No More Charlie Barnard

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Charlie Barnard stared at the biscuit tin. A hollow lump of faded red and gold and the total sum of her life. On the lid was a picture of the queen. She was wearing that half smile she gave when faking friendship with strangers, like queens do. His arthritic fingers struggled to peel the lid off. Inside was a pink ribbon still in its wrapping, a purse of cracked brown leather holding a few coins, an address book in ageing black, its pages thick with turning and a ballerina of imitation marble now missing a nose and left hand. Charlie opened the address book. He was in here somewhere. That’s how the social services people had found him. He turned to ‘B’. Not there. Yes, she’d put him under ‘C’ for Charlie. He hadn’t seen Maisy for twelve years but, still, he would not have wanted to be filed as ‘Barnard’.

 

He wished now they’d kept in touch, that they’d both got married and had kids. His sister had been around for eighty six years, three more than him, and this was all she had to show for it: ninety two pence and a biscuit tin.

 

He could see her now as a kid, taking him down the road.

 

‘Can I take Charlie to get some sweets?’ Maisy would ask her mother. He was mum and dad’s favourite and everyone knew it. Charlie was her passport to get what she wanted.

 

‘Come on Charlie,’ she would say and take his hand but, once out of sight of the house, she’d run to the shops and leave him behind. He didn’t care. He could look after himself. If she didn’t need a brother, he didn’t need a sister. Two liquorice sticks, a gob stopper and a sherbet fountain, one old penny the lot. Ninety two pence would have been a week’s wages back then. 

 

Charlie rubbed the lid with the sleeve of his jumper. She was more that just trinkets in a tin. She was living on in his memories. There could have been so many more of them if they’d tried and the memories he did have would disappear when he did.  Who was going to remember him when he died? Even the memories in a biscuit tin were pointless if you’ve got no one to leave them to. What he wanted was what Maisy had, the temporary immortality of living inside someone’s head, that ephemeral existence between death and the point when the last person who knew you finally goes. 

 

The local church sat in a copse of trees. Heavy with the weight of centuries, the years had flaked the walls yellow and the ashen-faced clock on the tired spire had lost its hands long before Charlie had ever looked up to see if it was time to be wandering home. Not that it mattered. He sat in the graveyard to pass the time, not to know what it was. He would sit under the yew tree and study the gravestones, bowing exhausted towards the grass as though in secret conversation with those lying below. No use, even their names had been stolen by an age of wind and rain. A sycamore had thrust its gnarled way through a grave and split it like a hand of cards. There was an immortality of sorts, your body feeding a tree that could now be seen across half the town. But the inscription had long since disappeared from the shattered headstone. Whoever it was, was nameless now.

 

‘Hey, mister. You’ve dropped your apple.’

 

Charlie looked up, startled. A lad in his teens was standing over him. He remembered bringing the apple with him but must have fallen asleep before he could take a disinterested bite. Charlie took the apple.

 

‘Thanks,’ he said then added, ‘I’m not really hungry. You have it.’

‘No, thanks very much.’

‘We have an appointment with the vicar. We can’t walk into the church eating apples.’

 

Charlie realised that a woman was standing with the lad. She wore a yellow two-piece suit and then he noticed the creases in the boy’s trousers.

 

‘You getting married?’ he asked him. ‘Bit young. Make sure you have lots of children. You don’t want to be lonely when you’re old.’

 

The boy looked embarrassed. The woman grinned, then converted it to a casual smile.

 

‘My son is an artist,’ she said. ‘He’s going to paint a scene inside the church.’

‘Mum,’ said the lad with exasperation as they walked on.

 

Charlie knew they were here somewhere. Anything that he neither wanted nor wanted to throw away went into the back room and some places had not been visible for many years.  Suitcases, boxes, photo albums, spare rolls of wallpaper, presents of garish lamps, tea sets and vases, unboxed bed sheets, repairable and unrepairable clocks, had all found their resting place. It was a mausoleum of unrequired memories except now his roll of drawings was wanted once again. He dragged them from under the bed, cleared a space and sat down exhausted. The paper was dusty and a little yellowed. They were pencilled scenes of Devon, rolling hills, streams struggling through overgrown valleys, lazy gates leading to sheep dotted fields, thatch and plough under cotton skies. Charlie was still pleased with them, his surrogate children. And he was going to find them a new home.

 

The boy had set up his easel, facing the font. There were stone steps close by leading to the belfry and a plaque to some town dignitary on an adjacent wall that looked as though the mason had chiselled the final letter hardly a month ago. That’s how you stay noticed, thought Charlie, get your name stuck on a church wall out of the rain. He moved closer to the canvas. It had little more on it than a whisper of pencil lines, just the hint of structure and form.

 

‘Got a good spot then,’ said Charlie.

 

The boy turned and stared at him. The creased trousers had gone. Now he was in jeans and trainers. His hair looked as though it had not been combed that day.

 

‘How long will it take you? I used to draw when I was younger. A scene like this would take a few hours. ’Course, if you’re going to paint it, you’re talking days.’

The boy stared again. ‘Please, I can’t concentrate.’

‘Just wanted to say thanks again for picking up my apple.’

‘Apple? Oh, yeah. ‘’S all right.’

 

Charlie sat on a nearby pew and watched as the scene transferred itself on to the canvas. It was as though the boy was a conduit, a mere instrument, as shapes and structures flowed through the borrowed shafts of light and out of his hand. After a while he stopped to rest and broke open a can of coke with a fizz that echoed round the walls.

 

‘My name’s Charlie Barnard.’

 

The boy said nothing. He lifted the can to his lips.

 

‘What’s yours?’

‘Tim.’

‘What do you think of these, Tim?’ Charlie laid his drawings on a nearby bench.

‘Very nice,’ said Tim and took another swig.

‘Go on, take a look. All of them.’

 

Tim looked awkwardly at Charlie, then peered at the drawings. Charlie shuffled each one to the top of the pile slowly and reverently.

 

‘Yes, very nice.’

‘I’d like you to have them.’

‘Why? I don’t want your drawings.’

‘I’m an old man now. All these could get thrown when I go. I’d like someone to have them who’d appreciate them.’

‘Look that’s nice of you but I really haven’t got room.’

‘I’ve signed them. Look, Charlie Barnard, in the corner. You won’t forget whose they were even years from now.’

 

The boy finished the can.

 

‘Maybe if you asked your mother. She might find room.’

‘I’ll mention it when I get home, okay?’ Tim turned away and studied the canvas.

 

Charlie took a final look at the exposed drawing, the cottage in a hedgerowed lane where he was born. As he let go of the sheets they snapped back into their remembered roll.

 

All the jobs he wanted to do were done. The flat was tidier than for some time. He didn’t want anyone to think he was incapable. Indeed, he felt as capable, and clear-headed, as he ever had. Most important, he knew now he’d be remembered. The drawings were neatly rolled and wrapped in spite of his arthritic attempts to tie knots and the vicar had promised faithfully to give them to ‘Tim, the artist’. He took a final look at the churchyard. He had enjoyed his naps and strolls here but without people life had become largely pointless. And he wouldn’t have realised that without Maisy. Funny how her life had given him memories but it was her death that showed him what they meant. Charlie gave a final glance at the timeless clock and closed the churchyard gate slowly as it gave out its familiar squeak like the faint cry of a seagull. Then he ambled his way back home to lie down for the last time.