Distracted
A/N: I've written this chapter because of a review that I received which made me think. I wanted to make it a little clearer why Charles has stayed with Alice. This chapter addresses more of Alice's backstory…and Charles' as well, since we've seen some of Elsie's.
Charles wonders why he stays with her, why Alice still has a hold on his heart. After all the years of waiting for her to decide, to decide when they will marry, (and it is becoming more worrisome to him that she may be rethinking marriage at all) he is wondering if they are still suited for one another. He looks over his notes for today's telecast, begins tallying statistics for some of the players and the teams involved, but he is uncharacteristically distracted. The columns and rows of numbers are running together and he puts the pencil down, slips off his reading glasses, and rubs a hand across his brow, pinches the bridge of his nose. Charles normally enjoys the few hours before a match; a cup of tea and a few biscuits as he tucks away with the newspaper, clearing his mind of anything and everything but the purity of sport. He reads the paper, marks his copy for the telecast, checks and double-checks his statistics; he has an assistant for that but he really doesn't trust anyone but himself. He enjoys the challenge of making the figures match, of discovering things. The stadiums are blissful sanctuaries of quiet in the hours before matches, a few people filtering in and out and it is before Charlie Grigg comes in at the last minute, blows in like a typhoon, talking a mile a minute, laughing and telling jokes.
Charlie Grigg is still 'Cheerful' and the crew and staff find him humorous and he is amusing, can always be counted on for a laugh. Charles finds his jokes funny, sometimes, though he cringes at those that are too distasteful; the ones that are vulgar or disparage women. They have known each other a long time, since their days playing for Yorkshire; Grigg buying rounds of drinks in the pubs for their fans and their singing for them when they won in spectacular fashion. Anyone who looks would think them opposites. Gregarious Charlie Grigg and thoughtful Charlie Carson, but they belong to the same religion, worship at the altar of sport.
When they met, Charlie Grigg seemed to know the ropes, seemed to know how cities worked. For Charles, a shy boy from Yorkshire countryside, who had spent his boyhood reading adventure stories and wandering the outdoors, Charlie Grigg seemed a godsend. Someone to help him navigate foreign waters. For Charlie Grigg, Charles Carson gave him an air of respectability, a touchstone of responsibility; and Charles could always be counted on frighten off anyone who came threatening. They have made a good broadcast team, the 'Cheerful Charlies'; Charles depth of knowledge and Grigg's affable personality. However, today, Charles is distracted, needs some time to himself before the storm blows in. The whole distasteful disagreement with Alice has him thinking, reevaluating.
Charles pushes back from the desk, closes the yellow folder with his papers, the statistics that he's been working on. He folds his glasses closed, tucks them safely away in his shirt pocket, and grabs his jacket. He walks from the box down to the field, the fragrance of freshly mowed grass filling his nose, a perfume that is immediately pleasing, immediately comforting. He kneels down, runs his hand across the lawn, the blades pricking up through his fingers. He looks up over the vast expanse of green and he thinks back, back to Alice.
As Charles walks the length and breadth of the stadium, he thinks back on to the first time he met her. She had quite taken his breath away with her sweet voice and kind eyes. Selected to play in the test match for England, he and Grigg had gone to London and in no time Grigg had wrangled them an invitation to a party at a local pub. Though Grigg seemed the obvious choice Charles thought, Alice instead introduced herself to the shy Yorkshireman. A pretty blonde, she was a journalist with the Times, making a quite name for herself. They'd hit it off that night, found they had some things in common and danced the night away and every night that Charles was in London.
Charles remembers the first time that he met Alice's parents. The first time that he met her mother, the woman with such a hard edge she had driven Alice from home the moment the girl was old enough to pack a bag and live on her own. A mean and nasty woman, Edna Neal had made her daughter's life miserable and driven her husband to the bottle. Nothing Alice ever did could be good enough or live up to her older sister. Alice was never pretty enough, her figure too skinny for her height. Her voice too soft or alternatively too harsh, if she tried to correct it. Alice was quite bright at school but not nearly bright enough. Alice's father, a mechanic by trade, never made enough money no matter how many hours he worked. Nothing ever seemed to be enough. He had coped by drowning his sorrows in liquor; Alice had simply left. The first time that Charles met the Neals, Alice had taken him home for Christmas. Edna had let him know straight away that professional sports was no fit occupation for a grown man. Not one who intended to provide for a family. Christmas Day dinner had been especially tense with Alice and her mother exchanging barbs across the roast and veg.
Charles wonders if that young woman he fell in love with still exists. He sees glimpses of her from time to time, the way she smiles at him across a crowded room, the childlike delight that plays across her features when he catches her unawares with a compliment, when her defenses are down. When she is with her nieces and nephews, cooing at the new baby. She hasn't always been so cold, so selfish. Warmth was there once, can be there again he thinks, if she will allow it. She's walled off her heart from pain. He knows that she wants to forget her upbringing, divorce herself from the discouragement, from her working class roots, from everything that she thinks has hurt her. He hears his mother's voice in his ears.
She reminds him that he is a collector of strays and broken things, things that he thinks he can help and repair. When he was a boy, his friends had cast off toy trains or bicycles. If they were broken he could fix them, make them new again. If a stay pup needed a home, Charles would scoop it up, tuck it in his coat and bring to the back door, ask for some scraps for the poor thing. Adeline Carson called, calls, her son a mender of broken things. Yes, his mother's voice rings as clear as if she was here. Is Alice just another broken thing that you think you can mend or do you love her?
TBC…Thank you for reading. I appreciate it. Reviews are appreciated and welcome. I do promise that the party is next but I felt that a little more backstory was needed. Alice is not a villain just for the sake of being a villain; she's a little more complex than that. Thank you to all who reblog, review, read, and those who guest review. X