Keep the Car Running (Zarry AU)

Chapter 10

He’s halfway across Battersea Bridge when Charlotte calls. Harry almost doesn’t answer, but it’s never good to ignore Charlotte; she’s like his mother, she always finds out eventually. So he wipes his cheek with the cuff of his hoodie and takes a deep breath when he answers, hoping it isn’t obvious that he’s been crying for the last ten minutes.

‘Hey, Charlotte,’ he says as breezily as he can. ‘How’s it going?’

‘Mr Styles, how are you this morning?’

‘I’m good, thanks. Just picking up some stuff for Paris.’

‘Of course. The car’s coming at midday, right?’

‘I think so.’

‘Good. So you can spare me a moment.’

Harry stops walking and closes his eyes.

She knows.

‘Of course,’ he says sweetly. I can spare a moment for you to crucify me.

‘Excellent,’ she says, just as sweetly. ‘By my calculations you should be about halfway across Battersea Bridge so I’ll see you in ten minutes, yes?’

Harry looks over the edge of the bridge and sighs wistfully. ‘See you in ten.’

+++

Harry hopes that Zayn doesn’t see him walk past his house again. He shouldn’t care, but he still tugs up the hood of his sweatshirt and dips his head as he walks up the steps towards Charlotte’s front door. The housekeeper answers, a tiny, nervous woman called Marla who has soft hands and hair the same colour as Zayn, that same watermelon seed black. She’s worked for Charlotte longer than he has, although he can’t think why; she has the broken, unfocused gaze of those women you see on the news who’ve escaped after being locked in someone’s basement for ten years. This morning she’s especially fidgety, throwing herself at him and hugging him as though he’s come to save her.

‘Miss Charlotte, very, very mad,’ she whispers, when she lets go.

Harry gulps. Actually cartoon gulps. ‘How mad?’

‘Sit by sideboard.’ She grabs his arm and squeezes. ‘Use candlestick if need to.’

Usually Harry would laugh at that, but he knows Charlotte well enough to believe that this is something Marla has considered. He wouldn’t be surprised if there isn’t something in every room in the house that Marla’s considered using as a weapon.

Charlotte is waiting for him in the conservatory, a large, delicate room that glints like an upside down crystal glass in the sunlight. It’s completely white – the walls, the chairs, the rugs, everything – which makes the garden look obscenely green, as though it’s been drawn in crayon. Charlotte is sitting neatly on a chair, also in white, her blonde hair pulled into a loose bun and her glasses perched on the end of her nose. ‘I can see you,’ she says in that sing songy way she does when Harry doesn’t know if she’s amused or about to go for his throat. He assumes she’s talking to him and stops, but it’s the gardener who’s outside, pruning a rose bush and has had the audacity to wander into her sightline. She rolls her eyes with a pained sigh when he scurries off, but before she goes back to her newspaper, she lifts her chin and when she sees Harry hovering, she peers at him over her glasses, pink lips pursed as if she has no idea who he is.

‘Morning, Charlotte,’ Harry says with a silly wave, pushing his hood back.

‘Mr Styles,’ she says with a frown. ‘I didn’t recognise you in-’