Suicide Club, The

by Quigley, Sarah

  Although he’s managed to avoid meeting his visitors, he can’t prevent them from leaving things behind. By the end of each day, the doorstep of his building looks like a place of religious pilgrimage. ‘I’ve become a shrine.’ He peers down, dismayed, at the flowers and toys fanning over the pavement. ‘I am Lourdes.’

  In spite of being born into the Catholic faith, Eduardo knows Lourdes only as the daughter of the pop-star Madonna — who is, in turn, the only Madonna of which he knows anything. ‘I never listened to Religious Education in school,’ he explains. ‘I was always planning my next escape, or memorising the rules of poker.’ Nor does he ever read books, not even Bright’s, which is one reason why he’s such restful company.

  Every evening Bright goes down the marble stairs with a huge canvas mailbag after which, like a thin and nervous Father Christmas, he goes door-to-door offering wilted bouquets, assorted biscuits and stuffed rabbits. ‘Courtesy of your resident loony!’ Politely, he proffers the sack so his blue-rinsed neighbours can choose from the daily spoils.

  Strangely, the flowers are surprisingly hard to shift (this is the sort of building where green-aproned men arrive with professional floral arrangements nearly every day), but the pearl-entwined neighbours need no urging to accept cherry liqueur or brandy-flavoured pralines. After a few nights it becomes routine. At the sound of Bright’s footsteps their doors spring wide — Open Sesame! — and they rifle through the day’s offerings with alacrity, disappearing just as quickly with laden hands.

  ‘They love taking my stuff but they look at me strangely,’ says Bright, arriving at Eduardo’s door with an almost empty sack, ‘as if they might catch insanity.’

  ‘They always looked at you strangely,’ says Eduardo reassuringly. ‘First you were the crazee writer. Now you’re just crazee!’

  Bright laughs but there’s an ache in his stomach as well as in his fractured toe. He has to admit that sometimes it would be easier to fit in, settle down, blend in like wallpaper.

  ‘Now you really do talk mad.’ Eduardo, to whom attention is the next best thing to life itself, looks reproving. ‘Revel in it! Most people would kill for fame to come knocking on their door.’

  ‘Even when it brings fifty ugly red gerberas?’ Bright shoves a crushed fistful at Eduardo.

  ‘Thank you, but no more flowers.’ Eduardo shakes his head. ‘The pollen puts me off my game. Food is always welcome, though. Any cakes today?’

  ‘No. A lot of luxury chocolate, but it was all taken by the first floor.’ Bright limps towards the sofa, where the zebra cushion still bears the imprint of his yesterday-head. ‘I wish they’d spend their money on books instead.’

  ‘They must like books,’ points out Eduardo, brushing his hair into a neat middle parting, slicking on pomade. ‘Otherwise why would they care that you nearly died?’ He’s slightly distracted, as tonight is his monthly poker game out in the real world, face-to-face with visible opponents.

  ‘They like authors, especially when they’re famous and tragedy-ridden.’ Bright puts his hands behind his head and a lone foil-wrapped Ferrero Rocher falls out of his sleeve. ‘That’s a different thing to liking books. Most of them probably read extracts online. Or go on a two-year waiting list at the library. Or wait until they find the book in a remainder bin.’ He bites hard into the chocolate, taking a chunk out of the inside of his cheek. ‘Ow.’ He throws the balled-up wrapper at his bandaged big toe and misses.

  Eduardo kneels beside him, smoothing down his red hair with soft waxy hands. ‘You shouldn’t care so much,’ he says soothingly. ‘That’s your problem, you care too much about everything. Your father, for instance. Your father is nothing but a sheet!’

  ‘A shit,’ corrects Bright.

  ‘Yes, that’s the speerit!’ Eduardo pats him on his flaming curly head. ‘My father is also a sheet, so I ignore him. You should do the same. Don’t let them fuck with your head. You’re a great and crazee writer, and you’ve got a job to do!’

  Bright puts the zebra-hide cushion over his face, breathes in cigar smoke and expensive musky leather. ‘I’ll try,’ he promises into the stripy darkness. But a tiny tear trickles out of one eye.

  When he emerges, Eduardo has tactfully repositioned himself beside the coat rack, rummaging about in various pockets. ‘I wonder where my lighter is.’ He doesn’t turn around. ‘I haven’t seen it since last month. Ees a veery important accessory.’

  ‘I think —’ Bright clears his throat. ‘Yes, it’s right here on the coffee table.’

  ‘So it is!’ Eduardo glances at him anxiously but tries to sound casual. ‘You’ll be all right here? Help yourself to gin. And there might be some Swiss chocolates left from last night.’

  ‘Speaking of Switzerland,’ mumbles Bright, running his tongue inside his raw cheek, ‘I believe my sheet of a father is sending me there.’

  Now Eduardo definitely looks anxious. ‘Switzerland? Why? For how long?’ He snatches up his lighter, flicks it again and again, small flares against impending loneliness.

  ‘Two weeks, I think. At some research centre.’ Bright tries to remember but the day of his father’s visit is blurred, its surface fogged up like a mirror in a steamy bathroom.

  ‘Research? You will be a guinea pig, a white mouse in a cage?’ Eduardo has shrunk at the news: he’s a tiny figure in the middle of an enormous white rug.

  ‘Nothing like experiments,’ says Bright, though alarm leaps inside him. (Surely they wouldn’t — would they?) ‘It’s more like a job. A paid job. They need to conduct interviews with survivors. People who’ve been through what I have.’

  ‘So you’ll be with other people who have fallen twenty floors and broken their toes?’

  ‘Nineteen floors,’ corrects Bright, trying to joke. But he’s just realised how little he knows. The only thing he remembers clearly, almost in slow motion, is the sight of the papers — marked with his real name, or his chosen one? he doesn’t even know this — disappearing into his father’s briefcase.

  Eduardo’s phone tings: a text message. ‘I’ve gotta go.’ An instant change occurs in him: he’s quivering, focused like a hound on a trail. ‘That was the secret location. I’ve got thirty minutes to get there before lockdown.’

  ‘Go!’ urges Bright, feeling a tug of envy. Illegality, the whisper of money, the adrenaline of competition — and he’s left alone here, lying on a sofa with a sore stomach and a bottle of gin. ‘Play big! Win big! Conquer those poker-faced bastards!’

  ‘Do I look all right?’ Eduardo pulls on a white sweatshirt emblazoned with red words, smoothes non-existent sideburns, stands to attention.

  ‘Like a killer. A shark.’ Bright scans Eduardo’s chest, which reads Lots in Space! Should he say something? Pedantry, loyalty, the nature of his job — one or all of them forces him into speaking up. ‘There’s a typo on your sweatshirt. Shouldn’t it be “Lost”?’

  Eduardo peers down at himself. ‘It’s deliberate. It confuses my opponents, puts them off their game.’ He drapes a suede jacket over his arm, and then — unexpectedly — kisses Bright goodbye on both cheeks. ‘You can sleep here on the sofa if you don’t feel like going back to the cupboard tonight.’

  ‘Thanks. I might do that.’

  After Eduardo has exited, Bright lies perfectly still and stares at the ceiling until he hears the slam of the main door downstairs. Then, without sitting up, he blows his nose and wipes his eyes. Turning his head towards the window, he can see the newspaper building looming in the distance, a stack of lighted floors against a dark sky.

  AFTER TWO WEEKS BRIGHT has become old news. The doorbell quietens down, the security guard who keeps an eye on the art gallery on the ground floor no longer mutters about having to be a social secretary, and the bundles of flowers wilt and die, and are stuffed into the large green skip in the side alley.

  ‘They call themselves fans?’ Eduardo is indignant. ‘Pah! They have short memories and the attention span of gnats.’ Being in possession of both traits himself,
he finds them particularly annoying in others.

  Once the gift tsunami has rolled back from the building, Bright lifts his head and finds that autumn has arrived. The sky is a purplish blue and there’s a tobacco smell to the wind. He unbolts a panel on his wall and extracts a bag of hopefully moth-free warm clothes. He has little inclination and less money for shopping. Perhaps he’ll put his first earnings from the research centre towards a proper winter coat?

  Eyeing up his painted window with a sudden dislike, he wonders if it might it be possible to chainsaw right through the plaster and get a view of real sky. Or would the outer wall collapse completely? That night he dreams of a huge face — the Reverend’s — peering into his three-walled flat as if it’s a doll’s house. And there’s the small version of Bright, cowering in the corner, dwarfed by the shadow of his father’s nose with nostrils as large as a dinosaur’s.

  He jolts awake, dry-mouthed. ‘No chainsaw,’ he says, getting up and shuffling first to a tap that’s not there and then to a window that will never open. He’s slept the morning away and restlessness is swelling inside him. He straps up his toe with masking tape and forces his foot into his running shoe. It hurts — a lot.

  In the stairwell he meets Mrs Robinson. ‘Are you going jogging, Bright?’ She puts a cool hand on his forearm. ‘Is that really wise?’

  She’s as immaculate as ever: silver bob above a black cashmere body, slim legs tapering to feet encased in narrow, heeled shoes. Rumour has it that she’s worn black ever since her husband found her in bed with another man — after which both men left her. But how long ago was that? Her low voice emerges from her magenta lips without disturbing her face, so she has no expression lines that might betray her age. ‘Between fifty and sixty,’ estimates Eduardo when the subject comes up. ‘She ees sexy, and desperate. Were I not gay…’

  And now here she is, the sexy and desperate Mrs Robinson, murmuring her fantasies at Bright. Something about liqueur chocolates from his well-wishers’ bag, still untouched on her bedside cabinet — and wouldn’t it be better for his health if he took care of his broken toe and, rather than going off running, came upstairs with her instead?

  He’s mesmerised by her eyes, freeze-framed in kohl, weighted down by mascara-clad lashes. Her stillness is like that of a snake charmer, and as he sways towards her he feels her shapely leg between his.

  ‘Mrs Robinson.’ He speaks with an effort. ‘Even though that really is your name, please remember this is not The Graduate and I am not Dustin Hoffman!’ It sounds offensive, but it’s the only way he can stop himself from going straight upstairs and going to bed with her. It’s been a long time since he’s had sex. Initially, he was too preoccupied with writing the book, and then flustered by its aftermath, and shortly after that — well, his plans for the twentieth floor of the newspaper building had become unignorable. And even before all that he’d been pretty fastidious; girls who couldn’t spell were off the list, as were those who used emojis in text messages, or Wikipedia for fact-checking, or simply laughed too loudly.

  Mrs Robinson never laughs, loudly or otherwise. She leans even closer, her skin emitting the faintest hint of champagne. ‘A pity,’ she murmurs almost inaudibly. ‘Well, you know where I live.’

  Weakly, Bright leans on the banister and watches her shimmy away up the curved marble stairs, which is exactly what she’s intended. The muscles in her toned calves ripple in an almost hypnotic way. On the landing, she turns. ‘Don’t forget, Bright. We care about you very much.’

  It’s a masterstroke — almost enough to make him start up the stairs after her. But he’s a match even for Mrs Robinson; she may have decades of experience behind her, but Bright is what storytellers would call ‘old beyond his years’. He’s seen things that would make Methuselah shiver in his boots, so he’s able to call ‘You don’t frighten me, Mrs Robinson!’ and to start humming the Simon and Garfunkel song in a jaunty way. The truth is, she does frighten him a little: not in an adolescent Benjamin-from-The-Graduate manner, but because she and Bright share a secret terrible code of knowledge, and when they stand close together it becomes as strong as an electric current. They know the same things: ticking clocks, gaping mornings, the effort it takes to get up and put on clothes that will be unnoticed by another person, and will be taken off again at the end of a solitary day. Who knows what would happen if Bright and Mrs Robinson ended up in the same bed, decades apart but bodies close, fusing their raging loneliness?

  ‘We would extinguish each other,’ Bright speaks out loud into the hollow stairwell, ‘or we would combust. We would put each other out, or burn each other up.’

  ‘Pardon?’ Clearly Tom the Security Guard is bored; he’s standing by the mailboxes, polishing already gleaming nameplates. ‘Are you in need of a match, Mr O’Connor?’

  ‘Yes, a love match.’ Bright cackles. ‘I’m thinking of introducing Mrs Robinson to my father.’

  Tom manages to maintain his usual professional face. ‘But isn’t your father already married, Mr O’Connor?’

  Sunlight flashes through the window, igniting Bright’s hair to curling flames. ‘I don’t much care for my stepmother, Mr Tom. I’d go so far as to say she’s a complete bitch.’

  ‘I see, Mr O’Connor.’ Quickly Tom starts towards his glassed-off kiosk, but Bright intercepts him, gliding over the floor, his running shoes squeaking like skates. ‘Which is why,’ he goes on in a conversational tone, ‘I believe Mrs Robinson is the perfect alternative. My father replaced my mother with a bimbo, so now it seems right for me to replace the bimbo with a sex bomb. Don’t you agree?’

  Tom puts his head down and marches to safety the long way around, sticking close to the circular walls of the foyer. He doesn’t look up until he’s safely behind his sliding glass panes.

  ‘Sorry,’ says Bright, ‘have I made you uncomfortable?’

  ‘Shouldn’t talk about the other residents like that,’ mutters Tom.

  ‘Indeed not. How on earth will you greet Mrs Robinson later today, now you’ve pictured her naked?’ He puts his right foot up on the brass umbrella stand and loosens his laces. ‘I’ve got to go and conduct an experiment now. I’m carrying out research on indifference.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ Tom takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes, perhaps hoping that such an action might spirit Bright away, genie-like.

  ‘No, I’m sorry. I haven’t disappeared yet. I’m still here!’ Bright speaks through the sliding window, two inches from Tom’s face. But suddenly the game isn’t enjoyable any longer; he feels wretched. Why does he never know when to stop? ‘I really am sorry,’ he says, contrite, and he turns and sprints out the door.

  The cold air is like a slap in the face and the pain from his foot makes him gasp. ‘Oh, shit. Shit, shit, shit.’ He forces himself on and finally settles into a limping stride, which is just bearable. Leaves wash over his feet, the park railings run behind him in a flickering stream.

  By the time he’s got to the centre of the city, he’s almost used to the red-hot stabbing. He glances at himself in shop windows: blinding white shoes, spotless white hoodie and trackpants, hair crammed under a white Nike cap. On the main pedestrian street, he weaves through the wandering shoppers. ‘Get out of my way,’ he whispers. ‘I’m a missile. I’m a saviour. I am to be saved.’

  Finally, he’s at his first destination: the brass fountain. Pigeons, crisp packets, toddlers, stained paving stones, splashes of water. He lies down, breathing hard, stomach against the hard ground, arms and legs splayed out. The first sign is clutched loosely in his hand. ‘I WAS PUSHED.’

  As he’s suspected, it doesn’t take long for a crowd to gather. Some crouch down beside him, staring into his open eyes. Others exclaim, or call to their friends. Is it art? A film? A TV show?

  ‘I was pushed.’ Bright’s voice provides a ground bass to the high swell of voices. ‘I was pushed. I was pushed.’ Repeating it makes his heart pound even harder, and his foot throbs inside the grip of his shoe. Soon he feels so ill
he thinks he might throw up. ‘Time to go,’ he says, hauling himself upright, pushing through the staring crowds.

  His next stop is the entrance to the main station: a grand sweep of fourteen shallow steps. He positions himself at the top, lying in the foetal position, with his second sign pinned to his back. ‘MY MOTHER LEFT ME WHEN I WAS SIX.’ At first he only hears chaos, but when he closes his eyes he can separate out the responses. The most common are:

  ‘Are we being filmed?’ (Nervously)

  ‘Can I be an extra?’ (Wannabe actors)

  ‘Get out of the way, arsehole!’ (Commuters running late)

  He also hears, ‘Should we ring the police?’ and ‘Should we call Child Support?’ (The second suggestion gets a laugh.) He continues to lie there, blind and motionless, until the voices fade into a black whirl. And then, very clearly, he hears his own mother calling to him. ‘I can’t say goodbye if you won’t come out of your room, Brian.’ She sounds perfectly matter-of-fact, as if she’s going on a shopping expedition rather than a year-long mission to Africa. Bright continues lying on his side, curled up, as still as a gravestone. Carpet fluff blocks his nose and ears; the bottom of the bed is so low that the sagging springs graze his shoulder. He knows how it feels to be buried alive. His heart shakes inside his cramped body.

  When he finally opens his eyes, he sees a kid lying in front of him, staring into his face.

  ‘She never came back,’ Bright tells him. ‘She went to Africa for a year, and she stayed away forever.’

  ‘Who?’ The boy has blackcurrant eyes, dark, shiny. He shuffles closer, only just avoiding having a suitcase wheeled over his head. ‘Who stayed in Africa forever?’

  ‘My mother. She left me so she could look after other people’s children.’

  ‘I wish my mother would do that,’ says the blackcurrant boy fervently. ‘My mother’s a bitch.’