Couple of points for this chapter – I highly recommend listening to two of the songs mentioned here in order to understand Charles' motives and Elsie's response.
'My Favourite Faded Fantasy' watch?v=Rh1C8qpODZs
'I Don't Want to Change You' watch?v=TYYdQ_Z-c6s.
And finally major, MAJOR thanks to mrpoohminnie for actually making the boat picture mentioned in this chapter, if you haven't seen it, go to tumblr to check it out! And the picture Charles tries to print can be found on there too.
Enjoy!
Chapter 8
Post holiday blues
He didn't call that night. Nor the next day. She had lunch with Beryl and found herself crying in the toilets mid-way through, unable to admit to her oldest friend that things had been perfect until that last day. She doesn't want anyone to know she fucked it up. She doesn't want to admit it to herself. So instead she tells her all the good stuff: the sights, the weather, the food. And they laugh and Beryl teases her about her sex life and she has flashbacks of his mouth on her breasts and his voice moaning her name and has to excuse herself to cry in a cubicle.
"Are you alright?" Beryl asks when she returns and she blames it on jet lag and goes home to sleep the rest of the day away.
Sunday comes and her holiday is almost forgotten. The fading tan lines where her bikini straps were only a slight reminder. Her holiday clothes are washed, ironed and put away. She's buried the silk nightgown at the bottom of her drawer and by lunchtime she's at her dining table preparing lessons and checking emails and life seems as it was.
He calls in the evening, she expected Anna when she answered the phone, instead it's Charles' voice.
"It's me," he states gently. "Wanted to see how you are, before school starts."
She has to sit, places the phone on the table and puts him on speaker, staring at the photo of him that comes up when he calls – Charles in Edinburgh with her, fireworks in the background, New Year celebrations.
"It's come around too soon," she says, folding her hands together. "I don't want to go back."
"I can understand that. I keep thinking where we were this time last week… The museums."
"The boat ride." She breathes deeply, remembering the night that followed that. That glorious, passionate night. She'd never felt so thoroughly loved, so completely worshipped.
He swallows, awkwardly she thinks, "Yes, the boat ride."
She coughs, deciding this is silly; they lived together for a week, now they can't even talk? "Would you like to have dinner this week?"
"Won't you be busy?"
"Probably, but I'd still like to. I'd like to see you."
"Well, call me if you know you're free, or text." He says non-committedly.
She knows he hardly ever replies to texts. He doesn't even notice when they've come through and she's turned the volume up twice on his handset.
"I will. We could go to that Italian you like so much."
"Yes."
"Thanks for calling Charles."
"I wasn't sure if I ought to…" He says, his voice dangerously low.
"Why ever not? Charles, I don't want this to…" She feels she might cry again and can't understand why she's so emotional of late.
"To what?" He hopes she'll say 'end', he hopes she'll say she loves him and she was wrong.
But instead she shakes her head, "I still want to see you."
He's never been in love before and if this is the pain it brings he never wants to be again.
"Have a good day tomorrow," is all he says.
"Thank you. And you."
"Night Elsie."
"Goodnight Charles."
She cries again that night.
Charles feels like he lost the weekend, he tried to shop on Saturday and ended up standing in M&S staring at milk trying to remember which one it was he bought. He decided he wasn't hungry anyway and left his trolley in the middle of an aisle, walking away from it like some crazy old man.
On Sunday Thomas knocked him up at 7:45 – usually he'd be up but he felt like hell when he opened the back door and found him standing there smoking like a chimney.
"What the hell are you doing? It's Sunday morning, I was in bed."
"I haven't been to bed yet, well, not my own."
"Please, don't tell me you're on your way home from another tryst."
He threw his cigarette to the floor, "Absolutely and coming here for breakfast."
"I'm not sure I've got anything in. And you can pick that up before you leave."
They sit in Charles' small kitchen, Thomas drinking coffee as Charles scrambles eggs and makes toast.
"I thought I'd catch you out anyhow," Thomas says. "Thought she'd be here - what's her name again?"
"Elsie."
"That's it, I always want to say Elly or Ella. Though why you've chosen her when you and I could be Harrogate's answer to Elton and David."
"Dating you would be akin to pouring salt into an open wound," Charles served the eggs. "You never have relationships."
"No, just great sex. Thanks mate."
As Charles watches him eat he once again can't remember for the life of him why he's friends with Thomas, he bumped into him at a street market over seven years ago, they were both looking at the same book and got talking and from that point he's been stuck with him.
He doesn't mind really, he makes him laugh; he reminds him there's another side to life he knows absolutely nothing about.
"So, how was it?"
"The trip? Fantastic."
"I meant the sex…"
"Thomas." Charles warned sitting down across from him.
"Come on," he says through a mouthful of toast, "Tell me you got laid mate."
"I'm not answering that."
"What's up, you're even stuffier than usual?"
"I don't mean to be. Elsie and I…"
"What? Don't tell me you've crossed to the dark side and got engaged?"
Charles shook his head, "Far from it."
"She sacked you off?"
"What a ridiculous phrase."
"Not rosy in paradise though?"
"We just had a few… She's not ready for something serious." He finally settles on. Wondering why he's defending her.
"Then enjoy it, that's the joy of a casual relationship – you can have who you want, when you want."
"And I have women queuing up."
"You're a catch, just get out there and ask. This Elsie woman's the first one I've ever known you take out."
"She's the only one I liked." He rubbed his forehead, aggravated with thinking about it – it had been continuous since he'd got home. "Not sure what's happening now, not sure if we're together or not."
"She dump you? What a bitch!"
"Don't call her that, she didn't 'dump' me."
"You dump her - you cad?!"
He licked his lips, "Maybe, I don't know. Maybe I did."
"Bloody hell, why, in all seriousness now, you actually like her."
"I love her Thomas," he says honestly. He wouldn't usually admit things like that to him but he needs to talk to somebody. Get it out of his head. "And she doesn't feel the same." He groaned, shaking his head. "So now I understand why you flit from guy to guy, just keep it simple and have fun, you've got it right."
"No. I'm just searching for the one too, we all are."
Charles offers him a small smile and nods, everyone just wants to be loved at the end of it all, even Thomas.
"You listen to that album I left you – weeks ago now?"
"No, not yet." Truth be told he'd forgotten where it was.
"Then give it a go, it'll suit your mood too."
When Thomas leaves to go home to bed Charles goes down to the shop. The blinds are still shut and he loves it when it's like that. Dusty and dark. He can smell the books, run his hands along the shelves; he knows where everything is and where it can be found. The problem is a lot of the time his customers can't. He spends a lot of his day pointing things out. Elsie has told him countless times to get signs up.
In a split decision he goes into the back room, turns on the light and grabs handfuls of boxes. He doesn't know how long he's been stacking them up in there but they reach floor to ceiling. The room's not a bad size when you really look.
He steps back into the corridor, the dividing wall could be removed, open it up, he can see where tables would fit, how he could make it more open-plan, brighter, fresher.
With the boxes in his hands he goes back to the store and grabs handfuls of books off shelves, filling and labelling boxes as he goes then carrying them upstairs to his spare room.
He only stops when he feels himself getting hungry and realises it's after two and he's emptied three-quarters of she shop.
Whilst making a sandwich he spots the CD Thomas gave him on top of the fridge. "Damien Rice – my favourite faded fantasy." He says reading the title aloud. He scans through the tracks waiting for the kettle to boil and tucks it under his arm as he goes back downstairs, sticking it into the player in the shop and taking out the classical background music he usually has on in there.
He eats a sandwich sitting on the floor, mapping out on a piece of paper how things might look, and listening to the music. It's not bad, he likes the string work, and the lyrics, some strike a chord and he leaves it playing – at least he can give it back to Thomas next time he sees him and offer an opinion.
He needs a builder.
There used to be a man he knew, a friend of a friend, and he digs around in his desk drawer searching for the number. He did some work for him years ago, well for his mother, when they had trouble with damp in the walls.
By the time he's made arrangements for the builder to visit and cost it up for him, and emptied all the shelves and started taking them down, it's early evening and he's exhausted. He showers, makes pasta and sits alone at his kitchen table eating.
His camera is on the table and he turns it on, flicking through the pictures until he finds the one of them together on the boat. He looks happy, sun kissed, relaxed, and he thinks she does too, he genuinely thinks she looks happy. Before he's thought it through he's calling her and having a stunted, awkward conversation that convinces him he's wrong – she can't at all have been happy in that picture.
Returning downstairs he puts the CD on again and stands in the passageway staring at the wall between the shop and the storeroom. 'You could be my favourite taste to touch my tongue…' he hears the young man sing and he taps against the wall – it sounds hollow.
'You could have my favourite face and favourite name.' He finds a curled edge of wallpaper and pulls at it, tearing a strip off.
'You could be my favourite place I've ever been.' His heart is hammering as he rips at the paper. 'What it all could be, with you.' The decoration has been that way for so many years that bits of plaster fall off with the paper. 'I could love you more than life if I wasn't so afraid.' In the back of the cupboard he has a small toolbox, he flips the lid, finds what he's looking for and smashes the hammer into the wall.
Soon he's formed a small hole – he was right, it is hollow. 'I've never loved no one like you!' He continues hammering late into the night.
He needs the distraction.
Elsie is up at 5:30 Monday morning, back to her routine, by 6:30 she's leaving home, by 6:45 making her usual Costa stop. She orders a large latte for a change, and stands in line waiting, flicking through the emails on her phone as she does so.
She's surprised to find there's one from 'Mr. C. Carson.' Nothing in the subject field – which isn't surprising, he often forgets that bit. There's nothing in the main body neither, only an attachment. She clicks on it and its loading as she collects her coffee and muffin and heads out back to her car. She'd gone with bare legs, wanting to show off her tan, but it feels a little fresh and she's already regretting it.
She connects her phone to the car, starts the engine and turns out of the car park back onto the main road, waiting at a red light. The sun is still low, but burning and she has to find her sunglasses to shield her eyes, the strains of violins fill the silence and she glances at her phone on the passenger seat, the track has loaded.
'Wherever you are, know that I adore you.' She catches her breath. Gripping the steering wheel, her chest feels tight, then the car behind her revs its engine and she glances in her mirror and realises the lights have changed.
She pulls out quickly, driving her route to work without even having to think about it. She turns up the volume on the stereo and starts the track again, listening carefully to the lyrics.
'I've never been with anyone in the way I've been with you. But if love is not for fun, then it's doomed.'
She's glad of her sunglasses by the time she's pulled into the school car park because tears are streaming down her face. She tips the contents of her handbag onto the passenger seat and finds a tissue, quickly wiping away evidence of her reaction. Part of her can't believe he's sent her that, she didn't even realise he listened to that kind of music, it was always opera and classical when she was at his flat. She once put the local radio on in the car and he'd complained non-stop about the drivel they make.
Unplugging her phone she gathered her things and scurried into school, it was 7:05, nobody about to bother her.
In her classroom she googled the song and found a link to the album it was from – as she readied herself for the day she let it play in the background, thinking she might download it later. Clearly it meant something to him and she'll have to reply to his email but she isn't quite sure what to say yet. There's a reason he emailed it and didn't say anything over the phone and she understands that, it can be easier to explore your feelings without being face-to-face.
"Come on love, briefing." Phyllis says, swinging open the classroom door.
Elsie glances to the clock, "Is it that time already?" She stops the music. "Good job I have you to organise me."
They both know the only reason Phyllis is Head of the History Department is because Elsie didn't apply for it, she didn't want the responsibility, more than happy to 'just teach' as she puts it.
"Have a good break?" She asks as a couple of students come into the room, dumping their bags.
"Great, cycling around Spain." Phyllis rolls her eyes, "Joseph has a twisted idea of what relaxation is."
"Looking brown, Miss." One of the students says before disappearing outside, a football tucked under his arm.
"You are, how was Dubai?"
She's still fiddling at her computer, locking the screen before looking up. "Oh, wonderful, really wonderful. I highly recommend it for relaxation."
They walk together to the staff room. "You went with that guy you've been seeing – Charles?"
"Yes."
"Been a while now hasn't it, you should bring him to the summer do, meet us scary lot."
Elsie smiles, a calm mask upon her shaky waters. "I might."
First day back exhaustion has taken hold before it even reaches 4p.m. and she gets away early, nipping to the supermarket and then home. The mundane tasks need to be carried out, even if she wishes she could block it all.
She sets up her laptop on the kitchen table and waits for her emails to load as she puts a vegetable lasagne in the oven for dinner. Cooking is not top of her priorities so thank god for Sainsbury's.
Sipping a glass of wine she stares at his open email, tapping her fingers across the keys as she waits for inspiration.
'Thank you for the song.' She puts. Stares at it. Then backtracks and deletes it.
'Charles,' she starts again. 'I'm impressed with how quickly your technology skills have come on. Attaching a track to an email…!'
She sits back, stares at the screen and sips some more wine.
One again the sentence is deleted.
'Charles, I listened to the track this morning and it's been in my head all day.' She pauses, breathes deeply, running the words through her mind.
'I found it both touching and upsetting and I understand why it obviously struck a chord with you. I don't want to try and encapsulate my feelings for you, for us, in an email. I want to talk things through but I know how badly I hurt you and I know you need time and I'm more than willing to wait and allow you that.'
She reads it through twice and happy it reads okay continues.
'But I do want to try and address some of the things the song touched upon. I know what a private man you are and what it cost you to ask me out in the first place and I feel privileged that you did ask because you are such a good man and you deserve so much happiness. It may seem like I've used you but believe me that is not the case and I've enjoyed each moment we've spent together since last August, especially this past week – it was the most human I've felt in such a long time. I'm honoured that of all the women in the world I'm the one you love, but I don't feel able to respond to that right now. And I honestly don't mean to hurt you with that sentence, though I fear that, however I phrase it, I will.
You have such a loving heart and you've given me so much and right now I feel like I've thrown that back at you – those things I said were awful, unforgivable, and yet I am asking for your forgiveness because I do want to continue seeing you. All I can say is, I'm human, I make mistakes. There is nothing 'simple' about you Charles, or about us, as I've gotten to know you I've realised just how much you have to give, at the beginning I didn't expect you to be who I now know you are – if that makes sense. I'd spoken to you on and off for the past seventeen years and never once did I suspect there was such a warm, passionate man beneath the surface and maybe that's shocked me. I don't think you emotionally repressed, I turn that phrase on myself because I am the one who can't deal with her emotions, you are freely exploring yours and I think that's wonderful. Please, don't change.
I hope that in time we can meet and try to move forward.
Yours,
Elsie xx'
She debates for five minutes over whether to put a kiss then reads it through for at least another ten before biting the bullet and pressing 'send'.
That's as honest as she can be right now and she feels a sense of relief and anxiousness when the message is gone.
He doesn't know why he printed a picture of her but he has. He did it on his printer and the colour was faded and the paper loaded incorrectly and she came out wonky, with lines on her face.
He spends a long time staring at it remembering when it was taken; a restaurant one night, her hair was tousled from being on the beach and she was laughing at his joke and looking out at the view of the sea and he snapped it quickly. She complained but when she saw it agreed he could keep it, it wasn't too bad.
But this version doesn't do it justice. He screws it up and throws it away, deciding to get it done right.
He takes his camera with him to the supermarket, he'd seen a printing thing in there where you could just choose the pictures you wanted and he spends twenty minutes messing with it before an assistant comes over.
"Can I help sir?"
He thinks she should have said "may I" but he lets it go in exchange for her expertise.
"I just want to print one, can this thing do that?"
"Yes sir, of course." She taps the screen, she has long, bright pink nails that sound like plastic when they tap against the screen, especially her small nail that has thick glitter on it. Charles can't understand how she can get anything done with nails like that.
Soon he sees his holiday photos appear on the screen, "Ahh, its that one." He says pointing at it.
"Okay, so you click it, see how it gets a little tick here. Then you press next, you can choose the size – there are examples on the wall there for you to check which is best."
He looks them over before going for the large one, it costs more but he doesn't mind.
"So now we choose that, just press here and then you get a receipt." She waits for it to print, "Pretty picture, is that your wife?"
He doesn't know what she is. He settles on "Girlfriend." Though to think of himself as having a 'girlfriend' at his age seems odd, though the assistant doesn't seem surprised by it. "Well, it's a pretty picture, were you on holiday?"
"Dubai. Just outside of Dubai."
"I've always wanted to go there."
"I highly recommend it."
"I might try and talk my boyfriend into it. Okay, so I'll take that copy, you have that one and in about 45 minutes your picture will be ready."
"45 minutes? That quick?"
"Yes, we don't have many waiting and its just one shot so I can rush it through."
"Well, I'll just have a wander about then and come back."
"Okay."
And off he goes, feeling a slight sense of triumph.
Later, he's making fish pie – the wander around the store encouraged him to do something nice for dinner. And he's poured wine and put the pie in the oven and decides to read his emails – he's been getting many more online orders since Elsie fixed his website last year and he likes to be prompt with them.
There are three orders, lots of rubbish and one from E. Hughes.
He steadies himself before opening it, sitting down and reading slowly, carefully.
It is the timer on the oven that stops him reading some 35 minutes later. He's gone through every word, every line, pictured her writing it, tried to paint her as a cold villain, then an affectionate friend. He can't reply – it's too raw – and besides he doesn't know what to say: I love you; I'll forgive you anything. I hate you; you've broken my heart – what the hell's wrong with me…?
He'd forgotten he'd even sent the song late last night.
He glances up at the newly framed picture he's had done, propped up on a work surface waiting for him to decide where to put it. He can smell the pie burning but doesn't feel quite so hungry anymore.
You have no idea how long Elsie's email took to write and, no lie, I was genuinely feeling emotional when I'd finished it. I think I'm spending too long writing…I need to get out more!
Thanks for all the feedback and comments. I feel we're really getting into the characters and their lives now they're back home and reality has hit.