by Rhys Thomas
My teacher loved the story and said that he would enter it in the next inter-schools competition that came up.
My friends asked me how Pascal could see what he was painting if he didn’t have any eyes, which left me in the unenviable position of having to tell them that they just didn’t understand.
A few weeks later a competition came up and my English teacher entered the story, just as he said he would. He said it was bound to win. But then my parents split up and I started going off the rails. I did something very bad, the worst thing I’ve ever done, got caught, and do you know what happened? They withdrew my entry. I’ll never know what would have happened if I’d won that competition. The headmaster said that I was going down the Wrong Track and that I needed to be stopped. I believe that that competition could have done me real good in my recuperation, but they took it away from me. They wanted me saved and the only thing that could have saved me was that which they took away. A story about irony. That’s sort of ironical, isn’t it?
I woke up at eleven. At first I thought it had all been a dream, I really did. It actually took me a while to realize that it was all too true. Those few moments when I was unsure as to what had happened were wonderful. They were the segments of time in which my mind told me I was innocent. But I wasn’t, was I? I went to my en suite and washed my face. My head was going crazy.
I almost jumped out of my skin when my phone started buzzing in my pocket. It was Clare. I didn’t want to speak to anybody, but I also really wanted to speak to her, which does make sense to me.
‘Hi,’ I said.
‘You killed Bertie,’ she said matter-of-factly.
‘Clare, please,’ I began. Oh my God, my voice was breaking. ‘Can you . . .’ I moved the phone away from my mouth so she wouldn’t know that I had almost started crying. I got myself together. ‘Can you come over?’ I managed.
There was silence on the line; I think she knew how upset I was.
‘I’ll be over as soon as I can. Are you OK?’
I hung up because I needed to lie down and do something very weak. I started crying. I had spent so long trying to be a good boy and lying to myself that I was anything but a nasty little shit who thinks he’s better than other people. My fake world that I had built was about to come crashing down around me. My reality was slipping. Soon I would be that horrible person that I knew I really was. I wanted some way to kill that part of me, the bad part, but I just didn’t know how to do it.
I knew that I would never tell anybody that it was Freddy who had killed Bertie. No matter how desperate you get, you never leave a man down in the field. If anyone asked, I would say that I didn’t know what happened and that it was an accident.
Clare would take about twenty minutes to get across to my house and I needed to get myself together. I had had nowhere near enough sleep and my chest felt tight. My eyes were red and I felt like one of those lost souls in a sci-fi film, the ones that Freddy talked about. I got in the shower, hoping it would make me feel better, but it didn’t.
I could hear people moving around downstairs – the dreaded parents. But closer, there was a shuffling noise. Toby was in his room. I went over to his door and went in. What he was doing was so ridiculous it didn’t even bear thinking about. He was dusting his bookshelves with a feather duster. On a normal day I would have taken the duster off him, thrown it out the window and told him to stop being so gay. But today I sat down on his tiny chair next to his tiny desk.
‘Hi, Rich,’ he said amiably.
‘Toby, I want you to do me a favour.’
He placed a book back on its shelf.
‘What?’ he said.
‘I want you to hit me over the head with a cricket bat.’
‘What?’
I suddenly changed my mind – it wouldn’t have made any difference anyway. ‘Don’t worry.’ My mouth was dry. ‘You carry on with your, er, cleaning.’
‘What are you doing in here?’
For some reason his words really hurt me and I almost started crying again. ‘I just want to be in here with you. Now carry on cleaning.’ I actually shouted the last sentence.
Toby stared at me like he was scared.
I got up from my chair, that bad uncontrollable part of me coming out. I didn’t want to be horrible to him so why couldn’t I stop myself ?
‘Just fuck off,’ I huffed and slammed the door behind me.
When I got outside the door, Clare was stood at the opposite end of the landing, at the top of the stairs. She looked a mess but it felt so good just to see her. I felt exposed because I was only wearing a T-shirt and a pair of shorts.
‘Did you just tell old Tobe to . . . fuck off ?’ she said like it was amusing. She used to laugh her head off at Toby because he acted like such an old man.
I didn’t share the joke. I found myself shaking.
‘Hey,’ she said, suddenly putting her hand on my arm. ‘Are you OK?’
My mouth was filling with moisture and I could feel my face burning. I was going to start crying again. And in front of Clare as well. I couldn’t let it happen.
‘Let’s go to my room,’ I managed.
We went in and I locked the door behind me. I noticed her glance at the lock when I did it as if I was locking her in. I wasn’t. She went over to my CD player and pressed play. Damien Rice came on again. She skipped to the third track.
‘What are we going to do?’ I slumped on my bed and lay on my back.
‘We won’t tell anyone,’ she said.
‘Clare.’ I didn’t know what I was trying to say. ‘I can’t believe it happened.’
She had taken a seat at my desk. ‘Did you do it deliberately?’
I so badly wanted to tell her that it wasn’t me, but I couldn’t. Do you think that’s weird? Would you have told the truth about Freddy?
‘It was an accident. It just happened. One minute he was flapping away, the next he was dead. We didn’t do it on purpose. You know I could never do anything like that. Right?’
She stayed in the chair.
‘I know you wouldn’t.’
‘I can’t believe it. That poor bird.’ I saw an image of Burlington prodding his oldest friend’s dead body and tried to calm myself.
‘So which one of you . . . you know . . . killed him?’
I had to turn away. I’m a superb liar, absolutely second to none. But I can’t lie about serious things. I am completely incapable of lying when something important is at stake. That was one thing I had definitely learnt from my bad times. If you showed me the colour green, I could lie for ever and say it was red. But not with something like this.
‘I don’t know,’ I grumbled.
‘Was it you?’ I thought she was being quite cruel, making me dredge up the memory.
I looked at her over the tops of my toes. Tell her, Rich, a voice in my head was saying. You can share this with her. But I still couldn’t betray Freddy. What had happened was between him and me.
Quietly I said, ‘I said I don’t know. What don’t you understand about that?’ I didn’t have enough energy to argue.
‘You’re pathetic, you know that?’ Her voice was high.
‘Whoa.’ I couldn’t understand why she was being so harsh.
‘Why won’t you tell me what happened? I thought we were friends.’
I stumbled over my words. ‘I . . . can’t . . . remem . . . Why do you have to know anyway?’
‘Because I need to know if I can trust you.’
‘What?’ I said. ‘This isn’t the CIA, Clare. We’re not spies. What are you talking about?’
She looked solidly at me. ‘You’re not who I thought you were.’
I started to wonder if she was being dramatic. I decided not.
‘I can’t re-mem-ber.’ I drew the syllables out like those paper men you cut out and pull apart to reveal a whole line of them.
‘You can remember. I know what happened,’ she said conspiratorially.
She didn’t know. No way.
OK, maybe she did. Or did she? I started to panic that Freddy had turned the story round. If he had told her that I had killed the bird and then she came here and I was arguing that I couldn’t remember the details, then that would make me look guilty as hell.
‘What did he say?’
‘He wasn’t lying, Richard. Don’t act like what he said was just a version of the truth.’ She paused and I was reminded of our secret team we had made in the graveyard, just the two of us. It seemed so long ago – had all this really happened in one night?
‘He said that he killed Bertie.’
That wasn’t what I expected to hear. For some reason I weirdly assumed that Freddy was plotting to bring me down. I stayed silent.
‘He said it happened when it flew towards him. I know,’ she finished.
‘Did he say how it happened? To be honest, I couldn’t see properly.’ The trap was laid. This would tell me how much truth Freddy had really told. The wording was awkward but Clare didn’t seem to notice.
‘He said he must have grabbed it too hard.’
I nodded and threw my head back on to my pillow. Not the whole truth then, Freddy, I thought stupidly.
‘And you . . . should have told me the truth, Rich.’
I noticed a spider web on my ceiling and I had to fight off a WCS about how the spider might have crawled into my ear and laid eggs in the middle of the night. They would have hatched and . . .
‘I was just trying to stick up for my friend.’
‘He’s hardly your friend, Rich. You’ve known him for less than a month.’
‘He’s my friend,’ I retorted, offended. I was slightly bemused when I said it so sternly. Why was I defending him after what he had done? Why the fuck did Clare saying that make me feel closer to Freddy?
She shook her head and rolled her eyes.
‘Look, whatever. I’m gonna get outta here.’ She got up and kissed me on the forehead.
When she did that I leaned up and quickly kissed her lips. I don’t know why – sometimes my impulses get the better of me.
We looked at each other for a long time. She looked beautiful. I wondered what was working through her brain. Given the mood she seemed to be in I thought she might slap me. But she didn’t. She smiled.
‘Don’t forget our team,’ she said, and went to leave.
‘Hey,’ I called. She stopped. ‘What’s it called?’ I asked. ‘Our thing. What’s its name?’
Clare thought for a second and her mouth took on a weird, thinking shape.
She looked at me and said, ‘The Eskimo Friends. What else?’ She opened the lock and disappeared.
I let out a sigh and asked myself why I had kissed her.
Then, all of a sudden, she was back in the room.
‘And it’s not a “thing”, it’s a team.’
Five minutes later the door opened again. Mum.
‘Morning, honey,’ she beamed.
I don’t want to keep whinging about my emotions, but the guilt returned full-force when I saw her face. I didn’t know how anybody could possibly find out it was us because the school was hardly going to fingerprint all of their pupils, but still, if my parents knew what I had done, I don’t think they’d ever get over it. After all they’d been through with me, after sticking by me after what I did when I was fourteen, finding out about Bertie would destroy them. They had done so much for me and this was how I repaid them.
‘Did you have a good time yesterday?’ she asked.
I smiled, but only with my mouth. ‘Yeah.’
‘What are you doing today?’
I shrugged. ‘Dunno.’
‘Would you like to help me with the shopping this afternoon?’
‘I can’t,’ I said. ‘I’m going over to Matthew’s house.’
There was a brief pause.
‘You could make more of an effort,’ she said.
‘I’m tired.’
‘We all remember what it’s like to be a teenager, Richard. But manners don’t cost anything.’
My mind was at breaking point. ‘You remember what it’s like to be my age? Oh, OK. But then . . . your parents didn’t split up and humiliate you in front of the entire school, did they?’
Apart from it being an incredibly cruel thing to say, I knew I shouldn’t have said it because my mother is one of those people who believe that matters can be solved by Talking Things Through. Usually I’m nice to my parents because I want to be a good son, but my façade was drooping like it had been injected with muscle relaxant.
‘Do you want to say anything?’ she said.
I let out a huge sigh. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, just trying to get out of this conversation. I was starting to feel sick again with the thought of Bertie.
‘Your father and I are trying to make it work,’ she said. ‘And we’re very happy at the moment.’
‘I’m glad you’re happy.’ I paused. ‘Mum, do you think I’m well behaved now? Am I much better than I was?’
She smiled at me. ‘Of course you are, my love. You know that. You’re doing really well.’
Patronizing. I was getting annoyed with her again, my mood all over the place.
‘I love you, Mum, you know that, don’t you?’ I cooed, not meaning a word of it. Although I did love her, when I said it I didn’t mean it. If I really wanted to tell someone I loved them and actually mean it, I don’t think I’d have the strength.
But, whatever. The words had the desired effect. My mother filled up, kissed me on the forehead and left, leaving me to stare blankly at my ceiling Craig Bartlett-Taylor-style.
11
WE WERE CAUGHT immediately. On Monday morning, before first lesson, I was frog-marched through the corridors by a teacher who had never actually taught in one of my classes. It was silent all the way down apart from the ominous clicking of shoes on wood. I felt like one of those guys being led down death row.
The teacher was just ahead of me and, when he reached the headmaster’s door, he opened it and I walked past. Of course I already knew that the game was up but, when I saw who was in the room with the headmaster, any remaining air of hope fizzled away. Sat in five chairs were Clare, Matthew, Jenny, Craig and, of course, Freddy. None of them looked at me as I took my seat.
The headmaster stared at us like he was somehow better than us. We didn’t believe that to be true (apart from maybe Matthew) because we knew the truth about most people. Everybody has a secret.
I grabbed a glance sideways at Freddy, who was gazing out the window, no expression on his face. You would never have guessed that somebody with his outward appearance would have done what he did to that bird.
At last the headmaster spoke.
‘So what have you got to say for yourselves?’
We all stayed silent. I got a few glances my way from Clare and Matthew.
The headmaster got up from his chair with one of those crushed-leather squeaky sounds and walked over to the TV stand like he was a high-powered detective from the Met. Far too much self-importance. He switched on the TV and pressed play on the video.
The screen faded in. It was a surveillance-camera shot of the falcon paddock. My gut turned to acid and sludge. It was dark but the moon was bright, and a crack of dawn was throwing a half-light in from the left. I had to sit there and watch as we all flowed into shot. We were done for, all lost at sea. My heart was beating hard as I watched the ghostly images of me and Freddy climbing over the fence and running over to the cage. The camera was high up and we looked small, like little matchstick men. But it was definitely and clearly us.
It didn’t bring back memories of the event; rather I just watched it without any clear thoughts registering in my brain. All I felt was a kind of numbness. At least this would show that Freddy was the one who was guilty and I would get away with nothing but a rap on the knuckles. It actually made me feel a little bit better.
I could sense the atmosphere in the room intensify, like the air was getti
ng rarefied and more difficult to breathe. I found myself wondering what was going through Matthew’s mind – I didn’t want him to think bad of me.
On the screen, Freddy whipped open the cage and the bird came thrashing out, his wings all over the place. Jenny adjusted herself uncomfortably in her chair.
It was strange watching the event with no sound. The camera showed Bertie escaping my clutches and flapping towards Freddy. But then it all went wrong. Freddy suddenly turned his back away from the camera like it was the most deliberate thing in the world. Then I turned my face away from the camera and Bertie disappeared out of sight, obscured by Freddy’s, and my, body. My throat went dry. The next thing you saw was the limp corpse of the falcon being put back into the cage, still. And there was no way you could tell who had done it. As Freddy shut the door of the cage, so did the door shut on my life.
The headmaster was back in his chair, hands steepled under his chin. Smug. He didn’t care about the bird, I could tell. All he cared about was punishing us.
‘I’m sure I don’t need to tell you what this means.’
We were all silent.
‘Sir,’ I said at last. ‘We didn’t mean to hurt it.’
‘Save it, Harper. I don’t want to hear it.’ There was venom in his voice. He was genuinely disgusted with us. It was actually quite shocking. It kind of punched home how bad what we had done really was. He was especially disgusted with me and Freddy. He never liked me anyway. ‘How can you say you meant it no harm? You broke its neck.’ His face was going red and I could feel an explosion coming on. But it never arrived. He was deliberately hemming himself in.