Chapter Twelve The Right Road #3
Charlie King does not improvise.
Fuck it.
He bloody does now.
I fire the engine up, slam the gear stick in reverse and wave a triumphant fist in the air.
‘Wank!’ I shout at the top of my voice, and gun the throttle.
Gormley speeds off Jack’s drive and onto the road. I then swiftly turn the wheel to back us into the road proper. When I slam the brakes on, Jack flies back into his seat again. ‘Stop it, you bloody madman!’ he wails.
Leo is giggling.
He looks terrified, but he’s also giggling.
‘Wank!’ I repeat, this time doing my absolute level best to copy Wayne the Parrot’s screechy bird voice.
I slam Gormley into first gear, and speed off down the road. ‘We’re going on an adventure!’ I exclaim to my two friends, channelling Bilbo Baggins for all I’m worth.
Jack has now – finally – managed to get himself up, and he staggers along the tiny aisle towards me. ‘Pull Gormley over right now!’ he orders.
‘I can’t!’ I tell him. ‘I have to keep driving!’
‘Why?!’ he barks.
‘Because it’s messier this way!’ I say, and laugh. From behind Jack, Leo laughs too.
‘What the hell has got into you both?’ Jack snaps.
‘I have no idea, mate!’ I tell him. ‘But I know this is the right thing to do!’
‘Why?!’ he repeats, clinging on to the cupboards on either side of the little aisle for dear life as I take a right turn.
‘Because I have no idea why I’m doing it! Because I haven’t planned anything! Because I don’t know what road we’re on!’
Ah yes, I do love a bit of symbolism. My friends know me so well.
‘Just let him do it,’ Leo says to Jack, grabbing him by one shoulder. ‘I think he needs this.’
Yes, you’re right, Leo. I do need this. I don’t know why, but I most certainly do.
Jack looks at Leo for a moment, and then back down at me. He points a finger. ‘You stick to the speed limit,’ he demands.
‘I will!’ I promise.
‘Don’t put a scratch on him!’ he further orders.
‘I won’t!’
‘I have no idea how far you’re going to get. I haven’t filled him with petrol for months.’
‘We’ll see, eh?’
Yes, yes. We’ll see. We’ll just see where we end up.
I take a left, still with no idea of where I’m going. I do this sensibly, at the speed limit as Jack has ordered, but I still do it with a freedom and a lack of forethought I didn’t know was possible for a person like me.
‘Let’s go and sit down,’ Leo tells Jack. ‘Let’s just trust him.’
Jack gives him a look of utter disbelief. ‘Are you serious? After everything he’s put us through? After all of his plans that went horribly wrong on us?’
Leo looks down at my smiling, hectic face. ‘That’s the thing this time, though. He doesn’t have anything planned, Jack.’ His eyes go wide. ‘And maybe that’s for the best.’
‘You’re mad,’ Jack retorts. ‘You’re both mad.’ He scratches his chin. ‘But then I did once go up a mountain in a mankini, so I guess I must be mad too.’ He points the finger of doom at me again. ‘Not a bloody scratch, King. Not a bloody scratch.’
I snap off a salute, and let my friends go and sit down at the back of Gormley.
So . . . what exactly are we doing here, Charlie? Where exactly are we going?
I don’t know.
Yes, you do.
Do I?
Yep. The place you refused to go. The place they need to go.
They won’t like that.
No. Probably not.
We won’t get in, either. Not today.
No. But it’ll be . . . symbolic.
Oh yes. Yes, it will, won’t it? And I think in this case, symbolic might well be enough. Because I know my two best friends very well, and they know me.
But maybe not quite as well as they think they do.
. . . not yet.
Time to change that.
It takes me about ten minutes to arrive at the same doctor’s surgery they were trying to bundle me into a few weeks ago. I park Gormley right outside it, in a no-parking zone. It has to be right outside the building or the symbolism will be lost.
Turning off the engine, I slide out of the driver’s seat and turn to walk back down the aisle. Jack’s face is like a thunder cloud. Leo’s face is now like the accompanying rainstorm. Both of them are somewhat terrified of me right at this moment.
Quickly now. Before whatever weird friendship magic you’ve caught here dribbles away . . .
I look at my friends, and in that moment, I know exactly what I need to say.
‘I love you both,’ I tell them in as blunt and honest a tone as I can muster. Jack’s eyes go a little wide. Leo’s soften. ‘I have put you both through hell, because I love you both. And I wanted to . . . fix you. Like you were . . . I don’t know . . . frayed ropes on a boat.’
‘Charlie, you don’t have to—’ Leo begins.
‘Yes, I do,’ I interrupt. ‘Please, just let me say this. I really don’t have any of this planned, and I don’t want it to .
. . slip away.’ I try to clear the lump in my throat.
‘I wanted to help you both, because you both do need help. The same way I did . . . I mean, do. But it can’t be me that does it.
I can’t force you do anything. I can’t make you take care of yourselves.
All I can do is tell you that I love you, I support you, and I want you to feel better. ’
‘We’re fine, Charlie,’ Jack says in a quiet voice, but he doesn’t believe it.
I shake my head. ‘No, you’re not. But you can be.
The same way I can. So please . . . because I love you both, and you’ve done nothing but support me, I want to do the same for you.
If you just do the one thing I refused to do for so long because I was scared and embarrassed, I promise I will be there to make sure it’s not as scary or as embarrassing for you. ’
It’s not the best speech in the world. I’m sure with a few more edits and a bit of thought put into it, it could be much better. But it’s all I have right now. And it’s messy, and imperfect, but it’s all true.
‘Okay, Charlie,’ Leo says. ‘I promise I’ll see someone about what’s scaring me so much. If you’re there with me?’
‘Of course. I will be there right alongside you, whenever you need it,’ I tell him.
I can’t read the look in Jack’s face. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it before. There’s reluctance in there. There’s doubt. And there’s fear.
He gets up from the little Formica table. It takes him about eighty-seven minutes, but that’s fine. I can wait.
Jack then very slowly puts his arms around me, and gives me possibly the best hug I’ve ever had in my life. ‘I love you too,’ he tells me in a gruff voice.
The hug goes on for another couple of moments, before he releases it, and stands back.
‘Dickhead,’ he says with a smile.
And then he turns, pushes Gormley’s side door open, and exits the mobile home, headed straight for the entrance to the surgery.
‘It was only supposed to be symbolic,’ I say, watching him go, somewhat perplexed.
‘Charlie, Jack couldn’t do symbolic if you put a gun to his head,’ Leo tells me, quite accurately. ‘Go and park Gormley properly,’ he adds, before following Jack out of the door.
Do you know something . . . I’m not sure Gormley’s tired beige and brown interior is exactly what you’d call the perfect place to end this story, any more than the confines of The Crooked Hat were.
But it’ll have to do.
After all . . . the world isn’t perfect.
And neither are we.