“I don’t know. I’ve never seen her cook anything.”
“What does she eat? I mean, she can’t live on crackers and water.”
Rosie said, “I think she sends out for things.”
Fat Charlie thought it highly likely that Rosie’s mum went out at night in bat form to suck the blood from sleeping innocents. He had mentioned this theory to Rosie once, but she had failed to see the humor in it.
Rosie’s mother had told Rosie that she was certain that Fat Charlie was marrying her for her money.
“What money?” asked Rosie.
Rosie’s mother gestured to the apartment, a gesture that took in the wax fruit, the antique furniture, the paintings on the walls, and pursed her lips.
“But this is all yours,” said Rosie, who lived on her wages working for a London charity—and her wages were not large, so to supplement them Rosie had dipped into the money her father had left her in his will. It had paid for a small flat, which Rosie shared with a succession of Australians and New Zealanders, and for a secondhand VW Golf.
“I won’t live forever,” sniffed her mother, in a way that implied that she had every intention of living forever, getting harder and thinner and more stonelike as she went, and eating less and less, until she would be able to live on nothing more than air and wax fruit and spite.
Rosie, driving Fat Charlie home from Heathrow, decided that the subject should be changed. She said, “The water’s gone off in my flat. It’s out in the whole building.”
“Why’s that then?”
“Mrs. Klinger downstairs. She said something sprung a leak.”
“Probably Mrs. Klinger.”
“Charlie. So, I was wondering—could I take a bath at your place tonight?”
“Do you need me to sponge you down?”
“Charlie.”
“Sure. Not a problem.”
Rosie stared at the back of the car in front of her, then she took her hand off the gear stick and reached out and squeezed Fat Charlie’s huge hand. “We’ll be married soon enough,” she said.
“I know,” said Fat Charlie.
“Well, I mean,” she said. “There’ll be plenty of time for all that, won’t there?”
“Plenty,” said Fat Charlie.
“You know what my mum once said?” said Rosie.
“Er. Was it something about bringing back hanging?”
“It was not. She said that if a just-married couple put a coin in a jar every time they make love in their first year, and take a coin out for every time that they make love in the years that follow, the jar will never be emptied.”
“And this means…?”
“Well,” she said. “It’s interesting, isn’t it? I’ll be over at eight tonight with my rubber duck. How are you for towels?”
“Um…”
“I’ll bring my own towel.”
Fat Charlie did not believe it would be the end of the world if an occasional coin went into the jar before they tied the knot and sliced the wedding cake, but Rosie had her own opinions on the matter, and there the matter ended. The jar remained perfectly empty.
THE PROBLEM, FAT CHARLIE REALIZED, ONCE HE GOT HOME, with arriving back in London after a brief trip away, is that if you arrive in the early morning, there is nothing much to do for the rest of the day.