Drunk in Paris

Of Course Mme Vale let me go immediately to the airport and catch the next plane to England. How could I not go and see him? After everything Charles had still been a huge part in my life, the idea that Charles will not be on the same earth as me was a terrifying thought. Charles was my safety net, even when I had left for Paris I always knew in the back of my mind that he would always be there, any hour any time of day he would be there.

Dear sweet Charles, you are leaving the world so terribly.

Charles had Ischaemic heart disease; it seems all those expensive cigars had caught up with him thus restricting the flow of oxygen to the heart. It was too far gone to do anything and he had been bed stricken in his home for the last few weeks.
He refused to stay at the hospital, but that’s Charles, he always said he wanted to die in his old family house, the very same one he was born in.

I felt so awful, I knew Charles was old; he wasn’t the young handsome man he once was, despite his endless charm.
Maybe I shouldn’t have left?

I sat in the back of the cab on the way from my hotel to his house, chewing my bottom lip nervously; my mind ran the same three lines of a Baudelaire poem about a prostitute. She was visiting a rich customer on his death bed out of love for his thick wallet rather than his own person.

They fare but ill, vain courtesan, in this cold room,
Who bring here no warm memories of true love to keep!
And like remorse the worm will gnaw you in your sleep.

The worm of guilt has already begun to gnaw at me. I would enter that house for the first time in months and all his ex-wives, relatives and friends will whisper and say I have only returned for my part in his inheritance.
How wrong they are.
How awfully wrong they are.
I had doubted this at first; I mean what if Charles was lying just to get me back in England? But I knew in my heart he would never do such a thing, maybe Richard, but never Charles.
Dear sweet Charles, the road to his house seemed so long but nevertheless not long enough.
I was out of the cab and standing on gravel, facing that huge door before I knew it.
It opened to reveal his younger brother Anthony.
My throat lurched as he took in my stance with only a very brief greeting of “Hello Ava.”
His eyes were bloodshot, his suit crumpled.
“I know its late Anthony, but I wanted to come as soon as I heard. I’m sorry”
The man shook his head, ushering me into the house, “No Ava dear it’s fine, it’s just myself, Harriet has just left.”
I felt my shoulders relax.
Harriet was Charles’s second wife. That woman loved him more than anything, even when he decided to dump her for plastic wife number three Harriet still adored him. I never quite understood, but for some reason, especially now, I really felt for that woman.

The house smelt like I remembered, an old musty tang mixed with historic tobacco smoke. Charles had kept its original 18th century interior. I felt myself tripping backwards in time as I followed Anthony up the grand set of marble stairs to the bedrooms, my heels clacking quite repulsively on the oranges running through the soft white stone.

He left me at the top, ushering me to go forwards to Charles’s bedroom without him. Maybe it was too much for him to face again; Anthony and Charles were very close.
It was so silent it disturbed me. Enormous ancient houses such as these found themselves being dominated by silence from time to time, but my memories of this house were always filled with some sound. Either by the owner’s loud garish laugh or by his love of Beethoven, I can’t even remember the house in the dead of night being this quiet.
It felt like a deathly cloud was looming over the entire abode and I shivered as my feet stopped outside of his bedroom door. What do I do? How do I react to the man who has run my whole life and is now lying helpless in those Egyptian cotton bed sheets?
I took a deep musty filled breath of air and opened the door. It creaked in a typical historic fashion and I gasped with the view that came past my sights.
The huge oak bed was surrounded by wires, machines and a nurse sat in the far corner reading a book. She looked up at my entrance and smiled warmly.
I nodded at her and she continued to read as I made my way over to the edge of the bed one step at a time.
The continuous beeping of a machine hovered in the background of my mind, somewhere inside my throat something rushed to escape as I took in his frail form, wires protruding from his arm and nose.
I sighed, biting my lip as stinging tears formed in the corner of my eyelashes. He looked so pale, he lay there with no movement, it seemed like he was already a corpse on the mortician’s table.
“He’s asleep I’m afraid dear, the drugs send him out like a light. Are you a spouse or?”
I turned to the nurse who raised her eyebrow quite judgementally, “No, no, I’m just an old friend” I smiled sitting down on the chair next to his mattress.
She nodded at me and continued to read.
I took in Charles’ worn face, those wrinkles that had deepened since I had last seen him. His fingers were still stained yellow, his hair was still thick and grey but his frame had thinned greatly.
I sat there staring at him for a good while, I’m not sure how long I had been there but I suddenly shot up when I saw his eyes slowly open.
“Ava…” he croaked trying to sit up.
“Hello Charles”
He smiled at me, the gesture quite grim with the plastic tube obtruding from his nose.
“I thought I could smell your perfume but I didn’t want to open my eyes encase I was dreaming.”
I smiled, “How charming of you Charles.”
He croaked as he sat up, taking hold of my hand in his rough ones.
“This is it Ava I’m going…”
“Don’t…”
“No it is, I’m not scared, you shouldn’t be either I’ve had a fabulous life, it had to end sometime.”
I swallowed as he spoke.
“I wanted to say sorry to you.”
I leaned in closer to him, his small eyes twinkling ever so slightly as he continued.
“I…I spoke to a friend of yours…”
“I know” I interrupted.
He blinked at me.
“Ah, he found you then I take it.”
I nodded.
“Well, yes, then you probably have come to learn a few things”
I nodded again.
He sighed and looked away from me for a moment.
“I couldn’t just let you go like that…I told you when you decided to leave I couldn’t let you just go…I was looking out for you…I swear…”
“I know, I know.”
He chewed his bottom lip anxiously.
“I’m sorry”
Again I nodded, “its okay Charles, it doesn’t matter now, anyhow, if you hadn’t of…well…Billie wouldn’t have found me.”
We sat looking at each other for a moment.
“Do you forgive me?” He asked quite dramatically.
“Yes I forgive you” I whispered.
He picked up my hand in his trembling ones and kissed it softly.
“I love you Ava, you know that I love you, more than other creature on this earth I love you…”
Hot tears rolled down my face and he smiled at me, “…and that man of yours, he’s alright…for a yank.”
I let out a sob of laughter.
“Will you do me a favour darling?”
I nodded, dabbing my eyes with my fingertips that had been disappointedly returned to me.
“You have your Baudelaire don’t you?”
I nodded.
“What am I asking? Of course you do, you’ve carried that book with you ever since I bought it you...will you…would you be so kind to read it to me?”
I smiled at him widely, “Of course, French or English?”
He snorted, “English dear, you know I hate the French.”
My throat let out a strangled chuckle as I reached into my purse and brought out the book.

“Okay…”
I inhaled, glancing at him as he stared at me contently. My heart burned inside my chest as he looked at me. Then and only then did I realise that Charles had been the father to me I never really had. He had looked after me, cared for me, introduced me to the things that I love.
I had Billie now, I had Billie to love, Billie to love me, but I would always love Charles.

“What shall I read to you first?”
Charles chuckled, “The one that reminds me of you, er…Avec ses vet…or something?”
“Avec ses vêtements ondoyants et nacres? Okay…”
He grinned at me as I found the poem and traced my crimson nail down to the beginning line…
“With her pearly, undulating dresses,
Even when she's walking, she seems to be dancing
Like those long snakes which the holy fakirs
Set swaying in cadence on the end of their staffs.
Like the dull sand and the blue of deserts,
Both of them unfeeling toward human suffering,
Like the long web of the ocean's billows,
She unfurls herself with unconcern…”

…

The dregs sliding down the side of the wine bottle matched the line of salt water running down my cheeks. My eyes were sore, so sore from the hours of crying, they burned with fury, desperate for dry relief. My head had been aching but that pain was slowly disappearing with every mouthful of wine I gulped gratefully. This was ignorable despair, despair of broken dreams, shattered thoughts, a mind so black and lost that all my senses dumbed into void.
Why would it not stop hurting?
My whole body ached and the pain of loosing Billie after Mike’s party had returned in another fiendish set of clothes. Charles was dead, how could that be? He went silently in his sleep, my voice drifting through the air as I read lines from my favourite poetry. The poetry that had always been there for me.

His funeral was packed with mourners all dressed in deep black, I didn’t stay for his wake, I wanted to get out of the masses of people who wept over the man they didn’t know. I knew Charles, I knew what he loved, what he hated…one fiendish cousin placed a bottle of Chteau Lafite Rothschild Pauillac 1996 on his mantle piece at the beginning of the wake. I frowned at the bottle, Charles hated that wine, I removed it while no one was looking and swapped it for his favorite, Chteau Mouton Rothschild Pauillac 1986. He would have had a fit if that Chteau Lafite was toasted in his memory.

I decided that it was probably best of me to go home. I began drunkenly packing up my bags in the hotel room when my Baudelaire fell at my feet. It collapsed open on the page where Billie had written that small note the first time we met. I hadn’t spoken to Billie for about ten days. I felt awful, I didn’t have a cell and I couldn’t track my mind to remember his number. It’s not like I could phone directory’s and ask for a rock star’s telephone number now is it?
I collapsed onto my knees, thoroughly exhausted from everything that had happened this week. The feeling of loneliness was overtaking me; I was no longer walking the tightrope of life with a safety net.
There was a sudden knock on my hotel door and I clumsily dashed to my feet, throwing it open to reveal Mr. Golding, Charles’ lawyer.
“Hello Mis….Oh My… Miss Crawford are you alright?”
I nodded at his shocked face, gesturing for him to enter. He eyed the empty wine bottles and the clothes that littered the room so directly.
“I’m sorry to disturb you Miss Crawford, I…I realize that you are upset, we all are, but you left the wake without me informing you of Charles’ wishes.”
I sat on the edge of the bed watching him pace a small circle around my room nervously.
“He…Charles’ main benefactor was of course his brother Anthony, who received the estate and his title, then of course, Charles’ ex wives received their share, but, you, you err…Miss Crawford, Charles has left you a considerable amount of funds and, his, and he has left the female title of Winchester to you.”
I stared at him, “Excuse me?”
Mr. Golding glanced down at his expensive shiny shoes, “Well…Charles left the outstanding title to Anthony, or now, Lord Anthony Winchester but, as Anthony isn’t married and as he is not of a heterosexual nature and therefore will not marry a woman,
Charles requested that you have the title of Lady Winchester.”
I coughed, my eyes bulging in surprise, “So…so that…”
“Well in lateral terms, you are now the 18th Lady of Winchester and have succumbed to the amount of £200,000 that the title processes.”
“But…But Mr. Golding, I’m…I’m nobody! I can’t have this title…I…”
“You can deny it if you wish, then the title moves to Charles’ last wife Melissa.”
I coughed in shock, my body desperately trying to take in the information.
“But…” The man smirked, “I highly doubt that Charles would want her to have it. I suggest you take it Miss Crawford, you don’t actually have to do anything.”
I chuckled, “Why did he do this?”
He shrugged with a smirk, “I’m guessing he just thought that you appeared more of a Lady than his other wives.”
I shook my head in complete disbelief.
“This is ridiculous; I’m not going to use it.”
Mr. Golding chuckled, making his way to the door, “I’ll transfer the funds to your account, and I suggest you should go on holiday or something Miss Crawford…or should I say, Lady Winchester.”
He laughed, closing the door behind him.
I shook my head; Charles always had the last laugh.
The bastard.
I bet he was there at the wake chortling his head off at all his relatives going crazy about me receiving the title. A high class hooker made into a Lady - it sounded like an extreme Disney film.
It’s a good job I scarped out of there when I did. I bet Anthony was laughing, I always wondered why I had never seen him with a girlfriend. But he was gay, it made a lot of sense, he would always talk to me about Audrey Hepburn and Lana Turner while Charles would be happier talking about cricket.
What was I going to do now?

I stood in Heathrow airport.
Mme Vale said that I could take another two weeks of my vacation time off, and here I was standing in the queue for a ticket to California. I Bit my lip in nervousness, was this a good idea? I hadn’t spoken to him for days now so how on earth will he react to me just showing up in Berkley?
Maybe this was a bad idea after all.
“Next!”
I moved down the line, there was no going back now; the bark of the very orange looking stewardess must be a sign for me to get on with it.
“Hi how can I help?”
I smiled at her anxiously,
“Yes, err, can I have a ticket for the next plane to Sacramento airport?”
The woman teetered her head at me, “Is that in Rome? All flights from Rome are delayed till Saturday you know.”
I coughed, “Err, no, it’s in California.”
“Oh…Really? Yes, well. Okay…Well I don’t know I’ll have a look.”
I smiled at the woman, wondering how on earth she got to be in this business when she didn’t have a particularly good insight into Geography. I wasn’t an expert but I knew that Sacramento wasn’t in Rome. She frowned at me as she typed away at the keyboard.
“Err…I don’t think there is…sorry what’s your name…?”
I sighed; she obviously wasn’t going to give me a flight, maybe just to keep the small ounce of pride and power she had left.
“Ava…Lady Winchester…. Lady Ava Winchester.”
She lifted her head and swallowed, “Oh, well, err…your highness…I’m sure we can find you a seat”
I smirked at ‘your highness’ and withheld a chuckle, she had no clue. I was definitely getting a seat now, God Bless Charles and his silly little title. I suppose it did have its uses after all.
It helped me get closer to my beloved yank.