Chapter 10
I do sleep better that night – so much so that I’m going to be late if I don’t get a wriggle on. I wash my hair and leave it to dry naturally.
I feel as if Charlie and I bonded a bit yesterday, and I’m actually quite looking forward to seeing him this morning. It’s only when I get to his place and there’s no answer that I remember he’s dropping April to his parents. Luckily, I have the keys, so I let myself in.
There’s a purple bike in the hall. A pretty purple bicycle.
He meant it, then.
I dropped off the hired bike yesterday after Charlie left, figuring it wouldn’t be too much of a pain to rent another if he changed his mind.
I run my hand over the bike’s frame and find that it’s shiny and dust-free. There’s even a helmet clipped to one of the handlebars.
I sit on the bottom stair, staring at the bike. I don’t know why I suddenly feel so sad.
Has Charlie still got everything that belonged to Nicki? Is her wardrobe still full of her clothes? Is the television cabinet still full of her DVDs? Are there chutneys in the fridge that he can’t bear to throw out because they’re hers, even though he hates the taste of them? Her office seems untouched since she died. How long does a person wait before they let go of the one they love?
And Charlie clearly loved her very much, as she did him. No one can write about love so beautifully – so believably – without experiencing it themselves.
Panic rises up within me as, not for the first time, I worry that Nicki’s publisher made a mistake in hiring me.
How am I going to pull off this novel? How am I going to write about love the way Nicki did?
The protagonist is a travel writer just like you, so you should be able to identify with her brilliantly, Sara said.
But I need to connect to Nicki’s heroine, Kit, at a far deeper level, and I don’t know how I’m going to do it.
I get up and sigh loudly, picking up my rucksack and heading into the kitchen. I pull out my speaker and iPod and look for a suitable song. It’s not long before I’m head-banging to Def Leppard’s ‘Pour Some Sugar On Me’.
My hair will be dry in no time.
I don’t hear Charlie come back because I’m in the office with my music turned up, so the first I know of his return is when I see him out in the back garden.
I’m a little surprised – piqued, even – that he didn’t come to say hello after yesterday, but fair enough if he’s keen to crack on. I watch as he carries one of the sanded branches out from under the veranda and sets it across two workbenches before glancing up at the office window. I shrink back instinctively and then want to kick myself. Why didn’t I just wave? Obviously, I don’t want him to think that I’m spying, but it’s hardly a crime for me to notice he’s back.
I stand up and open the window to try to cover up.
‘It’s a bit warm in here today,’ I say, pausing my music.
The way he shades his eyes to look up at me makes me think he probably didn’t even see me before.
‘Hey, thanks very much for the bike,’ I say.
‘No worries,’ he replies.
‘How was the rest of your weekend?’ I ask.
‘Pretty quiet. Yours?’
‘Same.’
He nods.
‘I’ll let you get on,’ I say eventually.
‘Thank you.’
I sit back down again, feeling on edge. Maybe we didn’t bond as much as I thought we did. I sigh, then switch my music back on and try to focus.
Where was I? Oh, yeah. Diaries.
I haven’t been able to find that much plot direction from Nicki in her Confessions or Secrets folders, but it’s occurred to me that maybe the key to connecting with her characters really lies with connecting to Nicki herself.
Sorting through all of her diaries and notebooks, I’ve worked out that she wrote her first diary when she was fifteen.
As the years went on, the diaries became less confessional and rather all-purpose notebooks, with random thoughts and general musings. She was only thirty-one when she died.
I lean back in my seat, put my feet up on the desk, and begin to read. Time to get to know the person behind the stories. . .
At the first mention of Charlie’s name, I sit bolt upright and put my feet flat on the ground, my pulse racing. I had no idea that Nicki and Charlie went to secondary school together.
Morris and Kit went to secondary school together, too, and the similarities don’t stop there. Both Charlie and Morris are from Cornwall, they’re both blond and good-looking and they both run their own businesses.
Morris is a laidback surfer with ambition. I don’t know if Charlie surfs. I don’t even know if he’s laidback – it’s kind of hard to tell. I wonder if he has ambition.
I look out of the window and watch for a moment as Charlie drives a long nail through the wooden structure, two more nails at the ready between his lips.
It’s only when he finishes hammering in the third nail that I realise I’ve been staring, but, before I come to my senses, he lifts up the bottom of his T-shirt and wipes his brow, revealing a maddeningly sexy stomach, all tanned and taut, with a dark triangle of hair disappearing into his waistband. My skin feels hot.
It is so not funny that my boyfriend lives ten thousand miles away. All this eye candy and no chance of action is doing my head in.
I stand up and turn down my music, needing a break from Nicki’s messy handwriting. At that very moment, Charlie looks up and locks eyes with me. My scalp is prickling as I head down the stairs, walking into the kitchen at the same time as he steps through the French doors.
‘You have got seriously eclectic music taste,’ he comments drily.
That’s why he looked up: he could hear my music. ‘It has been said,’ I reply with a grin.
‘What was the song before last?’ he asks.
‘The Avalanches?’
‘Is that who it was?’ He sounds surprised.
‘Yeah. “Frankie Sinatra” is the name of the song.’
‘Bonkers,’ he says.
‘You mean catchy.’
He shakes his head. ‘Maybe I need to hear it again.’
‘I can play it for you if you want,’ I offer, quite genuinely.
He shrugs and then meets my questioning gaze for a long moment. ‘Go on, then.’
I return with my speaker and iPod.
He leans against the worktop with his arms crossed and stares at me directly as a 1940s Calypso singer goes on about Frank Sinatra not having ‘the voice to sing calypso. . .’
There’s something unusual about Charlie’s eyes. I’ve thought that before, but now it comes to me: there’s no darker line around the outside of his irises. The greeny-hazel colour is clear, like bottle glass, and goes right up to the whites.
His mouth tilts up at the corners and I jolt, my concentration returning to the song. I suppress a strong urge to giggle at his expression, and then the rap kicks in and I can’t help singing along. He throws his head back and laughs at me.
I really, really like making him laugh.
‘Catchy, huh?’ I nod at him significantly as the chorus returns.
‘Catchy,’ he confirms. ‘But bonkers.’
‘Oh, yeah, it’s totally bonkers,’ I reply in agreement.
He picks up my iPod Touch. ‘Don’t you keep your music on your phone?’
‘Some, but I can’t fit fifty thousand songs on there.’
He looks at me. ‘You have fifty thousand songs?’
I shrug. ‘Yep.’
‘Bloody hell!’ He studies my iPod again. ‘I didn’t even know The Avalanches had a new album out.’
‘Last year,’ I reply. ‘Sixteen years since their first one.’
‘They took their time.’
‘You never listen to music while you work?’
He shakes his head. ‘It used to distract Nicki.’
‘She never listened to it either?’ I ask as he places my iPod back on the wooden worktop.
‘No, she couldn’t concentrate,’ he says softly, and I’m pained to hear the joy seeping out of his voice.
The happy song seems out of place now, so I reach for my speaker and turn the sound down until it’s muted. I can never bring myself to end a track midway.
Charlie goes and fills up a glass of water from the sink.
‘Do you want a tea?’ I ask, remembering what I came down here for.
‘Nah, I’m good, thanks. Better get on.’ He heads back outside.