The Suicide Club (15 page)

I looked at her scribble, and then looked up at her, and that was it. I was in love with her. With Clare. My heart started beating fast as I looked into her big wide eyes. I don't know what processes happen in your heart when you're falling in love, but they had just finished in mine. The machines had stopped. I was fallen.

*

I had been friends with Clare since I was eleven. We hadn't gone to the same primary school but I remember seeing her around town when I was a kid and thinking how pretty she was. So when I turned up for my first day at secondary school I was ecstatic that she was in all of my classes.

I can't really remember how we became friends, but we did. For a while we were the talk of the year because we hung around together so much. But we were always only friends. That was just the way it was with us.

Back in those days we were still innocent and we had some great times together. We'd go into the city and hang around over each other's houses and go into town to eat chips on the war memorial. We were so innocent that we even went for bike rides together. Sometimes we spoke
about how the other kids perceived us, and we had a good laugh about it.

In our first summer holiday, we used to hang around in the park with the other kids our age and eat ice creams whilst the lazy sun dipped behind the hills.

After my first kiss, Clare was the second person I told after Matthew. She didn't have her first kiss until she was thirteen, the same year that she lost her virginity. That was our third year of school. At that time, Clare started hanging around with the older boys and, although we still spoke, it was far less often and we found ourselves drifting apart outside school. When we did go round to each other's houses, we would mostly listen to music. She had an older brother and it was from him we got our impeccable music tastes. Clare loved this band called the Smashing Pumpkins, from America. Her favourite song was theirs:‘1979'. It's a beautiful song. My favourite song also happens to be by the same band, but mine is called ‘Today'.

When she finally got her first boyfriend our friendship ceased to exist. I was a little hurt but we had been growing apart so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. It was roughly at the same time that I started going out with my first girlfriend. But whilst I was standing on corners and having a fluttering heart because I was in love, Clare was out having sex and smoking marijuana.

Then my parents split up and I joined Clare on the slippery slope to the loss of innocence.

It was strange how we both came out of our wild phases together. One day in school I remember Clare approaching me and we basically apologized for dissing each other for so long and agreed to go back to the way it was before. Of course it never got back to being
exactly
the same because we both knew that we had our secrets and they were irreversible.

Because we both had our dark pasts, they caught up with us emotionally. We were scarred from our experiences and, eventually, we slipped into playing our mind games. At first it was just a bit of fun, but as time went on it got to the point where we could not have a normal conversation without having it slip into Drama.

I think we both felt bad that we had got to such a point, but we were too afraid to back down because it would be too much like losing, even though I don't like to say that because I hate the ‘games' that get played between boys and girls, when the power of unbridled love is a much better thing.

So, although we had a strange relationship, it was built on a foundation of solid rock. Why I fell so suddenly in love with her I have no idea – maybe it was because of the Drama with Craig on that day when he swallowed those pills, or maybe it had happened by degrees across the time that had elapsed since. I don't know. Whatever the reason, it happened and there was nothing I could do about it.

After school, me, Matthew, Jenny and Clare went over to visit Craig. None of them had been to his house before. I thought about warning them how weird his bedroom was but I decided against it because, if I had said it was weird, then I would have been judgemental.

On the way over, Jenny grabbed me.

‘Hey,' she said. ‘Can we talk?'

‘Uh, sure.'

We dropped back.

‘So what you and Freddy did to that bird was pretty fucked-up, Rich. I know it was Freddy who, you know, but still . . .'

I suddenly went all emo.

‘I know,' I whispered, my throat too heavy for volume. I
didn't want Jenny to hate me. She was a good person, and I didn't want to lose someone like her. She was right, of course. She always was. Freddy had done it, but I had helped.

‘Are you OK?'

I nodded.

‘Rich?' She put her hand on my arm. ‘It's all right, Richie. I was just going to say . . .'

I focused on a red postbox that was fastened to a lamp-post at the end of the street.

‘. . . I forgive you.'

I didn't say anything because I didn't feel that I could. My emotions really were starting to fly all over the place. Losing many of my old friends after the Bertie incident was starting to catch up with me, and any sign of warmth towards me, such as that being shown by Jenny, was setting my feelings off like fireworks.

‘You've been punished enough, by the other kids and stuff, and I know that it was an accident so I just want to say that it's in the past. I know you're one of the good guys.'

I closed my eyes for a second and opened them again.

‘Thanks,' was all I could manage. I loved how American her forgiveness speech was.

We walked a little further, not saying anything, and I slowly regained my composure. Jenny went on ahead to talk to Clare, and Matthew slowed down so that I could catch up.

‘I'm going to turn over a new leaf,' I said to him.

‘What do you mean?'

‘All this stuff with the bird has shown me that I've got to stop being such an asshole.' We often said the word ‘asshole' like the Americans because it rubbed off from the kids on the airbase. ‘If I'm not careful I'm going to end up like I did before and I really don't want that. To be fair, with this bird thing, I've sort of gotten off lightly.'

‘Are you joking?' Matthew said. ‘You have to see a counsellor.'

‘So? That's better than detention.'

‘What if the other kids at school find out?'

I had thought about that before but blocked it out of my mind because it was so horrendous. They would think that I was nuts. Not funny nuts, just regular nuts and that's not good. ‘They won't find out. I've only got to do six sessions anyway.'

He sucked in air through his teeth.

‘I just hope nobody finds out.'

‘Nobody will find out,' I assured him. But I now had a sick feeling in my gut.

It was a shame that Matthew had said that because I felt like I was just coming out from the tunnel.

We got up to Craig's house and I could see everyone having a good look round.

Craig's old man looked at me like I was the devil and that made me feel terrible. Everyone knew about Bertie, but hardly any of them were aware that it was Freddy who was to blame for the actual snapping of the neck. As far as everybody was concerned, Freddy and I were one and the same. It was a shame because I really liked Craig's dad but now he hated me. It was the first time of many that people would look at me with absolute disgust. I'm surprised he even let me in. Let us in.

I sat in the corner of Craig's room and listened to the others telling Craig how much they'd missed him, and how Freddy was gone. Craig just sat on his bed with those glazed eyes of his and looked out the window.

I noticed on his bedside table that there was a fresh cup of tea and I imagined how it had got there. His father had probably shouted up from the bottom of the stairs. ‘Craig, darling,' he would have called. ‘Your mother and I are having
a cup of tea. Would you like one?' There's no way that Craig would have answered, but his father made one anyway. I imagined how he had clambered up the stairs on his old legs and shuffled across the landing before taking the cup to his beloved and tormented son.

Suddenly I was on my feet.

‘Craig,' I said. I pointed to the parrot poster on his wall. ‘I've got a joke for you. Why is there no aspirin in the jungle?'

Still no response.

I delivered the punchline and nobody laughed, of course, but I felt like I had to try and lighten the mood. This visit was excruciating.

‘I like parrots.' The words reverberated around the room. Craig was speaking. ‘I like all birds,' he added. Then his head started turning. Towards me. He was looking at me. ‘And you killed Bertie.'

Whoa. Of all the things that had happened since Friday – Bertie's murder, the guilt, being caught, facing the headmaster, facing my parents, the counsellor – none of them were as bad as that. The worst thing about it was the simplicity and clarity of Craig's thoughts. He liked birds. I killed birds. It was childlike and undeniable in its logic and it nearly knocked me down.

‘Craig,' I said, my voice all craggy. ‘It was . . . Freddy.'

Suddenly he smiled at me and it was horrible.

‘I know, Rich,' he said. ‘I really appreciate what you've done for me over the last few weeks.'

This was totally weird. Really totally weird. His eyes were still glazed but he was speaking like he used to, before he had tried to commit suicide. Too friendly. I suddenly had an awful premonition: he was recovering. This, I hate to say, was definitely a bad thing. If he recovered he would turn back to his old weird self that nobody really liked. There was simply
no solution to his problem – every road was a dead end.

‘So,' said Jenny to break the awkwardness, ‘there's a disco on at the base this weekend for Thanksgiving.'

Thanksgiving is an American holiday that I don't quite understand. And I have no intention of learning. The others started talking about going to this disco but I, for some reason, started thinking about Freddy. It suddenly struck me that he had gone. I wondered if he would ever come back. I know I hadn't known him that long, but he had made a massive impression on all of us. I don't think that he would have ever become my best friend or anything like that because he was too crazed, but he was just so interesting. I still wanted to be a part of his great romantic adventure he had told us about on the very first day we met him, where life would be about poetry and love, nothing else. Even after Bertie, I still believed in him.

That night was Toby's birthday and to celebrate we went tenpin bowling. Because he didn't have any real friends at school, it was just me, him, my mum and my dad.

The atmosphere in the car was frosty. My mother was still ignoring me and my father was driving. Toby was wearing a pair of red corduroy trousers and a bright-yellow shirt, tucked in. I remember looking across at him and thinking absent-mindedly just how tiny his body was beneath his clothes.

We got to the bowling alley and took our rink. I programmed in all of our names and my dad went first. We had to have one of those rinks with rubber tubes down either side because Toby couldn't reach but his face lit up whenever he hit over some pins and he'd come running over to me asking if he had ‘done a good bowl'. Good old Tobe.

At one point my mother went to the bar to buy drinks and when she did my father grabbed my arm.

‘Get over there and apologize,' he said quietly.

My heart instantly started beating. I didn't want to do this. I was too weak.

‘If we're going to get past this,' he said, ‘you're going to have to break the stalemate, Rich.'

He was right, of course he was right. I had to be a better person. I took the three low steps in a leap and went into the drinks area. My mother was at the bar, passing four glasses of Sprite on to a tray.

I went straight up to her.

‘Mum.'

She turned to me but didn't say anything.

‘I'm sorry.'

She slowly placed the last glass on the tray but still didn't say anything.

‘You know we didn't plan it, don't you?' I considered adding, ‘We were just supposed to kidnap him,' but luckily realized in time just how bad that would sound.

She lifted the tray with both hands.

‘I need more time, Richard.' She turned and we went back to the rink. ‘But I do appreciate your apology,' she said.

It wasn't going to be that easy, but I didn't really expect it to be. My mother thought that I had killed Bertie and it would take more than a quick apology to make things better. I hoped that I wouldn't let her down. Even though, I think I knew, I would do just that.

Craig wasn't the only thing that changed. It's funny how people can be so fickle, you know? My initial fame after the death of Bertie, after turning slightly sour, was now turning very sour. The ‘do-gooder' girls had done a hatchet job on me and I found people giving me funny looks. Some of them actually said things to me but I just ignored them. One boy who I had been sort of friends with said,' You think that
just because you're clever you can do whatever you want, but that's not the way it is.' I was only halfway through my sessions with Sylvia and I had no intention of getting into a fight and having them extended. My secret was still safe for the time being.