The Suicide Club

by Rhys Thomas

  ‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘You’re not going to do anything to Craig, are you?’

  I breathed out. ‘I suppose I should apologize to him.’

  I felt like there was a great burden on my shoulders. No matter what I tried to do, things were thrown back in my face. I had tried to help Craig. After he had tried to kill himself it was me who had called for him to make sure he was OK, who looked after him, who brought him into our own little group. So why was it me he pointed the gun at? Was he really so upset about Bertie? Or was there something else?

  An unbearable soul-cracking splinter shot through me with an idea: did Craig know the real me? People say that mental illness can give you an extraordinary insight. Did he know that deep down I was a really bad person? Evil. I was almost crying with how unfair this was. I didn’t want to be evil. I wanted to be a good boy, but life was determined to stop me becoming that.

  Inside the hall the noise was deafening. The roof was nothing but metal and the sound was crashing off it like cymbals. There was a line of disco lights that flashed around the room like spectres. The hall was full of people. Most of the adult men were All-American Heroes with steely haircuts. Most of the women were their wives. But the kids were a fair mix from all three of the town’s demographics: Americans, locals, boarders. There were lots of little kids running around as well but I liked that because family values should be admired. And I love kids. I like to play stupid games like Cowboys and Indians with them.

  ‘Here,’ a voice whispered in my ear. It was Clare. Her face looked like an alien because the disco lights were shining all over it green, red, yellow. She was offering me a cup.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Just drink it.’

  I took a sip, keeping my eyes on her. I think it was whisky and Coke because it really burned my throat. Whatever it was, it was very strong.

  ‘I’m sorry for going so mental on Craig,’ I said.

  Clare smiled at me and then did something amazing. She kissed me on the cheek. ‘You’re so sweet.’

  I had to bite my lip in case I broke down. Why was I apologizing for having a gun pointed at me? More importantly, why the hell was I feeling so emotional?

  ‘Do you hate me?’ I said to Clare.

  ‘Rich, why do you say things like that? Why are you so sure you’re evil?’

  I frowned at her. ‘What?’

  ‘He pointed a gun at you. He’s a twat.’

  I smiled. ‘You’re right,’ I sighed.

  ‘We all know it. Jenny doesn’t hate you either. We know Craig was wrong but, you know, we have to look after him.’

  She was right. We did have to look after Craig. If we didn’t then who would?

  Clare left me and I finished my drink. My head started spinning. I looked into my empty cup, at the droplets of brown Coke running down the white inside. The drink was so strong. I placed the cup carefully down on a table near by and headed shakily outside for some fresh air.

  The air was cool and refreshing, the clouds low and threatening rain. The wind was up and it felt like the whole atmosphere was writhing with life, like it was desperate to, I don’t know, do something. Like it was restless. Just like me. It was probably because I was drunk, but I felt I had come to a point where something had to change. I either had to let myself go and embrace the person I really was, or decide once and for all that I was going to be a good person.

  I was sitting on a crate, looking down at my Converse trainers, when the universe made the decision for me.

  ‘Richard?’ said a voice.

  There he was, standing before me, the wind blowing his hair wildly and romantically, a scarf tied tight around his neck.

  ‘Freddy? You’re back?’

  He looked sad, looked like how I felt.

  ‘I guess so. I got back this afternoon. How have things been since . . . you know?’

  I wanted to tell him that everything was OK, but I didn’t have the heart to lie to him.

  ‘Not so great. I mean, pretty much everyone’s cut me off, apart from Matthew and Jenny and Clare.’ I shrugged.

  ‘What about Craig? How’s he?’

  I didn’t want to go into the whole gun thing.

  ‘He’s OK. The usual.’

  Freddy nodded and we looked at one another. For a long time.

  ‘Rich, about Bertie,’ he said at last.

  I thrust my hands into my pockets and looked at the floor.

  ‘I don’t know why I did it. It wasn’t an accident. I killed him deliberately.’

  The wind blasted across the tarmacked ground, picking up some of the plastic cups, rattling them against the wall.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because . . . I don’t know.’ He was on the verge of tears. ‘All my life I’ve just—’ He stopped himself.

  There was a brief pause, during which we shared our whole worlds. I felt in him what he felt in me, this sense of . . . doom.

  ‘It’s OK, Freddy.’

  He had turned his head to one side, looking out across the sparse base towards a patch of grass on which sat an old Second World War fighter jet. A powerful floodlight under its fuselage lit up the plane brightly so it stood out in stark relief against the flat terrain, a circle of bright-green grass around its base.

  ‘It’s not OK.’

  ‘Yes it is. It’s in the past.’

  He looked at me. ‘You don’t understand.’

  I adjusted myself on my crate to make room for him to sit down. We both sat there for a while in silence.

  ‘I do understand,’ I said at last. ‘I’ve done some bad things as well. After my parents split up I . . .’ I composed myself. I had never told anybody this story before. Saying it out loud just reminded me of what sort of a person I was. When it was in my head I could lock it away. I felt Freddy’s body warmth next to me. ‘We’re not different,’ I said. ‘We’re the same.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  An image of Mrs Kenna, my history teacher, suddenly flashed in my head. She was alone now that her husband and son had died so she was almost certainly asleep by now. Tucked up in her old bed with old sheets, sleeping her life away.

  I pulled my knees up together and rested my forehead on them. I wanted to tell him. He was feeling sick because of what he had done in the exact same way that I had, all those months ago. I knew what he was going through. I knew the cramps in his stomach. I knew the searing flushes in his face. I knew the dark, terrible flashes in his brain that made his heart pound. It was just something bad that he had done. A moment of insanity. All he wanted was for someone to say that it was in the past and that one day his soul would be wiped clean. That was all he wanted, for another human to tell him it would be OK. That was all. So I told him all about the old man and the metal pipe.

  15

  ‘YOU KNOW THE corridor at the far end of the mess hall?’ he said.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘There’s a room on the right. Can you get the others and meet me in there?’

  ‘What for?’

  He shrugged and stood up from the crate. ‘I want it to be just us.’

  This was the first time we had all been together since Freddy had jumped out of the headmaster’s window. A lot had happened since then. The world had attacked us but we were still standing. Having Freddy back only served to tighten the rope we had slung around ourselves.

  Seeing him again gave everything a sense of completion; everything was back to the way it should be. We had been knocked out of orbit but now we were back. He had lit four candles that were now stood in holders. Ordinarily I would have said that such a setting was overdramatic, even for us, but on that night it didn’t feel so. There was a kind of increased gravity in the room; a weight. Shadows cut across our faces as we sat down in the chairs we had found.

  There was a big window on the far wall and the first drops of rain were clicking against it. The wind rattled its frame. Freddy had brought with him a bottle of Smirnoff Blue, which h
e shared with all of us, handing it around for us to swig from.

  Sat in a circle, feeling slightly drunk, I noticed that Matthew and Jenny’s little fingers were touching sweetly. Now, that image of young love burns like acid across the rivulets of my brain.

  ‘I’m so sorry about Bertie,’ Freddy said. The sound of music coming from the mess hall could be heard only as a low, dense beat coming through the walls. ‘I didn’t want to ruin everything. My first night here, the night we went to the lake, it was . . . you know. And now it’s spoilt.’

  ‘Stop,’ said Matthew.

  Freddy looked up, his concentration knocked.

  ‘All I hear about is that stupid bird. We killed it. It was an accident. The end. It’s over.’

  ‘Nothing’s spoilt, Freddy,’ Jenny said gently.

  Freddy looked around the room, at each of us.

  ‘I want us to do something. Together. I’ve been thinking a lot about what happened at Halloween. And, you know, how the headmaster reacted. Actually’ – he paused – ‘I’ve been thinking about stuff like this for longer than just a few weeks.’ His voice was flat.

  We listened intently.

  ‘You know how people get treated if they do something that people don’t agree with? I don’t mean the bird thing, I mean other things as well. Like whenever I do something good and other kids just put me down because they’re jealous.’ I guessed he was talking about his old school. Although I did know what he meant. Whenever I did something amazing like one of my stories for English, I was almost ashamed of it because of the way the kids looked at me. ‘I hate all that crap,’ he said. He started gesturing towards the mess hall, to the party. ‘And I hate all that stuff too.’

  I was shocked to hear Freddy say this. It was the first time he had been openly angry about something.

  ‘All those people in there patting each other on the back because none of them have amounted to anything and they’re glad that they’ve all stuck together.’ He stopped. ‘Have you ever noticed how there’s something not quite right with the world – like it’s not quite what it should be?’

  I knew. I knew exactly.

  ‘I could never tell what it was. But I think I’ve worked it out. And you know what? It’s people’s attitudes towards people like us. The fact is, we’re talented. But whenever we do something good, people always congratulate us and say how great we are but then they always have to wreck it by turning serious and saying something like, “But you must keep your feet on the ground.” Why?’ His voice was still as calm as a lake. The words were powerful, but the delivery was soft. ‘Why should I keep my feet on the ground when I’m trying to get to the stars? All my life I’ve had it and I know it sounds bitter, but I believe it’s because they’re jealous. They don’t want us to be all we can be because we’re living their dreams. I hate it.’

  I recoiled at his suggestion because it was such a cliché. But do you know something about clichés? They only get there because they’re true. Right?

  ‘They’re angry with us because we killed Bertie, Freddy,’ I said calmly.

  ‘I know that. This has nothing to do with Bertie. If they’re upset about him being dead, they should try going inside my brain for a while. I fucking killed him – I can hardly even eat any more.’

  Clare had the bottle of vodka now. I watched her as she drank. As she moved her neck back the shadows and light shifted on her face and my heart palpitated. I looked back to Freddy. This night was quickly turning into one of the weirdest of my life. First I had almost been shot, now this.

  He took the vodka from Clare and brought it to his mouth. When he moved the bottle away, his lips glistened in the orange light.

  ‘The world is run by the mediocre for the mediocre.’ He went into the inside pocket of his blazer and took out a packet of cigarettes. He threw one to each of us and lit his own. I don’t really like smoking but it felt right to take one.

  Matthew gave his back.

  ‘Thanks, but I don’t feel like one,’ he said. My respect for him soared and I felt jealous. Matthew was turning into a man. He had his girlfriend and he had a healthy lifestyle. He would be Great and leave me behind. I knew it but I was prepared to let him go because, deep down, I loved him. Not in a gay way, you understand.

  ‘Think about it,’ said Freddy, his voice still not quickening at all. ‘None of the world’s geniuses fit in, do they?’

  ‘But we’re not geniuses,’ I said, my head whirling from the vodka.

  Freddy looked at me.

  ‘What I mean is we’re in all the best classes of one of the best schools, and we’re near the top of those classes. Even Matty.’

  I smiled. Matthew gave an arrogant purse of the lips. It was true what Freddy was saying. We were the most intelligent kids in the school, though I don’t really like to mention it.

  ‘And what are we? Everyone hates us. They probably always have, but they haven’t shown it because we’ve always been nice to them.’ He took a drag from his cigarette. I suddenly noticed how long his fingers were. ‘But now that we’ve killed the bird they think that they’ve been proved right about us. They think we’re actually evil. Us. We’re the good guys. We can’t really get on with other people. We can talk to them, but not as equals. I know how terrible this sounds, but it is a fact that we’re better than the rest of them. We really are. Not because we’re more intelligent, or funnier, or better-looking. That doesn’t matter. It’s because we’re nicer than them. All they do is try to drag us down. We don’t go around being horrible to people, getting our kicks at the expense of others. We love, absolutely love, life. They just exist, we live. And they don’t like that. These people don’t go to graveyards to play tag, you know?’

  ‘What are you saying, Freddy?’ Matthew asked. He seemed to be caught in Freddy’s words.

  As, I hate to admit, was I. Ever since Bertie things had changed. I’m not sure if I actually believed what Freddy was saying or if I just wanted to believe. I felt that if I believed it meant that I was part of something special, that my life had some sort of meaning.

  ‘I’m saying that we don’t stand a chance in life. The whole world is totally cynical and we still have the innocence of children because we’re . . . incorruptible. The whole world is mediocre, and we’re exceptional. We want to excel and make the world a better place. The rest, just because they can’t, want to hold us back and rubbish our ideals as naive and childish. We could change the world, but they won’t let us. They won’t even listen to us. Every normal person resents us. We’ve got no chance. Whatever we try to do in life, we’ll be held back by other people’s mediocrity, cynicism, stupidity and envy.’

  There was a resounding silence after these words. I don’t think I had ever heard anyone speak like this before, so flowingly, like the exact kernel of what was in their brain was being perfectly articulated through words. Whenever I try to say what I mean, it always comes out with only half of the meaning because I can never express what I’m trying to say. But that wasn’t the case for Freddy. He knew exactly how to say what he meant.

  His words hit home hard. I did feel like others were holding me back, telling me that my ideas and opinions didn’t matter, that I was no good. Like the time my short story about the artist who cut his eyes out was taken away from me by the headmaster. I was choked by what Freddy had said.

  And more than that, he looked insanely cool in the candlelight. He delved back into his inside pocket and took from it six cream-coloured envelopes. They had been sealed with red wax and each one bore the name of one of us. They were handed around and, as I took mine, I noticed the texture and quality of it. It was sublime. A new wave of curiosity got up in me. I knew by this time, as did everybody else, that this moment of our lives was seminal. A line was being crossed. For me, I knew that these friends would last for ever. I didn’t care about my other friends who had ditched me because this group of people, with candlelight on their faces, were special.

  We opened our letters and, as we
did so, Freddy spoke again.

  ‘I think we should all enter a pact,’ he said.

  I now held the sheet of paper gently between the second and third fingers of each hand. It hung in the air and glowed in the light. I could feel that golden bond-rope wrap itself around our souls and scream out of the ether between us; linking us, binding us, encasing us, imprisoning us to each other for ever.

  ‘I think we should stay together for eternity,’ he said, his emotions starting to creep into his throat. ‘We can show our solidarity. The world can stop in space and we’ll all get off. We can show everybody that we won’t take it any more. We can stop them from holding us, and everyone like us, back.’

  I started to unfold the paper and looked at Clare one more time. She looked at me and nodded, smiling. She looked so, so, so sweet I can’t even handle thinking about it.

  ‘What I propose is the founding of a club,’ Freddy said. ‘A club that the whole world will know about, but which it can never join.’

  His words were so lucid they flowed over me like syrup. All of the others were now staring at their sheets of paper like they were in a trance. I took my friends in, one by one, a turn of the head for each of them. Their faces flickered in the candlelight, each in their own little world. My head spun a little with the vodka and nicotine. I forgot that I was holding the lit cigarette in my left hand and, as I looked at its sulphuric embers and at the smoke washing up, out, twirling, spinning, pirouetting into the sky with the cryptic symbolism that I would never know but would always feel, I looked upon the opening line of Freddy’s paper: The Official Charter of the Suicide Club.

  16

  LET ME JUST get something straight. When I signed the Charter, I had no intention whatsoever of killing myself. I don’t think any of us did. Not even Craig with his history of mental illness. You see, we all knew that killing yourself has more than one victim – it rips entire families apart. We even had a good laugh about how bitter Freddy sounded in his writing. But in the candlelight, with vodka in our throats, we each took Freddy’s pen and scribbled our signatures above our typed-out names on each other’s sheets of cream paper.