FEAR 2014

So I’m a bit sceptical. After all, I’ve spent literally years desperately trying not to share what happened and now here I am, sharing. Apparently it’s common for patients to struggle to express their innermost thoughts, expose their demons. The expression is to ‘give myself permission’ as my therapist put it. Until then it’s kind of like skirting round the issue without actually addressing it.

Which is exactly what I’ve done so far. Waffling, avoiding the subject. I’ve got this recorder so I suppose I’ll just say stuff as it happens, or as stuff occurs to me and we’ll see where we end up. It can’t make things any worse. If I’m going to make progress then I need to talk about how I came to this point. The trick, if you can call it that, seems to be to take each day as it comes. But before I get ahead of myself I’d best bring you up to speed with how I came to be in this state in the first place. Dr Watson said I can begin anywhere I like, wherever I feel able. So for me, things really began to unravel when I decided to confess. I suppose that’s obvious, given that this decision seems to have led directly to me going loopy.

Fantastic Expectations Amazing Revelations

Yesterday, one of my oldest friends was found dead. I hadn’t set eyes on him in almost ten years. My mum heard about it on local radio; died in his sleep on a bench apparently, his body had been there for over twelve hours. He would’ve been twenty-eight next month.

Sounds pretty grim doesn’t it? Well, that’s because it is. I know it must sound strange to you, I mean if he was such a good mate how come I hadn’t seen him in nearly a decade, right? That’s easy, I made a conscious effort to avoid seeing him even though he tried on lots of occasions to contact me. He’d even send messages via mum asking how I was. It was embarrassing. She’d say she’d run into him in town, would I ring him when I got chance? I never did, never planned to. I’d left it all behind, or at least tried to. Ran off to the other side of the Pennines with no plans to return. I suppose the fact that I’m here and writing this tells you that running away hasn’t been particularly successful.

I think the reason he died is the same reason I came home when I did. You could argue he’d been hanging on for me to get to this point, the point where I lift up the stone and shine a light on what’s hiding underneath. I know that’s why he kept trying to contact me. He struggled with it more than any of us. He wanted to come clean, take responsibility. I chose to run away. I don’t know how he died but I know what caused it. This is going to sound harsh, but he’s better off dead, I really believe that. At least now he doesn’t have to suffer under the weight of it anymore. Another life ruined by what we did.

You might be wondering what sort of lunatic thinks it’s for the best if his twenty-seven year old friend is found dead on a bench in a shopping arcade? As I’ve said already at least he’s free of it now. You can argue he had the rest of his life in front of him. I’d counter that by saying all he had to look forward to was more of the same, maybe even a spell in prison. But certainly no prospects of the life he could have had. No glittering career, family, none of that. How do I know? Because I haven’t got any of that either.

But we’ll get to that, all in good time, it’s all going to come out now, finally, that’s why I came back. The breakdown was never part of my plan, obviously. I wanted to tell the story before it surfaced of its own accord. My friend’s death has only given me more reason to do it. If I miss any details I reckon there’s a decent percentage chance you’ll be able to catch the rest in the papers or on the news.

I make no bones about it. A large part of the reason I’ve returned to confess is so that, perhaps, I’ll be able to sleep without the aid of pills and alcohol. So what can be so bad that it’s led to this? Well, almost ten years ago a girl disappeared without trace. I know where she is, my dead friend knew too, because we killed her.

Hmm, there it is. Spoken out loud. We killed someone, a girl. I’ve lived with that secret for very nearly ten years. It killed two of my friends. Okay, that’s dramatic. One died in a car crash, the other from causes yet to be determined. But I’m certain what we did was a factor because it’s been a part of me ever since that night. You wake up and it’s there, follows you round all day, a constant presence, inhabiting you.

I thought it might feel different to admit it, perhaps it will when I actually say it to another person, to the police. Don’t get me wrong it feels liberating to at least be talking about it, to be able to say how I feel, how I’ve been feeling, about it. Honestly, I almost rewound this and recorded over it. We killed her.

Okay, now straight away I bet you’re judging me. Killer. Murderer. Psychopath. Well, yeah, maybe. Not maybe in terms of being a killer, but I’m not sure I’m a psychopath, or any other kind of dangerous lunatic. Perhaps this CBT stuff will help get to the bottom of it, perhaps not. As I’ve already said, having a breakdown wasn’t part of the plan and I am on a bit of a fixed timescale here. But if you really want to start using labels allow me to suggest a few alternatives. Coward, liar or drunkard perhaps?

Either way, like I said, all in good time. Much as I want – need – to tell somebody what happened, there are things I have to do first, like get in touch with another one of my oldest friends. Since I left town I haven’t seen him either. All part of my ever so clever avoidance tactics, geographical distance, cut all ties, drink a lot, pretend it didn’t happen. Turns out it’s not a great coping strategy.

I’ve just listened to what I’ve recorded so far. Apologies once again for rambling. If I received this as an editor I’d have a fit. But then again, this is all a bit stream of consciousness. I’ve just realised I haven’t told you anything about my friends. Sad really, at one time they were everything to me. But we’ll get to that too.

There were four of us in our little gang; we were all there the night it happened. Brett Oliphant – recently deceased on a bench, Dean Byron – known as D.B. to his close friends and also dead, Pete Healey and me, Victor Gossard. Everyone calls me Vic by the way, it’s a family name: my dad, his dad, an uncle or two, loads of Victors. As for Gossard, that’s been the butt of more jokes than I’ve got time, or inclination, to mention. Suffice to say that I’ve had more than my fair share of tit, boob and breast jokes thrown in my direction. It wasn’t all bad though, it taught me to be quick-witted and I was quite the joker at school. Seems a lifetime ago now though.

Before I forget I’ll just mention Dean. He died about two years ago in a car crash, just one of those things apparently. I heard it was dark, a dodgy bend in the road, he lost control and that was it. Thankfully, according to the newspaper report my mum read to me over the telephone, he wouldn’t have known a thing about it and, if his existence was anything like mine, then it was merciful too.

I chose not to come back for his funeral which is disgraceful I know, spineless. We were thick as thieves throughout high school and because of one event we were reduced to nothing, our relationship torn to pieces. Dean was probably the most similar to me out of the four of us and he kept his distance after it happened. Suited me and over the years I never tried to reach out to him and as far as I know he never tried to get hold of me either. No calls, no messages via my mum, no Facebook. Like me he probably thought about it and realised we had nothing to say. That’s not true, we had just one thing to say, one thing to talk about, and no desire to talk about it. Best left alone.

Anyway, he died, I miss him, at least I miss the kid I’d known at school, but again, at least he’s free of it now. Now that Brett’s gone as well, in a lot of ways I think he had it worse than any of us, that just leaves Pete and me.