by Rhys Thomas
That little chamber in heaven where we had agreed to wait for each other seemed a long way away.
I could feel the congregation of people up at the top of the graveyard looking at me. They were looking at that weird kid who killed the bird, made his friend shoot himself, and who was wandering around the graves of the dead. But I simply didn’t care. I knew that it didn’t matter because heading my way, drifting over the grass between the graves like spectres, were Matt, Jenny and Clare.
I felt Clare next to me, just felt her presence. I loved her so, so much. All I wanted to do was to go to that river with her and throw pebbles. I didn’t want anything else in the world.
I saw the headmaster looking fake-solemnly into the bare trees. He was wearing, just as I had predicted, his overcoat with upturned lapels, trying to get some Drama into his hair with the blowing wind, but failing miserably.
We went into the church and everything became hollow and echoey. I hadn’t been to church in years and I had forgotten what it looked like on the inside. No matter what you say, there’s something magical about those places.
We sat on the pew furthest from the front. The church was heaving, its walls expanding out with all the fake people pretending they once cared for Craig. But I won’t keep repeating myself about that any more.
I sat in the back row and thought about Craig as everybody filed past. I remembered the day I had seen him in town just after he had taken the pills. Another image popped into my head of a kid taking his ice cream when we were kids and throwing it into the side of the church in which I was now sat saying goodbye to somebody I had known since I was three.
I looked towards the aisle and saw his ragged old parents ache down the centre like their joints had rusted over. Horror crunched through me, or rather I crunched through it. I suddenly let my mind wander and something very weird happened. I started to come away from reality and now, although my body was still in the church, my mind was not. My mind was at the top of the world, falling through clouds. As the awfulness of what was happening encroached on me, I took a secret exit.
As my mind plummeted through the clouds I watched them part. Layer upon layer peeled away, as if they were trying to show me something underneath. Some sort of answer. The answer to everything. Through the clouds I went and they suddenly took on a soft yellow glow. Pinpricks of light dazzled in the midst of the cloud and then there was just one thin translucent sheet left and as it moved away I caught my first glimpse. A glimpse of the answer, the truth . . .
‘We are gathered here today,’ said the Vicar, and my mind crashed back into my skull and I was in the church again. I looked about me. I could see the backs of Craig’s parents at the front of the church. I felt shaky, like when you don’t have enough sugar.
The Vicar started talking about Craig and I started listening. Because he had that white ribbon around his neck, I was enchanted by this man. He would never lie. He started by saying that he didn’t really know Craig and that was the best thing he could have said from my point of view. He spoke about how Craig was a deeply troubled boy, but had a good heart. Apart from his voice, the church was totally silent.
But then he started reading passages out of the Bible and that stuff’s a bit boring so I looked at Clare’s leg underneath her black skirt and prodded her thigh with my index finger.
She looked at me sadly. I left my index finger held out to her and she took it in her fist and we both faced forward again.
The last sentence the Vicar said, was, ‘And now Craig’s father will say a few words.’
An instant, blazing WCS scorched across my brain where his father broke down in tears and started wailing embarrassingly. Everybody would feel awful apart from the schoolkids, who would love it because they can be pretty evil sometimes. I had to do something to stop this. But what was I going to do? Stand up and make a spectacle? Come on.
It was too late anyway, he was up there. He took from his top pocket a few sheets of folded A4 paper. I wondered if he’d written it in the middle of the night, in the silence of his lonely house.
‘Craig was my only son,’ he started, and I felt Clare grip my finger tighter with despair. I looked at her and tears were streaming over her cheeks, making her make-up run. ‘When he was six, we took him to Longleat Safari Park because he had the strangest fixation with monkeys.’
A sad laugh cracked across the transfixed congregation. I pictured the pile of National Geographic magazines in his bedroom.
‘We drove into the middle of the enclosure, where the monkeys live and, although we had been warned not to, we stopped the car. As soon as we did a whole group of these little beggars came bundling over and started jumping on and hitting my car. One little blighter even tore my aerial off.’
Again, a laugh yawned out.
‘I’ll never forget my son’s face. The little critters were destroying his old man’s car.’ He paused and there was a silence. ‘He’d never laughed so much in his life.’
Again, everybody laughed, a little louder this time, less stale.
My respect for this man went through the roof. I could not understand how he could be so strong at a time like this. I would have collapsed into a ball by now – I guess that’s the difference. He was a Great Man. He had spent a career in the Army, for crying out loud. His job was to protect us all.
‘And I know he’s gone, and I know that times will be hard, but I, and my wonderful wife Margo, are just so grateful for the happiness he gave us.’
Now I was welling up. How could this man say that Craig had brought him happiness? I thought he must have brought them nothing but torment, but I guess I was wrong.
‘We’d like to thank everybody for coming today and, although he didn’t have many friends, we’d like to thank those children from Atlantic High School who are here today.’ He looked at the large group of kids down at the front and smiled at them like he had smiled at me on that day in town when he was queuing for food with his wife. He did not look at us, Craig’s real friends. Craig’s real killers. At this time, of course, nobody knew about the Suicide Club because Freddy had taken the Charter from Craig’s pocket on the night he killed himself.
Suddenly Clare let go of my finger and ran out of the church, the back of her hand covering her mouth. She was trying with all her might not to explode until she got outside.
I stood up and followed her as quietly as I could, which, in all truthfulness, wasn’t very quiet.
Outside the church was a gravel path and Clare was crouched down in the middle of it, facing away from me. I went over to her. She wasn’t shaking and she wasn’t making a noise. When I came round to her front I saw that her eyes were balled up tightly and her mouth was open and full of moisture. She looked like she was in agony. Her face was reflecting everything because of her tears, which had bottlenecked in her brain, stopping her from doing anything. And then they broke free and she rocked back and forth, inconsolable. I crouched down next to her and put my hand on her back because I couldn’t think of anything else to do because I had never seen anyone act like this before. Actually, I had seen one person act like this, Craig. When he was in the headmaster’s office after we killed Bertie. But he was dead.
I hated seeing her like this. I wish I could have been a demon and possessed her body so that I could suck out her pain for her. But that’s not real life. She cried and cried. She fell to one side into the gravel and there was nothing I could do about it. I was watching her break and all I wanted to do was stop it for her. I know I’m an arrogant person at times and I sometimes think that I can do anything. I hate it when I’m reminded that I can’t.
‘Please stop crying,’ I said.
But she couldn’t even hear me.
It took her ten minutes to come round and then we hugged but there was no magic in it. Something had snapped inside her. The congregation started to come out of the church and we stood to one side and watched. I hadn’t seen them carry it in, but when I saw them carry it out the sight of Craig’s
coffin almost made me throw up.
They lowered Craig into the ground and his father did a sterling job of it, just as I should have known he would. He didn’t cry the whole time and I loved him for that. He would have wanted to cry, he wasn’t cold, but he was so strong that he wouldn’t. He was like an old oak tree, I guess.
Outside the church, Matt came up to me.
‘Rich,’ he said. His voice was quiet.
I couldn’t answer.
‘I’m scared,’ I heard him say. ‘I just . . . can’t believe this.’
I still couldn’t find any words so I just put my arm around his shoulder and we looked at the damp grass and gripped each other tightly. All of the bitterness towards the people who were fake-mourning Craig was gone, and for the first time I really started to grieve.
The blame was already on us. The kids knew that we were the only ones who spent any time with Craig, us, the bird-killers, so it must have been our fault. It can’t have been theirs. It’s funny how things work like that.
On the way back to school from the church, we had to pass through this weird little alley. It’s like a little oasis of trees with a path running up the middle. It’s lodged in between two tall buildings, neither of which you can see because their walls are covered in ivy; it’s just a tunnel of green in the middle of the grey buildings. It always gave me the creeps because when there are no lights and it’s dark, it’s really dark in there.
That was the spot where a group of about twelve kids caught up with us and the hatred felt towards us by so many people finally turned into something real, something you could feel. They weren’t from my school; they were from the comprehensive. As well as between eight and ten boys, there were a couple of girls with greasy hair. They snarled at us like they were animals, feral and savage.
This one kid came right up to us, hair glued to his red scalp, uniform ill-fitting – generally disgusting. He pushed me in the chest without even saying anything and I stumbled backwards but didn’t fall because of my balance. I could have beaten him up with pure skill but Clare’s fit of crying had zapped my energy and I couldn’t do anything. This time, the bullies would win.
‘You fucking pricks,’ he said to us. ‘We know all about you.’ He was trying to be cool but it came out as a cliché and I felt genuinely sorry for him because he didn’t understand. He would never know the depths.
Another three boys came up behind him. I looked at Matt. I caught his eye and noticed that he was standing directly in front of Jenny, which was really sweet. I looked at her and was shocked to see how white she was. Her face was really odd. She had been crying as well but she hadn’t broken down like Clare. I wished we had Freddy with us.
I could feel Clare taking a few steps backwards, leaving me on my own. That was a complex and hurtful thing for her to do.
I looked back to Jenny just as her face changed, her muscles crumpling, her cheeks stretching tight around her bones.
‘Why don’t you just leave us alone?’ she screamed. Screamed.
‘Why don’t you fuck off back to America,’ said one of the stringy girls who were with the boys.
‘You killed that poor little boy,’ said another.
I sat down. Sat down on the floor in the alley. Just sat there. I had to do it because if I hadn’t I would have fainted. The fact is I was terrified. I was terrified of these kids because they were dirtier than the kids in my school and I know that it’s a crappy thing to say but that’s how I felt. I didn’t want to get hit any more. I didn’t want to be punched ever again. I didn’t want any physical pain any more. I didn’t want any more of my best friends to kill themselves. I didn’t want to feel the exhilaration of the news on TV because of something I had caused. So I sat down.
‘Get up,’ said the first kid. He took a step towards me and went to grab me but I just rolled away from him, my black jacket that I had worn for the funeral sinking into the wet mud.
I saw out of the corner of my eye that Matt had now stepped between me and the boy but then he disappeared into a mass of teenage bodies as they took him into their midst. I heard him grunting as they attacked him. I looked back down the corridor of trees from the direction we had come and saw something that I never wanted, nor expected, to see. The comprehensive-school girls, with all their greasy hair and crass jewellery, had jumped on to Clare and Jenny. Those girls were pure horror. They were thumping the back of Clare and Jenny’s heads because they had lowered them to protect their faces. It was just so brutal. My beautiful girls were being beaten up. Those comprehensive-school girls looked like monsters with their faces folded up in rage.
My strength returned when I saw what was happening. I got up on to my knees but was pushed back into the mud.
I tried to think if these kids would feel remorse in the future for what they were doing to us. Of course they wouldn’t. They’d justify it to themselves by saying that we deserved it because that’s what a mediocre person does for 90 per cent of their lives; justifies the bad things they do.
We didn’t deserve it. We had lost our friend and look what was happening to us, just half an hour after his funeral. It was not in balance with the order of things. This should not have happened. I lay on the ground and just let the punches sink into me. I felt a weird leathery sound from where the kids had totally lost control and were kicking me in the skull with their hard shoes. I felt my skin split on my cheek but I just let the mud wash in because there was nothing I could do.
When they were finished they didn’t even run away. They simply walked.
So what do you think? Are you glad I took that beating from those kids because I was getting my comeuppance for being so weird? If so, stop reading because I don’t want you coming with us on this final leg of the journey. But if you’re feeling sad because these kids were punching me and my friends because they couldn’t handle who they were, then read on, come with me, come with Matt, Jenny, Freddy and Clare, we’ll point the headlights into the night and follow their silver lines and we’ll go to the dark places hand in hand because, if you know what I mean, we’re all going there in the end anyway.
31
I DIDN’T GO back to school that day. None of us did. By the time the kids had left us alone we were too badly bruised and upset. The girls were crying and Matt’s face was all lumpy. I was probably the least injured. Apart from the cut on my face and some aches on my body and head, I was fine. On the outside at least. Inside, I . . . I don’t really know how I felt. I wasn’t upset, or angry, I just felt . . . beaten. Like there was no hope left.
By the time I let myself in through the back door of my house I simply felt numb. Both of my parents were at work and Toby was in school so the house was empty. I picked up the mail, going through normal motions, trying to stay in control, when I noticed that there was a letter for me. My name and address were handwritten on the envelope.
Sat at the kitchen table, in my silent house, I opened the letter. Inside was a sheet of notepaper. As soon as I saw the words, ‘Dear Rich’, I knew that I was reading Craig’s suicide note. The bottom dropped out of my world:
I felt a tingle in my stomach because, at last, there was a bond. That gold rope had finally come up between me and Craig. I don’t know when it happened, when it was that I made the connection, but the fact that he had written his note to me was proof. All of the time I had spent trying to be nice to him, to help him, had finally paid off. I noticed a few tears had dropped on the page and smudged some of the letters. I dried my eyes with the sleeve of my muddy jacket, sat back in my chair and looked at the ceiling. My whole body was coursing with pain but at last I knew that I had, in some way, helped Craig. I know he was still dead, but at least for the last few months of his life he had had real friends. He had never had that before and I was glad that we had been able to give him that gift.
As I sat at the kitchen table and tried to pull myself together I pictured Craig’s glazed expression one last time. I saw him sat at the edge of his bed staring at the parrot
poster on his bedroom wall whilst his parents brought in a plate of tea and scones. His mother set them down on the desk and buttered the scones. They had to pass the plate to Craig but that was OK because he was their son and they loved him more than anything.
Craig was never going to live longer than his parents because his mind didn’t fit in this world. No matter what his parents had done, they could never have saved him. What we did, how we befriended him, it hadn’t made any difference because Craig was doomed, whatever. He was sentenced to an existence inside his head where the outside world could only knock at the window – it could never come in. I finally understood this. Even his suicide note was cold.
My house phone started ringing, jolting me back to the kitchen table and reality.
It was Matt.
‘Hello?’ I said.
‘Can we come over?’ he said.
‘Who?’ I asked, drying my eyes again.
‘Me and Jenny.’
‘What for?’
His voice sounded almost bored.
‘I don’t know, we just want to see you.’
I sniffed.
‘OK. Come over.’
‘Are you OK?’ he said.
There was a silence at both ends of the line and I closed my eyes.
‘Yeah.’
‘We’ll be there soon. See you.’
The brief conversation made me feel happier. Just a little. I loved Matt so much because he always knew when I felt at my worst and always made it better. Before they arrived I called Clare to ask her to come over as well, but her mobile was going straight to voicemail.
There were a few cans of Coke in the fridge so I took them out and went back into the living room. I set the cans down on the table and almost broke down in tears again.
‘Fucking hell, Rich,’ I said. ‘Pull yourself together.’