Part Two
It's been almost a week since I packed my bags and left Holby for my new life. It's strange, I'm still by no means settled here, I still feel like I'm on holiday, living out of a suitcase, but at the same time Holby seems so very distant now. I find myself reliving the goodbyes I said, over and over, especially those last few minutes with Duffy and Josh at the airport:
"When you get there, call me, OK? I want to know you arrived safely," Duffy had said as she held out my passport and the plane ticket that she’d been looking after for me. It hadn't felt quite real standing in the middle of Holby International Airport knowing that I wasn't coming back. I motioned to take the documents off her and reluctantly she let go of them.
"If the plane ditches in the Atlantic I’m sure it’ll be on the news, otherwise you can assume I got there all right!" I replied, jokingly.
"Call me anyway…" Duffy said softly, looking at me meaningfully. I smiled, trying to reassure her.
"I will. Of course I will. You don’t think you’re getting rid of me that easily do you?" I laughed trying to make light of the situation, but it was a strained laugh. I know all too well how easy it is to lose contact and hoped, still hope that that won't happen.
"Right, all the flights are running on time and they’re just about to put out your final call. Better get a move on Charlie." Josh strode up to us, and I could see that he felt immediately guilty at breaking up our goodbye.
"Well I suppose I should be off then…" I said, but made no movement at all. All the things that Duffy, Josh and even Max had said to try to convince me not to go flooded back. The niggling doubts that I’d been fighting with for weeks raised their ugly heads and for a split second I considered changing my mind and staying after all. But it was too late for that now; I’d resigned from the hospital, sold my house and found a new place in Toronto. The previous night I’d had a huge farewell party to say goodbye to all my colleagues, I couldn’t have gone back if I had wanted to.
"Um… well… I suppose this is goodbye then" I groaned inwardly at how corny it sounded, but now the time had come I couldn’t think of anything more eloquent to say. Duffy sprung forward and wrapped her arms tightly around me.
"I’m going to miss you so much, Charlie." She said it in such a way that I thought she was going to tack ‘please don’t go’ to the end of her sentence, but she didn't and I'm glad because that might have made me stay. I clung on to her for a beat longer than was necessary, and she kissed me gently on the cheek as she pulled away.
"I’ll miss you too," I said kissing her back.
"Both of you." I turned to face Josh, who was staring at the floor, clearly embarrassed by the show of emotion.
"Yeah, well, I suppose it won’t be the same with you gone." He replied and we stood facing each other, neither of us entirely sure about the proper etiquette for saying goodbye to a close male friend in the middle of a public place.
"Oh for goodness sake give each other a hug!" Duffy had exclaimed, so we did as we were told, slapping each other on the back and trying to act macho. The announcement for my flight pierced though our farewell. Reluctantly I picked up my holdall.
"You’ve both got my new address right?" They nodded.
"And you could come to visit if you want… but ‘til then, um…bye" I wish I could have told them both just how much they mean to me, but, I suppose, facing up to my feelings, much less expressing them, has never been one of my strong points.
"Good luck mate" Josh said.
"Yeah, good luck Charlie," Duffy said, and as I moved off to the departure gate she called out: "Don’t forget us!"
I turned back and even from a distance I could see the look of sadness on their faces, and I could feel myself starting to get teary too. I tried to call out one final goodbye to them but the words caught on the lump in my throat and all I could manage was a wave and half a smile before I lost sight of them in the crowd.
I had done as I promised and called Duffy as soon as I touched down in Toronto, but when I got through to her house her mother said she had gone out somewhere. Since then I have thought about calling her several times, but I've been so busy trying to get everything sorted that whenever I've had a free moment it would be some ungodly hour in the morning back in England. Before I left Duffy had confided in me that she'd been having trouble getting to sleep since Andrew's death and I don't want to be responsible for making that situation any worse. Besides I've just finished writing her a short letter, and I enclosed a copy of a photo that I just got developed from my leaving party. It's a bit blurred and slightly off centre but it's a nice one of the two of us together. I hadn't really realised before that in all the years we have known each other I have very few pictures of us, and I certainly feel like I need as many reminders of home around me as possible right now.
Andie walked in to the living room in her night dress and slippers and was surprised to find her mother sitting in the semidarkness.
"I didn't here you get in Mum" She said sitting down next to her and leaning over for a better look at what her Mum was reading.
"Well that's what happens when you play your music too loud, darling!" Duffy had attempted to announce her arrival, but shouting over Andie's stereo was a futile occupation. So instead she had made herself something to eat and settled down with the next instalment of Charlie's diary.
"Did Louis come back with you?" Andie asked, annoyed with her self that she hadn't been paying more attention.
"No, I dropped him off at his hotel on my way back" Duffy thought she detected her daughter breathing a sigh of relief at not having missed him. She looked across at Andie and noted what a beautiful young woman she was becoming. It was easy for Duffy to imagine her as a little girl, the baby of the family, but every day it was getting more apparent that she was becoming independent, she was growing up. Maybe it was just Charlie's diary bringing back the memory of Andie's birth that made her recognise how much had changed but she suddenly knew that her precious baby was no longer a child.
"You like him don't you?" She asked her.
"Mum!" Andie said indignantly, as if to make it clear she wasn't about to discuss such things with her mother.
"I can understand it. He does have a certain charm, much like his Dad really" Duffy continued regardless.
"Did you fancy his Dad then?" Andie said curiously. Her own father had never been more than a name to her, a man who lived behind the glass of photo frames, rather than a real person. The thought of her Mum being interested in someone else didn't affect her the way she had noticed it affected her brothers.
"No!" Andie looked at her unconvinced.
"Not even a little bit?" She teased.
"Well, maybe a just little bit. But he was my best friend, so even though he was a very…"she searched for the right word, "…attractive man, our relationship just wasn't like that." It was true, their relationship wasn't ever more than friendship, and Duffy couldn't shake the deep feeling of disappointment that there hadn't been something more.
Duffy's mind slipped back to the first time she properly met Charlie after her interview. She had only been a student nurse and felt quite overwhelmed by the bustling accident and emergency department. Charlie had offered to give a tour and answer any questions she had. He had been so calm and so in control and it wasn't long before she felt she could chat to him about anything. She had asked so many questions that she thought he'd get bored answering them, but he didn't. He was patient even when she asked something stupid or obvious. Duffy had been completely mesmerised by his skill and efficiency, somewhat in awe of him. All that, coupled with him being a handsome young man, had been enough for her to develop something of a crush on him. And even as time went on and she realised that he was becoming her best friend rather than her boyfriend there was always a feeling of something more that bubbled away but never quite broke free. Duffy couldn't help but wonder what might have happened between them if he hadn't left for Canada. But it was too late to think of things like that.
"Do you think that Louis likes me?" Andie asked quietly. Duffy moved so that she could wrap her arm around Andie, and Andie rested her head on her mother's shoulder.
"I don't know darling, he only met you a few hours ago. But I don't see any reason for him not to." That seemed to be enough for Andie and she smiled, reassured.
"So what are you reading then?" She asked after a short pause.
"This is Charlie's diary, well sort of diary. It's everything he wrote about his life over the years"
"Should you be reading it, isn't it private?"
"I don't think it'll do any harm, besides Louis wants me to read it. I think he thinks it might make it easier for me to explain Charlie to him but I'm not sure how." She confessed, still a bit puzzled about why he thought she should read it.
"So what's that piece about?" Andie pointed to the sheet of paper still in Duffy's hand.
"When he said goodbye to us at the airport. He remembered it practically word for word"
"I suppose it must bring back a lot of memories for you too, huh, Mum" Andie didn't know just how true that statement was.
As Duffy had read his reminiscences she could remember so vividly the day itself. It had been just like Charlie had written, and like him she hadn’t fully grasped until that final moment just how much she was going to miss him. She had so desperately wanted to beg him not to go, to grab hold of him and stop him from boarding that plane, and he was right, she nearly did. Thinking about it just after the event she had told herself that he wouldn’t have stayed anyway, and at least she hadn’t made a fool of herself by pleading with him. Now, she wondered if perhaps she should have said something, if it would have made a difference to their lives. When he’d finally walked through the departure gate and disappeared from her view it felt like she had to start grieving all over again, only this time it wasn’t unavoidable. Andrew had died, Charlie had just left her, and along with her sadness came the realisation that it would be even harder to get over him because of it.
Josh had tried to comfort her, in that polite, uneasy way of his. She’d been grateful that he’d been there but kept thinking that she always felt so much better when it was Charlie holding her. She’d stayed silent as Josh dutifully drove her home, and thanked him politely for running her to and from the airport, but once she was in the relative sanctuary of her house she’d cried. Cried for so long she made herself physically sick. She knew that her mother would turn up at any minute with the children and didn’t want them to see her in such a state, so she left a note explaining that she’d needed some space, some thinking time, and had gone for a walk.
Duffy hadn’t been heading anywhere in particular, she’d done her best to let her mind go blank and just wandered, turning down streets that looked interesting, letting them lead the way. After a couple of hours it had got dark and she found herself at the Jubilee suspension bridge. It was one of the most, if not the only, recognisable feature of Holby, and at night, all lit up and reflecting off the water below, it was truly an awesome sight. She had stood just off the bridge and stared down into the black water below, the occasional tear rolling silently down her cheek. She must have stood there, out of sync with the rest of the world, for well over an hour until a young policeman gently tapped her on the shoulder.
The officer said that someone had called the station worried that she was going to ‘do something stupid’, she assured him that she wouldn’t. She couldn’t, she had three children who depended on her. Only her, now. The policeman drove her back home and she found her mother asleep on the sofa and her kids tucked up in bed. She’d said a quiet goodnight to each of them before retiring to her own room and crying her self to sleep again.
Andie saw her mother’s expression fade into that terrible mournful look that she got when she remembered sad times. It hurt Andie to see her so upset and she wished that she had never embarked on that line of conversation.
"Are you all right?" she whispered. Duffy stroked her daughter’s hair gently.
"Of course I am," she replied trying to sound positive, "it’s just odd reliving moments of your life through someone else’s eye’s."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, the time Charlie left was one of the worst times in my life. I’d only just lost your father and I had to watch my best friend leave too. I was lonely, I mean I had you and your brothers to think about and your Gran to keep me company, but I missed having someone to really talk to. And I was so furious that Charlie could just up and leave like that. Now I’m getting to see it from his point of view. I think that maybe I was a bit selfish at the time."
"You? You’re sickeningly unselfish!" Andie laughed.
"Oh I don’t know about that. We all have our moments. I thought he hadn’t called me. It never even occurred to me that he did and Mum just never passed on the message. I kept waiting. I should have just called him."
"Why didn’t you? Or you could have written to him or something…"
"I don’t know, a bit of unreasonable sulking I suppose, you know, ‘if he’s not going to call me I’m not going to call him’. And you’re right, I could’ve written, I got a letter from him I just never quite got around to writing back. I was a pretty lousy friend wasn’t I?"
"Everyone makes mistakes Mum. I’ve lost contact with loads of people from school since I started at college, these things happen."
"Since when did you become so grown up, eh?" She kissed Andie on the forehead. Maybe she was right, Duffy thought as she sat there, maybe these things are inevitable.
Andie let out a huge yawn.
"You should get some sleep, I don’t suppose much sleeping went on at that party last night." Andie straightened up and shook her head.
"I am pretty tired. See you in the morning" Andie kissed her mother goodnight then left the room, and once again Duffy was left with only Charlie’s ghost for company. She was about to pick up his memoirs again when she remembered that letter he had sent her.
She got off the sofa and moved to cupboard in the corner of the room. Inside it were several bulging photograph albums. Duffy flicked through a couple of them before coming to the one that she wanted. Sitting on the floor she laid it open in front of her, staring at one picture right in the middle of the page. In the shot Charlie had his arm around her shoulder, she had hers around his waist, and it had felt a completely natural position to be in. She couldn’t remember who had taken it, though she had a feeling that it might have been Max. Whoever it was she was glad they had a career outside of photography. The photo itself had them off centre and slightly out of focus, but considering how late it had been and how many drinks they’d each had, it was probably a good thing. It was a nice picture, attached to a lot of good memories, and Duffy suddenly thought that it didn’t deserve to be hidden away with all the other forgotten photos. Carefully she peeled back the protective plastic and slipped the picture out. In the morning, she decided, she would get a frame for it.
She replaced the album and stood up, stretching as she did so and releasing a deep yawn.
"Time for bed for me too, I reckon" she said to herself. She looked back at the photo and without thinking, kissed the tips of her fingers and gently brushed them over Charlie’s face. Then she propped the picture up on the mantelpiece and carried on up to bed.