Totally Fine, page 22
I’ll just see what he wants.
Very quickly.
Shouldn’t be a problem.
Shouldn’t cause any issues.
Simple.
Easy.
I turn down the Black Eyed Peas on the radio, and answer my phone.
The world is a complex, multi-layered thing.
And it throws things at you.
Vicious, horrible things that you can’t avoid.
Everything explodes.
Including my preconceived notions about how simple my mind is.
I stare into Annie’s eyes as the horror of it overwhelms me.
Not just the final revelation, but that I still – STill – have a brain that can hide things from me so damned easily.
So simply.
‘I w-w-was on the phone!’ I stammer. I feel my knees go out from under me, and I end up collapsed forward into Annie’s lap. The strength has drained completely from my body.
‘What?! Charlie, what’s the matter?!’
She grips my shoulders as I shudder uncontrollably.
‘I was on the damned phone!’ I scream into her lap.
‘What?!’
I look up into her eyes.
Probably – no, very definitely – for the last time, because after this she won’t want to be anywhere near me. She won’t want anything to do with me.
My life ends here, because I ended a life.
‘The crash! It was . . . It was . . .’
Say It.
‘It was my fault.’
It was my fault. I was on the phone. Not paying enough attention to the road. Too worried about a stupid bloody birthday party. Too concerned with my plans and my events. Too concerned with being Charlie King.
‘What do you mean, Charlie?’ Annie asks – but she already knows. The breathless tone, and the look in her eyes tell me so. Her wonderful, expressive eyes . . . realising for the first time that she’s been with a monster this entire time.
‘I killed him,’ I say. ‘The old man in the car. I was on my phone, and I wasn’t paying attention. I crashed into him.’ I fall back from Annie’s lap, pushing myself up against the kitchen cabinet. Above me, broken and useless in the kitchen sink, is my mobile phone.
‘I killed him,’ I repeat, staring into both the distance and the past.
No wonder my mind tried to protect me. No wonder it built all those walls.
I essentially murdered another human being, due to my recklessness.
‘Charlie, that can’t be right,’ Annie says, trying to disagree. But her eyes agree. They agree 100 per cent.
She knows I’m telling her the truth now, doesn’t she? Even though she desperately doesn’t want to. She knows.
‘It doesn’t make any sense,’ she continues.
‘It makes perfect sense,’ I say in a dull voice. ‘It’s the only thing that makes sense.’
‘You were on your phone?’
I nod. ‘Oh yes. Busy, busy Charlie King. Couldn’t wait until it was safe to talk to bloody Maurice.’
Annie’s eyes go wide. ‘From the bowling alley?’
I nod again. ‘Had to talk to him, didn’t I? Had to make sure everything was going to plan.’ I put a heavy and disgusted emphasis on the last few words. ‘I had to answer the call, because everything had to be perfect. What a bastard.’
‘Charlie! Stop it,’ Annie says. ‘You’re not . . . not a bastard.’
Oh, but the hesitation in your voice says different.
I laugh. There’s zero humour in it. ‘No bloody wonder I’ve been so screwed up. I’m the guy who likes to help people. Loves to put a smile on their faces. Make their lives better. And look at what I really am. A murderer.’
Annie balks. ‘You’re not a murderer, Charlie! It wasn’t . . . something you did deliberately.’
I look at her with a level of disgust she most certainly doesn’t deserve. It’s not meant for her, but I’m so brimming over with self-loathing that some of it is spilling out into places it shouldn’t. ‘I’m sure that’ll be great solace to whoever the poor old bastard left behind after his death. I’m sure as he was sat there clutching his chest and breathing his last, he was thinking about how it wasn’t something I did deliberately, so it’s not all that bad, after all.’
‘That’s not what I meant!’
‘I know, but it doesn’t matter, Annie. I killed a man, and there’s nothing you can say or do that will change that.’
The look of confusion crosses her face again. ‘But the police . . . the paramedics . . . If you’d have done that, then . . .’
‘Then what? Like you just said, I never did it deliberately. Just an accident. I doubt they spent much time on it. Just another poor old fart killed on the road by a reckless idiot.’
‘But they would have—’
‘Enough!’ I snap, making her jump. ‘You’re not going to help, Annie! I did this, and there’s nothing that can take that away!’
I scramble to my feet. I don’t know why, but I do. I feel like I have to move. Keep moving. Run. Run away from all of this. Run away from myself.
‘Please, Charlie, don’t be angry with me!’ she says, the look of hurt almost unbearable.
No.
This is good.
Get her away from you.
‘Then stop trying to help, Annie!’ I snap. I hate myself. I despise myself. Even more. ‘Just stop! Unless you’re going to tell me to go to the police and confess my sins! You seem keen on me seeing someone in authority. Why not them? Why not serve a punishment for my crime?’
She stares at me for moment. ‘I think you need to see a doctor more than ever before, Charlie.’ Her voice is raspy, low. As if she’s saying something that causes physical pain, and can’t manage to get it out any louder, because it hurts too much.
‘Why should I?!’ I rage. ‘Why should I get to be fixed up and made good again? He didn’t get that! Your bloody medical experts worked on him as hard as they could, and he still died! I saw it, Annie! I saw it all happen, right in front of me!’
My eyes sting with tears.
‘I don’t deserve to feel better!’ I rant, spittle flying from my lips. ‘I don’t deserve . . .’ I trail off, unable to articulate a truth I have been hiding in a very dark and horrible part of me.
I don’t deserve you, Annie.
I don’t deserve anything other than panic attacks and sleepless nights.
‘I have to get out,’ I say instead, rubbing my face in my hands.
‘No, you can’t go anywhere, Charlie. We need to sort this out. We need to get to the bottom of what happened!’ Annie rises from her chair, coming towards me.
‘I know what happened! God almighty, Annie. We know what happened now!’ The worst thing I will ever say then falls from my lips. ‘Are you happy now?’ I snarl it, like a dog. Like a wounded, angry dog who’s backed into a corner by something large, brutish and ugly.
The truth. Delta’s fucking truth . . . finally here.
Annie looks as if I’ve slapped her. Worse even than when she recoiled from the flying mobile phone.
Ring ring.
Ring ring.
I killed a man.
I storm out of the kitchen, leaving what will very soon be my ex-girlfriend to reel from my harsh and horrible words.
She’ll recover.
She’ll get better.
Because I won’t be around.
I’m out of her front door before she has another chance to call me back.
Run.
Get away.
But get away from what? I can’t get away from my memories. Can’t get away from that ugly, brutish truth.
I stumble along the pavement, reliving. Remembering.
The police. Did they question me? Yes, I think they probably did – but I was too far out of it with shock and guilt to recall much now. But I must have lied to them, eh? Must have spun them another one of Charlie King’s epic tales that absolve him from any blame or wrongdoing.
Chalk that up as another crime to go down in my already full ledger. Lying to the police.
That moral centre is getting smaller and smaller by the second.
Or maybe the fiction had glossed itself over my mind by then. Maybe my subconscious was already well on the road to protecting Charlie King from his role in the death of an innocent old man.
He came out of nowhere, officer! I would have told them, utterly believable. Utterly convincing.
I was driving so incredibly safely, listening to my marvellous lady lumps on the radio, and then bam! . . . that’s all I remember.
Yeah. That sounds like Charlie King. Innocent of all blame. Responsible. A good man.
Ha!
Maybe I should walk to the nearest station and hand myself in.
My heart hammers in my chest.
No. I can’t do that. Can’t take that. I can’t . . .
. . . do the time.
How many years in prison do you get for killing someone for dangerous driving?
Just keep walking. Just keep going.
Go home.
No! Not home! That’s where my empty email account is! That’s where the bed I can’t sleep in is!
And they’ll find me there! They’ll find me, and they’ll drag me away!
I feel in my pocket. My wallet is there. My credit cards are there. I can just leave. Run away. Go somewhere nice.
Be a . . . fugitive.
Hi Mum! Hi Dad! I know you think you raised me with a good moral centre, but I’m a killer, a liar and a fugitive now! Hope that’s okay. Am I coming to you for Christmas this year?
Good grief.
A hotel, then. That’s easier. That’s better. I’ll have time to think. Time to get things straight. Time to decide what the hell to do next.
Next.
Is there even a next now?
Now the great lie has been uncovered at last. Now the truth has finally come to light. Now the book of Totally Fine, written by the great and powerful Charlie King, has ended with the absolute worst last chapter imaginable.
What even is next . . .
. . . other than the epilogue?
Epilogue
The banging outside somewhere is loud.
But it doesn’t matter.
It’s not for me.
Nobody knows I’m here, you see.
Apart from Lionel.
Good old Lionel. Proprietor of The Crooked Hat pub and bed and breakfast.
I’ve never been here before. Why would I? It’s only an hour’s walk from my house, along the old Moore Road. Driven past it a thousand times. No reason to stay here.
Until now. Until the day I needed somewhere to hide.
From myself as much as anyone.
Can’t tell you how lovely it was to have a chat with good old Lionel as he checked me in to the bed and breakfast on his antique-looking PC.
I was Charlie King again for a brief moment. Confident. Happy-go-lucky. In control.
Lovely.
The room I’ve been in for the past fourteen hours is not lovely. It is old. It is threadbare. It is far too expensive for a bed and breakfast on the old Moore Road.
It’s also got paper-thin walls.
I didn’t sleep much last night in the hard bed Lionel has provided for me (no surprises there. I never sleep these days. I don’t deserve such nice things), so I got to hear exactly what my fellow Crooked Hat guests were up to.
Sex, in the case of the couple right next door. The kind of muffled sex you have when you know you’re somewhere with paper-thin walls.
Maybe that’s them doing the banging now. Could well be. They sounded quite young. I’m sure the turnaround is pretty swift.
I don’t care. The banging has nothing to do with me, whatever it is.
I can just lie here on this uncomfortable bed, watching the fly bounce around on the Artex ceiling, for as long as I like.
I’ll have to get some sort of food at some point, just to keep myself going.
And then I’ll have to make a decision about what I’m going to do.
No decisions.
No plans.
Not yet.
That’s fine, brain. I’m more than happy to put those kinds of things off for a while longer. I can just lie here and exist in Lionel’s Crooked Hat. Maybe until I die.
That’s not much of an ending to this story, but it might well be an appropriate one.
A life for a life – like they used to say in those old spaghetti westerns.
I consider my disturbing current train of thought as I watch the fly bounce around on the ceiling, and conclude that, when all is said and done, I very much am not Totally Fine.
Haven’t been for quite a while.
Still. That has nothing to do with The Crooked Hat, or Lionel. Or the fly. Or this strange moment I find myself in.
I do wish they’d stop banging next door, though. It’s getting annoying.
‘Charlie?!’ a muffled and very familiar voice says, floating through the paper-thin walls.
My soul freezes.
‘Oh God, we’re so sorry,’ another familiar voice says. ‘Wrong room.’
‘Try the next one,’ a third, stronger, but equally familiar voice intones.
I have a horrible feeling the next room is going to be me.
Quick! Under the duvet!
What?
Under the duvet! Hide! Lionel will protect us! His duvet will keep us safe!
I’m not sure duvets quite have the power to do that.
Do it anyway!
Bang goes my door. Four times in quick succession.
‘Charlie?!’ Annie’s voice is hectic. Laced with extreme anxiety.
Keep quiet!
I pull the duvet over my head.
‘You in there, Charlie?’ Jack says.
‘It must be this one,’ Leo remarks. ‘It’s the last room in the building.’
The door bangs another couple of times. ‘Come on, Charlie, open up!’
Go away, Jack! Go away, Leo too!
And Annie?
‘Please, Charlie, you need to speak to us,’ she says, her voice trembling.
I almost answer her. Every fibre of my stupid being wants to answer her. But I don’t.
‘You sure this is the last one?’ Jack asks Leo, when he realises I’m not going to open up lines of communication.
‘Yes, absolutely,’ Leo tells him.
‘Right, I’ll have to put the door in, then.’
You can see him pushing up his sleeves, can’t you? That tone of voice has sleeves pushed up to the elbows written all over it.
Jack is about to ruin Lionel’s lovely little bed and breakfast. I can’t allow that to happen. Lionel likes Charlie King. Lionel doesn’t know who Charlie King really is. I want it kept that way.
‘Stop!’ I cry out, and immediately regret it.
‘Charlie! Oh, thank God!’ Annie exclaims.
‘You gonna open this door, or do I have to?’ Jack growls.
I roll my eyes. Jack loves an opportunity to be macho when he gets half a chance. I think that’s why I was so delighted to get him into that mankini.
‘I’ll open it,’ I say, and get up from the bed.
With massive, massive reluctance, I go over and unlock the door.
Leo gives me a look up and down. ‘If I can go the rest of my life without having to see you in SpongeBob SquarePants boxer shorts, I will be a happy man.’
I look down at myself. Oh yes. That’s right. I’m virtually naked.
Who cares at this point, really?
‘How the hell did you find me?’ I ask them, consciously barring the door. I don’t want them in here. They might bother the fly.
‘I . . . I followed you,’ Annie explains. ‘From my place. I stayed back, because you . . . scared me, Charlie. But I wanted to know where you were going. I wanted to know you were safe.’ She looks at Jack. ‘And then I knew I had to go and get your friends to help me, so you wouldn’t . . .’
‘Hurt you?’ I say, my voice cracking as I remember how hard I threw that phone against the wall.
Annie doesn’t answer. She just swallows and breaks eye contact.
Oh God.
‘What do you want?’ I say to her. ‘Why are you even here?’
‘To make sure that you . . . you get help, Charlie. I’m not so sure I can be around for it anymore, but I want to you to get the help you need to make you feel . . . better.’
‘No. You shouldn’t be around. You’re right about that,’ I reply, in as cold a voice as I can muster.
Push her away.
Keep her away.
She doesn’t deserve you.
I should feel deeply ashamed of my behaviour, but for some reason, I don’t. I think I’ve swum through the rivers of shame and self-recrimination, and into a lagoon of not really caring about the consequences anymore.
That’s probably why I can stand here, nearly naked, and why I can look at that expression on Annie’s face and know it’s the right one for me to be looking at. It’s for the best. I can handle Annie. I can push her away.
Jack, not so much . . .
‘Right, that’s enough of that,’ he says, pushing past me and into the room. I could try to put up more of a fight, but no good would come of it. I’ll let him have his rant and then I’ll get all three of them to leave.
I don’t think they realise how far gone I am at this point. But I do.
‘Get your stuff, you’re leaving this smelly little hole,’ he says, looking around with visible signs of distaste. How dare he be so cruel to poor Lionel! All this place needs is a little spruce up, and a special evening, where Lionel and I can invite the local press and council dignitaries to enjoy the delights of The Crooked Hat for themselves. That should get business cooking.
I can send everyone home with a fly each, as a nice pet.
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ I tell Jack. ‘Not yet anyway. I haven’t decided what I’m going to do yet.’
‘What you’re going to do is go home, and get your skinny arse to a doctor tomorrow. No more arguments.’
‘No, Jack. I won’t be doing either of those things. I killed a nice old man. This is the place for me. This is where I should be.’
‘Don’t be so ridiculous.’
‘Annie’s told you about what happened with the phone, I suppose?’
Jack nods, folding his arms. ‘Yes. So what?’
