Charlie Read online

  Charlie realized June was waiting for some sort of an explanation. ‘I think she’s worried because Dad’s been away so long. He hasn’t phoned or written for ages, which is a bit odd.’

  June’s blue eyes widened. If her father was away for just one night he always telephoned, sometimes more than once. She paused in pushing her bike, very out of breath. ‘Maybe he’s gone somewhere remote where there aren’t any phones,’ she said quickly. ‘He can’t possibly find all those lovely things he sells in big cities.’

  Jin Weish’s real Chinese name was Jin Wing Wei Shi, but he’d adopted the abbreviated version when he arrived in England in 1949. He was an importer of Oriental antiquities and rugs. ‘Windways’ was entirely furnished with such things.

  ‘That’s what I keep telling Mum, but I think she imagines he’s got another woman,’ Charlie said with a tight little laugh as if such a thought was utterly ridiculous. ‘After all, if he did have a mistress somewhere, he’d be doubly sure to phone home, wouldn’t he?’

  June had learned to her cost that it was wiser to agree with Charlie, even when she sounded as if she wanted an honest opinion. ‘Of course he would. Besides, he loves your mum dearly, anyone can see that. She’s the prettiest woman in Dartmouth and Dad always says how much fun she is at parties too.’

  Once at the top of the hill, the girls coasted down towards the ferry at Bayards Cove. It wasn’t until they had reached the Kingswear side of the river and were once again having to push their bikes up the hill that they spoke again. June suggested that if the weather held out till tomorrow they could take a picnic and ride their bikes to Blackpool Sands.

  ‘Okay,’ Charlie agreed. ‘Are you going to wear your new bikini?’

  ‘I don’t know if I dare,’ June giggled. She always felt like a carthorse next to her slender friend. ‘My tummy’s a bit fat!’

  ‘It’s not,’ Charlie replied. Although she was somewhat smug in private about her own body, she always made a point of hiding this from her friend. ‘I wish I was a bit more womanly and curvy like you.’

  They stopped to chat for a moment outside June’s house. It was a tall, narrow Victorian semi-detached, perched high on the hill with a long flight of steps up to it: one of the oldest houses in Beacon Road, and the least commanding. Mr Melling, who was a professor at Exeter University, had inherited it from his grandmother, and for years he’d been talking of selling it and moving to something modern, easily reached on a flat road. But he still hadn’t put it up for sale, the steeply sloping garden at the side was like a jungle and the house hadn’t had a lick of paint outside in decades.

  ‘If Mum’s okay when I get back I’ll ask her if you can come up and stay the night,’ Charlie said, leaning on her bike. ‘I’ll phone you and let you know. If she is still miserable, I suppose I’d better stay home this evening. I don’t want her flying off the handle and grounding me.’

  June sat on the steps as they made their plans for the next day. She wanted to invite her friend in, but only that morning her mother had warned her and her two younger sisters that she wasn’t going to put up with the usual houseful of other people’s children throughout the holiday.

  Charlie pushed her bike the rest of the way home – it was too hot to make the effort to ride it. It was only four in the afternoon, and she dawdled, partly out of reluctance to get home early, partly to look at other people’s homes and compare them with her own.

  Every one was different: tiny quaint cottages squeezed up close to each other, then, here and there, an ultra-modern one with huge picture windows and glimpses of almost Hollywood interiors. There were several grand mansion-style houses with superb terraced gardens too, and when these came on the market they were always quickly snapped up by the very wealthy.

  The most interesting thing about Kingswear, though, was that all the houses but the tiny old cottages faced the sea, and in the case of those which were perched on the cliff edge, like ‘Windways’, they could only really be appreciated from a boat down in the estuary. From the road they were mainly hidden by old stone walls and high fences.

  It was said that ‘Windways’ had been built by a millionaire, but once they had moved in his wife became a nervous wreck because the huge expanse of sea from all the windows frightened her. Somehow Charlie doubted this. She couldn’t imagine anyone not delighting in the view. Maybe it was a little bit scary in the winter storms, but you could shut that out with thick curtains.

  She knew that one of the reasons June envied her so much was because her own home wasn’t a bit luxurious. The Mellings weren’t rich and what money they had was spent on their children’s education rather than updating their home. Yet Charlie thought her friend would be amazed if she was to admit how often she wished her parents were as comfortingly ordinary as June’s, and that she’d happily give up luxury if it would make her mother as happy and content as Mrs Melling.

  But Charlie would never stoop to admitting such a thing. She was in many ways very Chinese – she believed in the necessity of keeping face, and tried to emulate her father’s inscrutable manner. He had once made her look ‘inscrutable’ up in a dictionary, so she knew its real meaning. That which cannot be penetrated. Wholly mysterious. He claimed that cultivating such an image was to gain an invisible coat of armour, so that no one could wound you. Although Charlie hadn’t always known what it was about her father that made him so different from other men, since she was a small child she had been taught and shown by both her parents’ example that in public her behaviour must be unquestionably dignified, calm and polite.

  She saw this at work when her parents hosted their many lavish parties, warm, gracious, totally charming and interested in their guests. No one would ever guess that when alone together they could be cruel, mean-spirited and swear at each other like troopers. Charlie had sometimes witnessed terrible rows, plates and pots being thrown, insults hurled, less than an hour before the start of a party. But the moment the doorbell rang and the first guest stepped over the threshold, they would be greeted with happy, welcoming smiles. Her parents could keep up this loving togetherness all evening, bandying tender little endearments to each other, praising one another, and doing it so effortlessly and sincerely that they were perceived as being on one long, loving honeymoon. But the moment the last guest had gone home, the fight would recommence and sometimes last for days.

  Charlie had never been able to work out if there was a single serious underlying problem between her parents that caused these distressing rows. Sometimes they started over something as simple as her mother putting on a dress her father didn’t like, or the wine merchant omitting to supply the expected number of bottles of gin. Charlie always fled to her bedroom when they started and vicious remarks overheard during the ensuing fights rarely made any sense to her. She comforted herself with the idea that perhaps all married couples were the same, but she didn’t really believe it. June told her almost every last thing that went on in her house, including overhearing her parents making love, but she’d never mentioned any bitter rows.

  ‘Why hasn’t Dad phoned?’ Charlie asked herself, stopping for a moment to catch her breath and look at the view of the estuary over a garden wall. The last time he’d called was the evening of her concluding exam at school. He had been away for some time even then, but he’d telephoned every single night to ask how she’d got on at whatever exam had been that day. That night he’d told both her and her mother that he was on his way to Rotterdam to chase up a shipment of goods. He thought he would be back within a week to ten days. But four weeks had passed since then.

  Just a few days ago Charlie had suggested they call the police, but to her astonishment her mother had laughed at her. She said that was ridiculous and that he’d turn up soon with one of his plausible excuses. The sarcasm in her mother’s voice had almost suggested she knew exactly where he really was. Charlie hadn’t dared bring up the subject since.

  It was that sarcasm and a kind of darkness in her mother that made Charlie somet
imes reluctant to be at home alone with her. On the face of it Sylvia Weish had absolutely everything a woman could want: a beautiful home, enough help around it so she didn’t need to lift a finger, money, jewellery and total freedom to do what she wanted. Considering the number of parties she threw and went to when Jin was home, she had enough friends to ask for some company if she was lonely. But all she did when Jin was away was stay at home. If it was cold or raining she sat in an armchair smoking and looking at a magazine. If it was sunny and hot she lay out in the garden. Nothing else – no hobbies, walks, chats on the telephone; she never even went shopping unless she was desperate for something.

  Charlie wouldn’t have objected to this if Sylvia had been content. But most of the time she looked downright miserable. In fact Charlie could sense her mother’s mood the moment she opened the front door. It was like being enveloped in an invisible, cold fog. Even Mrs Brown, who came in three times a week to clean, had said she felt it too.

  As Charlie approached ‘Windways’, she stood on tiptoe and looked over the wall down on to the side terrace, reminded that her father was always saying that one day it would be hers. Like most of the houses on the cliff edge it was remarkably unprepossessing from the road, but once you stepped in through the arched gateway and took the path around the side to look from the garden it was simply beautiful.

  Built on three levels, each with its own terrace and huge windows, it was modern, yet timeless too. The outside was painted a soft cream almost yearly, with purple and blue clematis scrambling up as a vivid contrast. No wonder people constantly photographed it from their boats and glossy magazines often wished to feature it. But it was the spectacular view which had determined Jin Weish to buy it, back in 1956.

  Charlie had no recollection of that time – she was only two – but she’d been told they lived in London, and while they were down in Devon on holiday, taking a leisurely walk towards the coastal path to Brixham, Jin had spotted the house. It wasn’t for sale, but Jin was so determined to get a better look that he climbed down the steep wooded cliff by the Beacon and made his way back to the house and looked over the garden walls. He said he was moved to tears by the majesty of the panoramic view of the estuary, the old Castle on the opposite side and the lush green of the wooded cliffs. He made up his mind there and then that he was going to own it. Charlie had often heard his friends joke that he was the sort of man who got everything he wanted.

  ‘I’m home!’ Charlie called as she let herself in. Thursday was one of Mrs Brown’s days, and she had clearly polished the parquet floor in the hall as the house smelled of lavender.

  Charlie merely glanced into the drawing room; she didn’t expect her mother to be in there on such a hot afternoon. It was a lovely room, decorated in shades of green and pale blue, with sliding patio doors on to both the side terrace and the one at the back overlooking the garden and sea. The blue and white canopies were pulled down outside to shade the room, giving it a curious, almost underwater appearance.

  She went down the stairs into the spacious modern kitchen, got herself a drink of orange squash from the fridge and a rock bun from the cake box, and went out through the back door. As she had expected, her mother was sunbathing on the lawn, tucked away down in her favourite corner between the small summer-house and the stone balustrading that ran along the cliff top, so that she couldn’t be seen by anyone able to peer over the eight-foot walls. She was stretched out face down on a blanket, wearing just the bottom half of her turquoise bikini and a matching towelling turban covering her blonde hair.

  It never ceased to surprise Charlie that Sylvia had kept her figure even though she took no exercise. She was still the same 36–24-35 she had been in her wedding photographs. Her fortieth birthday had been back in May, but she had virtually no lines on her face, no wobbly bits on her thighs or bottom, and her stomach was as flat as an ironing board.

  ‘Hullo, Mum,’ Charlie said cheerily. ‘The tan’s going well, you’re catching up with me!’

  Comparing sun-tans was a long-standing family joke. Both Jin and Charlie had only to sit out in the sun for a couple of hours and they turned brown. Sylvia, because of her fair skin, burned easily. Even if the sun shone non-stop for six weeks, she could never attain more than the light golden colour she was now.

  Sylvia lifted her head and squinted up at her daughter. She had baby-blue eyes, framed by heavily mascara’d lashes. Even when she was alone she always wore mascara and lipstick, and her long nails were always varnished bright pink. ‘What time is it?’ she asked. ‘I must have fallen asleep.’

  ‘About fourish,’ Charlie said. ‘What are we having for tea?’

  ‘I’m not hungry.’ Sylvia fumbled beneath her for her bikini top and fastened it behind her back, arching her spine. She rolled over and sat up, adjusting the top more comfortably, then lit a cigarette. ‘But there’s some ham and salad in the fridge. You can get that yourself.’

  Charlie knew that translated as ‘Go away and leave me alone.’ Sylvia didn’t eat or cook when she was in one of her moods. She didn’t ever eat much, but when she was normal she always made Charlie a good meal, even if she didn’t share it.

  ‘I’ll go and have a bath first, I’m all sticky,’ Charlie said. ‘Shall I make you some coffee?’

  Charlie’s abilities in the kitchen didn’t stretch beyond making instant coffee and sandwiches. Mrs Brown often said it was a disgrace and that all girls should learn to cook, wash, iron and clean. Charlie often wished she could learn to bake cakes, that looked like fun, but her mother hadn’t the patience to teach her, Mrs Brown never had the time, and her school concentrated on academic achievements and sport.

  Her mother lay down again, on her back this time, closed her eyes and took a deep drag on her cigarette. ‘No, I don’t think so,’ she said eventually.

  For a moment or two Charlie just sat beside her mother on the grass. She had a strong desire to punch her, anything to get some sort of real response. She wanted to be asked what she’d been doing all day, to be given some evidence that the woman was aware her daughter had been away from her since ten that morning. She wondered how much longer they could go on living this way, no real conversation, no interest, no affection. It was miserable, like living with a robot.

  Her father wasn’t like this. He wanted to know every last thing his daughter had done while he was away. He went out for walks with Charlie, looked at her homework, listened to her new records, asked about her friends. Yet for some unfathomable reason Charlie had never been able to discuss her mother’s horrible moods with him. It seemed disloyal. Sort of sneaky. So she always pretended everything had been fine while he’d been away.

  ‘I’ll go and have a bath then,’ Charlie said, getting up from the grass and looking down at her mother. She was tempted to try to ask what her problem was, but she didn’t quite dare. She had tried in the past, but she always got fobbed off with excuses like being tired or having a headache. If she persisted, her mother was likely to withdraw even further into herself. It was clear to Charlie that wherever Sylvia Weish’s mind was, she wasn’t anxious to share it with anyone.

  Upstairs in her bedroom at the top of the house, Charlie stripped off her jeans and kicked them across her immaculately tidy room with a touch of spite. It was a beautiful room, none of her friends at school had a bedroom to touch it. Peach and cream striped walls, soft peach carpet, and wall-to-wall cupboards stuffed with fashionable clothes. The four-foot bed had cream lace drapes around it, there was a padded window seat so she could sit and look at the view of the sea, and she had the best Pioneer stereo money could buy. But it felt worthless and somehow insulting when the woman who’d chosen it all so carefully couldn’t even be bothered to talk to her.

  She thought she would try to get a summer job in the next day or so – anything was better than putting up with this all day, every day, for eight weeks. June would be going up to Scotland with her family in a couple of weeks’ time, then there’d be absolutely nothing to do. If o
nly her dad would come home!

  Sylvia came to life when he walked in through the door. Suddenly there would be action, the radio playing, meals being prepared, chat and laughter. The telephone would begin to ring again, people ringing up to accept invitations to dinner, or to offer invitations to their house. There were the inevitable rows, of course, but even that was preferable to this stony silence.

  ‘Windways’ even had a different smell when Jin was home – fried bacon, his aftershave, freshly ironed shirts and shoe polish. He wasn’t a big man, though tall for a Chinese, Charlie supposed, at five ten, but slender with small, delicate hands and feet. Yet he filled up the house somehow, made it a real home.

  Charlie was in the bathroom running her bath when she heard a car pull up outside. The bathroom was on the side of the house, but because of its position and the high wall by the road, it was impossible to see anyone parking outside without leaning right out of the window. As she was naked this was out of the question, but she opened it wide and stuck her head out. As the car reversed into the space by the garage she saw the rear end of a dark blue car. She thought it was an old Consul or some similar model, but she didn’t recognize it.

  She waited a few moments for the front-door bell to ring, but it didn’t. As she could hear the car engine still running, she thought it might be the gardener or his son perhaps dropping off some new plants or compost, so she got into the bath.

  Some ten minutes later she realized the car engine was still ticking over, and curiosity made her get a move on. The gardener’s son was a bit of a dish, all bronzed biceps and shoulder-length blond hair, and if he was out in the garden chatting to her mother it might be a good opportunity to get to know him better.

  She dried herself hurriedly and pulled on some clean underwear, then ran into her bedroom to get a pair of shorts and a tee-shirt. Glancing out of her window, she saw it wasn’t the gardener or his son, but two burly men talking to her mother as she sat on the rug.