Chapter Ten Still Walls #2
‘No!’ I snap, and toss the phone back into the sink. ‘I can’t answer it! I shouldn’t answer it!’
‘Why, for God’s sakes?!’ she cries.
I look into her horrified eyes, hoping for some kind of answer to be reflected back at me.
There are still barriers here.
Still walls.
Still things to avoid. To run away from. To keep forgetting.
People say the mind is a complex, multi-layered thing. Mine never has been. At least, it’s never felt that way to me before.
The world is a complex, multi-layered thing. Of that much I am certain. But I’ve always managed to negotiate it pretty well, because my mind has always felt like a simple thing.
That’s not to say I think I’m stupid. But simplicity does not equal stupidity. In fact, some of the most elegant, intelligent, beautiful things that have ever existed are stunning in their simplicity.
The wheel, for instance. The Mona Lisa.
The chocolate Hobnob.
No, a simple mind is a mind uncluttered by doubt or indecision.
Or guilt.
I’ve never really had much to feel guilty about in my life.
Never really done anything all that wrong.
I was brought up by parents who instilled a pretty good moral centre, and I’ve always tried to be a decent guy.
Largely because it’s just easier. Especially in my line of work – which requires communicating with people on a regular basis.
It’s incredible what a smile can do, if you use it well enough.
Being nice just makes life easier. And less stressful.
All things considered, Charlie King has been a good person for most of his life.
A man with a simple mind.
Until . . .
My humps and my lumps.
It’s time to peel back the final layer.
Because the mind is a complex, multi-layered thing, no matter how much I wish it was not.
It’s a delicate thing as well. It needs protecting.
Sometimes from itself.
Ring ring.
Ring ring.
Can you hear it?
Even over the sound of the Black Eyed Peas? Over the sound of my horrendous singing? Over the sound of the road rushing by beneath us?
I can hear it.
It’s Maurice from Mega Lanes.
It’s always Maurice from Mega Lanes. In the dreams my mind won’t let me remember, when I wake screaming from them in the middle of the night. It’s always Maurice from Mega Lanes, who wants to chat about Teddy’s birthday party.
And I do need to chat to Maurice. I really, really do. Teddy’s birthday has to go off without a hitch. Of course it does. Because I’m Charlie King, and I like to make people happy. I have a new girlfriend to impress. One I think I am very probably already head over heels in love with.
But I can’t answer him now, can I? Not while I’m driving.
That would be irresponsible of me.
That would be wrong.
That would be against the Highway Code.
And my parents brought me up with a good moral centre. The kind that precludes me from answering my phone while driving.
But I do so want Teddy’s birthday party to be perfect. For Teddy. For Annie.
And who knows when I’ll get chance to speak to Maurice again today?
I’m so busy, you see. With the meeting at Zenith Games, and then Howling at the Moon, and then Elaine . . .
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?