“I’m a doctor. I’ll save your life.”
That made him chuckle.
“Daniel, I went out clubbing last night and shagged a bloke in the toilets. I also had a threesome with my best friend a few weeks back, and he still won’t return my calls. I’m not the person you think I am because that person doesn’t exist.”
I didn’t want to hear him talk like that. I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want him to be with other people. I just…
“I just want to see if we can make this thing… because you see, Charlie, this thing with you? That’s what I want.”
“We never had a thing.”
“We did. Even Mrs Hallet said we had a thing.”
“Mrs Hallet is an old gossipmonger.”
“She’s my new best friend, now you’ve dumped me.”
“How’s your new house?” he asked, changing the subject.
“I climbed up in the loft earlier. There’s loads of space up there. I’m going to convert it into a bedroom and put a massive window in the roof. I also need help designing a cheap kitchen with enough workspace for you to teach me how to bake.”
I made all that up because the window was for him, and he needed a good kitchen, one that he had planned himself.
“I’m not moving in with you,” he said like he could read all my thoughts.
“I haven’t asked you to,” I muttered.
“I can recommend a good builder, and my mate, Geoff, is a kitchen fitter. He also owns a gay bar. Handy bloke to know. “
“I’m not gay,” I said, hoping it would make him smile.
“I’m not gay either,” he said back, staring at me.
“Oh, fuck off, Charlie.” I laughed. “I wish you were here, and I wish you could just come and make me dinner and make me feel better about this rat-infested shithole I’ve bought. It needs razing to the ground and then smashed to rubble, and then, perhaps, it would be more liveable than it is now. I have a bucket upstairs in a room where the roof is leaking and rat droppings in the downstairs toilet, and I think there is something nesting in the loft too. Charlie, I’m fucked.”
“I know you are,” he said softly, “but I still won’t be your big mistake. I’m not something you can try out and return when you figure out that I am just a crazy idea in your head. I’m worth more than that.”
“You’re worth more than a hook-up in a bathroom.”
“Touché.” He smiled.
“I’m glad you’re with your family.”
“I am too. Graham is having a ball. My brother’s wife is making him do all the cooking. My brother has gone out to get the Christmas tree, and the kids are high from eating an entire chocolate advent calendar. They apparently forgot about it this month, and yeah, it was full-on carnage earlier.”
“When you are back, will you come and see me?”
“I want to see the house and laugh at the state of the place.”
“You’re mean.”
“I’ll text you the name of a builder. Went to school with me. Decent bloke.”
“Thank you.”
I felt calmer with him smiling at me.
“I’ll be back for New Year’s. If you’re lucky, I’ll bring you a sprig of mistletoe.”
“That… sounds good. Promising.”
“I’m not your boyfriend.”
“Got it.”
“I won’t be your bi-curious thing.”
“Okay.”
“Just let me get over you, and then? Then we’ll figure it out. Okay?”
“I think you’re amazing. Just so you know,” I said in desperation. “I think you’re beautiful and smart and so bloody brilliant at everything. I just wanted you to know that because you are. And I know I’m pathetic and confused and not in a good place, but maybe, as you say… maybe, one day…”
“Merry Christmas,” he said.
“Merry Christmas, my Charlie.”
“Daniel?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m not your Charlie.”
“I know,” I said quietly.
“But you’ll always be my Daniel. Okay?”
I smiled as he hung up on me. I curled up on my sofa and fell asleep. There were no twinkling lights in my windows and no tree in front of the filthy fireplace with its cracked tiles, but I had a leaking roof over my head and all my belongings in one place. Then I dreamed of crackling fires and ginger teas. I dreamed of crinkly eyes and the smile on his face. I dreamed of everything and nothing as the world around me just disappeared.
This thing with Charlie made the days come and go as I tried to busy myself enough to get through the week. I didn’t hear from Charlie again, apart from sending through the number for some builder called Big Derek and a name of an architect firm in town. I set up appointments for quotes I wouldn’t be able to afford and dragged my sorry arse down to the bank to try to plead my case for a desperate remortgage, using the ramshackle building I slept in as my useless collateral. The mortgage advisor looked at me with pity as I cringed at the sums on her screen and compared it to the desperate state of my bank account. At least I got paid on the day before New Year’s Eve, and I swiftly invested in a microwave oven and a set of sheets for the mattress that still had no base or frame.
I bought too many pillows in the homeware shop and also grabbed some extra blankets. Added candles, too, for a homely touch, which I had to laugh at when I got home and placed them on the small table next to my sofa. The room looked anything but amazing with the peeling wallpaper and damp patch on the wall, but the finishing touch was obviously the broken windowsill where I’d carelessly stood trying to get the old-fashioned curtain pole reattached to the wall. I’d spent days removing all the carpet, hoping to find some long-forgotten treasures underneath. Instead, I was now walking around on bare wooden floorboards, and there were damp and droppings wherever I peeled back something new.
At least the fireplace in the front room brought me heat at night. I even had a chimney sweep come out to service it after I found some firewood neatly stacked under a dirty tarpaulin at the back of the house.
I was warm and the smell of wood burning brought me comfort as I ate a microwave meal straight out of the packet, perched on the only worktop in the rundown kitchen. I had my crockery, which I neatly stacked on a shelf, and I had running water and food in the small fridge. I could survive here for weeks if I needed to. Well, apart from that I was running dangerously low on clean clothes and the laundrette behind the health centre still had a sign posted, “Closed for the holidays.”
I needed a washing machine, and I sighed to myself as I added that little expense to my massive list of things to buy on a non-existent budget.
I should have saved harder and not lived my life as if every day was my last. I thought of all the meals out Justine and I had shared, the holidays, minibreaks, and the car I had so carelessly told her to keep. Not that I needed a car, but I should have fought harder for what was half mine. I should have taken the curtains and a couple of rugs. I should have maybe kept the lovely paintings we had bought, so I would have had something to put on the walls, but then the thought of a life now long gone would have just made me remember things that I no longer had.