Whiskey & Charlie by Annabel Smith Page A

tablet.”
    Charlie nods. He doesn’t know what to say.
    â€œWhat kind of music does he like?” he asks suddenly, in the yawning silence.
    â€œYou think we should play music in here? Do you think that would help?”
    â€œI don’t know, maybe. But it was more that I was wondering. I didn’t know… I wanted to know.”
    Rosa nods, thinking. “He likes a lot of old things. The Beatles, the Rolling Stones,” she says after a while. She pulls up a chair on the other side of the bed, holds on to Whiskey’s good hand, the one without the cast. “He has some records, you know, original ones.” She thinks for a minute. “And he loves that guy with the big suit. What is his name?”
    Charlie shakes his head.
    â€œYou would know him, Charlie; it makes me crazy, that electric music.”
    â€œElectronic,” Charlie corrects out of habit.
    â€œI’m too tired to speak perfect English today, Charlie.”
    â€œSorry, Rosa. I don’t know why I said that.”
    â€œDon’t be sorry. Usually I like it, you know that; I want to get better. But today I’m too tired for it.” She looks at Whiskey then, and Charlie remembers himself, gets up to leave. He is at the door when Rosa looks up again.
    â€œYou want to look through the records?” she asks.
    Charlie nods. “I’d like that.”
    â€œYou can play some, if you want. Go there now. I will be here all night anyway.” She rummages in her handbag for the keys. “Take Whiskey’s car.”
    Charlie hesitates.
    â€œCome on, Charlie,” she says. “Whiskey knows you hate it. It does not suit you one bit. It will make him laugh to think of you driving it.”
    Charlie takes the keys.
    x x x
    It’s probably a good ten-minute drive from the hospital to Whiskey and Rosa’s place, but that afternoon, Charlie makes it in six. It might be because there’s not much traffic at that time of day, but it probably has more to do with the fact that Charlie breaks the speed limit all the way there, runs every yellow light into red. He would never drive his own car so recklessly, but sitting behind the wheel of Whiskey’s car, he finds there is no other way to drive it. It has something to do with the position of the seat, the angle of the windshield. For the first time, Charlie has a sense of what made Whiskey buy a car like this. He has never understood it before; has been blinded by his embarrassment over the ridiculous price tag, the personalized license plate. If he had driven it himself, he might have seen it differently. But Whiskey had never offered, and Charlie had never asked.
    x x x
    It’s too quiet at Whiskey and Rosa’s. Charlie feels afraid to disturb things, as though Whiskey is already dead and his home, his belongings, have moved into the realm of the sacred. He shakes off the thought, goes into the kitchen to make himself a cup of tea. He has never been alone in this house before, has to rummage to find cups, tea bags, sugar.
    While the kettle’s boiling, he goes into the living room to look for Whiskey’s records. But there are no records there, only CDs, mostly greatest hits albums—Santana, Fleetwood Mac, the Eagles—which must belong to Rosa. Charlie has an urge to lie on the voluminous couch, kick off his shoes, and go to sleep.
    Instead he makes his tea and takes it into the other part of the house, the other wing, he supposes it would be called. He hasn’t been here for so long—the last time must have been the cocktail party Whiskey organized for Rosa’s thirtieth, almost two years earlier—he’s forgotten how enormous the house is. It’s far too big for the two of them, but as Charlie knows, when they bought it, they’d imagined they would fill it in no time.
    At least three, Rosa had told Juliet in the beginning, maybe even four.
    Since he made his decision, Charlie has tried not to