Sugar on Loris’ cheek.Doucement. Fingers on his neck, caressing his skin clockwise.
‘I’m alright… Can you tell me what happened?’
Patty looks concerned, so Charles prompts her with a shaky smile.
‘How long did Fred work at your house?’
‘From September until Christmas break. Then again for a few weeks, but—’
‘Hi, Patty!’
‘Not now, Richie.’
‘Okay, Patty.’
‘But less frequently, and he wasn’t as helpful. I sent him away a couple of times because he obviously had a few too many to handle tools. And he spent the night once, slept on a tarp, said he didn’t want to go home. He wasn’t doing too well, but he always dodged my questions, and I didn’t push… One Saturday morning, he didn’t show up. I didn’t make much of it, until I came here to open the pub. The whole of Hampstead had heard the news already…’ Patty sighs and shakes her bob of hair. ‘What a bloody unfair mess.’
‘Yes, that’s… That’s a good way to sum it up.’
‘I’m so sorry you lost him.’
Charles drinks again to drown a rising sob. He can’t allow himself to ugly-cry in a public place, but it’s a shame. He stopped crying over the loss of Fred after he realised comforting hugs only deepened his pain. But Patty wouldn’t hug him. And they lost the same Fred.
‘I stayed at the back of the church during the service, I didn’t want to betray Fred’s secret. But I owed him cash, so I spoke to Olivia at the end. She didn’t want it, said it was pointless now. So I used it to buy a sturdy carved frame. I hung it around the paint disaster Fred left on my living room wall. Thought it was fitting. He loved weird art.’
Charles chokes and presses his fists against his mouth.
‘I’m sorry I upset you, boy, I—’
‘Oi! Patty! Care to help?’
The entire pub turns towards Billie and the young employee who’sparalysed next to her. Five customers are waiting to be served, and dirty glasses are now forming lopsided towers on the counter. But Patty waves her niece off and refocuses on Charles.
‘I’m sorry if I—’
‘Don’t be. You don’t know how much of… of a difference it makes that you shared that.’
‘He talked a lot about you. Called you Charlie but said no one else could. Claimed your imagination was something else. That you were gonna write a saga and outsell—’
A loud crash of glasses paints a bloodcurdling expression on Patty’s face. Twenty minutes ago, it would have left Charles curled up in a quaking ball underneath the table.
‘I need to deal with that. But you stay here, as long as you feel like, okay? Want another pint?’
Charles should really get going. He’s expected home. The house he calls home. The place Fred loathed.
‘I’d love one. Thank you.’
Patty slogs towards the bar but looks back at him after three steps. ‘How’s your handwriting?’
‘Compared to Loris, I’m a calligraphist.’
‘Grand! Let me grab chalks and a drink list.’
***
Charles lifts the tinsel dangling in front of the most recent photo of Fred on the staircase wall. A shot of the two of them, sitting on the floor near the Christmas tree with their mutual gifts. Charles had felt awful discovering the Olwinski pendant, when he had simply ordered a vintage jacket online for his brother.
What a lousy last present that was.
