Smashed (16 page)

Danica comes puffing up beside me now. ‘Are … you … okay?’

‘Yeah … but I don’t know how we’re going to get ourselves out of this one …’ I search her face to see how she’s taking all this, but can’t read anything apart from noticing the way her lips are ridged and dry.

The sun is almost set now and a chill is settling over the beach. As Rita joins us, I can see goosebumps forming on her arms. ‘I’m sorry, Rits,’ I say and try to smile. ‘All I’ve done is make a bigger balls-up of what was already a disaster …’

‘I’m sorry too,’ she replies. ‘All I wanted is for the whole thing just to go away …’ She looks so young all of a sudden — the tiny clown-haired girl I used to tease.
What’s happened that now we’re in this mess?

Over at the water’s edge Carl is tearing madly at his clothes, stripping them off until he’s standing there in just his Simpsons boxer shorts. Behind him, the surf is crashing up onto the beach, and I feel my heart contract with fear. 

‘Oh shit! Carl — wait!’ I run over to him, signalling frantically for the girls to stay put. Up close it’s obvious he hasn’t recovered one tiny bit — if anything, he’s worse. He’s sobbing, snot pouring unchecked down his face.

‘It’s no good,’ he cries. ‘
Everything
I do is wrong.’ He looks directly at me, and I can see all the best parts of my good mate Carl Sissons cowering there. ‘I just wanted Don to know that what he did to Rita — and to you and your nice mum and dad — was not okay.’

It’s impossible to want to yell at him — if anything, I want to bawl my eyes out too. Seeing him like this, so totally destroyed, is just horrible. ‘Look, mate — maybe someone
else
did Don over after you and I had gone?’

‘You don’t get it …’ He takes a step towards the water and I move to stop him, but he holds up his hand. ‘Don’t come any closer, man. I’ll jump into the drink, I really will.’

To anyone standing here who didn’t know us, this would seem the lamest threat. Okay, the surf is strong and the water probably freezing, but it’s not shark infested or full of jellyfish or stingrays. But I know, as only his few good buddies know, that Carl can’t swim. He almost drowned himself during one of his psycho pranks when he was young, and hasn’t dared step near the water ever since. 

‘It’s cool, Carl — I believe you …’ My heart starts pounding like a jackhammer and I’ve got this really bad feeling … something’s going down here I can’t control. Carl in psycho mode is exhausting and annoying, but I’ve never seen him in a state of utter meltdown like this. ‘I’m sure we can sort it out. My lawyer, Sandra, can —’

‘I’ve made it right, I promise you — I won’t need her.’ He’s sobbing again, the sound ripping from his chest. ‘You’re so smart, Einstein.
You
know how the whole thing works …’

Even as he’s talking he’s edging into the water, one toe at a time. And I’m edging after him, equally slow so as not to startle him. Jesus, it’s like stalking mice. One foot wrong and I’m scared he’ll make a dash for it and slip between my fingers. I try to laugh, as if we’re just shooting the breeze. ‘Nah, man, I know nothing.’

‘You always said we were puppets to our genes — well, it’s all true. I
try
, you know, to control what I do, but every time I stuff up …’

‘That’s rubbish, Carl —’ He’s up to his calves in water now, and his eczema’s turned a horrid mottled red and stands out on his skin like blood. I take another step into the water, feeling it pour over the tops of my shoes, flooding my feet. But I’m scared to take my eyes off Carl. ‘You shouldn’t believe everything I say!’ 

‘But you’re right, man. There’s no point in me even trying to fix things now. I’m doomed to be a total freak all my life — just like you said. Puppet man. Pinocchio …’ He takes another jerky step into the sea, and I can hear the girls shriek nervously behind me. Jesus, if they blow this now, we’re all going down.

I wave them off, my hand frantically signalling behind my back, all the time trying to keep my voice real calm. ‘But I got it wrong, dude — I forgot about free will …’
My god, it’s true!
All the time I’ve been mouthing off about being controlled by our genes, I’ve been forgetting that our genes also give us the brainpower to make
choices
, good or bad. ‘It’s up to us.’

My heart misses a beat as the colour drains from Carl’s face and he shakes himself, his nostrils flaring wide — a sure sign the chemicals that mess him up are surging in. A tight, John Wayne smile slides onto his face, and he takes two swaggering steps further into the sea. ‘A lot of fellas make mistakes, I guess,’ he drawls, and I know this speech — it’s straight from an old movie he loves to watch, the part just before the big showdown. ‘But every one we make, a whole stack of chips goes down with it …’ Further he steps, and I’m following him, the freezing water reaching my crotch-line now and damn near killing me. 

‘Carl, I —’

‘We make a dumb mistake and some guys don’t get to walk away …’ He focuses straight at me now. ‘I’ve left a letter, Einstein. Should see you right with them pesky cops …’

He throws me a cowboy salute, laughing in a voice that sends the seagulls screeching off across the bay.

With that, he dives into the sea.

R
ita’s scream rocks me from my shock. ‘Stay away,’ I shriek back as I launch myself into the freezing water after Carl.

The stony sea-bottom quickly drops away and I’m treading water before I’m ready, waves slapping me straight in the face as I try to get a fix on Carl. He’s doing some kind of frantic dog-paddle, flying through the water in a frenzied race away from land. My clothes fill up with water and billow out like parachute brakes behind me, weighing me down, so Carl’s somehow floundered his way out past the wave line before I even hit my stride.

It’s hard to see him now; water is stinging my eyes and shooting up my nose and in my mouth. The panicked pumping of blood past my eardrums is competing with a sea that furiously roars as it tries to hold me back from Carl. I’ve no more control over the waves than if I was driftwood and there’s thick, grasping kelp winding round my legs and feet. It’s terrifying not knowing what’s below
the surface of the kelp, and all the shark-attack footage I’ve ever seen flashes severed-limb shots through my mind.

For a moment I tread water, trying to locate Carl against the darkening sky, then I think I spot him over to my right. He’s weakening now, his arms smacking uselessly and his body sinking as he slows. He’s not even fighting to stay upright, just letting the weight of his body pull him under, resting his head back on the body of the sea as if he’s welcoming its cold grasp.
He’s drowning, damn it — right before my eyes, the stupid bugger’s doing himself in
.

With all the strength I can summon I throw myself in Carl’s direction, but my arms are cramping from the cold and my legs have turned to useless marble pillars. I’ve got to get to him; force myself to keep going, fighting with the sea to reach him before his head goes under and all hope is lost. At last I think I’ve reached the place I saw him floating last — but there’s no sign of him now.

Please don’t let him die like this
… It’s hopeless, trying to find him in the huge expanse of choppy sea.
I’ve lost him … can’t believe I’ve lost him
… Something solid slides past my leg —
Jesus, a shark!
But I force myself to plunge below the surface of the water and open my eyes. At first I can’t see anything — it stings so much I want to
scream. There’s nothing but shadows and bubbles and my heart is trying to leap out of my chest in search of air. But there — just beyond my reach — is Carl, a rag-doll tossed by the swell.

I force myself to dive down deeper, scrabbling at him, trying to catch hold of anything to drag him to the surface. He’s dead weight in my arms and shows no sign of life, and for a moment I just want to give up too — open up my mouth and let the sea flood in and drown my pain. But Rita’s on the beach — I see her face inside my head and use her as a beacon to give me strength … and Danica’s there too.

I grab Carl in a head-lock, like they showed us when I learnt to swim, and fight my way back to the shore, nothing in my head now — no thoughts, no pain — just one arm ploughing through the water and my feet kicking for all they’re worth. Finally —
oh, thank you, thank you
— my feet hit solid ground and I’m struggling to drag him free of the waves. Then Danica’s beside me, and she helps me haul Carl’s seemingly lifeless body up the slippery shingle beach.

‘Oh my god!’ It’s Rita, running over to help pull him up. ‘Is he dead?’

I can hear her but I can’t see her — it’s like my vision’s narrowed down to one tiny sliver and it’s locked on Carl.
His face is a terrifying, iridescent white and, I swear to god, he looks so dead I want to howl.

‘Go,’ I yell to Danica and Rita, ‘go get some help.’

‘From where?’ Danica demands, but I’m already lying Carl down on the beach trying to pump out whatever water is inside him. I don’t know what I’m doing, but I rock him on his side and slap his back, as if he were a baby needing to be winded, then I roll him onto his back and start to blow into his mouth.

‘Okay,’ Danica calls, ‘I’ll go back to the village …’

I hear her footsteps thundering off across the shingle and Rita’s hard-out sniffing, but all I can do now is concentrate on pouring what little breath I have into Carl. I’m not sure if his heart’s beating, so I grope around his neck to see if I can find a pulse — but my hands are way too cold to sense anything.

‘Feel here,’ I gasp out to Rita, before I start another breath. ‘Is there a pulse?’

She presses her little hand onto Carl’s frozen neck. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know. Maybe …’

If his heart has stopped I should be doing CPR, but I don’t know how to do it properly and I’m scared I’ll only stuff it up — I’ve heard of people’s bones being broken, their ribs splintering into their hearts. I press my ear onto Carl’s chest to see if I can hear a beat — and at that
moment he heaves and coughs up a huge plug of water over me. He’s alive!

‘You total stupid useless bastard!’ I yell at him, so relieved to have him breathing.

‘Can you hear me, Carl?’ Rita pleads, as he rolls onto his side as more toxic seawater’s evicted by his retching. She reaches over his body to hug me in her small warm arms. ‘You saved him, Tobe.’

I’m shaking so hard-out from cold and repressed fear I haven’t even got the strength to raise a smile. ‘We’d better try getting him back,’ I say, ‘though I’m not sure I’ve got enough strength left to make it all the way.’ I’m still scared that somehow we’ll lose him — I’ve read how salt water in the lungs can do somebody in.

Together we somehow drag Carl to his feet, and each of us shoulders his weight enough to guide him as he stumbles, sleepwalking, along the darkening, deserted beach. Every part of me is aching from the effort, and my lungs feel like they’ve been set on fire.

Ahead of us, Don’s car lies deserted on the shingle mound. I lower Carl onto the ground.

‘Wait a sec,’ I say to Rita, and climb my way up to the car.

It’s as I thought. Inside the glove-box there’s some kind of letter, and I read it under the unearthly flicker
of the car’s courtesy light.
To whoever the hell cares
, it starts.
I confess to the assault of Donald Donaldson
… Carl’s written the whole thing down — that it’s
his
fault Don’s coma’d in that hospital bed. He clearly tells the cops I’m innocent … The stupid bugger’s saved my skin.

I jam the letter back into its envelope, shove it into the pocket of my soaking jeans and race back down. Carl looks more alert now, as Rita croons all sorts of calming rubbish in his ear. ‘It’s all okay now, you’ll see …’

We hoist him up and start our trek again, but now my body seriously wants to crash. Each step presses down on me with what seems like twice the gravity, and I find myself as silent and as locked inside as Carl. Yet as we crab-walk our silent cargo back along the beach, what comes back to me is that stupid prisoner’s dilemma we did in Psych. Only now the dilemma being faced is mine.

If Carl hands himself over to the cops he’ll possibly go to jail. He’s already on probation, and has too many other random convictions now to be let off. He’s right in a way to think he’s never going to break that mould — if he goes to jail now, he’ll probably never make it back into the real world … he’ll be cast into a role that’d probably prove too hard to shed. While
me
(if I’m really honest and stop being an overly dramatic middle-class dick), I’ll probably get 200 hours’ community work, and then I’ll just
get on with life as if this little ‘incident’ was nothing but a boyish prank. That’s the way it works, I reckon. The ones with all the luck to start with always seem to win the race, although of course there is that random little factor of
free will
…

I don’t know how long we’ve been trudging along this damn beach, but it feels like hours. Just as I’m about to collapse, a car’s headlights top a rise and snake along the shingle track towards us. I can’t believe it. It’s Mum and Dad, with Danica grinning like a mad woman from the back seat!

She’s out the door before Dad even stops the car. ‘You did it, Toby!’ She flings her arms around me and plants a kiss right on my mouth! I’m so surprised and shocked and relieved all at once, I don’t register whether it felt good or bad. I just stand there, slumped at the knees like an idiot, and stare confusedly at Mum. ‘How come you’re here?’

‘When you didn’t turn up by six thirty we thought we’d better head on out.’

‘But how’d you know where we were?’ Have they been so freaked by my behaviour they had me followed? ‘How?’

‘I texted them,’ Rita pipes up. ‘From in the car.’ She grins. ‘I didn’t wait till we were out of range like
some
…’ 

‘I couldn’t believe it,’ Danica throws in. ‘The first car I meet and it’s your parents! How weird is that?’

‘Into the warm,’ Dad orders now, taking Carl from us, and I’m not about to argue, cos the truth is I’m so cold my feet have turned to blocks of ice.

We pile into the car, Carl propped up between me and Danica, with Rita pressed in on the other side of me. Carl still hasn’t said a word. Not one.

‘I think we’d better get him to the hospital,’ says Mum. She reaches back across the seat and pats Carl’s leg. ‘It’s okay now, matey … you’ll see. It’ll all be fine.’

I love Mum for this, for caring that he’ll be okay, even though his psycho behaviour put her treasured kids at risk.
That’s
something Darwin and altruism and all that genetic programming can’t explain … just good old human kindness towards someone unrelated who’s obviously in pain.

No one talks as we wind back towards the city. Me, I’m so exhausted by the swim, and then the shock, I can hardly keep my eyes open. The salt water has left a gritty coating on my eyeballs, and tears stream down my cheeks like I’m blubbing up large. I can’t stop it, and have more than a sneaking suspicion it’s not just salt water causing the tears. I thought Carl had died out there — his skin so cold and devoid of life. And the despair on his
face, the total acceptance that his life is doomed, eats away at me.
What part have I played in this by shooting off my smart-arsed mouth about puppet genes?

Once we’re back in cellphone range, Mum rings Carl’s parents and arranges to meet them at the hospital. I can’t imagine how it must be for them. Do they dread every phone call, wondering what disaster their impulsive son’s leapt into now?

Their faces show the strain when they meet us outside A and E. Mrs Sissons has obviously been crying, and Carl’s dad looks more like ninety than mid-sixties, dressed in an old man’s suit with his zip-front slippers — not a good match. Carl’s still acting really weird, refusing to respond to anyone’s attention — it’s like his soul remains submerged on the seabed, even though I pulled him from the waves. But his mum hugs him close and kisses him and, for a fleeting moment, he allows his head to sink onto her shoulder.

It’s only after Carl and his parents disappear into one of the treatment rooms that we’re finally all free to talk.

‘Danica tells us Carl confessed to having beaten up Don,’ Mum says to me as we leave the waiting room and walk towards the car.

I stop in my tracks, trying to decide how best to deal with this. The long drive back from Makara has given
me plenty of time to think this through. I have calculated every variation of the outcomes to arise from this, my very private version of the prisoner’s dilemma; the only difference is that one of us risks a life sentence of terrible self-worth while the other (me) just short-term pain.

‘He’s wrong,’ I say.
Take one breath … two
. ‘The truth is, it
was
me who did him over, not Carl.’

‘
What?
’ Danica turns on me, her mouth hanging open as she processes what I’ve just said. ‘You mean you
lied
to me?’

The force of her anger breaks my heart. ‘No,’ I say, not able to bear that she thinks I’m a liar too. But she just throws her arms up in disgust and backs away, as Mum and Dad exchange bewildered looks.

‘What are you saying, Tobe?’ Dad asks.

‘Look … I’m prepared to plead guilty and take the punishment, okay? I’ve had enough.’ There’s no point explaining the logic of my about-face — they’d only try to talk me out of protecting Carl. But I’m absolutely clear I can’t let him take the punishment for this. I know Carl too well. He would’ve gone to see Don with no intention of hurting him, then just lost his cool, and once it’s lost he has no means to get it back.

Mum and Dad are still waiting for some kind of
explanation, but it’s Danica I need to reassure. The look of disappointment on her face brings me out into a sweat.
I don’t want to lose her now
.

‘If you just give me —’ She doesn’t stay around to hear, just takes off across the empty hospital car park into the shadow of the buildings. ‘Danica — wait!’

I nearly lose her as she slips into a gap between two high-rise blocks, but finally catch up with her as she flees up some stairs and tugs at a set of double doors. I latch onto her sweatshirt and don’t let go.

She swings around, her fists up like a prize fighter about to strike. ‘You total lying arsehole. I
believed
you.’

‘You don’t understand,’ I counter back. ‘Carl’s brain isn’t wired up like ours. Whatever causes it, it has the power to send him jumping over cliffs before his logic catches up with him and tells him to stop …’ She’s still on guard, her fists tense and primed to punch. ‘Carl knew Don had hurt Rita — that’s all he would’ve thought about. He only did what all of us were gagging to.’

‘But
did you
, Toby? Or did Carl? Just tell me the
truth
.’

‘It’s not that simple …’ I explain. ‘The truth is, I wanted to smash Don up real bad, so who really did it is almost irrelevant. Maybe having to face up to the consequences of this won’t do me much harm, and it sure as hell will do less harm to me than if that crazy hot-headed cowboy
mate of mine gets nicked.’

Danica’s fists slowly sink down to her sides. ‘You mean you’re going to take the rap for him?’

I look her straight in the eyes and nod. ‘It’s okay,’ I try to reassure her. ‘I think I’ve got this figured now.’