“He’d have been with me,” I admit – because it’s the simple truth.
“Yeah, well, that says it all,” Carrie tells me. She is crying now. “Don’t you understand? It can’t work. That night’s always going to come between us. I’d always know that, when the going got tough, you’d cut me out.” She glances at her watch. “Look, I’m on duty at five. I’d better drive you back to the hospital.”
“I want to stay here for a while. It’s only a short walk down to the road. I’ll pick up a cab from there.”
“You can’t. Not in your condition.”
“Goddamn it, Caroline, I’m being released the day after tomorrow. I’ll be absolutely fine.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure. Get the hell away.”
She stands awkwardly in front of me, shifting her weight from one foot to the other.
“I’ll … I’ll go then,” she says. “Goodbye, Mike.”
It is goodbye. Even if, in the future, we see each other every day, this will still be the point at which we really stopped seeing each other at all.
“Goodbye, Carrie,” I say.
She turns, and starts to walk away. Once, I think she is about to glance over her shoulder. But she doesn’t. She weaves in and out of the graves until she hits the path. Now she has passed through the cemetery gates and is going down the steps to the road, where her car is parked – leaving our hero alone to contemplate his lonely tomorrows.
With my eyes firmly fixed on Bobbie’s grave, I go through my mental check-list of my options:
One: I could go back to New York and try to write again – but if there had been another book in me, it would have fought its way out long ago.
Two: I can stay with the Harrisburg PD. Porky – via the print media – has offered me Ringman’s post, giving new meaning to the phrase ‘I’d kill for that job’. I won’t take up his offer. As long as Pine is the mayor, and keeps using the Department to run his dirty errands, it’s never going to get any better – no matter who’s in charge.
Three: A couple of members of the Board of Elders, looking guiltily over their shoulders, visited me in hospital.
“Porky’s getting tired,” one of them told me.
“Three terms in office is enough for any man,” the other added.
“He won’t go without a fight,” I warned them. “And maybe, with all the new jobs coming into town, he can’t be beaten.”
“He can be beaten,” the first Elder said confidently. “As long, that is, as he’s got the right man up against him.”
So there it is if I want it. Mayor Kaleta! Drunken Polak carpenter’s son makes good.
But do I want it?
If I can’t have Carrie, is there anything I really want?
A black cloud drifts over the sun.
How’s that for cheap symbolism?
It is suddenly colder and the breeze starts to blow up again. This is no longer the carefully controlled environment of the hero’s hospital bed – I’m right back in real life.
I shiver. It’s too painful to raise my right arm far, so I fumble awkwardly with my left, buttoning my suit coat, shutting out some of the cold.
I’ve started to feel sorry for myself, I realize – and that sucks.
I look down at Bobbie’s grave, and I am ashamed.
You want to talk loneliness? You want to talk misery? Then talk Bobbie Hopgood!
Yet he never gave up. After he had flooded his mother’s kitchen doing the laundry, he still tried to repair the patio door. After every defeat, he came back fighting.
And so will I!
There have to be other things in life besides happiness.
Don’t there?
“So what if I never write another book, Bobbie?” I ask the silent grave. “So what if I never fall in love again. There are mountains to climb and rivers to swim. There’s fat-assed, taxpayer-shafting mayors who need their butts kicking off their leather padded seats. I’m going to take on Porky – and I’ll beat the bastard.”
“Yes, you will,” says a voice behind me. “And you’ll make a fine mayor.”
I turn, and Carrie is standing there. Her eyes are red, her cheeks are puffy. And I’ve never loved her as much as I do now.
She grins uncertainly.
“I thought you’d have trouble climbing down those steps by yourself,” she says. “I figured you wouldn’t make it back without me.”
“I’d have made it back,” I tell her. “I’m a survivor. But it would have hurt one hell of a lot.”
She is standing there, 6ft from me, waiting for me to say something more.
I know what she wants me to say, and also know that it is not enough just to say it – I have to really mean it, too.
“However rough things get, we’ll face them together,” I promise. “I’ll never slip you a Mickey Finn again.”
Carrie’s uncertain grin is transformed into a wide smile, lighting up the whole of her beautiful face.
“You bet your ass you won’t,” she says. “So, are we partners – or what?”
“We’re partners.”
She rushes forward, throws her arms around me and hugs me tight.
My wound screams out in protest.
It hurts like hell – but it is worth it.
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Violation Page 24
