Love, Charlie Mike Read online

  ‘M for Mike,’ said Sonny, bringing his face down to mine. ‘Charlie Mike. Perfect.’ We kissed more and more.

  ‘Actually,’ I said, quite a while later, ‘it wasn’t when Gran came.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘When he got obsessed with tennis.’

  ‘Jesus, woman.’

  ‘Sorry, but I just remembered, Gran’s been here three years, since I was thirteen. It was when Pops first got sick, went into hospital. That’s when Dad started playing all the time — he used to talk to Pops about it. I remember. He was a good player, too, Pops.’

  ‘Enough,’ said Sonny, putting a finger on my lips. ‘Over and out, Charlie Mike.’

  ‘Roger,’ I said, pressing into him, forgetting the rest of them.

  ‘Despatches from the Front!’ said Brenna, lighting up, looking at the postcards lined up on my desk. ‘Coming thick and fast now?’

  ‘I’ve got this new bargain with God,’ I said. ‘If I study hard every night, I’ll get a letter the next day. Worked three times now.’

  ‘Still in love, then?’

  ‘Course.’

  ‘And the lance-corporal?’

  ‘Beautiful.’

  ‘Show me his letters. Please.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Okay, recite them. Betcha know them by heart.’

  Dear Charlie Mike, Four and a half months to go. This place is crazy. The guy you joke with today might shoot you tomorrow. I dream about you all the time. Tell me a Pat story …

  ‘Dear Christy, I love you, I love you, I love you …’

  ‘Yeah, yeah.’

  Dear Charlie Mike, The Bosnians won’t work this out before the end of next century. And they’ll get no help from the UN. Utter fuckwits. When I get back we’ll go bush up the Grey Valley for a month — are you fit? Tell the old lady the Hori sends his best …

  ‘Dear Christy, I want you, I want you, I want you …’

  ‘Shuddup.’

  Dear Charlie Mike, Sorry about the lack of variety in the postcard department — a job-lot from a kid hawking. Don’t know where to begin explaining this place. I think it’s beyond explanation. We’re organising a League team. Did Bob get into Div 2? …

  ‘Dear Christy, I need you, I need you, I neeeeeeeeeeeeed you …’

  ‘Have it your own way, then,’ said Brenna, blowing a long gust at me. ‘People in love are so boring.’

  ‘Good news!’ said Dad, easing off the cork on a bottle of bubbly.

  ‘What’s that fellow doing?’ said Gran, frowning at Dad.

  ‘Bob’s cracking some bubbly,’ said Mum. She served Gran stir-fried vegetables.

  ‘Three guesses,’ said Dad.

  ‘You’ve chucked tennis,’ I said, ‘and rejoined the human race. The Riverside Club burned down. Agassi’s got AIDS.’

  ‘And you call yourself a Christian,’ said Dad.

  ‘No, it was you who called me a Christian. Christened me, that is.’

  ‘C’mon, guys,’ said Mum.

  ‘These vegetables are raw,’ said Gran.

  ‘Here we go,’ said Dad, rolling his eyes. He and Finn mouthed the next words with Gran.

  ‘Your cook leaves a lot to be desired, Cushla.’

  ‘C’mon, Finbar,’ said Dad, pouring Finn a glass of bubbly, ‘three guesses.’

  ‘I’m still studying,’ I said virtuously, putting a hand over my glass.

  ‘How did biology go?’ Mum asked.

  ‘Thank you, but no thank you, Madam does not like her cauliflower uncooked,’ said Gran, pushing her plate aside.

  ‘Madam might find the cauliflower up her fundamental orifice if she’s not careful,’ muttered Dad. ‘Is anyone going to guess my news?’

  ‘You got into the Div Two team,’ said Finn.

  ‘Correct,’ said Dad, clinking his glass with Mum’s. ‘Yours truly, Neville, Malcolm and Gavin. We’ll smash it at Interclub.’

  I gave my most extreme eyeball roll.

  ‘Bad day at the school books?’ said Dad, hoeing into his dinner. Sometimes just the sight of him enjoying his food annoyed me.

  ‘In case you’re interested, I had a biology exam,’ I said.

  ‘I knew that,’ he said, too quickly.

  ‘Best be packing,’ said Gran, getting up. She’d only picked at her dinner.

  ‘Why don’t we just capitulate and give her soggy vegetables,’ said Dad when she’d gone. ‘She’s gotta eat more than that.’

  ‘She’s not a big eater,’ said Mum.

  ‘Look at it this way,’ I said. ‘If she doesn’t eat much she’ll—’

  ‘Thank you, Christy.’ said Dad. ‘Best you don’t continue.’

  ‘What do you care, anyway?’ I said, unable to shut up. Finn kicked me under the table.

  ‘What is the matter with her?’ Dad asked Mum. ‘Hasn’t she heard from Bosnia this week? Is her heart aching or is this her permanent personality?’

  ‘Vitez, Bihac, Tuzla,’ Finn murmured. I kicked him.

  ‘Stop it, all of you,’ shouted Mum. ‘Could we possibly have one meal where you’re not all baiting each other? Could we possibly have a civilised discussion, a good-natured exchange of the day’s events?’ We all stared. She almost never raised her voice. ‘Here’s to Division Two.’ She lifted her glass. ‘And a good biology result.’ She looked at Finn. ‘Anything wonderful happen to you today, darling?’

  ‘I was just my usual lateral-thinking, high-achieving self,’ he said smugly, holding up his glass.

  ‘Three cheers,’ said Mum.

  ‘Cheers,’ said Dad.

  ‘Did I hear a taxi toot?’ said Gran, poking her head around the door. Dad groaned.

  ‘Hang on,’ said Mum, following Gran out into the hall.

  ‘How would you like two grandmas …’ said Finn softly, behind his glass.

  ‘We can arrange that,’ I giggled.

  ‘Get on a chair behind the door, hey diddle diddle—’

  ‘That reminds me,’ said Mum, coming back into the kitchen. ‘We’ve got to talk about the summer.’

  Dear Sonny, I wrote in the sanctuary of my room that night. Get this: Mum wants to pay me and Finn to Granny-sit for the whole summer. Full time. Imagine the horror. I said no, straight out, but then Dad pulled all this stuff about Gran needing people she knew, how she hated going to Nurse Maude, how she needed to be in her own surroundings but had to have someone there most of the time now. Etc, etc, etc. Emotional blackmail.

  On the other hand, it would be a chance to earn money, but could I bear it? Watch this space.

  I miss you heaps. Luckily I don’t miss your phone calls. Brenna’s in a foul mood because she has to work for her stepmother in the summer.

  Only three more exams and then FREEDOM. It’s real summer now, we’re buying togs after exams.

  I guess it’s snowing at Santici?

  You are a man of few words but I still like you a lot.

  Yours with pure and cousinly love. Charlie Mike XXXXXXX

  PS. The Blues Brothers is on TV3 tomorrow night.

  ‘So what about this Granny-sitting?’ I said to Finn, pushing the mute button during an ad break in The Blues Brothers. This was Sonny’s favourite film and we’d watched it twice before he’d left for Bosnia. I felt weepy hearing the music.

  The first time we’d seen it Sonny arrived dressed like Jake and Elwood: shades, hat, baggy black suit, thin tie, shiny black shoes. He looked so good I fell in love with him all over again. If only he was here now, sitting close beside me on the couch, his arm around my neck, his fingers playing with my hair. Instead there was Finn, not at all close, busy with his Soma cube, working out yet another ingenious structure. I looked at him, critically. Until he opened his mouth, most people saw his pretty features, his bright blue eyes and floppy straw-coloured hair, and took him for a delicate sort. He was actually a smart-mouthed, swotty little tough and we’d been enemies and friends since the day he was born. Due to his soft line with Dad we were currently in a lukewarm-to-l
oggerheads phase. But I could usually rely on his co-operation with Gran.

  ‘I could do it by myself,’ said Finn.

  ‘Oh really?’

  ‘I could!’

  ‘Anyway, who says I don’t want to do it?’ I said perversely.

  ‘You said. If I remember correctly, your exact words were: Bugger. Off. I’ve. Got. Better. Things. To. Do. With. My. Time. Than. Mind. A. Crazy. Octogenarian.’

  ‘So? I can change my mind.’

  I pushed the volume button and we were silent, watching Jake being Touched by the Light, somersaulting his tubby little body up and down the aisles of the black Baptist church.

  ‘You wouldn’t really do it?’ I said in the next break.

  He stretched extravagantly, yawned. ‘I don’t mind. I can just get my friends over, play D & D, check her out every now and then, make lunch, get the dinner.’

  ‘Oh, you are such a New Age boy — Granny-sitting, cooking, caringandsharing. She doesn’t even know who you are most of the time.’

  ‘Who cares? I’ll just say I’m the footman or the valet or the houseboy or the chemist boy or the apprentice plumber or the boy who mows the lawns. Or Cushla’s toy boy. Trust me, I’ll think of something.’ He flashed his cute crooked teeth at me. I believed him. His imagination had infinite capacity.

  ‘How’s Sonny going?’ We were laughing at Jake and Elwood doing the Rawhide theme. I was thinking of Sonny too, singing ‘Rawhide’ in the living-room, cracking us up.

  ‘Okay. Doesn’t say much about the place. I can’t really get a picture of it.’

  ‘Bahnya-Luke-ah,’ said Finn, softly. I thumped him.

  ‘It’s Santici Camp. Miles from Banja Luka. All I know is it’s getting cold. Plus, the Dutch soldiers are allowed long hair. And heaps of them wear earrings,’ I added, making a little present of this fact. Finn fingered his gold sleeper, pleased.

  ‘Holland is very civilised. The government actually supplies drug addicts, stops drug crime.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I’m a know-all.’

  ‘You said it.’

  ‘I know something else.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Bella’s got anorexia.’ Bella was Mum’s cousin in Auckland.

  ‘She’s forty-five!’ We watched the car-chase to the Palace Hotel. ‘It’s a teenage thing.’

  ‘Nope. Gregory Mather’s uncle had it. He was thirty-something. It’s true, she has got it. I heard Mum talking to Dad about it the other day. She weighs forty kilos.’

  ‘All the adults in our life are falling apart.’

  ‘You’re hyperbolising. As usual.’

  ‘I’m outta here in the holidays,’ I said, making up my mind. ‘She’s all yours.’

  ‘I don’t really want to do it by myself,’ said Finn. ‘I’d rather do it with you.’

  No matter how mean I was to him, or careless, or self-interested, he still seemed to like me. Same story, year after year, since childhood.

  Jake and Elwood had made it to the ballroom for their big concert. The spotlight panned the packed audience. All the forces were gathering for the final chase. I loved it when the band launched into the first number and Jake and Elwood did their funny, dumpy, stylised dancing.

  ‘Everybo-dy needs somebo-dy. Every bo-dy needs somebo-dy. To leerve!’ I thought about Sonny dancing me to this, holding my hands, whirling me round, lip-syncing the words. We got faster and faster, rocking hard. At the end we’d collapsed on the couch panting and Finn gave a slow clap.

  ‘It’d just be easier if you did it,’ said Finn now. ‘Might be fun, you know, we could make it fun, have Gran on, play her along. Just go with it. Be a laugh.’

  ‘Everything’s a game to you.’

  ‘Go on,’ he said, looking at me with his bright blue eyes.

  I sighed, half-irritated, half-fond.

  ‘I know something else,’ he said, in a while.

  ‘Mr Encyclopaedia Britannica.’

  ‘No, this is really something, I mean heavy.’

  ‘Rilly?’

  ‘Rilly, rilly heavy. Hang on,’ he said, ‘I love this bit.’ Jake was in the tunnel bridge pleading with Carrie Fisher not to nuke him. ‘Please, please, puulleeese,’ he said, pulling off his shades for the first time in the movie. His eyes were suddenly naked and sweet in his pudgy baby face.

  ‘Let’s go!’ said Finn with Jake after he’d kissed Carrie Fisher into submission and dumped her in a puddle. ‘That’s so good!’

  ‘So what is it?’ I said, but then we had to watch the bit with the two neo-Nazis: their car sailed into mid-air, dropped slowly, like a parachute.

  ‘I’ve always loved you,’ we said urgently, at the same moment as the neo-Nazi underling. Then the car plunged to earth. Hilarious.

  ‘C’mon, what’s the story?’ I said.

  He stopped laughing and looked at me. ‘It’s really weird.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘We’re not supposed to know, so you can’t tell Mum and Dad if I tell you, okay?’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Well.’ He looked at me, smirking slightly. He was in his element, having me hang on his words. ‘How can I best put this?’

  ‘Cut the crap.’ I grabbed his arm.

  ‘It’s about Pops,’ he said quickly.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Um, um, he’s not Pops, I mean, he’s not our grandfather.’

  I dropped his arm, stared at him. ‘Bullshit.’

  ‘It’s true. I heard Mum telling Ginny. Ages ago, before Pops died.’

  ‘You mean he’s not Dad’s father?’

  ‘Yeah. And he doesn’t know who his father is.’

  ‘Dad doesn’t know who his father is?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I don’t believe it.’

  ‘It’s true. I heard this whole conversation — they didn’t know I was there. It was last summer. You were somewhere, Dad was playing tennis. And Ginny and Mum were having one of their sessions in the sunroom drinking that foul thing, that pink oily stuff—’

  ‘Campari,’ I said, still not believing it, watching Jake and Elwood riding slowly upwards in the elevator to the Cook County assessor’s office with their money.

  ‘Yeah, Campari. And I came back to get some discs and they didn’t notice me in the dining room and I heard this stuff.’

  ‘You can’t have heard right.’

  ‘I did. I hung around. They talked about Dad and how he didn’t want to talk about it. It’s true, I promise you.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I sort of forgot about it till Pops died.’

  Typical. A piece of earth-shattering information and it slipped his mind.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me then? I can’t believe you haven’t told me this.’

  ‘You were wrapped up in Sonny. I just never got the chance. And I kept sort of … forgetting.’ He shrugged.

  I stared at the TV. Jake and Elwood had delivered their money and were back in Joliet, doing the Jailhouse Rock. The music sounded remote now, tinny.

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ I said flatly as the credits rolled.

  ‘It’s weird.’

  ‘Weird?’ I looked at Finn as the ramifications of this startling information suddenly burst on me. ‘It means that … that Johnny—’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Finn, ‘I worked that one out—’

  ‘Johnny isn’t Dad’s cousin and Sonny isn’t—’

  ‘—isn’t even related to us. Well, that’s okay, isn’t it? Now you can go ahead and get married and have ten children.’

  ‘Oh shut up, it’s not that. It means they’re not our family.’ I felt as if someone had died. ‘It can’t be right.’

  ‘It is,’ said Finn, getting mad. ‘I’m not an idiot. I heard the words.’

  ‘Well, who was his father, then? Who was our grandfather?’

  ‘They don’t know.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well, obviously Gran’s never told anyone. And n
ow she’s probably too batty to remember. If she ever knew. Perhaps she was raped.’

  ‘Don’t be repulsive.’

  ‘Well, it happens.’

  I turned off the TV and we sat there listening to the silence. It was as though someone had tipped my life ever-so-slightly sideways. Everything looked suddenly different.

  ‘This is just bizarre,’ I said. ‘You’ve known this for a year. How could you be so dumb as to never tell me?’

  He shrugged again.

  ‘I’m going to ask Mum,’ I said.

  ‘You can’t,’ said Finn. ‘We’re not supposed to know. She told Ginny that Dad said he never wanted us to know.’

  ‘Families aren’t supposed to have secrets,’ I said. ‘Everything’s supposed to be out in the open — divorce, abuse, alcoholism, drugs, all the bad stuff—’

  ‘This isn’t bad.’

  ‘Yes it is.’

  ‘It’s weird,’ he said. Again.

  ‘It means,’ I said, looking at the blank TV screen, ‘it means we don’t know about a whole quarter of our past. Our background.’ I didn’t want to think about the quarter of our background that I used to know ten whole minutes ago — Sonny and his parents and sisters, his aunty Doreen and her kids, his aunty Ellie and her kids. How could they not be ours?

  ‘Dad doesn’t know about half his past,’ said Finn.

  ‘How long has he known this? Did he always know that Pops wasn’t his father?’

  ‘No, they found out somehow, I don’t know how. I didn’t hear that bit.’

  I stared at the blank screen some more. Exams seemed very remote. Bosnia was a fuzzy abstract notion. I tried to summon Sonny’s handsome face, his flecked hazel eyes, but my mind’s eye was busy with the shadowy forms of a quarter of my family, dim and faceless.

  ‘Lots of people don’t know bits of their families,’ said Finn. He was fiddling with the Soma cube again. ‘I don’t really care. At least we’ve got our parents. Michael Harris doesn’t know who his father is; Camille’s parents are both adopted so they don’t know anything about anyone. This is nothing.’

  ‘I don’t like it,’ I said. ‘It changes everything. It’s horrible.’ I looked at all the familiar objects round the room — curtains, chairs, pictures — none of them looked the same; everything seemed to have receded slightly or changed colour and pattern in subtle ways. I felt quite unhinged.