or I went to her place and
she cooked me a Thai red curry that was spicy
but tasty so I ate every morsel even though my tongue and lips were on fire
and I spent the night sweating most unattractively
.

I spent more time dreaming about her than I did anyone or anything else, and most of my time planning our next ‘date’.

But still, at the end of every night we spent together, when I left because it was clear that it was time to go, I kissed her placidly on the cheek and went home and lay awake remembering every moment, every look. And I longed.

PEARL

Winter is not my favourite season. Not by a long shot. In fact, of the four of them, it’s right there on the bottom, under (in order of preference), Summer, Autumn, Spring.

I’ve never really ‘done’ cold mornings well. Bed is far too cosy, sheets and blankets snuggled up around my neck
or pulled over my head
. Back home
in my flat
my electric blanket comes out of the cupboard late April, and stays on the bed for months.

I dislike cold bathrooms, and the bathroom in the
Beach house
is the coldest one of all.

Like most
old
Kiwi
holiday homes
, the building was built for temporary summer shelter, not to be a year round home. The aluminium roof, the weatherboard walls, they are sturdy, but not warm as such. Why would you need insulation at the beach?

The new homes, the ones that are popping up at beaches settlements all over New Zealand, are worth millions. They are works of art; architectural masterpieces.
I drive up and down coastal roads admiring them and thinking p
eople have either been winning a whole lot of Lotto or
else have jobs where they are paid
huge
amounts of money, unlike I am. Or was.

I notice the season
al
change easily. The heavy dews on the lawn get heavier and one morning I wake up to find
light
dew on my duvet
.
I dragged the old oil column heater from the lounge into my room and that took care of that problem.

Every year I forget exactly how cold winter can be. In the heat of summer it’s easy to gloss over the harder aspects; the crunchy frosts, having to run water over your car windows in the morning to defrost the glass when you’re already late for work and getting water all over your boots, getting home
just after five
and it’s already dark and trying to heat a freezing house. In
the sweltering
summer
heat
you dream of the cosy open fires,
rich hot
chocolate
with marshmallows
, wearing Ugg boots to the supermarket on a Saturday morning
.
Y
es I know, very Bogan, but it’s ok because everyone else is wearing them too
so no one even looks at your twice
.
I draw the line at wearing my pajama bottoms though; sadly, many girls don’t.