‘I’m sure I’ve got exclusive access to some of your best too.’ Loris kisses the corner of his lips and takes the glass from his hand. ‘Come on.’
Charles changes into the dry clothes while Loris makes himself a coffee. When the aroma of peanut reaches him, Charles resists the temptation, to prevent having a sleepless night later. He needs rest. He’s already scraping crumbs of energy at the bottom of his reserves just to keep his eyelids up.
He could lie down now, but there’s one thing he has to do first, as tedious and long as it might be.
‘Can I talk to you? About Fred and what happened?’
Loris tilts his head aside with a doubtful frown. ‘Do you think it’s a good time?’
‘It’s the right time, as long as I… multitask.’ Charles scans the room and juts his chin at the easel. ‘Can I? If my cathartic piece ends up being a waste of drawing materials, I’ll replace them.’
‘Don’t be silly. What do you prefer? Pencils? Gouache? Pastel? I’d go for pastel. It’s super soothing, because it’s quite messy. Which is paradoxical, but I never question the power of art.’
‘I don’t mind.’
Charles mainly wants to avoid playing hide-and-seek with Loris’ look while he gives him a complete picture of Charles Ledwell. He’s not scared to be real and potentially ugly, but it’s not a reflection he’s eager to stare at in Loris’ eyes.
Five minutes later, Charles is standing in front of a drawing sheet. Loris is sitting sideways at his desk with his mug and a couple of pencils. He’s waiting, patient, inquisitive and more beautiful than ever in the eerie luminosity.
At first, Charles’ mind flips through the pages of his personal story while his fingertips run along the oily sticks aligned in a box on the coffee table.
When a new thunderclap startles him, he grabs the anthracite pastel his hand stopped above. He breathes in deeply and launches himself into the wistful trip he’s always been afraid to take, worried about all the baggage it involves.
‘I was fifteen, and Fred came to my room one day, before leaving to go… I don’t actually know where. I didn’t know what he was up to, not anymore. But I thought he had valid grown-up reasons to keep me in the dark. And our parents, they tried really hard to keep me in the dark too. To protect me from Fred’s terrible influence I suppose, so I wouldn’t get rebellious ideas. My mother distracted me from most arguments, but I wasn’t stupid. I knew Fred was standing up to them and suffering bad consequences for it. I knew, but I couldn’t understand why he was putting himself through that. How was it worth it? From my perspective, our life wasn’t bad. Of course, I struggled with our parents’ demands and coldness, but they didn’t oppose who I was. I didn’t realise they were moulding me to their standards, and it was only a matter of time before I endured the same insane expectations Fred did. Back then, I couldn’t relate to how trapped he felt... And so that morning, he— Yes, sorry, I might digress more than once.’
‘No worries.’
Charles looks up from the gradation of grey he’s covered half of the sheet with and finds Loris’ watchful eyes.
‘Are you taking notes?’
‘No, I’m drawing you while you’re drawing.’
‘I’m sure I look like shit.’
‘Yeah. You look incredible.’
Charles chuckles and swaps the pastel for a red one. He lets it find a spot at random and starts tracing a thick sinuous line.
‘So Fred came to my room and… he was a frightful sight. His face was still bruised from a club fight. But what scared me the most was his eyes. They were ringed and so glassy. I worried about it, but he acted all proud and unbothered, and I trusted him. I always trusted him. He wanted to give me his copy ofThe Mind of Wonders. The first edition you saw on my bedside table. A gift from our father, at the time when Fred wasn’t a shameful disappointment. Fred wanted to leave it with me because our parents were taking away the things he cared about. I was thrilled to be given a mission, but when he wrote something inside, I worried again. I said, “It’s only until things get better, isn’t it?” He reassured me. He joked that he’d wrestle me if I refused to give it back and said I’d write something in turn that day…’
Charles pauses, the next part of his story lancing his heart. He takes a black pastel and scratches it with his thumbnail, his eyes tracking the red thread.
‘A week later, I was up late, tearing off the pages of an old exercise book. Its cover was perfect to fit aroundThe Mind of Wonders. I was going to hide the book in plain sight on my shelf, and I couldn’t waitto dare Fred to find it. Then the doorbell rang, and I heard shouting, but when I made it downstairs, they were… My parents and the police, they were in my father’s study. So I sat on the first step and I waited. I waited for a while, counting the black tiles on the floor, over and over…’
Charles squiggles a black tile inside a loop of the red line.
‘My mother walked out, and her face… I… I lost count of the black tiles, because they were all turning black under her feet. She sat next to me and said Fred had died in a car accident. That’s how she told me, no sugar-coating. Then she checked that I understood because I wasn’t reacting. I understood. I understood the fact. My brother was dead. But the meaning of it, the impact it’d have, I completely blocked it and… I dissociated. Emotionally, I stayed on that step for two weeks. And when I snapped out of it, when my mind stood up, it was the morning of the funeral. I had to catch up in a minute, and I discovered how our world was mourning Fred. I discovered the perfect, happy, hopeful Fred who was being honoured in the church. And I embraced the myth. Because all those strangers who portrayed Fred as a saint, they loved him. I didn’t care who they were and which Fred they loved. All I needed was to feel less alone with the certainty that the best person in the universe was gone, and that there wouldn’t be any joy in it anymore. And I remember now, later that day, I was in the garden with my friends. My lifelong friends who had no idea how to handle me. And Spencer, he… He’s prone to putting his foot in his mouth, and he said, “There’s something that bugs me about your grandfather’s speech. I thought Fred was failing at uni?” I asked why he was talking shit about my brother, and the rest of my friends told him to shut up. Because I was the one who had to set the tone when it came to Fred.’
With a bitter laugh, Charles haphazardly applies black pastel ontothe sheet. Spencer, of all people, was the voice of reason he should have listened to.
‘So… I did set the tone, and that tone was silence. I completely withdrew when everybody’s life resumed as normal. When I saw them find joy in the universe. But I couldn’t guilt-trip anybody for being able to fully exist without Fred, so I tamped down my pain, and my life resumed as well. Same blinding comfort at home, same routine, same people around me. My friends, who worked hard to take my mind off Fred. And my family, who fed the “perfect son” narrative and reminded me daily what a great example he had left behind for me to follow. And, again, I agreed with that somehow, because I worshipped him. And then… I met Elsy, but the thing is… She had asked about me, she knew about the accident, she knew it was best not to make me talk about Fred. Which, back then, was what I needed, but in hindsight, I think her questions could have… I mean…’
Charles muzzles a new series of ‘what ifs’ and takes a yellow pastel to tackle the blank part of the sheet.
‘Elsy brought joy back into my life. Joy, adventures and all the meaningless drama that feels like the end of the world at the age of sixteen. So, thanks to her and to my tactful friends, thanks to that safe circle who knew and accepted me, no questions asked, I was alright enough for a couple of years. Things went south when I moved up to uni for my economics degree. That’s when it started, the anxiety and the blank episodes that scared me instead of being a relief.’
He grabs the black and the red pastels again, and holds them together against the yellow patch.
