Charlie Brilliant

Charlie Brilliant

Charlie was ironing his purple and blue checked shirt – a shirt he had bought when he was twenty-eight. He couldn’t imagine how long ago that was now but he could still remember the day. It had been raining and he had been on a rushed trip out of the bookshop to get sandwiches for the others. What were their names? Tina, Mary, Nick. That guy with the goatee…? Anyway, he had been running past Topman in the rain and had seen the shirt on the mannequin in the window.

Charlie had decided when he was about eighteen that the best way to choose clothes was to go for whatever the window dresser had put on the mannequin – the entire outfit. After all, he knew nothing about fashion and he assumed from the job title that the window dresser did. And it worked every time. This particular day though he was simply struck by the brightness of the colours and the warmth of the cloth. He could see the warmth of the shirt through the steaming windows so he rushed in, gave the man behind the counter way more cash than he would normally have paid for such a basic item and continued on his way to the deli.

            He couldn’t remember the rest of the day. He couldn’t remember what he had in his sandwich or even the name of the guy with the goatee. But then he figured, the shirt had remained with him for the past however long and the sandwich had been eaten within the hour and the guy with the goatee had left after a month or two because he was going to Thailand, or Africa or somewhere else. Charlie couldn’t remember.

            His wife was upstairs in bed. His child was drawing caterpillars on a large sheet of paper on the kitchen table.

            He was still surprised by such a scene, such a change of living conditions, even after six years. It was sometimes as though he had walked into another person’s life. The words ‘wife’ and ‘child’ were as soft and comfortable as the frayed edges on his collar. He liked that his wife was still curled up under the duvet in her pyjamas, curled up tight and with her mouth barely open, barely making a sound. Sometimes he lay next to her at night and listened to her sleep, like a purring cat. She had a lie in on Sunday mornings. He and Molly would sneak downstairs, ‘as quiet as mouses’, and then he would do the ironing and Molly would ask him as many questions beginning with why as she could think of before she started on the ‘I’m hungry’ and ‘when is mummy getting up’.

            Startling. As startling as the fact that he was awake and ironing at 8 o’clock on a Sunday morning. He fairly wanted to whistle with the birds which were gathering in the back garden, hanging like circus performers from the wire nut bags scattered amongst the trees. Whistling wasn’t a true personification. And surely the birds weren’t singing either.

            Communication. A lovely word when you were ironing and your wife was asleep in bed and your child was asking why questions. He was communicating in a beautiful song with the world.

            Until he had found this new life, only two things out of the ordinary had ever happened to Charlie.

            Firstly, he had been a child model. This had happened purely by chance, beginning on a family holiday in Butlins. His mother had wanted him to enter the most beautiful child competition; his father had said he would hang him by the toe nails if he did. The beauty contest was followed by the knobbly knees contest. Both he and his dad had entered together, for a laugh. And of course neither of them had won (the Brilliant family had lovely knees it seemed). But there had been an agent in the audience looking for new child models and his mum and dad had been approached and, before Charlie knew much about it, he was in a catalogue sporting vest and pants and trying to look comfortable.

This could have made things very uncomfortable at school but Charlie’s second claim to fame was that he had once played rugby for England Under 18’s. His athleticism and good looks had ensured he was popular at school and he had always been captain of the rugby team. Firstly there were the County and then the National trials and it was all so easy that, when he was picked to play at Twickenham, he was congratulated with pats on the back and barely a raised eyebrow. In actual fact, on the day, he was out of his depth and barely touched the ball. He never got picked for England again and shortly after stopped playing all together.

He had never told Lucy either of these two facts. It hadn’t been a deliberate decision but it had never occurred to him in the first few weeks or months of their relationship. And then, when it had occurred to him that she might be interested, he thought she might wonder why he hadn’t told her before. They became stories in his head that he might one day tell Molly, when she was old enough to understand, and then Lucy would gasp and laugh and say, “You never told me that!” and he would laugh and tap the side of his nose and tell her he was still capable of surprising her despite their long, happy and comfortable marriage.

He heard the toilet flush upstairs and the sound of the shower running. Half an hour later, while he and Molly were eating French toast and colouring in her big yellow sun, Lucy appeared in the kitchen fully dressed and made-up. He and Molly were still in their pyjamas and Lucy never got dressed before they did on a Sunday. It was so remarkable that Charlie decided not to say anything.

“Coffee?” he asked her.

“I’ve got to go,” she said. “I told you.”

Charlie put the lid on his yellow pen and tried to remember.

“I told you last night – don’t make this difficult.”