And here she is at last — beautiful, anxious Lace, her face flaring like a dandelion over Dr Mallory’s shoulder. ‘Bad timing,’ says Bright in a breathless but heartfelt voice, staggering to his feet. ‘I wanted to see you so much earlier.’ He blocks Gibby’s punch with the flat of his right hand, and counters with his left. ‘I don’t want to be doing this,’ he assures the women over his shoulder. ‘Male pride is a fucking curse.’ And then Gibby has him in a headlock and he’s dragged away, rolling and tumbling across the parsley-strewn battlefield, before he’s had his fill of Lace, before he can apologise for his boorish behaviour, or ask why her eyes are so empty and her skin so flushed.
‘I’m getting this on permanent record!’ The shiny-eyed Swede is darting in front of them, with some kind of filming device in his hand.
For a second Gibby’s hold on Bright loosens. ‘I invented that!’ He stares at the Swede’s camera, sounding almost bashful while taking a firmer grip on Bright’s neck.
Blood is pumping through Bright’s veins and pouring out his nose, he’s grunting like a bear and swearing like a trooper, he’ll regret it all later — but he has to admit that it feels good to be beating the crap out of Gibby. ‘You’re going down!’ Wrenching free, he tackles his opponent to the ground again.
Donovan’s feet loom beside them, and then Bright sees the bottom of the stove, the squeezed lemons and smatterings of oil, and then Donovan’s feet, the stove again — they’re spinning full-circle on the floor, like breakdancers. ‘Don’t you think it’s time to stop?’ he gasps. And, just as he disentangles from Gibby, a deluge of water falls upon them, sloshing through their hair, drenching their shirts and filling their shoes.
Donovan steps back, looking satisfied. ‘It always works with dogs!’
‘We were stopping anyway,’ protest Gibby and Bright in unlikely unison.
Donovan snorts. ‘Sure you were.’ Turning to check that Dr Mallory has witnessed his intervention, swinging the empty bucket in a manly way, he knocks the stockpot askew. The huge pan teeters, he grabs it and slips — and he and the pan crash to the floor.
‘Never leave a saucepan handle turned outwards,’ admonishes Gibby from where he lies.
‘I think I’ve broken my tailbone,’ cries Donovan, soaked in chicken stock, adorned with bay leaves.
‘Oh, my poor darling!’ Dr Mallory swoops down with great visual effect, making the male onlookers gape appreciatively.
Bright, lying in a damp heap, watches the Twins appear on the scene. One of them (which? they look even more similar viewed upside down through blood and water) is holding a bottle of brandy. Confronted with multiple injuries, they stick closely together, the staunch independence training they’ve received over the past weeks seeming only to confuse them. ‘Gibby first,’ decides the bottle-carrier. ‘No, Bright,’ counters the one with the tea towels. ‘But Donovan has a possible broken bone!’ ‘Gibby has a gashed lip!’ ‘Bright has a bleeding nose!’ They waver like indecisive Florence Nightingales.
Bright emits a gargling sound. ‘You’re needed here. There’s a severe shortage of medicinal alcohol.’
‘No, here first!’ Gibby turns his bleeding head on the wet tiles and looks at Bright. ‘If only Savage had called his hooch medicinal, he’d still be here today.’
Bright laughs, although it makes his ribcage hurt, and Gibby gives a glinting smile.
‘So who wants it?’ demands Rosalind, making Bright and Gibby cackle in unison. It’s as if by battling through sauce, stock and water, they’ve become brothers in arms.
Mirabelle fires up on her twin’s behalf. ‘Don’t be smutty. She’s referring to the brandy.’
Dr Mallory has extracted a wooden spoon from under the groaning Donovan. ‘Do you think the cracking sound was this, rather than your coccyx?’
‘Dr Mallory said cocks-ix,’ splutters Bright, making Gibby laugh even harder.
‘My lucky stirrer!’ Donovan sounds distraught, as if he’d rather have spent six weeks in a plaster cast than break his favourite utensil.
‘For goodness sake!’ Rosalind is becoming agitated. She steps back, brandishing the open bottle, making arcs of brandy fly. ‘For Christ’s sake, you ungrateful bastards, does no one want to be fucking saved?’
‘Now look what you’ve done!’ Instantly Mirabelle regresses to the role of protector, as if Geoffrey’s work has never existed. ‘She never used to use language like that!’ She darts behind Rosalind, mopping up the brandy spills. ‘Put the bottle down,’ she orders. ‘Step away from the bottle now.’
Donovan lurches to his feet. ‘That’s my second-best apron you’re wiping the floor with! Give it here, you little replicate!’
‘EEEARGH!’ With a small angry scream Mirabelle flings away the brandy-soaked apron. It lands on the stove and bursts into flames.
‘Oh fucking hell! Jesus fucking Christ!’ At the sight of the burning apron, Rosalind starts to shriek. Holding the bottle above her head, she empties the brandy on the fire like a handmaiden offering libations to a chaotic god.
‘Shit!’ Bright gets to his knees but it’s too late. The fire is roaring, leaping up in a scorching wall. Donovan shouts, Dr Mallory screams, the Twins are hysterical, and Bright and Gibby leap to their feet and run for the fire extinguisher.
COLD FLOORS, STRANGE BEDS
IT’S TAKEN SOME TIME for the dust to settle. Guests are still shuffling, crab-like, out of the kitchen, gaping backwards, reluctant to return to their less dramatic lives. Thick foam covers the stove and the bench, piles of vegetables have become lumpy white mountains, and it’s anybody’s guess where Donovan’s lucky spoon might be.
The tearstained Twins are hugging each other, while the Swede films them with an intense and fulfilled expression. ‘Put your faces closer together,’ he says, sounding almost happy. ‘That’s perfect.’
Dr Mallory bends over Donovan, who’s dry-retching into the sink, and Gibby leans against the fridge, feeling winded, guilty — and strangely uneasy. ‘How is she? Is she okay?’ he asks urgently, straightening up as his former adversary slides over the ice-rink floor towards him.
‘I can’t find her. She wasn’t in the corridor.’ Two long red streaks still trickle from Bright’s nostrils. ‘She’s gone.’
Gibby’s stomach drops: thirty floors in a fast lift, a bungee cord in a canyon, the sudden plummet of a plane. ‘What? When did she leave?’
‘How do I know? I last saw her in the middle of our fight.’
They run through the black garden, up the stairs and along the corridor. Lace’s door is open. Her bed is made, her silver shoes sit neatly beside the chair, her coats sway on their hangers but make no sound. ‘Okay, not here.’ Gibby tries to sound normal but his heart is lurching around in his chest.
‘Perhaps she’s gone to the games room. Or the library.’ Bright wipes his bloodied nose on his sleeve.
Gibby glances out the window. Something long and dark is slumped over the front gate — he takes a sharp breath in, god, no! — before he sees it’s only a coat. ‘Admin’s supposed to check the grounds every evening. That should have been picked up.’ His voice is sharp with relief.
‘She wouldn’t go out so late at night, would she?’ Bright joins him at the window, staring down into the street.
‘Surely not.’ Gibby’s not sure if he’s reassuring himself or Bright. ‘Let’s go back and look again.’
The New Building floats ahead of them on the rough grass like a half-empty ship. When they peer into the kitchen window, nothing much has changed: bending, crying, comforting, documentary-making — all are still in full flow.
‘Did you really invent that video camera?’ asks Bright, suddenly respectful.
‘Yes.’ Gibby pushes out of the shrubbery. ‘But other people did most of the groundwork, of course.’
‘Modesty!’ Bright speaks over his shoulder, heading for the sliding glass doors. ‘I can’t decide if it’s your downfall or your best quality. Lace says —’
At
the mention of her name the doors fly open so violently that the building shakes, and Gibby is catapulted into the lighted lobby. Hit by the shock of return, he blinks hard. Where the fuck is she?
‘Do you think she’d go to Geoffrey?’ Bright is lost in the glaring light.
‘I don’t think so. She doesn’t seem to have faith in him any more. But it’s worth a try.’
They sprint soundlessly down the corridor and halt just before they reach Geoffrey’s partially open door. The first thing Gibby hears is her name — Grace McDonald — and he goes weak with relief, before realising he’s overhearing a phone call.
‘I wouldn’t normally ask for an admission at such short notice,’ Geoffrey says, ‘but the situation’s urgent. She’s not responding to any treatment.’
Gibby darts a look at Bright. Pale face, streaky blood: he looks like a zombie, eyes blank with misery.
‘Yes, the decline has been alarmingly fast.’ But Geoffrey sounds more assertive than alarmed. It’s not his job to panic. He’d remained calm when Savage staggered towards him, swearing, lashing out with fists and feet. Calm when summoned to the games room to find the Swede barricaded under the pool table, screaming about black-winged devils. Why expect a professional like Geoffrey to become upset, when he doesn’t know Lace personally? Not the way Gibby knows her, having lived alongside her for years, observing her vivid smile and her vulnerability, worrying about her heart, so expansive it might break her body in two. And how does Bright know her? Again, Gibby’s mind shies away from the question. One glance at Bright’s stricken face, however, and he’s forced to acknowledge the truth. There they are, the two of them, flattened against the corridor walls, listening to a stark verdict on the one person they both love.
‘Certainly high-risk. I’m not one to cry wolf.’ Geoffrey’s voice has a steel edge to it. ‘Yes, much higher security is needed. I’m seeing her first thing tomorrow morning, and then I’ll contact you again. What time is it in Alabama now?’
Bright’s head falls against the wall; he looks half-dead. Gibby touches his arm — ‘Shall we go?’ — and they retreat again.
‘He’s going to send her away?’ Bright stammers. It sounds like a question, but they know the answer; they’ve heard all they need to, and more than they can bear.
The door to the library is locked, while the dark games room is open but reeking of absence. Nonetheless they hunt behind sofas, open up cupboards and peer behind curtains hanging against blank walls.
‘Now what?’ Bright’s stare is so intense it’s almost painful to meet it. ‘You know her best. Please, please come up with something.’
Gibby sinks onto the sofa. The vinyl is cold, like the cheeks of someone who’s been out on a winter’s night. A faint smell of must and mould rises up around him. ‘I don’t know the way she thinks any more!’ he cries. ‘I haven’t seen her enough recently. Not since getting here.’
Bright slides down the wall, his head bowed. He slumps on the floor and tiny dark spots appear on the carpet in front of him.
Blood, or tears? Gibby can’t bear to look at his despair. There’s only one thing left to do. He closes his eyes, opens them again, and then forces himself into that state which, usually, he’ll do almost anything to avoid.
There are faint tracks on the carpet where someone has wheeled the entertainment unit back into its cupboard. He concentrates on them until the indents grow deeper and broader. Soon they’re moving and wheeling around him in circles. Car tracks, tyres, crushing the fibres of the carpet. The nylon starts crackling like gravel: a rough shingle road, spitting out sharp stone tacks.
‘Gibby, are you okay?’ Bright’s voice is a long way away, barely audible through the roar falling in through the doorway. God, the noise! The slanting, crashing crack! as the light shaft hits the floor and splinters into a white mass around him.
‘Steel.’ He feels sick, his sweaty palms slipping on the sofa, his ankles hurting from the impact. ‘Steel, and light, and —’
But there’s more. The sound of Bright’s jumper scratching against the wallpaper becomes the striking of a match. Over and over again. With every strike the heat becomes more intense. Gibby raises his hands to shield his face but his ears are full of the hissing inferno. When he peers between his fingers Bright’s face has vanished in a red mass of flames, his words are smudges of floating ash that disintegrate when Gibby tries to grasp them.
He leaps to his feet. Hard to breathe. Lungs burning. ‘Come on,’ he gasps. ‘I think I know.’
He heads for the door, glancing back only once. Miraculously, Bright has survived unscathed, and is running behind him. Down the corridor, through a swing door and into a Staff Only area: breaking rules, crashing through boundaries, smashing up protocol in the name of an emergency. Pushing through plastic curtains — flick flack, whip-marks on face — into the dimly lit supply room. Blundering through pyramids of cooking oil and tinned vegetables.
Then he’s pulling with all his strength on a heavy metal door. REFRIGERATED GOODS. The freezing white air slaps him in the face: he’s stunned, winded. ‘Lace?’ he croaks. ‘Are you in here?’
Pink-streaked carcasses hang in front of him, swaying in the chill mist. He ducks under the stunted, blunt necks.
‘Lace? Oh god, Lace?’ This time it’s Bright who’s saying her name: different voice, the same desperation.
And there she is. There, but beyond hearing. Curled up on the concrete, her legs drawn up to her chest and her hands clasped loosely under her chin. Her face is dead white, but the veins on her eyelids are purple and her lips are almost blue. Her hair floats over the floor like a veil. How peaceful she looks! Even as Gibby shakes her, slaps her face, feels for a pulse — even as he tries to bring her back to life, he regrets the disturbance. He’s never seen her look so tranquil.
‘Lace, what have you done?’ Bright is kneeling beside her, rubbing her frozen neck and her hunched shoulders. He’s crying, great gulping sobs that shake his body and force their way into Lace, giving her a semblance of life. ‘Is she —?’ he cries to Gibby, his mouth wide and dark. ‘Is she —?’
They half-lift and half-drag her over the smeared bloodstained floor, out of the chill and into the harsh humming light. Gibby’s head is still reeling from the fire and the frost, and the sight of his best friend, blue and frozen, laid out as if on a —
‘You’re not dead,’ he says fiercely. ‘You’re not to be dead.’ And as he speaks, with his mouth close to her neck, he feels the faintest flutter. A moth’s wing, a scrap of paper carried on the wind.
‘A pulse?’ Bright has felt it too, through his long fingers that are wrapped around her wrist. He wipes his face, leaving a long bloody smear on his sleeve, and starts rubbing her hands. Kneeling on the floor, his eyes fixed on her trembling eyelids, he’s transformed. His grief flares and ignites into triumph, which hangs above the three of them — two crying, one lying still — like a protective roof.
THERE’S NO QUESTION OF what to do next. Not really. Once Lace’s eyes have opened, once she has stammered and coughed, they lift her up, one of her arms hooked around each of their necks, and they carry her out of there. Hurry, hurry! Over No-Man’s Land, up the stairs, to the relative safety of the third floor.
No question. This is Gibby, encouraging himself, observing their stumbling progress: two pairs of feet moving in clumsy formation, and one pair dragging between them. No question where she’ll be best off, tonight. He and Bright both know it.
Nonetheless, Bright throws Gibby a glance behind Lace’s bowed head. His eyes are anxious, tentative. ‘Do you think we should notify…?’
‘Not yet.’ Gibby brushes Lace’s hair away from her forehead. ‘There you go,’ he says softly. ‘You’ll be safe here. Bright will look after you.’
‘Safe?’ It’s the first word she’s managed to say. Her eyes — still dazed, focused on something neither Gibby nor Bright can see — roll towards the ceiling in the old comedic way. ‘Safe. That’s a Gibby-sized promise.�
��
‘Well, I am Mr Large, after all. Large body, large pledges.’
Lace laughs and then coughs. Her hand tightens on his arm; does she want him to stay?
But Bright is reaching for the door and looking at Lace with the most intense relief and tenderness that anyone could ever hope to see. When she looks back, it’s clear that life is beginning to ebb back into her face. After this everything appears to Gibby as if in slow motion:
Bright puts his hand on the door handle.
The brass keyhole shines with hope.
The door swings open.
The green-shaded lamp in the corridor pulses behind them like hospital equipment.
Lace is reviving.
All is well.
‘Gibby, are you sure you’ll be all right?’ Bright’s words skim slowly but surely towards him. Gibby nods, seeing the way the moonlight is slanting steadily through the window. And on the floor of Bright’s room, stacked up like ancient foundations, are columns of books. These sights reassure him enough to leave her here. ‘I’ll be fine. I’ll see you both tomorrow.’ He shakes Bright’s hand and kisses Lace on the forehead. Her skin smells of nothing at all; not death, nor life. In spite of the pink tinge returning to her fingernails, her body is like a waiting room, neither here nor there.
He forces himself to walk away. Every step is exhausting, though he knows what he’s doing is right. Suddenly he hears a small sound and turns to see Lace following him, supporting herself against the wall. ‘Gibby,’ she says, reaching him. ‘You saved me.’
‘It was Bright and me together.’ He flushes. ‘We both did it.’
‘Not only tonight.’ She shakes her head. ‘Every night. Every night and every day since we met, you’ve been saving me.’ In the dim corridor her eyes are the deepest blue he’s ever seen: deeper than a lake at evening, bluer than spruce-trees in snow.
She takes his hand. ‘I love you.’
He doesn’t say it back because he can’t say it in the same way, and he knows she’d hear the difference. Now, of all times, this would never do. His job is, and has always been, that of protector. ‘Good night,’ he says, stroking her face.
Suicide Club, The Page 33