by Maria Goodin
“What?!” I shouted over the chanting.
“I said your mate’s a blast!”
I looked back to Michael, who was standing on a table in the centre of the room, a shot glass in each hand, commandeering the attention of a large group of people. Some of them were friends, some loyal fans, some were just people who saw the posters for Breaking Days and turned up to give the band a go. Michael had already entertained them with his music, but that wasn’t enough for them. Or, it seemed, for him.
“Down it, down it!” they chanted.
Michael knocked the shots back to a resounding cheer. Part of me wanted to go over and tell him to stop, that he’d had enough and it was time to go, but I quashed the urge. I couldn’t do that, not when he was having so much fun.
Some girl with one side of her head shaved grabbed the empty glasses from him and thrust his guitar into his hands.
“Play, play!” the chanting started up again.
“I can’t hear you!” Michael yelled, putting his hand to his ear.
They chanted louder.
“You lot are insane!” he cried, throwing his head back and laughing. “Drinks all round!” he yelled to the bar staff. “On me!”
A loud cheer went up.
I glanced over at Tyler and Theo – Michael’s bandmates – who were leaning further down the bar, swigging bottles of beer, observing his antics somewhat coldly. Through the dark hair that fell in sweaty strands over his face, Tyler met my eye. We all knew that Michael was struggling for money, and that anything he had managed to scrape together he owed to them. Studio time was expensive, as was publicity. There was some serious interest in the band, and it looked like they might be on the verge of a big break, but Michael was ruining their chances. He was unreliable, one minute bursting with the kind of energy, creativity and enthusiasm that would see him writing new material for two or three days straight, and the next flat and despondent, refusing to engage. Tyler and Theo looked like they were just about ready to walk, but everyone knew that without Michael they were nothing.
Michael wobbled on the table, stumbling towards the edge. Strangers’ hands reached out and grabbed him, pushing him back onto his stage, demanding another song. He started to play. As the evening had gone on, his voice had acquired a raw, rasping edge to it that just made it all the better. He was forgetting words, missing the beat, but no one seemed to care.
A petite girl with short auburn hair and a lip piercing jumped up on the table beside him, lifted her arms high in the air and started to gyrate her hips in time with the music, displaying a dragon tattoo on her waist where her black vest top rose up. The crowd whooped and, spurred on by their attention, she tucked herself in tightly behind Michael, snaking one hand underneath his sweaty T-shirt. He grinned over his shoulder at her while he continued to play off-tune, and the crowd whistled and hollered.
“Jesus!” exclaimed the guy who had sat down next to me. “Your mate’s having the time of his life, isn’t he? Good on him!”
I watched Michael. His guitar was now gone – perhaps stolen by one of the crowd – while he entwined himself in an increasingly provocative embrace with the auburn-haired girl, his damp T-shirt being pushed higher over the white skin of his ribs while he clutched at her backside and the crowd hollered.
Yeah, he was having the time of his life. And like the guy said, good for him, right? I knew he wasn’t always like this; that the self-doubt that had plagued his earlier years was still there, that he’d sometimes get so down that he didn’t even want to get out of bed. So, when he was happy like this, exuding confidence, why would anyone want to stand in his way? This behaviour, it was good, wasn’t it? Not the drinking maybe. But seeing him so excited, so full of life… Surely that was a sign he was doing better. It was a little extreme perhaps. A little excessive. He needed to curb the spending of money he didn’t have, the endless stream of girls, the creative binges that lasted for days and left him exhausted… But still, anything was better than seeing him so low.
Yeah, this was good. He was showing signs of being a happier, more confident person than he ever had been. And so long as that was the case, then all the other behaviours would iron themselves out.
He’d be fine, I told myself. It was all fine.
I remember Mr Robson saying: “I want you to tell me the real reason you don’t want to run anymore.”
“I’ve told you the reason!”
I glared at him defiantly. He held my gaze with hard, piercing eyes, the muscles in his jaw working. I looked down at my school shoes.
“I’ve told you the reason, sir,” I repeated more respectfully.
“And I don’t believe you, Lewis,” he said sternly.
I shrugged, exhausted. Mr Robson might not have seen me running lately, but in my fitful dreams I never stopped. Night after night, my feet pounded the canal path, never taking me forward.
“Look, Lewis, the school are aware that you have been though a… distressing experience lately. But in the face of adversity we need to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and get back in the saddle. That’s everything that this school stands for. We’re all about raising resilient young men, and I wouldn’t be doing my job if I were to make concessions and excuses for you and allow you to wallow in self-pity.”
“I’m not wallowing—”
“Then what is it? Because I don’t buy this excuse that you’re too busy focusing on your exams, especially when all your teachers and your own mother informs me that’s certainly not the case. And even if you have got a lot else on, is it acceptable to let your teammates down? Is it all right to just waste all the hard work and training you’ve put in? I don’t think so.”
He waited for me to respond, but I just stared at the school logo on the breast of his polo shirt, feeling anger rise in me. Whatever he thought he knew, it was all bullshit. He knew nothing.
“I think you’re scared, Lewis.”
“I’m not scared,” I scoffed. “What would I even be scared about?”
“Failure,” he said without missing a beat.
I rolled my eyes dismissively and shook my head.
He sighed, the severity in his features softening slightly, and shifted his weight. I could see his fingers wiggling inside the pockets of his regulation navy-blue tracksuit trousers.
“Your mother told me you were the one who ran to get help—”
“I just don’t want to run anymore!” I snapped. “Why is it such a big deal? I’m bored of it. I’m just sick of running, that’s all there is to it!”
“And I said, I don’t believe you.”
“I don’t know what you want me to tell you! I hate running! I don’t ever want to run again, okay? Ever!”
“Master Lewis—”
“Just fuck off!”
My voice echoed down the empty school corridor, bouncing off stone walls that had stood for hundreds of years, no doubt without witnessing such an offensive outburst. I could feel my face burning with anger. Mr Robson didn’t look mad. He just looked disappointed.
But just then, Dr Turner, the Headmaster, appeared at the end of the corridor, fresh from the morning chapel service. He strode towards us, his black gown flowing behind him. He studied me coldly as he approached.
“Master Lewis!” he barked. “My office. Now.”
I remember her asking me: “Did you see his face? Once he was dead?”
I nodded slowly, gazing at the shadows on her bedroom wall. My head felt woozy from the alcohol.
“What was it like?”
No one had ever asked me that question. No one, apart from Hellie, would have dared.
“Empty,” I told her, “like he’d left. Like he’d upped and gone away in the time I’d been gone, and what was left was just an empty container.”
We were sitting on her bed, her body warm next to mine. She hugged her legs and rested her head on her knees, waiting for me to tell her more.
“And so pale,” I continued, “like all the blood had drained ou
t of him.”
“Did he look peaceful?”
I shook my head. “No. Not peaceful. Kind of… shocked.”
“I remember watching my baby brother asleep in his cot,” she said. “His eyes were just a tiny bit open. He looked so still and peaceful. I didn’t know he was dead.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I studied her pale, angular features. Her hair, white in the glow of her bedside lamp, fell around her face in gentle waves.
“I didn’t want to tell anyone he was gone, so I just stood there looking at him.”
“Why didn’t you want to tell anyone?” I asked, a shudder running down my spine.
“Because then they would have moved him. And it would have all been over.”
I leaned my head back against the wall, feeling the faint thud of music coming from the bedroom next door. Out in the corridor, two girls, drunk, laughed loudly on the way to their rooms. Tonight had been fun – kind of. We’d drunk cheap beer in the student union bar. She’d even got me to dance. And for a while I’d forgotten about everything. After all, hadn’t that been the whole idea of coming here? I might have told my parents it was an opportunity to see Manchester Uni, get a taste of student life. Maybe I’d want to apply here next year, I told them. After doing far worse in my GCSEs than predicted, and having made a shaky start to my A levels, I think they were pleased I was taking any interest in my future. But in reality I just needed to flee, get away from everything that had happened back home – the night of the fairground, my own rage and fear, my suspension from school, Libby dumping me. And for a while it had worked. For a while I’d put it all out of my mind. But now here we were, Hellie and I, coming down from our high, talking about death and heartbreak, and suddenly I felt miserable again.
“I thought it must be nice,” she muttered, “to be as peaceful as my baby brother. To just have everything go away.”
She reached out and fiddled lazily with the strap of my watch.
“I tried to throw myself from a speeding car once,” she added matter-of-factly.
I already knew this. The whole school did. Rumour had it that she’d been under some kind of psychiatric care for a while. Nothing Hellie Larsen ever did stayed quiet, and that’s just as she wanted it. But what nobody ever knew was why she did it. For attention? To kill herself?
“Sometimes I just want to get out of myself,” she said when I asked her, “get out of the moment I’m in. I guess it was just one of those times.”
Her hand slid over mine.
“Don’t you ever feel like that?”
The warmth of her touch felt good. I’d missed someone holding my hand, tucking their body next to mine.
I thought of Libby and my heart felt like it might break with the sense of loss.
And then anger rose in me. Anger at myself for having lost her, anger at her for having given up on me.
Yes, I knew what it was like to want to get out of yourself.
I knew, as soon as she kissed me, that I wasn’t going to take this all the way. It would be too much too soon. I knew it was over with Libby, that I’d driven her away, but I’d always believed my first time would be with her, and it was too early to think differently.
But, just for that moment, kissing Hellie made everything feel better. It made me forget. And what did it matter anyway? What did anything matter anymore? It was only a kiss. Nothing more.
And then we found ourselves lying down, pressed together on her narrow mattress. So what? We could touch each other, even remove a couple of items of clothing. It meant nothing. We could stop – would stop – soon. I wasn’t going to take this all the way.
She was on the pill, she said. That’s fine, I told her, but that’s not where this is heading. However good it feels. However much it helps to take all the other thoughts and feelings away. This isn’t what I came here for.
So we should stop.
Or we could take it a tiny bit further. Why not? Who gave a crap anyway? We were here now.
Just a little longer. Just a little bit more. Just because it felt so good.
But then I’d stop.
Because this really, really wasn’t going all the way.
Chapter 15
Stars
After the night of the fairground, my friendship with Tom quickly withered. We were hostile towards each other. Angry. Stressed. We drank and fought. We should have spoken about it – all of us should have – but instead we bottled it up inside, not knowing how to express the things we’d felt that night. Fear. Panic. Helplessness. These weren’t things we knew how to discuss. Instead, Tom buried himself in his schoolbooks, while I rebelled and barely looked at mine. Fast-forward a few months and Tom was preparing for university while I was up to my eyeballs in nappies.
I knew there was a good chance he wouldn’t reply to my email. I had no right to ask for his help. He didn’t owe me a thing. So when his reply popped up in my inbox, I opened it with trepidation. Would he tell me to shove it? Politely reply that the past was the past as far as he was concerned?
Jay
Sorry for the slow reply. I was surprised to hear from you. It’s been a long time.
Yes, I think a meet-up is long overdue.
Best
Tom
I’m not sure what to make of his tone. It doesn’t sound like the Tom I used to know, but then again why would it? He’s thirty-two now, a grown man. Still, I’m glad he’s replied. There are things I want – things I need – to say to him.
I quickly tap out a reply and send it before I lose my nerve.
Tom
Thanks for agreeing to meet. I can come down to the hospital sometime in the next couple of weeks if that suits?
Jay
It feels cold, perfunctory, and matches the tone of his own email. It’s sad that such a long, close friendship full of laughter and mockery and jibes has become a sterile exchange of words. He was my first friend, my closest friend, for so many years. Perhaps we’d be meeting once a week for a pint down the Canal House if the course of our lives hadn’t taken such a sudden turn.
I delete the junk from my mailbox, thinking for the hundredth time that I should really get round to unsubscribing from all these things I unknowingly subscribed to in the first place. In fact, I’m deleting so fast, I almost don’t notice it. It’s only the first three letters of her surname embedded in the email address that make me stop in my tracks.
My stomach tenses. What the hell does she want?
I open the untitled message with a sense of dread.
Dear Jay
I hope you are well.
My parents have no doubt told you that I am currently living in New York. I intend to come over to the UK in the next couple of months and I would like to see Joshua. We haven’t had much of a relationship over the past few years and I would like to address that.
Obviously I will work around whenever is convenient for the both of you.
I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Love Hellie xx
My heart’s pounding in my chest.
WHAT THE…??!!!
Luckily, it’s Saturday afternoon and Josh is hanging out with Sam again, the two of them having become pretty much inseparable since the start of the summer.
I immediately call Michael, my hands trembling with anger.
“Yo,” he answers, lazily. I wonder if I’ve just woken him. Given that he’s a chronic insomniac, he chooses to nap at all kinds of hours. But his sleep patterns are the least of my worries.
“You won’t believe this! She’s just emailed me saying she wants to come and see Josh! No explanation as to why she suddenly wants to see him, apart from the fact that – quote – we haven’t had much of a relationship over the past few years. How about NO fucking relationship?! And who’s fault is that? She going to – quote – work around what’s convenient for us! Can you believe this? I mean, what the hell?! She even put two fricking kisses on the end! I mean, why now? He’s just going into his GCSE year and she t
hinks NOW is a good time to totally throw his life into chaos? This is just so bloody typical of her!”
My rant is initially met with silence. As I pace rapidly around the flat, I can hear Michael trying to kick his brain into gear.
“I take it we’re talking about Hellie here?” he says, his voice dry and groggy.
“Well, who else would be this bloody inconsiderate?! I mean, so this is it? This is how she gets back in contact? After all these years? NO mention of whether Josh might like to see her! NO mention of whether I’m happy for her to come waltzing back into our lives! Just an assumption that it will be fine. She even called him Joshua. I mean, she never even called him that when she was here! When the hell have we ever called him that?!”
“Okay, okay, calm down,” Michael soothes. “I know you must be shaken—”
“I’m not shaken, I’m fucking livid!”
“Okay, listen, you know she’s not quite right. No sane person sends an email like that. She’s not all there, clearly.”
“Clearly!”
“Yeah, well, we know that, don’t we? I take it you haven’t told Josh about this.”
“No, he’s out.”
“Okay. Look, I’ll come over.”
“No, don’t come over. I just want to bash something and I don’t want it to be you. I mean, seriously, is that what you do after twelve years? Just drop a few lines in an email? Is she out of her mind? What does she even want?!”
“I don’t know, mate, she’s a law unto herself. Maybe she’s just decided she wants a relationship with him. Maybe she’s been doing some soul-searching like you and wants to make amends for the past. I mean, we all make mistakes—”
“Oh my God, are you seriously sticking up for her?!”
“No. Calm down. I’m just saying you always knew this was likely to happen. You’ve always said it probably would. I’m just trying to guess what might be going on in her—”
“She must know this is his GCSE year, right? I mean, she was schooled in the UK, so she does know how important this year is, right?”
“It might not have even crossed her mind. I mean, it’s not like she has any involvement in his education or—”