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?’
‘So what? You can look me in the face and say so what?’ I step closer to him. ‘Tell me, what did you think when she told you about how I was on the phone when the crash happened? That it was all my fault?’
Annie tries to step in herself. ‘Don’t do this, Charlie.’
I ignore her. I have to ignore her. ‘Come on, Jack . . . what did you think?’
Jack’s cheek twitches involuntarily.
Yep. There it is. The same disgust in his eyes I saw in Annie’s. Brief, but very definitely there. ‘That doesn’t matter,’ he says. ‘What matters is getting you the help you need.’
‘No. What matters to you is doing what Annie asked of you,’ I tell him. ‘She needed your help with me. I know you well enough to know you wouldn’t be here if it was just you.’
The cheek twitches again.
‘Jack?’ Annie says, looking up at him.
He looks back at her. ‘He’s not having it, Annie. I’m sorry. I don’t think we can talk him around. Not yet anyway.’
Ha!
There we have it.
If it were up to Jack, he’d let me fester here for as long as I wanted. He’s done with me. His old friend Charlie King is gone. All that’s left is a killer, and a waste of space.
‘That’s it, is it? You’re just going to give up?’
The three of us all turn to look at Leo, who is still stood in the doorway, a look of consternation on his face.
‘Sorry?’ I say, taken aback.
‘You’re just giving up? You’re just going to sit here and do nothing?’ Leo repeats, stepping more into the room.
‘Well . . . I . . .’
‘That’s not you, Charlie. That’s not you at all,’ he says.
‘It is now,’ I counter.
‘You haven’t even tried to make amends, have you? You haven’t even worked out who he was. You always come up with a plan of action, you always try to fix things. You always know the facts, the details, and right now, you don’t have a clue and you’re not even bothered.’
‘Leo . . .’ Annie sounds more than a little perturbed by Leo’s tone.
‘What? I’m right, aren’t I?’ Leo insists. ‘Charlie’s sat here wallowing in guilt about a man he knows nothing about.’
Bloody hell.
Leo is absolutely right. I’ve been so wrapped up in my own guilt trip that I haven’t even tried to find out who my victim was.
Charlie King wouldn’t have done that. He’d have been on Google. Searching for any information he could find. This useless lump did nothing, though.
‘Does it matter?’ Jack asks Leo.
‘Of course it matters!’ Leo snaps. I don’t think I’ve ever heard him snap at Jack before.
‘Who people are matter! Who they shared their life with matters!’ He looks back at me.
‘Don’t you think you should find out who he was, instead of wallowing in misery, and doing nothing, like you are?
Trust me. Doing that will get you absolutely nowhere. ’
Leo’s words are like a cold, hard slap to the face. He is absolutely right that I should find out more about my victim.
About who he was and . . . who he left behind.
I swallow.
‘Could you all please leave?’ I ask them.
I need to be alone.
But not because I want to lie on the bed and look at the fly anymore.
‘Charlie, I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ Annie protests.
‘He’s right,’ Leo counters. ‘Charlie does need to be alone. We should leave.’ He doesn’t take his eyes off me as he says this. ‘He needs to do some research. He needs to do something.’
I . . . I think I’m slightly scared of Leo right now. Which is not how things are supposed to work in our relationship.
‘Ah . . . yeah,’ Jack says, also looking at our friend in something of a new light. ‘I think we should do what Leo says, and leave Charlie alone for a while.’ He looks at Annie with no small degree of consternation, but then cocks his head towards the door.
Annie’s lips purse for a moment.
‘Trust me,’ Leo says, looking straight past me and at her.
She looks down at the threadbare carpet for a moment.
Does she trust Leo? He’s known me far longer than she has. But nowhere near as intimately – for obvious reasons. She’s scared, and worried, and frustrated.
Annie chews on her lip for a moment longer, before looking up at me. ‘Do what you need to, Charlie,’ she tells me. ‘You don’t need me around to tell you what to do.’
Good. That’s fine. You’re better off without me.
Annie stares at me for a moment longer . . . before she crosses to the door and walks out of sight without looking back. That’s probably the last time I will ever see her.
Good.
Good for her.
Jack watches her go before puffing out his cheeks and pointing down at my SpongeBobbed penis. ‘Put that thing away properly, before it hurts someone,’ he tells me, and follows Annie out.
Leo stares at me in that disconcerting manner again. ‘Don’t lose who you are to the person you think you are, Charlie. Find out the facts.’
He doesn’t wait for me to reply. He’s gone before I can draw another breath.
And therefore, once again, I am alone.
But the door is open. And that’s probably a change for the better, all things considered.
I’m going to do what Leo has told me to do.
Find out.
. . . which is surely a better option than a sad little epilogue here in this bed and breakfast, isn’t it? Charlie King’s book of Totally Fine wouldn’t end well with a fly bumping around on the ceiling like that. Nor with whatever that stain is on the wall, over by the dresser.
No. This would be a terrible place for this story to end.
There’s a better epilogue to it. One that involves me doing something proactive.
Like Charlie King used to do.
You remember him, right?
I’m going to have a shower, get dressed and go and find Lionel. I was very nice to him yesterday, so I’m sure he’ll let me use his antique PC. I just hope it has an internet connection.