Charlie (35 page)

Charlie was put to work beside Rita and Jenny. Rita was a small redhead with a big bust, and a good bit older than the rest of the staff. Charlie wondered fleetingly why she chose to wear middle-aged woman’s clothes, no makeup and had her red hair tied back in such an unflattering way. With a bit of effort she could look very attractive, but instead she looked like a missionary.

Jenny was a student, working there for the holidays. She was plain and thin with thick spectacles, and like almost everyone apart from Rita, she wore jeans and a tee-shirt.

Rita spoke first. ‘Don’t look so glum,’ she said with a cheerful grin. ‘Once the Hag’s gone out it’s not so bad.’

‘Is she always so rude?’ Charlie whispered. She had already worked out for herself that noise and chatter weren’t approved of by the Hag.

‘You haven’t seen anything yet,’ Rita whispered back. ‘One blast of her breath would strip wallpaper.’

Jenny giggled at this. ‘Rita’s the only one of us brave enough to stand up to her. The rest of us grovel. Martin will train you in that, he’s aiming at an honours degree in arse-licking and kow-towing.’

Charlie felt heartened by both the girls’ sense of humour. Rita was particularly intriguing; her appearance was off-putting, but anyone who could make off-the-cuff, funny remarks and stand up to the boss, sounded worth getting to know better. She thought it might prove an interesting job after all.

At twelve-thirty the Hag came out of her office. ‘Martin!’ she bellowed.

Martin left his post at a light-box and hurried up to her. Charlie was too far away to hear what was being said, but when the woman came striding down the room, casting malevolent looks at anyone who dared so much as glance at her, Charlie saw Martin was grinning and surmised that meant the Hag was going out.

There was a deathly hush for a few minutes after the door slammed behind her. Charlie wondered why. She was soon to discover the reason, however, for Martin crossed over to the window and looked out.

‘She’s getting in a taxi!’ he called out. ‘It’s pulling away!’

Suddenly everything changed. The noise level went from utter silence to several decibels with chatter, laughter and chairs scraping on the tiled floor. Some of the staff picked up tiny catapults made from paper clips and rubber bands and began flicking scraps of paper around.

‘Did she say how long she would be?’ Rita yelled out across the room to Martin.

‘She was her usual evasive self,’ he shouted back. ‘Said maybe an hour, but she’ll be a lot longer than that because she sprayed herself with perfume before she went. That means she’s off to get laid.’

‘Who on earth would want to screw her?’ a young lad with red hair working one of the processing machines yelled out. ‘I’d turn queer if she was the last woman left on earth.’

Martin galloped across the room towards Charlie, caught hold of her hand and made her stand up. ‘Never mind who’s weird enough to fancy shagging the Hag, let’s all welcome Charlie, the latest Christian to be thrown to the lions.’

Charlie could hardly believe what she was seeing and hearing. Everyone came crowding towards her, clapping their hands, stamping their feet and shouting things as diverse as ‘Poor cow’, ‘Tell us about yourself’ and ‘What a pretty girl like you doing here?’

Martin rapped on the table with a pair of scissors for silence. ‘You have to speak. It’s tradition for newcomers,’ he said, looking at Charlie. ‘Don’t flunk it and giggle. We want to know a little bit about you.’

Charlie felt as if she was blushing from her head right down to her toes, yet the warmth and camaraderie of this group touched her. ‘As you can see for yourselves I’m half Chinese,’ she said. ‘I’m eighteen, just up from Devon. I’m living in a flat in Hornsey with three other girls. My interests are drinking cider, Pink Floyd, and finding out where my father is.’

She had no idea what made her say that about her father. It just sprang out from nowhere. On reflection later, she supposed it was perhaps the need to make herself sound interesting, and if that had been her aim, she was soon to find that it worked.

Martin ordered everyone back to work after a few minutes, but the room didn’t return to silence. Jokes and gossip were shouted around the room, drowning the sounds of the machines. At first Charlie found it difficult to concentrate on marking the films while questions were fired at her from all directions, but when she saw everyone else was capable of working at their previous speed whilst talking, she soon made herself master it too.

Rita was clearly interested by Charlie’s remark about her father, and insisted that she explained herself. Charlie kept the story as a simple mystery, she didn’t mention the bankruptcy, or that her mother had since killed herself. Apart from being reluctant to discuss things she still found painful, she was determined that she wasn’t going to become an object of anyone’s pity again.

‘I haven’t actually got the first idea how to set about finding out the truth,’ she finished up, rather surprised to find Jenny and Rita were both hanging on her every word. ‘All I’ve got to go on is a newspaper cutting of one of Dad’s old clubs and the name of his mistress.’

At half past one, Martin told Rita and Charlie to have their lunch break, leaving Jenny to finish unpacking the last few films.

‘What do you want to do?’ Rita asked Charlie as she got up. ‘I usually just go into the rest room for some coffee and a fag, but if you’re hungry we could buy a sandwich and sit outside and eat it in the sunshine.’

Charlie was starving, she hadn’t even bothered with any breakfast that morning because the kitchen was such a mess again. They bought corned beef rolls and cans of Coke, then went into St Giles’s churchyard to eat them.

‘How long have you been at Haagman’s?’ Charlie asked. She had already observed that almost the entire staff were students. It seemed peculiar that Rita, who was so very different to them, fitted in so well.

‘Just three months,’ she said. ‘I was sent there by a temping agency, but I took a permanent job because the Hag offered me more money. I quite like it, we have a lot of laughs and there’s none of that backbiting stuff you get in most offices. You see, I don’t fit in many places.’

There was absolutely no reason for Charlie to ask why. The reason was as plain as the nose on her face. But she asked anyway.

Rita laughed. ‘You’ll understand when you know me better,’ she said. ‘You see, the inner me doesn’t match my clothes, and it makes some people very uncomfortable.’

Charlie was puzzled. ‘Well, why wear them then?’

To Charlie’s surprise Rita stood up in front of her, whisked the rubber band from her hair and ran her fingers through it. It was fiery and dramatic falling in waves over her shoulders. ‘Do you see now?’

Charlie saw then what she was getting at. Setting aside the dowdy clothes, Rita was like a Fifties pin-up girl. Slim hips, tiny waist and big breasts, she looked undeniably racy.

‘Yes, I can see, but if I had a figure like yours I’d show it off,’ Charlie said.

‘No, you wouldn’t, you’d soon get tired of men pinching your bottom and trying to grope you,’ Rita said with a shrug. ‘How old do you think I am?’

‘About twenty-five,’ Charlie said.

Rita sat down again, took a brush from her bag and whisked her hair back into the original style. ‘I ought to take that as a compliment, yet it doesn’t seem like one. I’m thirty-two, Charlie. If I dress like this I look like I’m wearing my mother’s clothes. Yet if I wear anything else, I look like a tart, and I attract the wrong kind of attention and women hate me for it. You’re very lucky, Charlie, you’re not only beautiful, but you have class. Men are a little in awe of that.’

‘Oh, I don’t know about that,’ Charlie laughed.

‘Well, I do. Sometimes I think I know everything there is to know about men. Your story about your father puzzles me though. From the little you said I can’t imagine why he disappeared. Men don’t usually leave their wives for a mistress, especially not when they’ve had her for years.’

Charlie wondered if she’d done the right thing telling this woman so much. She was very odd, in fact she’d never met anyone so forthright, and it made her a little nervous. ‘What do you think happened to him then?’ she asked.

‘I couldn’t possibly guess, not without knowing a great deal more about him, and your mother. But you’re very young, Charlie, you’re still hurt and puzzled by his disappearance, and you’re trying to start a new life in London which is the best thing you could do. I doubt very much that you want a woman almost old enough to be your mother sticking her nose in. But I hope we can be friends and maybe in time you’ll feel like telling me the rest of it.’

Charlie found herself warming to Rita as she went on to ask her about her flat and the other girls. As Charlie described her first night out with her flatmates she became aware by Rita’s astute comments that she understood both Charlie’s reservations and the other girls’ attitude.

‘You don’t have to follow them to fit in,’ she said. ‘But on the other hand there’s nothing worse in a flat-sharing situation where one girl is po-faced and disapproving, because it makes the others feel guilty. What you have to do, if going out and pulling men isn’t your bag, is to avoid those kinds of nights out, but find some other time to spend with the girls and get to know them better.’

Charlie felt able then to admit to her embarrassment when she’d brought Andrew back to the flat the previous night. ‘The whole flat was a tip again, aside from mine and Anne’s room. Meg was walking around in something that looked like a petticoat, she didn’t even have any knickers on.’

Rita smirked. ‘I shouldn’t worry about what Andrew thinks,’ she shrugged. ‘Men don’t notice mess the way women do, especially when they’re young. But the important thing to remember, Charlie, is that you didn’t come to London to sink into some kind of middle-aged, suburban bliss. You came to have fun, to be part of a young scene. So forget about doing the washing-up, or hoovering the carpets, you can get into that when you’re my age. Let yourself go, buy a few outrageous clothes, get off to those pop concerts and see the latest films. I don’t want to hear you’ve been sitting alone darning your socks and waiting for Andrew to finish work.’

They chatted on until it was time to go back to work. But as they got up from the seat, Rita suddenly turned to Charlie and caught hold of her hand. ‘You’re going to think me very nosy saying this,’ she said. ‘But are you on the Pill?’

Charlie blushed. ‘No, but then I don’t need to be.’

Rita looked hard at Charlie, and saw her for what she really was. A young, somewhat innocent girl straight out of school. She wouldn’t come to much harm at Haagman’s, half the staff were much the same as her, but the girls she was flat-sharing with sounded a different story. She didn’t know why she should suddenly feel involved, or so protective, but she did. Perhaps it was just because she could have done with some sound advice when she first left home herself.

‘That sounds to me like
I’m not doing that with him
. But I can tell by the way you speak about Andrew that you soon will be. Get yourself on the Pill now, Charlie, don’t wait until you find yourself in bed with him and hope he’ll take some precautions,’ she said with a smile. ‘If I had a pound for every girl I know who’s done that and found herself pregnant, I wouldn’t be working at Haagman’s now.’

Charlie swallowed her pride. She knew Rita was right. ’But how do I get it? she asked.

‘Easily. There’s the Brook Clinic or the Family Planning Association, either of them will sort you out. Or go to your doctor and ask him. I’d recommend the Brook, because they don’t ask awkward questions. You can find their address and phone number in the phone book.’

‘Okay,’ Charlie said. ‘I will.’

Rita grinned and took her arm. ‘Not next week, or the week after, now, immediately. It takes time before it works and you have to start a course on the fourth day of your period. Now, let’s get back into the madhouse and catch up before the Hag gets back and finds we’ve been slacking.’

Chapter Eleven

Three weeks after Charlie had moved into the flat in Hornsey, she was at Jack Straw’s Castle in Hampstead, waiting for Andrew to finish work. She had arrived about one o’clock, imagining they would go out for the afternoon, but now at two-thirty it was raining hard.

‘I think it’s set in for the rest of the day,’ Andrew said gloomily as he locked the bar door behind the last customer. ‘I suppose we could go to the pictures.’

Charlie was sitting on a stool up at the bar; they were alone apart from John, one of the other barmen, who was wiping down tables and collecting ashtrays. ‘We’ll get soaked,’ she said. ‘I haven’t even brought a raincoat or umbrella with me.’

Andrew didn’t reply but opened the door which led to the public bar to check if Carol, the landlady, was in there. As the towels were over the pumps and all the lights turned off, he guessed she’d gone up to her flat.

‘We could go upstairs to my room,’ he suggested hesitantly.

Charlie knew the bar staff weren’t allowed to have anyone up in their rooms. ‘I don’t want you to get into trouble,’ she said, but her heart leapt at the thought of what being alone would mean.

Since her first weekend in Hornsey, they had snatched every available hour they could together, but because of Andrew’s work, in practice this amounted only to afternoons at the weekends, and late-night visits at the flat. There was precious little opportunity for any privacy, the girls were always at the flat, usually with a crowd of their noisy friends.

‘For you I’ll take the risk.’ Andrew grinned mischievously. He arranged the wet tea-towels over the pumps, then came back round the bar and went over to John. ‘Don’t let on to Carol if you see her, will you?’

John was another student, like Andrew working there for the summer. He was thin and studious-looking with glasses. ‘My lips are sealed,’ he said with a warm smile. ‘If asked where you went I’ll play dumb.’

It was scary following Andrew up the back stairs to the staff bedrooms in the attic. Their footsteps on the uncarpeted stairs sounded very loud and Charlie half expected Carol to come bursting indignantly out of one of the many doors and order them out.