‘Red Line, between Inchicore and Drimnagh,’ Helen says standing up. ‘Let’s go.’
‘Huh?’ Charlie puffs out of his mouth, before turning back. He swigs from his bottle of Coke then throws his navy Garda jacket on and follows Helen towards the exit.
‘How the hell can you tell the call was made between Drimnagh and Inchicore?’ he asks.
Helen doesn’t answer.
19:40
Ciara
I look up into the corner of the chipper and notice the CCTV camera staring down at us. Then it hits me. I bet this footage is going to be shown on the news over the next few days. Our last movements. How the two girls who committed suicide in Rathmines looked happy and were laughing in the local chipper just a few of hours before they ended it all. But I don’t mention it to Ingrid. I don’t want to take her out of her thoughts. She’s more likely to change her mind than I am. In fact, I’m one hundred per cent certain I won’t change my mind. I’m going to do this. We’re going to do this.
I’ve thought about this day so much over the past two years. I’d have done it two years ago if it wasn’t for Ingrid; if it wasn’t for the beautiful friend she is. I have the best mate in the whole world. She’d do anything for me. Including kill herself.
‘What you staring at?’ she says, twisting to look over her shoulder.
‘Nothing, nothing. Just thinking.’
‘Here ye go, you two,’ Marjorie says as she plonks our fries in front of us. ‘Enjoy.’
We don’t waste time even thanking Marjorie. We just pick up our wooden forks and dive straight in.
This has been our favourite meal for years. We pop in here every Friday after school for chilli chips. I think the secret is in how they melt the cheese on top of the chips before they pour the chilli over. Ingrid thinks it’s all in the sauce. It doesn’t really matter. Every mouthful is bleedin’ delicious.
‘I’m gonna miss this,’ Ingrid says, her mouth full. She half smiles, then drops the smile. I know how she’s feeling. She’s excited because she knows her suffering is almost over. But then the suffering hits again. It’s a roller coaster of feelings. Up and down. Up and then deeper down. Up and then really, really low down. So low down you can’t even be bothered going up again. Just keep me down, get me down. Six foot down. Inside a wooden box.
I’ve thought about my funeral lots of times. My mam will be sobbing; will probably have to have two people either side of her to hold her up in the church. She’ll make it all about her, of course. How my suicide was her loss. How my suicide affected her. I think my dad’ll keep a straight face as usual. He’ll pretend to be holding it all together. Or maybe he will be holding it all together. I’m not sure my death will be a huge loss to him. Perhaps it’ll be a weight off. Something less for him to care about. I don’t think he likes caring. About anyone.
‘Penny for em?’ Ingrid says.
‘Huh?’ I refocus my eyes and realise that as I was thinking about my funeral I almost finished my chilli chips.
‘Penny for your thoughts.’
I dig my fork into the last of my chips, leave it standing there and then suck at my lips.
‘Was thinking about my funeral. How much my mam will be sobbing. She’ll probably roar the church down.’
Ingrid’s eyes roll upwards. Then she leans back in her chair and folds her arms.
‘Bet they’ll play a Take That song for me. Probably Pray, whatcha think?’
‘Defo. A hundred per cent. It’d be madness if they don’t play Pray at your funeral.’
‘Think I’d kinda like to be there… at my own funeral. I want to see who turns up.’
I laugh a little, then pick up my fork again and take another bite.
‘Ohhh,’ Ingrid purrs.
I look up; my heart beating a little faster. I really don’t want her to change her mind. She can’t change her mind.
‘What’s wrong, Ingrid?’
‘My last bite. Ever.’
I smile. I think it’s from relief more than anything.
‘Hold on,’ I say. ‘My last bite too. Let’s do it together, okay?’
We both scrape the bottom of the tin tray our chilli chips came in, so that we have all of the mince, all of the sauce, all of the cheese and all of the chips that are left and then hold the fork up.
‘Let’s do it,’ Ingrid says. And we do. We stuff our mouths with Macari’s chilli chips for the final time; both of us holding our eyes closed so we can suck down the deliciousness of our last supper.
‘It’s fucking delicious,’ Ingrid says after she swallows. It always makes me laugh when Ingrid swears. She’s so posh that any time she says ‘fuck’ it sounds as if she uses an ‘o’ instead of a ‘u’.
I rub my belly and then tilt my head sideways. I don’t enjoy much in life. That’s why I want to end it. But I do enjoy these chilli chips. And now I know I’ll never have those tastes in my mouth again. But I genuinely don’t mind. We’re doing this. Life is not worth living just for a ten-minute taste thrill at Macari's chipper every Friday evening.
‘Don’t be sad, Ciara,’ Ingrid says, placing her hand on top of mine. I’m not sad. In fact I’m happy; happy that she’s encouraging me as much as I’m encouraging her.
‘I’m not sad,’ I reply. ‘I’m ready to do this.’
‘What do you think it’s gonna feel like?’ she whispers over the table to me, her fingers tapping on top of mine.
I blow out my cheeks.
‘Oh — it won’t hurt. We’ll be dead before we even know it,’ I whisper back.
‘Nah, not the actual suicide itself… death. What do you think death feels like?’
I squint at her. How can she be asking such a stupid question? She knows dead means dead. Neither of us are that thick. Even if we are only thirteen. We’re not dumb enough to believe we go anywhere after we die. We don’t want to go anywhere anyway. We don’t want another life. We want to die because we want to stop all of the horrible thoughts that we have. We spoke about this before we wrote out our suicide pact on the park bench last night.
I place my other hand on top of hers, so her hand is sandwiched between my two.
‘Y’know what it feels like before you were born?’ I ask.
She looks at me funny.
‘Before I was born? Course I don’t. I didn’t feel anything. How could I?’
‘Exactly,’ I say.
Her brow points down. Then her eyes widen.
‘So, we won’t feel anything? Just like before we were born. We only feel when we are alive?’
I nod my head slowly at her. I thought she knew all this. Maybe she just needed reminding. Confirmation. Isn’t that the word?
‘And that’s why we’re doing it, isn’t it? So we don’t need to feel again,’ I say, clapping her one hand between my two. She nods back at me, then holds her other hand into our little hand huddle and we both sit there, gripping each other as tightly as we can.
It makes sense she’d have all these questions. I’ve thought all this through over the course of two years. She’s only been suicidal for less than a day.
‘I’m not gonna change my mind,’ she says shaking her head. And I believe her. She won’t. She has never lied to me. I don’t think Ingrid is capable of lying. ‘Okay, so we’re visiting who first? What’s the timetable again?’ she asks.
I purse a tiny smile back at her and then release one of my hands to hold my finger to my bottom lip.
‘So it’s Debbie’s house first, then Harriet’s, then Miss Moriarty’s.’
Ingrid nods her head.
‘Then what?’
‘Then… then we do it.’
She bends a little backwards in her chair so she can see the clock in the middle of the menu behind the counter.
‘So we’ll be dead around midnight, right?’
I nod my head slowly.
‘About that time, yeah.’
19:45
Vivian
It’s a sorry sight. I know.
I know because I stare at it every night.
My reflection.
In the windows of the double doors that lead out to our back garden.
I’m fuckin sick of this. Yet it’s all I do. Sit here, a glass of wine swirling in my hand, staring at a blurry image of myself.
I take another sip. Taking in my reflection as I do so.
What a loser.
Yet, I know tomorrow evening I’ll be doing the exact same thing. And the evening after that. And the one after that. Probably be doing this for all the evenings I have left. Another forty years of sipping wine. That’ll take me into my early eighties. Isn’t that what they say the average age to die is? Seems like a long way off to me.
I pick up the bottle of wine, pour it into my glass, shaking every last drop out of it, and then huff because it didn’t fill my glass enough. So I place both forearms across the kitchen island and lay my forehead on top of them.
‘Fuck sake!’ I grunt into my elbow. I lift my head slowly, swivel on my stool and slide off it. I drag my slippers as I walk across the tiles and reach up into the cupboard to grab at another bottle of Chateaneuf-du-Pape. Then I drag my slippers over to the slide drawer for the corkscrew and wrestle with the horrible red wrap of film that covers the top of the bottle. I’ve opened two bottles of this shit every night for the past seven years and I still struggle with the process every time. Opening the second bottle is always more difficult than the first. It’d probably make sense for me to open the two of them when I’m sober and leave them in front of me. But making sense has never really been my thing.
‘Fuck!’ I say when the sharp point of the corkscrew pinches at the top of my thumb. Then I finally release the film, and am faced with the task of popping the cork itself. I’ve let one or two bottles slip out of my hands over the years during this part of the process. It should be a helluva lot fuckin easier than this in this day and age to open a bottle of wine. How have they not come up with something better than a bleedin’ corkscrew? Sometimes I can nail this in one go. But most times I have to spoon out lumps of cork from my glass after I’ve poured it.
‘Come on, you bitch,’ I say to the corkscrew as I yank at it. Pop. Done. Decent job.
I fill my glass, then sit back into my stool and stare at the blurry image of myself again. I often wonder if I stare at this reflection because it hides the lines in my face and makes me look younger. Then I turn my face to notice the time on the oven. 19:50.
What a prick. Why can’t he be home with his family? Then I realise his family aren’t actually here. Ciara’s out too. Where’d she say she was going? I can’t remember. Didn’t she try to hug me? What the hell was all that about? Silly child. She is gone out, isn’t she?
‘Ciara. Ciara.’ I shout it so that I can be heard as far up as the loft. Sometimes she likes to hang out up there. I don’t know what she does be doing.
No answer.
She must be gone out. Probably in Ingrid’s house.
She’d rather be there than here. I don’t blame her.
I envy the Murphys. They’ve got it all together. A proper family, they are. Terry’s as successful professionally as my Michael, but at least he’s man enough to stay loyal to his wife and kids. Even if one of the kids is a bit retarded. I’m not sure what his condition is. I keep forgetting. Some new-age made up mental illness that begins with an ‘A’. I’m sure it begins with an ‘A’.
Maybe it’s easier for Terry to stay at home with his family because he has a mental son. Or perhaps it’s just easier because his wife’s an ex-model. She’s beautiful, is Greta. Tall. Slim. Blonde. I’ll never be tall. Never be slim. I tried blonde once. Just to see if Michael would like it. He tutted. Said I looked like a tart.
The Murphys have invited us to have dinner in their house loads of times over the past few years. They want us to be closer because our girls are best friends. But we’ve never taken them up on their offer. That’d be Michael’s worst nightmare. A double date with the neighbours. Jesus, could you imagine?
Besides, I’m not that keen myself. Even if by some miracle Michael did agree, I can’t really be relied on to do socialising. I’m too… what’s the word… too nervy, too anxious. I’d be over-conscious of my dependence on wine. They probably wouldn’t want Ciara to pal around with Ingrid anymore if they found out I was a borderline alcoholic. And she needs that friendship more than anything. It’s Ingrid who looks after my Ciara. Especially now that Debbie has gone.
I stare at my reflection again and take another sip. Sometimes I swirl the wine around in my mouth to get a sense of whether or not I can taste it anymore. I’m numb to it by now, I think. But I’m not numb to the effect. I need it. I need the alcohol to take the edge off. Couldn’t live without it.
I turn my face to look at the oven again. 19:54.
Where is this prick?
I place one foot down, then the other, holding a hand to the edge of the kitchen island for balance, then I drag my slippers across the tiles again, the swish-swash of them irritating me as if my hangover has settled in already. I find myself in the hallway, picking up the telephone and dialling one; the quick dial for Michael’s office. He has one of those new fancy mobile phones, but the bloody thing is never switched on.
The tone rings. And rings. Then cuts off.
I blink my eyes so I can become more conscious to my thoughts. What time was it when I looked at the oven clock again? Jesus. I can’t remember. I shuffle my way back down the hallway, down the one step that leads to the kitchen tiles and then cock my head so I can see the microwave. 19:56. Yeah. Almost eight o’clock. That’s what I thought. I’m sure he’s still in the office. He’s normally there till ten-ish, even later sometimes. So I shuffle my way back up the hallway and pick up the phone again, dial one and hold the receiver to my ear.
It rings out.
‘Fuck sake!’ I yell, slamming the phone back down on its receiver.
Then I remember.
‘It’s a fucking Sunday, isn’t it?’
I blow out my cheeks and shuffle my way back to the kitchen. Back to the island. Back to my stool. Back to my wine. And back to my blurry reflection.
◈
There was a strange silence in the car, even though energies had somewhat heightened.
Charlie had already felt as if he’d asked too many questions before they even started the engine. Or at least the same question too many times. So he just concentrated on his driving while Helen stared out the side window of the passenger seat as they made their way towards Davitt Road.
There was no doubt Charlie was intimidated by the lanky woman he thought was a Detective from Rathmines Garda station. Yet he seemed somewhat excited. When he was offered the task of looking into the phone calls as if they were legitimate, he assumed he was put in charge of an insignificant case again; the type nobody else in the station could be bothered looking into. It’d be nothing new for Charlie to be doing a whole lot of nothing for his entire shift. But now that he’d been partnered with a Detective from another station, his mood seemed to be shifting. Adrenaline was threatening to pump inside of him.
‘How long you been a cop?’ Helen asks, just as they reach their destination.
Charlie indicates left, slots his car into one of the tiny parking spaces outside the Marble Arch pub and then pulls up the handbrake before answering.
‘Eighteen months.’
Helen stiffens her nostrils.
‘Enjoy it?’
‘I will.’
‘What ye mean you will?’
‘Soon as I’m outta this,’ he says, lifting up the flap of his tie and letting it fall back down.
Helen opens her door, stretches her long legs out, and by the time she has walked around the other side of the car, Charlie has done the same. He’s zipping up his navy Garda jacket when Helen places a hand on his shoulder.
‘What… you want out of uniform already? Wanna be a Detective?’
Charlie nods, then stares down at his c
lunky black shoes, his jaw clenching. Perhaps he’s said too much already.
‘You got balls, Charlie? You willing to play the game, not the system?’
Charlie’s brow creases. Every time he does this, Helen notices that his nose gets even stubbier.
‘Whatcha mean by that?’ he asks, looking back up at Helen.
Helen doesn’t answer. She steps off the path and, in her own unique stiff way, strides across the road towards the tram stop.
Charlie waits, hands in his pockets, his mind swirling, before he jogs after her.
He observes Helen as she stands still at the tram stop. He’s intrigued, not just by how she seems to be going about her job, but by every nuance of her character. Her coat looks, to him, as if she is trying to dress for a role in a cheesy TV series. And her hair? Well… Charlie could barely keep his eyes off it. Is itching to ask her what colour it is. But there isn’t a chance that question will ever come out of his mouth. He knows that odd face would offer him a strange stare. And no answer.
‘Whatcha looking for?’ he asks, his rural accent thick.
‘See that?’
‘What?’
Charlie’s gaze follows Helen’s. Right up into the corner of the shelter of the tram stop.
‘CCTV.’
Charlie holds his eyes closed, then grinds his teeth. He feels like an idiot. He should have known that’s what she was staring at.
‘Lights are on. It’s working. All along the stop the CCTV seems to be working.’ She flicks her wrist, stares at her watch. ‘It’s eight o’clock. Call was made at six forty-nine you said… over an hour ago.’
Helen huffs out a sigh from her nostrils, then pivots her head left and right, all the way up and down the straight stretch of the Grand Canal.
‘No point in us being here, then,’ she says. ‘We need to go up to the Luas HQ, up to the Red Cow roundabout.’
‘To get the CCTV footage from six forty-nine?’ Charlie asks.
The Suicide Pact (The Tick-Tock Trilogy Book 3) Page 4