Cloud 9

by Alex Campbell

  Soon there’s another sound. Nathaniel! To the rescue! Pounding down the landing; Nathaniel knocking on his mum’s bedroom door … Tom’s skin stings as if it’s burning under a hot sun – just Mum’s bedroom.

  ‘What’s wrong, Mum?’ Nathaniel’s asking in that responsible- adult voice he’s adopted. He’s the man now. Tom can’t hear her reply, it’s muffled by snuffling, choking noises. She will be trying to stop crying now she’s been caught out. She’s never been one to bawl in front of them. Not like his dad. Dad would blub at anything and everything. Wall-E, when trains left platforms, the life of a mayfly. You’ve got to let it out, Tom!

  ‘Tom!’ Superson Nathaniel’s calling for him.

  He pushes himself off the bed, shuffling across the patchwork floor of papers and files. The detective left them in the exact same mess after he came checking for a suicide note eight weeks ago. DS ‘Call-me-Ethan’ Miles, like he was family or something.

  Bloody hell, Dad. Tom’s mouth releases a jagged noise. Why couldn’t you have just left a note? A text even? A Facebook status: I’m about to kill myself because …? He reaches a hand out for the chair, digging his fingers into the scratchy wool of his dad’s cardigan, as he looks out the window, onto the back garden. It always seems too large now that he and Nathaniel are no longer kids. The treehouse in the distance – it hasn’t been used for years, but he can see his dad building it as if it were yesterday, knocking together flat pieces of varnished oak, cursing when the hammer caught bone not wood. ‘A place for you and Nat to hide,’ Dad said, smiling through a mouthful of nails. Though it soon became Tom’s and Hope’s. Nathaniel never was into hiding.

  Tom lifts the hipflask again, tipping it back. Pushing it in his pocket, he stumbles out onto the landing to face them.

  Nathaniel’s worked-out arm is tightly hugging his mum’s thin shoulder. Her face is pink and scrunched up. Eyes rabbit-red. She widens them as if to show Tom she’s fine.

  ‘You all right, Mum?’ he asks. He wants to say something better. But he knows now there aren’t any words for what’s happening. He needs a whole new dictionary for describing how everything hurts. Now Dad’s not here.

  ‘Don’t worry about me, Tom,’ she sniffs, trying hard to smile. ‘You look smart.’ She makes that face, like she’s in pain. She blames herself. Tom can see it ever-present in her eyes. He tries hard not to blame her too. That his dad might still be alive if she hadn’t told him to go. Muffled words flying out, front door banging – just a week before he killed himself. Some stupid row, probably over money. That was Mum’s usual beef with Dad.

  Back soon, when things cool down, his dad’s text to Tom had said.

  But he never came back.

  He never came back.

  ‘You ready? The car’ll be here soon,’ Nathaniel is saying, in his throat-clearing best ‘father’ voice. He’s suited like Tom, except his fits. Like Tom, he has his dad’s blue eyes, minus the myopia. Nathaniel always was the blessed child.

  ‘Yeah, I’m aware of that.’ Tom returns, more acidly than he means. The ibuprofen’s not kicked in yet, blood’s pumping hard behind his eyes.

  ‘It’ll all be okay, Tom.’ His mum reaches a hand out into the space between them, pale and frail like the rest of her. Nothing like she used to be.

  ‘Sure,’ Tom says, grazing her fingers with his own. He takes a breath, trying to find some nice words to give her, to battle with what she’s telling herself. But he still can’t find any.

  ‘Have you been drinking, Tom?’ Nathaniel is sniffing the air in front of him.

  His mum moans, ‘Oh, Tom, have you?’

  He never has been able to lie. ‘I’ll wait outside,’ he answers instead. Eyes fixed to the floor, he hurries on downstairs. Into the lounge – quick: swig from the flask, flames erupting in his chest. The TV’s blaring loudly. Nathaniel keeps leaving it on, like some background noise in a dentist’s surgery. Anything to divert them from what they’re facing.

  That Dad’s brilliant brain was splattered over a coppice in Richmond Park.

  Dad is DEAD.

  But we can’t talk about that.

  A party political broadcast is on – the Progress Party. Tom strides across the room – he needs air – as Damian Price, the Prime Minister, fills the screen. All public-boy features and paid-for smile, congratulating his party for the successful part-privatisation of the NHS. Concluding with the same old trite that got them into government three years ago, ‘Positivity yields prosperity’. Tom continues quickly out the opened French doors as the broadcast ends and the sponsor runs an advert. Leata. Of course, Leata. Do any other sponsors exist these days? The voiceover: husky and caramel-soothing, the kind to read bedtime stories. Even Tom momentarily feels compelled to listen: I was often sad, and found myself thinking back to experiences from my childhood or imagining myself inadequate when compared with others … Just a year later, after taking Leata … my life is transformed. I am happy and striving for success. Bad thoughts no longer plague me!

  Life’s short. Enjoy it!

  A super-fast robotic voice finishes with Leata cuts off bad emotion. Proven: no side effects. Always read the label.

  Tom pulls hard on the French doors behind him, the glass rattling along with the pain inside his head.

  Her

  Both my phone and pad are vibrating on my bed like they’re busy yakking to one another in my absence. Momentarily – yeah, yeah all right, how very unusual for me – I ignore them both and head to my dresser. With precision, I open my vintage jewellery box with its printed pink and yellow rosebuds. I use it solely to house my box of pills.

  I look forward to this each morning. My ritual. Leata’s twenty-four hour effective, so by eight a.m. pill time: I am ready for it. I don’t want to know what will happen to me if I let it slip for an hour even. If those adverts that show the consequences of life without Leata aren’t enough (did you know 90% of pupils failing exams don’t take Leata?), my friend Tara is evidence plenty of sporadic Leata-taking. She’s über-miserable lately. Up and down like a yo-yo!

  So the ritual, it goes like this: First, I take out the tray. Nine pills, three already gone. Next, read the message – today’s: ‘Anaesthetise emotional pain’. Nice one. Some numbing is what I need right now.

  Then: dig nail into foil. I like the sensation as it rips.

  Pick out the small blue and yellow pill, ‘Leata. Life’s short. Enjoy it!’ inscribed in tiny print across it … onto my tongue, tasting sweet and shiny … and swallow; swallow again. Till it slides down my throat.

  I’ve become pretty good at taking them without water.

  Hey presto – Leata will start to work its magic.

  Like it has for nearly five years. Ever since Mum and Dad put me on them. Which I’m forever thankful to them for – for Leata to be most effective you should start taking it after reaching double figures. Me – I stupidly resisted until I turned twelve. ‘You’re lucky,’ Mum told me when I was still all uncertain about my first prescription, ‘You get to bypass all those nasty teenage moods that wrecked me into adulthood. Leata will never work as well on me.’

  In fact – yay – wha’d’you know, I’m feeling calmer already. Leata’s like warm water flushing through my arteries, lining every vein, eradicating bad energy from my blood, soothing me from the inside.

  I really don’t understand why people choose to be unhappy. When they can be happy!

  The last stage of the ritual? Tweet the pill’s message. Lots of people do this of course. But being who I am, mine always get retweeted thousands and thousands of times. Like the message’s come from me personally!

  My phone’s stopped but my pad’s still vibrating. I launch myself onto my bed: another DM … from … Seth.

  I’ve re-jigged my schedule. Now free 2come 2Leata Blogger Quarterly Sat. U still going? If yay, why not come guest vlog back at mine after? Along with other things ;-)

  My stomach tightens, knots, twists; tingles with excitement. Of course, we’ve
messaged before about guest vlogging. But – other things? My stomach flips and pinches dually. Well, it’s not like we’re not practically dating already. Right, so we’ve never physically met – but online counts for real time. We’re virtual soulmates. And I love his channel. He’s had this meteoric rise on YouTube in the last few months. What can I say? Realboystuff rocks positive vibes. And he’s handsome, in a floppy-haired boy-band sort of way.

  I’ve got to make it work. Like Millie says: ‘Heth! Sope! You and Seth are a global brand waiting to happen! Think Posh and Becks. Brad and Ang. Romeo and Juliet without the tradge’.

  But seriously: my followers do need to see me happy in a relationship. I must think of them, not myself. Some of them are old, like in their twenties. I’ve spotted some even Mum’s age! I have responsibilities. I need my followers to see I’m always evolving, growing, embracing life. That’s what Leata’s Marketing Director said at the last Quarterly.

  I can’t stagnate. Livelifewithhope as a brand must develop.

  I bite down on my tongue. My pad finger hovering, ignoring the frantic butterflies in my tummy.

  Hell, yes.

  My heart’s beating fast as I press return. Tingles turn into fireworks as Seth messages back instantly.

  We will make fine music together.

  Straightaway I Facetime Millie.

  ‘Ready for our first year as human beings?’ Millie’s iPad is propped up at her dressing table. She must have just finished her tutorial. She does one for her channel Makeupwithmillie every day. I’ve not had to buy any beauty products since she started. Her haul is amazing. Her subscribers watch Millie put on her daily make-up, with a few little words on how each product makes her happy. A little on the dull side (you didn’t hear me say that), but Millie is unbelievably pretty. You can’t blame her viewers for thinking they might look like Millie too if they apply the same brand of foundation. It is all about hope after all (see what I did there!).

  ‘I’m just grateful to be out of that uniform,’ I reply.

  ‘Tell me about it. I’m free to flaunt.’ She cocks a plucked brow down at her bra-boosted cleavage. Millie purrs like a cat when she talks. That and the cleavage is possibly another reason why she’s picking up subscribers fast (you didn’t hear me say that either).

  ‘So Seth’s asked me over to his to guest vlog.’

  She lets out a short scream. ‘Double date.’

  ‘He lives in London, Millie.’

  ‘Nearly sweet seventeen and never been …’ Millie rakes a hand through her freshly highlighted hair, widening her eyes suggestively.

  ‘And nor will I … yet,’ I say primly. I start chucking stuff I need into my bag with my free hand so Millie won’t clock I’ve gone red; phone, purse, hairbrush.

  ‘Hey, you heard from Tara?’ Millie’s dabbing more pink gloss onto her plump lips. ‘I’m using codename Misery for her on Facebook so we can discuss her.’

  I sigh. I wish Millie wouldn’t be mean to Tara. ‘You shouldn’t write things like that. What if she twigs? We’re not bitches, Millie. We understand people. And we help them. Remember?’

  ‘Did you notice – she didn’t even bother to cover up her spots when we were out Saturday, Hope. It’s disgusting. She never used to be like this.’

  ‘Didn’t you give her that great concealer you got sent from JOLIE?’

  Millie makes a face. ‘I didn’t bother in the end, not after she said she doesn’t have time to watch my stupid vlog!’

  ‘Millie: we’ve just got to feel sorry for Tara. Not attack her.’ Millie pulls her pouty face; I smile. Meet trouble with a smile, ALWAYS. ‘We must try and laugh about these things. Like it’s not Third-World poverty or anything.’ (Err, like Third-World poverty would even exist if their governments would subsidise Leata or something. So Dad says.) ‘And you know your vlog isn’t stupid. Make-up makes girls happy. We simply need to convert Tara. A softly, softly approach. Beat her down with kindness.’

  I force a bigger beam into the screen to show her I’m right. Millie might know everything there is to know about looking great on the outside, but I know everything there is to know about feeling good on the inside. Now and again we collaborate on each other’s channels. Inside and out. Beauty works both ways, we tell our followers.

  I go over to my windowsill to pick up some pens and stuff. Beyond the glass, the first autumn leaves are starting to conceal it, but I can still make out the treehouse in Tom’s back garden.

  It’s hard to imagine that I used to spend my life there. The thought summons a strange sensation in the pit of my stomach, like staring at an old childhood teddy. If I allow it – so, don’t allow it! – I can still picture Tom and me there, with his dad on the ground bringing us something to eat, using that basket we strung up with a pulley.

  How can a person be there one minute, then gone the next? Puff. Like magic? Bad magic. I twist away fast from the window as it comes at me from nowhere. That feeling I’ve been getting when stupidly I let my mind wander to Tom and his dad – like there’s something bad I need to run from. What? There’s nothing! Your life is great! I take a deep breath, pressing a hand against my chest where it’s starting to feel tight. Like my lungs are being squeezed of oxygen. Stop thinking! Let Leata do its business.

  ‘I’m a-walking and a-talking, Millie.’ I grab my stuff. I just need fresh air. That’s all.

  I gulp at it like a plant to water once I’m outside. Maybe I should start taking a double dose – just for now. I’ve seen lots of posts on double-dosers recently. Leata supports it. ‘Because Leata has no side effects, quadruple dose if you need to: whatever makes you happy!’ Rumour has it the American President takes five a day to keep his spirits up.

  ‘Kat reckons it’s because Tara’s parents are divorcing for real this time,’ Millie’s purring. She’s back on Tara again. ‘I said to Kat, what do they expect when her dad rejects Leata? I mean our parents never argue, do they!’

  ‘No, they don’t.’ I take a deeper breath. Okay, I’m starting to feel better. Leata’s truly kicking in. Not before time.

  ‘I mean, it’s not rocket science,’ Millie pouts.

  ‘You’re right.’ She is. Even the government endorses the positive effect Leata has on divorce rates, same as it does on obesity, unemployment, crime. ‘A cure for every social ill – but only if people will take it!’ I repeat some headline I glanced on Star Media.

  ‘Exactly! If Leata had been around ten years ago, maybe my mum would have never left! But do you see me moaning about that?’

  ‘I never see you moaning, Millie.’ Well, except about Tara.

  ‘All I’m saying is Tara’d damn well better keep popping her prescription.’ Millie is playing with her phone now, texting while she speaks to me. ‘Hope, I won’t have her round me until she sorts out that miserable face of hers. I’m not being a bitch,’ she says as if I’ve just told her she is. ‘Didn’t you say in a recent post: “We have to safeguard ourselves from unhappy people?”’ Millie’s eyes flicker from her phone back to me, her forehead screwing up tetchily. ‘Talk to her, Hope. Convince her to go to a PharmaCare Health Farm like Eliza Jenner did – it sorted her out! Make Tara see I can’t be her friend if she continues like this.’

  I inhale another deep dreg of air; it’s summer hot for September. ‘Of course I will,’ I smile. ‘It’s what I do,’ I’m saying, ‘helping others back onto the path of positivity, that’s –’ when I catch sight of him. My lips keep moving, but my mind, like a dog sniffing out something alien, starts to drift elsewhere.

  Where it really shouldn’t.

  Him

  He sees her. As she sees him. They’re both stood at the front now. Hope on her lawn bordered by colour-coded flowers; Tom on his white gravel driveway. Separated by a low level prickly hedge that’s never grown as tall as both neighbours hoped it would. Hope raises a sprightly hand in acknowledgement.

  Tom makes none back. She’s caught him mid-swig. Quickly, he lowers the hip flask by his side, th
roat burning. His gaze holding hers with ‘yeah, what?’ eyes. It forces Hope’s back to the screen she’s holding out in front of her like a mirror.

  He pushes his glasses up his nose, surreptitiously screwing the lid back on the flask, wishing she hadn’t seen that. He stares ahead at their quiet private road with its line of neat, ranch-style houses. Then gives in. Slanting his view, he takes her in again. She’s wearing one of those T-shirts that everyone seems to own a version of these days; it’s taken over from Hollister or Superdry. His dad point black refused to buy any kind of branded fashion. ‘Why offer rich companies free advertising space as well as buy their T-shirt?’

  He can’t read its yellow on blue slogan from here, but he recognises the curly Leata script. Below, her dark denim skirt is short, showing as much of her copper-tanned slim legs as Tom imagines her privileged school allows. When they used to play together, the Hope he knew lived in jeans, maybe that Muppet T-shirt she loved (Animal was her favourite; not that you’d guess it now). There’d be grass caught in her knotted short hair; her nails grubby and bitten ragged.

  This version of Hope might as well have returned from Stepford. He imagines the nails are neatly cut and manicured nowadays, to go with the hair – dark as treacle, it hangs veil-like over her shoulders – and the manicured mind, and managed mouth. Yeah – no way would this girl be seen dead in a Muppet T-shirt.

  Dead. A cold chill weaves through him as a car, shiny and black, pulls up at the end of his drive, its engine softly purring. Close behind it: a longer vehicle, displaying a polished walnut coffin like some priceless artefact behind a museum cabinet.

  For some reason Tom finds his eyes fly back to Hope; she’s lowered her tablet. She is staring at the cars too. Her full mouth opened slightly. She glances at him. For a fleeting moment he thinks an expression chases across her face; the old Hope. The Hope from perpetual summers; warm bodies sitting close to one another on the edge of his treehouse. Legs dangling, discussing which Star Wars character they’d be (Hope: Han Solo; Tom: Obi-Wan Kenobi) or arguing over who was a faster runner (Hope, every time). Sometimes Nathaniel and a friend would be playing football beneath them (their mission: to annoy them). Other times Hope’s sister Rose would come to find her for tea and they’d bombard her with spit balls.