temperature ever recorded on the North American continent was minus 81F, at Snag, in the Yukon, in 1947, so don’t try to tell Charlie that ‘this has got to be the coldest night that America has ever known.’
For a general-store owner, Charlie was friendly, loquacious, and enjoyed ribbing his customers. In fact, swapping smart remarks with Charlie was one of the major attractions of the Granitehead Market, apart from the fact that it was the nearest general store to Quaker Lane. Some customers actually rehearsed what they were going to say to Charlie before they went shopping, to see if they could get the better of him; but they rarely did. Charlie had learned his bantering the hard way, from being a fat and unpopular child.
Because of his unhappy childhood and his lonely growing-up years, Charlie’s personal tragedy was in many ways more poignant than most. By one of those Godsent miracles of circumstance and fate, Charlie had met and married at the age of 31 a handsome and hardworking lady schoolteacher from Beverly; and although she had suffered two anguished years of gynecological complications, she had at last given him a son, Neil.
However, the doctors had warned the Manzis that any more pregnancies would kill Mrs Manzi, and so Neil would have to remain their only child.
They had brought Neil up with a care and a love that, according to Jane, had been the talk of Granitehead. ‘If they spoil that boy any more, they’ll ruin him for good,’ old Thomas Essex had remarked. And, sure enough, on the brand-new 500 cc motorcycle which his doting parents had bought him for his eighteenth birthday, Neil had skidded one wet afternoon on Bridge Street, in Salem, and hurtled headfirst into the side of a passing panel van. Massive cranial injuries, dead in fifteen minutes.
Charlie’s hard-won paradise had collapsed after that. His wife had left him, unable to cope with his obsessive preoccupation with Neil’s death; or with her own inability to give him another child. He had been left with nothing but his store, his customers, and his memories.
Charlie and I often talked about our bereavement. Sometimes, when he thought I was looking particularly down, he would invite me into the small office at the back of the store, hung with lists of wholesale orders and sexy Japanese calendars, and he would pour me a couple of shots of whisky and give me a lecture on what he had felt like when he had heard that Neil had been killed, telling me how to manage, how to come to terms with it, and how to learn to live my life again. ‘Don’t let anyone tell you that it ain’t hard, or miserable, because it is. Don’t let anyone tell you that it’s easier to forget about someone who’s dead rather than someone who’s simply left you, because that ain’t so, either.’ And I had those very words in mind as I stood wet and chilled in his store that stormy March evening.
‘What are you looking for, Mr Trenton?’ he asked me, as he measured out coffee beans for Jack Williams, from the Granitehead Gas Station.
‘Liquor, mainly. My outside’s drowned, I thought I might as well drown my inside as well.’
‘Well ,’ said Charlie, pointing down the aisle with his coffee scoop, ‘you know where it is.’
I bought a bottle of Chivas, two bottles of Stonegate Pinot Noir, the very best, and some Perrier. At the freezer, I collected a lasagne dinner, a frozen lobster-tail, and a couple of packs of mixed vegetables. By the counter, I picked up half a pecan pie.
'That it?’ asked Charlie.
‘That’s it,’ I nodded.
He began to punch out the prices on the cash register. ‘You know something,’ he said, ‘you should eat better. You’re losing weight and it doesn’t suit you. You look like Gene Kelly’s walking-stick after he’d been singing in the rain.’
‘How much did you lose?’ I asked him. I didn’t have to say when.
He smiled. ‘I didn’t lose nothing. Not a single pound. In fact, I put twelve pounds
For a general-store owner, Charlie was friendly, loquacious, and enjoyed ribbing his customers. In fact, swapping smart remarks with Charlie was one of the major attractions of the Granitehead Market, apart from the fact that it was the nearest general store to Quaker Lane. Some customers actually rehearsed what they were going to say to Charlie before they went shopping, to see if they could get the better of him; but they rarely did. Charlie had learned his bantering the hard way, from being a fat and unpopular child.
Because of his unhappy childhood and his lonely growing-up years, Charlie’s personal tragedy was in many ways more poignant than most. By one of those Godsent miracles of circumstance and fate, Charlie had met and married at the age of 31 a handsome and hardworking lady schoolteacher from Beverly; and although she had suffered two anguished years of gynecological complications, she had at last given him a son, Neil.
However, the doctors had warned the Manzis that any more pregnancies would kill Mrs Manzi, and so Neil would have to remain their only child.
They had brought Neil up with a care and a love that, according to Jane, had been the talk of Granitehead. ‘If they spoil that boy any more, they’ll ruin him for good,’ old Thomas Essex had remarked. And, sure enough, on the brand-new 500 cc motorcycle which his doting parents had bought him for his eighteenth birthday, Neil had skidded one wet afternoon on Bridge Street, in Salem, and hurtled headfirst into the side of a passing panel van. Massive cranial injuries, dead in fifteen minutes.
Charlie’s hard-won paradise had collapsed after that. His wife had left him, unable to cope with his obsessive preoccupation with Neil’s death; or with her own inability to give him another child. He had been left with nothing but his store, his customers, and his memories.
Charlie and I often talked about our bereavement. Sometimes, when he thought I was looking particularly down, he would invite me into the small office at the back of the store, hung with lists of wholesale orders and sexy Japanese calendars, and he would pour me a couple of shots of whisky and give me a lecture on what he had felt like when he had heard that Neil had been killed, telling me how to manage, how to come to terms with it, and how to learn to live my life again. ‘Don’t let anyone tell you that it ain’t hard, or miserable, because it is. Don’t let anyone tell you that it’s easier to forget about someone who’s dead rather than someone who’s simply left you, because that ain’t so, either.’ And I had those very words in mind as I stood wet and chilled in his store that stormy March evening.
‘What are you looking for, Mr Trenton?’ he asked me, as he measured out coffee beans for Jack Williams, from the Granitehead Gas Station.
‘Liquor, mainly. My outside’s drowned, I thought I might as well drown my inside as well.’
‘Well ,’ said Charlie, pointing down the aisle with his coffee scoop, ‘you know where it is.’
I bought a bottle of Chivas, two bottles of Stonegate Pinot Noir, the very best, and some Perrier. At the freezer, I collected a lasagne dinner, a frozen lobster-tail, and a couple of packs of mixed vegetables. By the counter, I picked up half a pecan pie.
'That it?’ asked Charlie.
‘That’s it,’ I nodded.
He began to punch out the prices on the cash register. ‘You know something,’ he said, ‘you should eat better. You’re losing weight and it doesn’t suit you. You look like Gene Kelly’s walking-stick after he’d been singing in the rain.’
‘How much did you lose?’ I asked him. I didn’t have to say when.
He smiled. ‘I didn’t lose nothing. Not a single pound. In fact, I put twelve pounds
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