Whiskey & Charlie (14 page)

“Well…” Charlie began, but he didn't get any further. He felt awkward about having to speak so directly about something everyone in his family understood but nobody mentioned. He couldn't think of a tactful way to explain to Rosa that in his experience, when two people didn't get on with each other, they inevitably didn't get on with each other's wives either.

“I would like to be straight with you, Charlie,” Rosa said.

Charlie braced himself. Rosa had already been a great deal straighter about things than Charlie felt comfortable with. Unfortunately, he didn't have an opportunity to tell her this, because she'd already launched into a speech.

“You and Whiskey are brothers, Charlie,” she began. “You are family, whether you like this or not. And your family is never going away. Always it is somebody's birthday or somebody's wedding, somebody is born or somebody dies, and there they are, hanging around like a bad smell. Sooner or later you have to see them, even if you do not want to. That is how it is with families, in Peru, in Australia, it make no difference. And now I am Whiskey's wife, I am part of your family also. And my feeling is, if we have to see each other, why don't we try to like each other as much as we can? Whatever happen between you and Whiskey is in the past. It has nothing to do with me. When I meet you at your mother's you seem like a decent person, and I like Juliet also. Whiskey is going away for the weekend, and I will be alone. So what do you think? Will you come and have lunch with me?”

Charlie did not know what surprised him more: the way she said such complicated things in such a matter-of-fact way, her use of the expression
hanging
around
like
a
bad
smell
, or the fact that her twisted logic somehow made sense to him.

“Does Whiskey know you're calling me?” Charlie asked once he had managed to gather himself together.

“Whiskey and I do not keep secrets,” Rosa said proudly.

“But what does he think of it?” Charlie persisted.

“He does not like it too much,” she said reluctantly. “But he is my husband. He is not my boss. I make my own choices.”

“I don't want to cause trouble between you and Whiskey.”

“That is not for you to worry about, Charlie,” Rosa said stubbornly. “There will not be any trouble, and if there is, it will be my own trouble. Now please tell to me that you come to lunch, or I start to think you are going to be a difficult brother.”

Charlie heard the mischief in her voice. He laughed. “You're not going to take no for an answer, are you?”

It was Rosa's turn to laugh. “You are correct, Charlie. I can see you are begin to understand me.”

“Okay, Rosa,” Charlie said, wondering what on earth he was getting himself into.

x x x

“Do you think she knows I went out with Whiskey first?” Juliet asked on their way there.

“God knows what Whiskey's told her,” Charlie said grimly, already regretting the fact that he had agreed to this little get-together. “It's only lunch though,” he said, trying to reassure himself as much as Juliet. “We'll keep it as short as we can, and hopefully we can avoid any contentious subjects.”

As it turned out, there was no chance at all of keeping it short. Rosa had chilled two bottles of wine and prepared three courses of traditional Peruvian dishes, and Charlie saw at once that after she had gone to so much trouble, they couldn't possibly leave early without insulting her, and he didn't want that. He resigned himself to being stuck there for several hours and having to wade through all manner of uncomfortable and awkward topics that she might see fit to dredge up.

But Rosa didn't say anything about Whiskey, and after a couple of glasses of wine, Charlie felt himself relaxing. Rosa told them about Peru, about her family, her first impressions of Australia. She wanted to know about their jobs, their social lives, Juliet's family.

“My goodness, Charlie, every time I look at you, I have to make a reminder to myself that you are not Whiskey,” Rosa said as she cleared their plates after the main course. “It is crazy that you are so alike. My eyes still cannot believe it!”

For dessert she served churros, which were doughnuts shaped like heads of corn, coated in sugar and filled with caramel.

“What are you trying to do to us, Rosa?” Charlie asked. “If I eat another one of these, I'm sure I'll have to get carted out on a stretcher, but I can't help myself.”

“That is good, Charlie,” Rosa said. “I want to make you defenseless, because I have a favor to ask.”

Charlie looked up, immediately tense. He knew what she was going to say. She wanted him to meet Whiskey and talk things over; she wanted the four of them to meet up and talk things over; she wanted them to resolve their differences, bury the hatchet, shake hands, make friends. This whole lunch had been moving toward it, and he hadn't noticed; he'd let his guard down. He could have kicked himself.

“I wonder if you will help me with my English,” Rosa said, suddenly timid.

Charlie laughed with relief.

“What is funny?” Rosa asked.

“Oh, nothing,” Charlie said, “nothing.”

“Well, I know you are a teacher,” Rosa said uncertainly. “But I am not asking for proper lessons. All I want is for you to talk with me and correct to me when I make a mistake.”

Juliet frowned at Charlie. “I'm sure Charlie would be happy to help you, wouldn't you, Charlie?” she said.

“Of course, Rosa,” he said, recovering himself. “But your English is already excellent.”

Rosa shook her head. “Excellent is not enough,” she said. “I want to be perfect.”

“I'm at your service,” Charlie said.

x x x

“I think that went really well,” Juliet said as they got into the car.

“It could have been worse,” Charlie agreed.

“Oh, come on, Charlie!” she said. “You were having a good time. I could see that you were. You like her, don't you?”

Charlie had imagined that if Whiskey ever did get married, it would be to someone from the same glamorous, vacuous circles he moved in, someone Charlie would have nothing at all to say to. But Juliet was right.

“I do like her,” he said reluctantly. “But I don't see what difference it makes whether we like her or not. We don't get on with Whiskey, and we're not going to be socializing with them.”

“Speak for yourself, Charlie,” Juliet said gently.

“All right then, if you want to split hairs.
I
don't like Whiskey, and
I
don't want to socialize with them.”

“I know all that, Charlie. But think of the position she's in. She's a long way from home, and other than Whiskey, we're the only people she knows. I think she could use some friends.”

“Well, she'll have to look elsewhere,” Charlie said. “It's only going to make things more awkward if we become friends with her.”

“That's only one way to look at it, Charlie.”

Charlie rolled his eyes. “What's the other way then?”

“Don't you think there's a chance that our being friends with Rosa might improve your relationship with Whiskey?”

“The only way to change my relationship with Whiskey would be for him to become a decent human being.”

“He can't be as bad as you make out, Charlie.”

“He's worse, Juliet. You don't know the things about him that I know.”

“Well, why don't you tell me then? What's he done to you that's so unforgivable?”

Not for the first time, Charlie contemplated telling Juliet what Whiskey had said to his mother about her when they first got together. It would certainly be easier for him if she understood. But he also knew how sensitive she was. There was no sense in hurting her to score points against Whiskey.

“You're better off not knowing,” Charlie said.

Juliet turned away from him to look out the window.

“Look,” Charlie said eventually, “if you want to see Rosa, if you feel that's what you need to do, go ahead. But don't ask me to get involved. I know you don't understand, but I can't do what you're asking. Can you accept that?”

“He's your brother,” Juliet said. “It's your choice.”

Charlie was the first to receive his letter, a hand-addressed envelope with a Canadian stamp. He hardly ever got personal mail, and he had never been to Canada, didn't know anyone who lived there, couldn't even think of anyone who might be passing through. Yet it was addressed to him; there was no mistake.

He opened the envelope, unfolded four handwritten pages of that curly script peculiar to the French. The letter was from a Mike Lawrence, a man who claimed to be Charlie's brother, adopted at birth and brought up by French Canadian parents in Quebec. As he read the first page, Charlie thought someone was playing a prank on him, some absurd and elaborate joke. By the third page, Charlie thought the letter must be real, only meant for a different Charlie Ferns, some other poor sap with a long-lost brother he had never known about. But when he came to the end of the letter and took the photo out of the envelope, Charlie knew it was neither a joke nor a case of mistaken identity, for the man in the picture looked too much like him for there to be any doubt.

Charlie knew that all families had secrets: griefs and grievances left unspoken in the hope that they will one day be forgotten. Charlie had believed his family already had their share. But it seemed it was not enough that his parents didn't speak to each other, that he and Whiskey didn't speak to each other. Now there was something else: a lost sibling, a secret more than thirty years old, that even now, Charlie was sure, no one wanted told.

Charlie read the letter through three times, and then he folded it back into the envelope with the photo and threw it in the paper rack, a place he knew Juliet never looked. In the letter, the man called Mike, whom Charlie could not begin to think of as his brother, said he was also writing to Whiskey—though he called him William—and to their mother. But Charlie wasn't concerned about that. He was almost certain not one of them would mention it, that if they all trod carefully, they could creep past this mess.

What Charlie had not counted on was Rosa.

“Did you get your letter, Charlie?” she asked without preamble when she called him the following day.

“What letter?”

“Don't bullshit me, Charlie, the letter from your brother Michael.”

“He's not my brother.”

“Didn't you look at the photo?”

“Well, he looks like us, so what? That doesn't make him our brother.”

“He is your brother, Charlie.”

“You don't know that for sure, Rosa. There's no proof, whatever the photo suggests.”

“It is true, Charlie. I spoke to Audrey.”

“You what?”

“I telephoned your Auntie Audrey. She told to me the whole story.”

“Jesus, Rosa, you had no right to do that. This is between me and Whiskey and our mother. It's up to us if we want to respond to these ridiculous letters.”

“Oh, please, Charlie. Not one of you would have done a single thing. And this poor man would have been waiting and waiting to hear from you. Can you imagine how that would make him feel? Have you even thought about how much courage it would have taken to write those letters?”

“It's none of your business, Rosa. This is about
our
family. If we decide not to write to him, that's
our
choice.”

Charlie hung up. He had never hung up on anyone in his life. His heart was racing. He found the envelope in the paper rack and tore the letter into small pieces, page by page.

x x x

When Juliet came home, he was lying on the bed, reading her childhood copy of
Winnie-the-Pooh
.

“Are you okay?” she asked, touching the back of his neck.

“I'm fine.” He forced a smile. “Why wouldn't I be?”

Juliet looked at him hard. “Rosa told me about the letter, Charlie.”

“Fucking Rosa,” he said. “I don't want to talk about that letter, okay?”

“Don't get angry, Charlie. Can I read it at least?”

“I threw it away.”

Juliet got up to go to the trash.

“I tore it up and threw it in the trash can, Juliet. Can you leave it alone, please?”

“You tore it up?” Juliet sounded shocked. “Why on earth would you do that?”

Charlie said nothing.

Juliet sat back down. “I can't believe you weren't going to tell me this, Charlie.”

“I was going to tell you. I needed some time, that's all.”

“Are you going to write to him?”

“I haven't decided yet.”

“You're not going to, are you?”

“Jesus, Juliet, not you as well. So what if I'm not? He's my brother. That makes it my decision. It's nothing to do with you, or with Rosa. It's between me and my family.”

Juliet stood up. “I may not be your wife, Charlie, but I would have hoped that after all this time you might have come to think of me as part of your family.”

She left the room, closing the door sharply behind her.

x x x

A few days later, Audrey came to see him during recess at the school where he worked, something she had never done in all the years he had worked there, though she lived only streets away.

“I'm on my way to the shops,” she said. “I thought you might want to come for a coffee.”

“I can't,” Charlie said. “I'm on yard duty.” He had never been grateful for yard duty before.

“I'm sure someone will swap with you, won't they? Tell them it's a family emergency.”

Charlie raised his eyebrows. He knew why Audrey had come, but he hadn't expected her to be so bald about it.

“I'd hardly call it an emergency,” he said. “It's waited more than thirty years already.”

“You must want to know, Charlie.”

He smiled grimly. “I'll let you know if I do.”

x x x

According to the letter, Mike was an only child. The couple who came to be his parents was already in their midthirties when they adopted him and took him to live in Quebec. They were loving in a reserved sort of way, the letter said, a librarian and a civil servant who worked in the same jobs all their lives.

Mike had always known he was adopted; he had been told as soon as he was old enough to understand. When his adoptive parents first told him, they encouraged him to ask questions about his adoption, but he couldn't think of any questions then. At the age of seven, he couldn't imagine any life other than the one he was living, and he didn't want to try. When he was older, he began to wonder about his biological parents, and in particular, to wonder if somewhere in the world he had brothers and sisters. But by then, he felt that it was too late to ask. He loved his parents, and he didn't want to hurt them by making them feel that they weren't enough for him.

When he was twenty-seven, Mike had received a letter explaining that a change in the law now allowed adoptees to trace and contact their biological parents, if they wished. Mike's adopted father, Greg, was already dead, killed in a boating accident five years earlier. But it wasn't until his daughters were born that Mike decided to look for his biological parents.

It took him fourteen months to find them, Mike said in the letter, an endless paper trail through government departments in England, Canada, and finally Australia; fourteen months during which Mike worked all day as a graphic designer and made phone calls and searched Internet directories at night after the girls were fed and put to bed.

Even once he had found them all, knew their names and birthdays and even their addresses, he still didn't do anything about it. It wasn't until a year after his adoptive mother Gloria's death that he finally wrote the letters.

x x x

Charlie tried hard not to think about Mike's letter. Neither Whiskey nor his mother had mentioned it, and he refused to discuss it with Juliet. But eventually his curiosity got the better of him, and he went around to see Audrey.

Charlie thought he knew as much about his parents' courtship as any child knows—which was barely anything. He and Whiskey had always been told that their parents had come from the same town, gone to the same school, that their father had had to wait until he got a job before they could get married. Now he didn't even know if that much was true.

Audrey told Charlie that when his mother was sixteen, she had taken up with a local boy named Harry Blower. He was very handsome, but it was said that his family mixed with the gypsies, and one of his brothers had been in jail. Audrey said she didn't know how her father found out, but it didn't take long—it was a small town, people knew each other's business.

“Dad was a hard man, but fair,” Audrey said. “He wanted the best for us. Elaine was forbidden to see Harry, and Dad had her spend the summer working in his office, where he could keep an eye on her. She sulked her way through the summer, but when she went back to school that September, she started going out with your father. She seemed to be over Harry, back to her old self. She went out with your father all through her last year of school, and when he left school and got his boilermaking apprenticeship, he proposed to her.”

Charlie felt better hearing this. He hadn't known about Harry, of course, but at least it hadn't all been lies.

“I have to admit, I was surprised when your mother accepted Bill's proposal,” Audrey said carefully. “I always liked your dad, and he loved your mum; there was no doubt about that. But Elaine was a bright spark, a bit of a live wire, and I suppose I'd imagined she'd end up with someone a bit more…” She trailed off, looking at Charlie uncertainly.

“Don't worry, Audrey,” Charlie said. “I'm not blind. I know he was no match for her. And besides, you know how I feel about him since they split up. Don't hold back on my account. This is what I'm here for. You might as well tell me everything.”

“The wedding was planned for April,” Audrey went on, and then one day in late March, she had arrived home from work to find Elaine in a state, waiting for her. Elaine had told Audrey she was pregnant, not by Bill but by Harry, whom she'd been seeing in secret all the time. Audrey winced as she said this, as though even decades later the memory of it was still painful to her.

“Your mother was hysterical, not because of the trouble she was in,” she said, “but because when she'd told Harry, he'd said he didn't want anything to do with it, that he didn't love her, that he didn't want a wife or a baby.

“I was already married to Bob then,” Audrey said, “but I was only twenty-one myself—I didn't know anything about the ways of the world. So I told Bob, and Bob told your mother to keep her mouth shut, marry your father, and no one would be any the wiser.”

Audrey stopped again there, but Charlie motioned for her to go on.

“Your mother thought she would live at home and bring the baby up herself. But Dad soon put a stop to that. He said she could marry your father—if he'd still have her—or she could leave, because he wouldn't have her pregnant and unmarried in his house. It seems harsh, but you mustn't think badly of him, Charlie—things were different then. People didn't accept illegitimate children as they do now. There was no such thing as a single mum. My dad and your dad came to an arrangement. Your father agreed to marry your mother the next month, as planned. When she went into the hospital to have the baby, it would be put up for adoption, and people would be told it was premature, stillborn.”

“It's like some shitty soap opera,” Charlie said angrily.

“I know it must be hard for you to hear this, Charlie. I never dreamed I'd have to tell you. None of us did. We thought it was over and done with, thirty-three years ago.”

“I wish it had been,” Charlie said. “I wish this Mike character had had the sense to leave things alone. We could have done without him opening this can of worms.”

“I'm sure it's normal to feel like that. But don't forget, Mike doesn't know the story behind his adoption. All he has is his birth certificate—a list of names and places. He doesn't know he's opening a can of worms. All he wants to do is find his family.”

“Well, what if they don't want to be found?”

Audrey put her hand on his arm. “It's a shock for all of us, Charlie. I can understand it if you feel like you don't want to meet him. But you don't have to make a decision about it straight away. Take some time and have a think about it.”

But Charlie didn't want to think about it. He didn't want to think about it, and he didn't want to talk about it—ever again, if he could help it.

He took what Audrey had told him and every thought and question that had arisen about his mother and father, his half brother—everything he knew and everything he didn't want to know—and he pushed it right out of his mind. He pretended the letter had never arrived. He did not allow himself to think about it at all. He worked so hard at it, he was sure he would have been successful if it weren't for Whiskey and Rosa. Because when it came to Mike Lawrence, Whiskey and Rosa apparently had their own ideas, in which Charlie's meticulously constructed denial had no part. They had their own schemes, their own plans, and there wasn't a single thing Charlie could do to stop them.