Chapter Three The Wrong Road #3
None of this is really helping glean what afflicts me, though, so I’m not sure any of this was all that worth it. Annie is going to have a field day when we leave.
‘Think back!’ Zitana suddenly exclaims. ‘Think back to that day, Charlie!’
‘That day?’
‘Yes! Think back to it! Hear the song in your mind! Feel the things you felt! Open yourself to me and let me know your essence!’
I’ll be keeping my essence to myself, thank you very much.
And then, ‘My Humps’ by the Black Eyed Peas starts to play.
Aaargh.
Only this isn’t the usual version of the song.
It’s an incredibly slowed-down rendition, echoing around the room from seemingly everywhere.
Instead of sounding like an oversexed teenager, lead singer Fergie now sounds like a demon from the pits of hell itself.
A monstrous thing of unknown dimensions, coming for me – and wanting to know what I’m going to do with all that junk in her trunk.
How the hell is Zitana doing this? I hadn’t mentioned anything about the song until we got here today!
I know there’s a logical explanation, but I am creeped the hell out anyway.
‘Think, Charlie! Remember! Feel!’ Zitana exclaims loudly, gripping the arms of her chair as she does so.
This is getting absolutely ridiculous. What exactly does she want me to remember? I was quite happy at Teddy’s party. And then I had a panic attack when that bloody song came on. There’s nothing more I can think of to explain any of it than—
Instantly, horribly, the sound of breaking glass and screeching tyres fills my head.
Only this isn’t coming from Zitana’s hidden sound system. This is coming from nowhere except my own mind. But I can hear the noises. As if they were here in the room with me.
And I can hear ‘My Humps’. But it isn’t slowed down anymore. It’s at normal speed, but it sounds tinny. Small. On a low volume. As if it’s coming from much smaller speakers than either the ones here today or at the bowling alley.
Small speakers.
Car speakers.
It’s on the radio.
‘My Humps’ is on the radio, and I’m . . . I’m . . . I’m . . .
Crashing.
‘Oh, bloody hell!’ I moan, and clutch at the sudden headache over my right eye.
It’s happening again!
I can feel my heart rate skyrocket, and the world start to go black. I’m going to have another bloody panic attack, right here in front of Prince.
Thank God the New Power Generation aren’t here as well!
‘Charlie?!’ Annie cries, in exactly the same tone of voice as she used at the bowling alley, the last time she saw me in this state. Her hands fly out to grip my arm as I start to slump over.
Like a flash, Zitana is on her feet and around the table. She grasps me by both upper arms, and with a strength that’s frankly terrifying, she sits me up straight and looks deep into my eyes.
‘Say kumquat!’ she commands.
‘What?’
‘Say kumquat, Charlie! Now!’
This woman is comprehensively insane. Here I am in the midst of a terrifying panic attack, and she wants me to start naming exotic fruit? If I have a coronary, will she require legumes?
‘Say it!’ This time her voice feels like it’s taken on some sort of psychic quality, as if Zitana is tapping into some eldritch horror conjured up by the purple lights and shagging fairies.
I’d better do as I’m told, or there will be hell to pay.
‘Kumquat,’ I say in a shaky voice.
‘Again, please!’
‘Kumquat?’ This time my voice is a little stronger.
And what’s this? My heart is slowing.
‘Once more!’
‘Kumquat.’ My vision has returned to normal. I feel a little tired, but the panic has passed.
What witchcraft is this?
‘A simple psychological trick,’ Zitana says, as if she’s read my mind.
. . . having said that, we might be way past ‘as if’ at this stage. There’s every chance Zitana is the real deal. She certainly looks and acts it. And she’s triggered something in my psyche that I didn’t even know was there.
Crashing.
‘It’s designed to bring a person out of a panic episode,’ she continues. ‘By engaging the speech centres of the brain and introducing an incongruity, it short-circuits the panic response.’ She regards me for a second. ‘You should be fine. Just take a few deep breaths.’
And with that, Zitana sweeps back around into her chair in one swift, fluid moment.
I take those deep breaths and start to feel remarkably calm, given what’s just happened.
Annie’s hand rests gently against the back of my head and I feel her fingers in my hair. It’s super comforting. ‘What’s happening to him?’ she asks Zitana, all trace of sarcasm or cynicism gone from her voice.
Zitana takes a breath herself. ‘I think Charlie’s many soul is repressing something that has impacted him greatly. Is that not so, Charlie?’
I swallow and nod my head.
Yes. That’s definitely what’s going on here.
But I don’t understand it in the slightest.
I look at Annie, swallow hard and then tell her what I think is going on.
‘I had a car accident,’ I say, in as level a voice as I can.
Annie’s eyes go wide. ‘Oh, my God! When?’
‘About five months ago.’
She looks shocked – and not a little hurt, if I’m honest. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ she says.
‘I didn’t want you to worry . . . and we’d only been seeing each other for such a short time. I didn’t think it mattered.’
‘You didn’t think it mattered?’ she repeats, looking stunned.
‘No. Because it was . . . nothing. I wasn’t hurt. Everything was fine in the end. And it was that day you were doing your first gig at The Lexington Arms. I didn’t want to put you off your stride.’
‘Oh bloody hell, Charlie,’ Annie says with a loud exhalation of breath.
‘Honestly, please don’t worry about it. I was fine. I am fine,’ I tell her, squeezing her knee in as comforting manner as I am able. ‘I wasn’t hurt, apart from a bit of a stiff neck. Nobody else was really hurt, either – and I hated that car anyway. It was almost a relief to get it written off.’
It really was. I’d been wanting to get rid of that silly bloody MG for a couple of years, and getting it written off in that accident felt like a bonus, not a catastrophe.
‘I was very lucky,’ I tell Zitana, who arches an eyebrow. ‘No. Truly. I hadn’t really thought about it much at all. After a couple of days, it felt like a distant memory.’
She can’t arch her eyebrow any higher.
‘I was totally fine!’ I insist.
‘Well, you obviously weren’t, Charlie,’ Annie points out, trying to sound as gentle as possible. ‘You’ve been suffering for weeks now.’
My face crumples in confusion. ‘Yes, but . . . it was all fine. They checked me out in the ambulance, and then I got a taxi home. The insurance firm were very helpful – I knew I was right to get platinum cover – and they towed what was left of the MG for me. I had a hire car the next day, and the money in the bank within two weeks.’ I look at Zitana.
‘I don’t understand why that would cause a panic attack five months later! ’
‘It’s because your many soul is traumatised, Charlie.’
This is when I have to force my eyes not to roll. Zitana clearly has a talent for putting on a good show and coming across as the genuine article, but the many soul thing is still as silly as it sounded when we first got here.
She did stop me having to have another ambulance called over, though, so I resist the urge.
‘Well, possibly . . . but I don’t have a clue why,’ I tell her. ‘I wasn’t thinking about the crash when I had the attack. Hadn’t done for weeks. But that silly bloody song was playing on the radio when it happened, so I guess that explains it?’
‘Oh, my God,’ Annie says in a hushed voice. ‘Is that why you’ve been walking around humming it, with a look on your face like someone just shot your favourite dog?’
‘Is that what I’ve been doing?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Blimey.’
‘The crash obviously impacted you more deeply than you were aware, Charlie,’ Zitana points out. ‘The souls on the other side of existence have successfully communicated with your troubled many soul, and have gleaned what afflicts you.’
There’s a somewhat smug, self-satisfied tone to her voice that I could do without.
Mind you, it’s stuff like this that means she can afford a massive wigwam in her back garden, so who am I to judge?
‘Okay, but what am I supposed to do about it?’ I ask her.
She does not immediately answer, but the lights around us change once again.
The purple hue disappears to be replaced by a rather pleasant blue tone, and the chandelier brightens considerably into a soft white light.
The overall impression is like being in a Lenor commercial.
One where sheets get wafted about a lot, with constant blue skies in the background.
We’re going for super serene here, now that my trauma has risen to the surface. I’m quite grateful to whoever is watching all of this and fiddling with the light settings – probably Zitana’s husband. It’s very calming.
‘Now that you have uncovered what your many soul has been trying to tell you, you must seek to quell its roiling humours,’ Zitana says.
Okay, we’re straying into near-incomprehensibility now. I wouldn’t know what a roiling humour was if it bit me on the ankle.
Zitana senses this. ‘You must find a way to achieve a sense of equilibrium again with your many soul, Charlie. You must seek both its forgiveness and its love.’
‘And how do I do that?’
‘See a doctor,’ Annie mumbles.
‘I don’t need a doctor,’ I argue. ‘What say you, Zitana? How canst my humours be unroiled?’ If she’s going to lean on the flowery language, I figure I can give it a pop too.
‘You must seek thine advice of those who ken the physical and emotional ailments,’ she tells me.
‘You what?’
For a moment, the rather haughty, composed expression drops off Zitana’s face, to be replaced by a much more natural, exasperated one.
‘Your girlfriend’s right, Charlie, go and see a bloody doctor,’ she says, in a completely different voice – one that sounds more like she comes from the other side of a council estate, rather than the other side of existence.