A Blue Sky Existence

Chapter Twenty (Epilogue)

Chapter Twenty

A Final Note

 I felt it appropriate to end the story there.

   You, reader, whoever and wherever you may be at this moment, have humoured me for these last hundred or so pages. Now I owe you some truths.

  I will list to you the following facts: Brody Gaddis died from a reaction to the PMA (Para-methoxyamphetamine) that contaminated the ecstasy pills.

    The Kegel brothers procured these pills from a dealer in Kingside, and after a police investigation they were convicted of drug dealing and possession, along with other offences of arson and vandalism.

     Charles Pounce died in a fire that destroyed a large part of his family’s cottage; I discovered that my real grandfather was a soldier named James Scripton who died on the frontline during the Great War; Charlie Pounce and I did come close to having sex in someone’s attic at a New Year’s party; I eventually did see a therapist, once a week, for twenty years.

    And now for an untruth: Charlie never ran away from home. His mother and sisters knew he didn’t run away, as did I.

    I don’t know if Charlie really had been considering a short photography expedition that day, and I never will know. One thing is certain: Susan-Jane and the twins went for a walk in the afternoon. He did not.

    They returned to the news that Charlie had perished with his father. He was found, asphyxiated, outside the study. They thought he’d been trying to break down the door.

    I turned forty-five three days ago. I’ve never married or had children of my own, but there are a handful of godsons and goddaughters I care deeply about.

   What I moved to Paris fifteen years ago, to a small flat in a moderately attractive building, where I’m currently writing these words. My desk looks out onto the pavement below, dotted with small, well-kept trees.

    I own an art gallery on the ground floor of a building in the 14ème arrondissement, and while it’s not particularly famous, it brings in enough to pay the rent.

    As a teenager I’d always wrestled with my affection for Charlie, which gradually evolved into something much deeper. So many times my girl friends would grumble about wanting to move somewhere more exciting, far away from Southside and Ashford, perhaps Britain altogether. But that thought never entered my mind, not really, because in Southside I always had Charlie, and so that was where I wanted to stay. I was too in love with my best friend.

   If - or when - any members of the Pounce family read this, I’ll have to be prepared to accept the consequences, the backlash. I can understand why they might see it as disrespectful of me to place a deceased relative into fictional situations with them, although for my part, I did my best to keep those interactions to a minimum.

    The friends and family with whom I’ve shared plans for publication have all, in some way, told me that I’m crazy. But to me, there is nothing crazy whatsoever about refusing to let loved ones, the most passionately loved ones, spend the rest of eternity only as dust.

    The afterlife is a very tricky thing. Here and now, we may live out a generally content, blue-sky existence, but who knows what lies beyond it? Who has the authority to say what is or isn’t there at all? Ever since Charlie’s death, I’ve realised that it’s a question too significant to be ignored.

    To those who’ll criticise me -  judgement is inevitable here - I ask you this: if there’s even the slightest chance that the shivers I once felt at a car boot sale, in my kitchen, and at my bedroom desk, were because Charlie was there at my side, then why shouldn’t I have the right to treat it as a truth?

 Etienne Mercier