Page 61 of From Now On

‘I know it’s a long way to come back—’

‘I’m not coming back, Charlie.’

He feels a stir of uneasiness. Is she referring to the upcoming difficult weekend where he needs her by his side? There’s a finality in her tone.

Neither of them speak but they don’t have to. She knows what she rang to say. He understands the silence.

‘Where’s Duke?’ she asks eventually.

‘He’s in bed. Alone at last.’ He waggles his eyebrows up and down but she doesn’t break a smile.

‘I can’t do this anymore, Charlie.’

‘This?’

‘Me here. You there. It’s been two months now.’

‘But you won’t be there forever and then…’

‘It isn’t you, it’s me.’ She trips out the tired cliché but they both know it isn’t him or her.

‘It’s the kids, isn’t it? You want me to choose between you and my brother and sister?’

‘It’s not just the kids, Charlie. We had so much in common, the same goals, but now we don’t and… and strip all that away and what’s left? We aren’t moving in the same direction anymore. I never thought you’d do something like this. I feel I don’t know you at all. Not the real you.’

Charlie runs his fingers over the scars on his wrist. Who is the real him? The fragile boy, the scared man. The facade that he had worked so hard to build, the successful literary agent with the immaculate flat and polished appearance crumbles to dust,leaving behind a spectacle-wearing boy with frizzy hair, self-consciously hiding the scars he carries on both the inside and the outside. It is this boy who whispers ‘please’ without knowing what he is pleading for.

He thinks of the small, hard ring box. Unopened and now unwanted. The glittering diamond he thought was a substitute for those three words he couldn’t say. He can’t even say them now because deep down he knows he hasn’t proposed to her, not because he hasn’t been able to find the right time but because, he now realizes, she may not be the right person. Bo hadn’t joined the James Patrick Ensemble; he had given up his dream because he knew unequivocally that Mum was the one but Charlie has never had that certainty.

‘I’m sorry,’ Charlie says and he is. Without him she could have found the love that she deserved and perhaps now she can. ‘Will you be okay? Financially? I can still contribute to—’

‘I’ll be fine. It’s not as though there’s rent to pay.’

‘But we’re still supposed to cover the bills. It isn’t fair on you to have to pay them alone.’

‘Charlie, I appreciate the thought but you’ve enough on your plate. I’ll be fine. I’ve already discussed it with Dad and worked it all out.’

They end the call with a goodbye wrapped in a ‘take care and we’ll still be friends’. But friends cheer each other on and she hasn’t even mentioned the reason he wanted her to come home for a couple of days.

Because he thinks he knows why he, Nina and Duke haven’t gelled together properly. He wanted Sasha’s support when he tried to fix it.

Chapter Thirty-One

Duke

Duke doesn’t really know what ‘May Day’ is but all he cares about is that he has a day off from school today. ‘I don’t know what to wear.’ Duke turns to Billie who is sprawled on his bed but she isn’t much help.

Duke could ask Charlie but he doesn’t.

He doesn’t want to bother Charlie with anything in case he thinks Duke is too much trouble and decides to go to New York. Charlie has been especially sad these past few days and Duke is scared he regrets taking him and Nina on. That he’ll announce he’s leaving any minute.

They’ve now been living together for two months. It doesn’t feel entirely right. It doesn’t feel entirely wrong either, not like living at Aunt Violet’s had.

Charlie thinks that after today they’ll all feel better. Duke had heard him talking to Pippa: ‘We need to say goodbye to the past before we can embrace the future. Realize properly that it’s just the three of us moving forward now.’Closure, Charlie had called it. Duke’s sure he got that from a book.

Billie rolls over onto her back, legs sticking in the air, and Duke tickles her tummy. Her fur is wiry and coarse and she’s still a bit thinner than she was before she went to live at Pippa’s but she, at least, feels the same. Too much has changed recently.

Through the wall, Duke hears Nina crashing around her room, a song he doesn’t recognize blaring through her speakers. She never listens to jazz anymore. None of them do.

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