The Suicide Club (7 page)

But there's always a turning point eventually, and for me it was something awful I did to Toby, my little brother. I told him that I'd take him into the city to visit the cinema and have lunch. We had done it once before and he'd really loved it, being out with his older brother. We had taken the train, had breakfast, walked around, gone to the museum to kill time (he loved that), had lunch, and gone to the cinema. I have to admit that it was a brilliant day. So Tobe was really looking forward to this next trip. Saturday morning came and he was banging on my door at nine o'clock. As you know, I have a lock on my door and there was no way in hell I was getting up. It was too early and I was hungover. At fourteen. He kept knocking. I knew that he was waiting on the other side even though he
didn't say anything, he just kept knocking. Toby never shouts through doors, or through walls. If he wants to communicate with somebody in another room he'll get up and go and speak to them. He's like a civilized gent, you know? So he kept knocking, never louder, never longer. He knocked five times every two minutes for – guess how long. Nearly an hour. I finally crawled out of bed at around noon to answer a phone call from one of my friends.

My mother didn't say anything to me at first, just gave me a laser glare.

‘Are you going to take your brother into the city?' she said eventually and reproachfully, the phone held limply in her hand.

‘Get off my back,' I said. ‘I'm going out with my friends. I can't take him. You go.'

‘You've let him down again. I don't know why he loves you so much,' she hissed.

‘Gimme the phone.'

Anyway I took the call and went through to the kitchen where Toby was sat at the table drawing one of his pictures (he really does spend most of his time there, I'm not stylizing). And that was the moment that everything changed for me. Seeing him in the kitchen sat at the table like he hadn't had his dreams shattered because of his big brother who he idolized was heart-breaking. I had shattered his dreams and I'll tell you how I know this. Because the stupid little idiot was wearing a shirt and tie! And he was eight! He was looking forward to the trip so much that he had put on a shirt and tie. He'd slicked his hair across his forehead with water and I'll tell you now that my heart ached. I still didn't take him into town because I would have lost too much face, but after that I was a different person. All because of Tobe the old-man Poet Laureate.

But enough of my past. Let's get on with the show, right?

The next day, Matthew came over to my house to play some computer golf.

Matthew and I had known each other since we were three. Our mothers are good friends and we had spent a lot of time together in our childhood. He's a solid chap, with good grades and a pretty girlfriend – an all-round nice guy. He's basically a much better person than me because he doesn't have the bad thoughts in his head that I have. At least I don't think he does. He's just a really good person.

I'll tell you a funny story about how we became friends. I was a very shy toddler. Throughout the first year of school, even though I could speak fluently, I didn't say a word. I don't know why, I just didn't. So because I didn't speak, I didn't really have any friends. Until one day, that is. I remember it quite clearly. I was walking back to the classroom after playtime and suddenly Matthew accidentally fell into step by my side. We were both walking at the same pace and it was quite awkward. If I sped up he sped up and if I slowed down he slowed down, like our brains were connected. Then, all of a sudden . . . we were holding hands! We just started holding hands. Now I think back on it, it was hilarious.

Anyway, it was sunny outside and the sky was blue. I felt a little guilty being inside when it was such a nice day. I was glad Matthew had come over though because I wanted to talk to him. He was sitting on the floor at the foot of my bed and I was lying on my duvet, on my stomach. This had been the seating arrangement for computer games since I'd first known him. When I went to his house it was exactly the same, apart from I was on the floor and he was on his bed.

‘What do you think of Freddy?' I said.

His face was blank, engrossed in the screen.

‘Man's a hero.'

‘I'm serious.'

The little golf man on the screen putted his ball but just missed on the right, because Matthew doesn't understand the idea of tilting greens and hits it directly at the hole every time.

‘I liked what he said by the lake.'

‘Yeah.'

He lined up his next putt. ‘But it's never going to happen. I'm going to university to do engineering and that's that. There's no way my parents would let me leave school to go and live in the woods.'

I laughed inwardly at how the conversation had been bent around inside his head. But what he was saying made sense, I guess. It was a bit of a dream.

‘Jenny kept talking about it on the way home though,' he said. ‘You know what she's like. She can't wait until she doesn't have to go to school any more. She hates it. Do you know that she gets so stressed about school that she gets sick? I mean, her parents are so strict that she's simply not allowed to fail. My parents are bad, but hers . . . get in the hole!' His golf man was lifting the ball out of the cup and throwing his cap in the air.

‘Nice one, Matthew,' I said. ‘A nine.'

‘I'm going into the city with her this afternoon. And the Californian Girls.'

‘Oh God,' I moaned. And then added, ‘Can I come?'

I love the city on a Saturday afternoon. It's always alive with energy; people going about their lives, buying things and making themselves feel good. The glass is shiny and the lights lift my spirits. It's like nothing's real
anywhere
but it's good fake, not bad.

Jenny spent most of the afternoon snapping away happily at passers-by with her camera. She loved photography. She
was really artistic. And when she showed you her photos they were always excellent, not the run-of-the-mill photos that all girls took. Some of her pictures were on display outside the art department, and she loved that.

There was something vaguely sexy about the way she adjusted the focus on the lens between her middle finger and thumb. Her lithe forearms were working in perfect harmony with the skeleton of her hand – all cartilage and muscles working synchronously like a machine.

She was really pretty in a cute, Californian way. She wasn't like Clare. Jenny had blonde hair and a tan, and whilst Clare had sharp features (yuk, what a thing to say), Jenny's nose and cheeks were more roundy and smoothed. Jenny wasn't like most of the other Americans, who had a tendency to act adult-like, which came out as plain embarrassing.

One of the Californian Girls started telling us about a party that she had been invited to. Some of the older American kids who were doing their baccalaureates (which are internationally recognized examinations that our school does instead of the lesser A levels), had booked out the cricket pavilion and were planning on having a Halloween party. It sounded like a great idea.

‘I hope Freddy will be there,' said one of the girls, the only one with brown hair.

‘Yeah, me too,' I said. ‘He's so handsome it's obscene.'

She looked at me in genuine disgust.

I felt I needed to explain. ‘I'm only joking.'

‘You can never tell with you. You're weird.'

‘No I'm not.' The way she said it was so cold it hurt a little and I instantly lost all respect for her because doing that was easier than getting upset.

‘Yes you are.'

‘He's not weird, he's special,' chirped Matthew.

‘Thank you, Matthew.' I considered storming off, getting
some drama into the scene, but thought better of it because they wouldn't get it. ‘Why call me weird?' I said to the girl, by this time genuinely offended. I thought for a second that I was going to start crying.

‘Why did you say you think Freddy's handsome?'

‘Charlotte,' said Jenny in a high voice. ‘Leave Richie alone.'

‘I was making a joke,' I said.

‘Oh yeah? What joke?'

‘You know. Like I was gay.'

‘And what's wrong with being gay?' She made one of those American faces.

I sighed. ‘Nothing. It's just – it's funny.'

‘I don't think being gay's funny.'

I couldn't believe this. ‘No, nor me.'

‘You're homophobic. That's great, Matty, you've got a great best friend.'

‘Yeah,' I said quickly. ‘He has. Actually.'

The other Californian Girls were loving the completely uncalled-for attack. I wasn't really used to people having a go at me and I could feel myself blushing.

‘I was being facetious. If you even know what that means.'

You know what? There's nothing worse than somebody who thinks they're more intelligent than they are. I was getting angry, but not like I was when I was fourteen and went a bit nuts. Just normal angry. I paused, shaking a little bit. I hate the way I let people get to me.

‘You know what?' I said, pointing at her. ‘I wish you were gay. Then you could go fuck yourself.' That was too good
not
to storm off. So I did.

I was laughing my head off. Not out loud, of course; outside I was just smiling to myself. I hollered a right into an arcade and there, not forty feet away, and coming my way, was Craig Bartlett-Taylor. I instantly jumped into a shop so that he wouldn't see me. I don't know why I did that. In
reality I should have escaped, but the world is never like reality, is it? Bartlett-Taylor came straight into the shop, lolloping along like a fucking moron. I'm sorry I just said that but I'm still wound up by that Californian Girl, just thinking about her.

‘Hey, Craig,' I called from across the aisle. My arms were in the air.

He was wearing an Iron Maiden T-shirt so the bandages on his arms were perfectly visible. ‘That's a great look for your slash marks, you crazy bastard,' I said loudly. I felt instantly sick. This wasn't me. I was almost shaking because of the Californian Girl and I had just taken my anger out on Craig. I had been worried about him all weekend and thinking that I wanted to do something to help and then when I finally saw him I said something like that because I can't control myself.

A couple of people looked at me and I felt awful because I was being like a typical teenager. He sauntered over to me and stopped. His eyes looked all empty, like he was on drugs. He probably was; to, you know, curb his madness. He wasn't laughing at my joke. I didn't realize that a suicidal mood is not tinged with irony. There is no room for jokes with something like that.

‘Jesus, Craig, I'm sorry for saying that.' I put my hand on his upper arm. ‘How are you?'

He shrugged. ‘I'm OK.'

‘Um, should you be . . . you know . . . out and about . . . on your own, I mean?'

‘My parents are queuing for food over there.' He gave the barest of gestures with his free arm.

My heart went out to him. He was really upset. I could feel his energy coming into me and it was just terrible.

‘So. What now?'

‘I have to go back to school.' The way he was talking was
really scary. It was like he wasn't actually speaking to me at all. It was more like he was just going through the motions of a conversation without meaning it.

I knew full well that if he went back to school he would get torn apart. I could see his parents over at the food place. His dad was wearing a wool sweater with a shirt and tie and his mother was wearing a long dress and a blouse with baggy arms – they were so old it was sickeningly depressing. They both wore glasses and I thought that I was going to cry. I pictured the old man removing his spectacles, taking a freshly pressed handkerchief from his pocket and cleaning the flecks of dust off the lenses. I couldn't even start to imagine what it must have been like in the evenings for Craig. He must have sat in their living room with patterned carpet and crappy TV watching something indescribably terrible.

‘Listen,' I said. ‘One of the American kids is having a party on Halloween in the cricket pavilion. Do you want to go?'

‘I don't know.'

‘Come on, it'll be great. You can stay with me all night, I won't leave your side.'

‘I don't know.'

‘It's OK,' I said. ‘Don't say yes or no now. I've got your number. I'll give you a call closer to the time. OK?'

‘OK,' he said. It was bizarre, like he didn't seem to be having any sort of emotional response to me at all. This suicide thing runs deep, I tell you.

We walked out of the shop together and I took him back over to his parents.

‘There you are,' said his dad. ‘And you've brought a friend.' He smiled massively at me.

‘Hello,' I answered politely, my heart splintering.

His voice was quite nasal, like his nose was full of hair. But he was such a kindly soul. I tried to gauge how he was
feeling towards his son. This poor man; he'd worked his whole life, had just retired and now his son put him through
this
. He should have been enjoying his twilight years but his child was stopping it. I could see him hoisting his legs up over the side of his bed at night, having laid his slippers neatly side by side. He'd take hold of his wife's hand and whisper in her ear, ‘It'll be OK, my darling.' He would notice a tear glistening at the corner of her eye, which she would wipe clear with a handkerchief. Then he would tighten his grip on her other hand and give her a peck on the cheek. ‘He's a good kid really.'

AND SO THINGS
went on. After that night I guess you could say we became Freddy's circle of friends. I sometimes wonder exactly what happens when a kid arrives at a new school. Is the group that they latch on to just a coincidence? Or is there an inbuilt ability that allows us to seek out our own?