by Rhys Thomas
Outside I heard voices and then the doorbell rang. In the empty house, it seemed to resonate more than normal.
‘Through here,’ I called, trying to clear my throat.
Seeing their heads pop round the door shocked me. They both looked as if their faces had been kneaded like putty. Two black eyes were already forming under Matt’s eye-sockets that were going to be hideous.
‘How are you feeling, Jen?’
Her eyes were glazed over dangerously like Craig’s. She didn’t answer.
I glanced at Matt as he nodded slightly and put his hand on her shoulder.
‘She’s OK. She’s just scared.’
‘Don’t be scared of them,’ I said, passing her a can of Coke. I felt myself trying to be strong for her.
Jenny sat on the settee at the far end and watched the silent TV. She held the can of Coke in her hand, unopened.
‘I found out about Freddy,’ Matt said.
‘Yeah?’
‘One of the boarders said he was allowed to go to the funeral but only if he apologized for calling the headmaster a . . . you know . . . cunt.’
‘And he didn’t apologize?’
‘Obviously not.’
I could just imagine Freddy sitting cross-legged, refusing to back down, staying strong for Craig.
‘Jesus,’ I said.
Jenny had turned her attention to what was happening outside the window, which was nothing but an empty street on a workday afternoon, peaceful and still. I didn’t like the way she was reacting to the fight, to everything. Her silence was scary because it wasn’t her. She would always have something to say, even if it was some American nonsense. Her expression was as blank as a sheet of paper unwritten and I got a feeling of sorrow mixed in with the terrible thought of will-she-be-next-to-take-the-plunge. I didn’t like that thought because it’s completely evil but that’s what I felt and I’m just trying to be honest. There’s no point in me trying to sugar-coat anything from here on because things are about to get a lot worse and just writing about it is making me tired and all I want to do is tell you things exactly as they happened because if you’ve got this far, I love you and from those that you love you should never hide your deepest truths. And so I won’t hide anything from you, I promise.
‘Jenny,’ I said to her. She slowly turned her head towards me. When she looked at me I had to stop myself grimacing because her face was so pulped. ‘Have you seen your parents?’
‘Not yet,’ she said quietly.
There was a pause.
‘If I ever see those kids again,’ started Matt, suddenly getting angry,’ I’ll rip their faces off their skulls.’ He said it so deliberately that if one of the kids had walked in just then he probably would have.
‘What should we do about it?’ I said.
‘Nothing,’ Jenny whispered.
We both looked at her.
She continued, quietly, balefully.
‘This is what Freddy has always said would happen.’ I hated the way she was so calm. ‘It’s just normal people pulling us down like they always do.’
Me and Matt looked at each other, and then at her.
‘Freddy’s a fucking idiot,’ I said quickly. I could sense that Jenny was going down a bad route and I needed to stop her before her thoughts got away from her and she was suddenly hanging from a lamp-post or something.
This time it was they who looked at me.
‘Come on,’ I said. ‘You don’t really believe what he says, do you?’
‘Why not?’ said Jenny.
I stumbled for words.
‘Because . . . because it’s rubbish.’ She must have known I was lying. I didn’t believe that what Freddy said was rubbish at all; I believed every last word of it. I was only saying it to Jenny because I was scared for her.
She gave me a weird look.
‘It happens every day,’ she said slowly. ‘We can’t do anything about it. I hate being bullied like this.’
Bullied? What the hell was she talking about?
‘You’re not thinking about committing suicide,’ I said straight out.
Jenny looked at the TV again. She was becoming upset. Matt held her hand but he wasn’t trying to talk her out of anything, which was fucking insane of him. I’m sorry for swearing there.
‘We signed the Charter, Rich,’ she said finally.
I hated hearing her say that. I know for a FACT that she did not sign the Charter with the intention of killing herself. But now, with a seed planted so firmly in her mind, roots were starting to tentacle out into her brain.
‘I signed the Charter,’ I said. ‘Do you think I’m going to kill myself ?’
She shrugged and looked out the window again, like I had actually hurt her in some way.
‘My God,’ I said,’ you did? Fuck.’ I looked at Matt and, to my horror, he shrugged too. ‘So how’s it going to be? Back of a car, carbon monoxide?’
They still didn’t say anything.
‘Matt,’ I said. ‘If you kill yourself, I swear to God, I will desecrate your grave. I’ll smash it up with a hammer. I promise. Imagine how your parents would feel.’
‘They’d be pretty pissed off,’ he said with the most sinister, crooked, jagged smile you could imagine. He would never have been capable of such a smile a few months ago. He didn’t like his parents. That was a problem for me because it gave him motivation for his own suicide, even though we didn’t believe in motivation. Things were snowballing, spiralling, collapsing, whatever. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Was I missing something?
‘Just . . . think about it,’ I said, without really knowing what the hell I was talking about any more.
All of this bad talk had made me forget about Craig’s suicide note in my pocket. It suddenly crept in at the back of my brain.
‘Oh,’ I said, and took it out. ‘You’re not going to believe this.’ I handed the folded-up paper to Matt.
He took one look at it and passed it to Jenny. I couldn’t make out what he was thinking.
Jenny, though, reacted badly.
‘Oh my God,’ she said and covered her mouth. She got up and ran for the door.
‘It’s by the front door, on the left,’ I called after her.
We heard the toilet door swing open and her heave into the bowl. The plunging of vomit into the water made me shake with revulsion.
Matt sat back in the settee.
‘Rich,’ he said. ‘I don’t think this is Craig’s handwriting.’
‘What?’ I paused. ‘What?!’ We were both thinking the same thing. Freddy. But surely not, right? No way. ‘No way.’
‘I reckon Freddy wrote this.’
I sat up and he handed back the paper. I looked at the writing. I realized that I had never seen Craig’s handwriting, nor Freddy’s for that matter. I ran up to my room and fetched the Suicide Club Charter to see if I could find out more from the signatures.
Matt and I huddled around the two sheets.
‘It’s hard to tell,’ I said.
He squinted at the papers and held them up to the light.
‘The ‘t’s look the same as Freddy’s, slightly angled to the right,’ he said, as if he was some stupid detective from one of those TV dramas. ‘Although, it could easily be Craig’s writing as well.’ He paused and studied some more until he became aware of me staring at him, incredulous. Since when did he become an expert on handwriting? Answer: never.
There was a quick beat and then we both realized how totally moronic we were being before completely cracking up into hysterics and throwing the bits of paper to the floor. It was so strange, us laughing like that, like the good old days. But it felt wonderful, a pure release of pressure that we both needed so much.
Just then my mother came through the door. She was home early and I wasn’t in school. I was going to get in trouble. I was so glad that Matt and Jenny were there because then she would see that we couldn’t have gone back to school because their faces would tell her the full story.
When she saw me sat in the living room, she actually did a double-take, which I had never seen anybody do in real life.
‘What are you doing home?’ she said. Very angrily.
‘Hello, Mrs Harper,’ said Matt suddenly, and to my rescue.
She popped her head around the corner and saw his pulpy features.
‘Oh my—’ she gasped. ‘What have you done?’
‘Some kids beat us up on the way back from the funeral,’ I said, trying to sound shaky. ‘That’s why we’re not in school.’
My mother stood in the doorway for a moment.
‘What is the world coming to?’ She went back into the hallway and picked up one of the cordless phones from the receiver. ‘Who did it?’ she demanded.
‘Who are you calling?’ I said faintly.
‘The school. Who did this? Give me their names.’
‘Jesus,’ I whispered. ‘Mum, leave it. We don’t know who it was. They weren’t from our school.’
She looked at me like I was lying.
‘Honestly,’ I said. ‘They were from the comp.’
Just then Jenny returned from the bathroom and my mother’s face went white. Symbolically.
‘Oh my God.’ Now she was really angry because she liked to consider herself a ‘strong woman’ so she hated it when women were victims. ‘What kind of animal?’ she stammered.
Jenny gave her a timid look and slid past, back into the living room. She gave Matt an ‘I want to get out of here’ look.
‘Hello?’ said my mother. ‘Yes, put me through to the headmaster’s office, please.’ She looked at me. ‘Hello? Is that Mrs McKinsay? Yes, this is Helen Harper . . .’ She left the room and went into the kitchen.
I walked them down the hall towards the front door, which was still open. I could see the top of Toby’s head through the glass panel. Just seeing him made me feel better. If he was around, everything would be OK.
We walked past him and I said,’ Hiya, Tobe,’ but he ignored me so I pushed him playfully into the shrubbery.
But, because he’s so frail, he tripped and fell into the mud. I covered my eyes and shook my head because I was such a bastard but also because I hadn’t meant him any harm and it was, I’m sorry, funny. He slowly picked himself up by sticking his backside into the air and walking his hands backwards until he could stand upright. Then he dusted himself down and, without looking at me, went inside and closed the door quietly behind him. Not a word had been said.
I went back inside, just as Toby topped the last stair and disappeared around the corner. I chased him up the steps to say sorry.
His bedroom door was closed so I just barged straight in there. I was just about to apologize when something bad happened. Toby started screaming at me. SCREAMING.
‘Get out! Get out! Get out!’
I stepped inside and shut the door, hoping my mother wouldn’t hear.
‘Tobe,’ I said, so shocked that I was suddenly afraid. I was scared because this was Toby and this wasn’t like him. I didn’t think I was going to be able to handle this. It was only supposed to have been a joke.
He picked up the tiny red plastic chair that he sat in to read and hurled it at me. I stuck out my arm to block and the bottom of the leg caught me on the elbow. The pain shattered up my arm and I doubled over.
‘Get out of my room,’ he squealed.
My heart sank when he screamed that way because I knew he was crying.
‘I’m so sorry, Tobe, I didn’t mean for you to fall—’
‘You killed Bertie,’ he screamed at me.
Time stopped. I was in stasis, the universe was in stasis.
‘Who told you that?’ I said calmly, my heart racing, elbow throbbing, sweat oozing out of my pores, terror sucking my marrow out.
‘James O’Donnell,’ he shouted, like James O’Donnell was some great sage. And then he threw himself on to his bed and started bawling his eyes out.
I took a step forward and put my hand on his back but he just went crazy. He jumped up like my touch was electric and started trying to punch me. But he was so slow and weak that he either missed me completely or I just blocked him.
I didn’t know what to do. Just like I do to everyone in my life, I had broken him. I had finally broken old Toby. The one thing that was a constant source of good was finally corrupted. I had pushed him and pushed him until I had found his limits and then I had pushed him again. He was exceptional and I had dragged him down. And now here he was, down at the bottom. His brother, his idol, had killed an innocent bird. He wouldn’t be able to stand it and I knew it. His illusions were shattered like when kids find out there’s no such thing as Father Christmas – it’s just the worst thing that can ever happen to anybody. Never would he return from this because he had passed one of those life markers that I told you about. I had done to him what I thought everybody else had done to me. Only he didn’t deserve it. He cried on the bed and I left the room. Toby was effectively dead.
32
THE NEXT DAY at school was really bad. Everybody hated us. You could feel people’s anger beaming out of them like ribbons of energy surging from their chests. Groups of kids huddled together, covered their mouths and spoke about us with their eyes not leaving our own. We had to stay together because, if we didn’t, something bad might have happened. I don’t know what. I had had enough of fighting. In two days I had been in two fights and sandwiched in between that had been Craig’s funeral. We were lucky that the kids were utterly insignificant to us and we didn’t care about them. I was so glad I had the Suicide Club to keep me going.
Clare’s face wasn’t as badly beaten as Jenny’s and Matt’s, but she was still shaken by the whole thing. I told her that I would never let anything like that happen to her ever again. And I meant it. Up until Craig’s death, Clare had kept her old friends but now, after Craig, they were distancing themselves, leaving her alone and vulnerable. It was like some of her wonderful essence had been drawn out of her.
Wherever I looked, there were faces staring back at me, but I didn’t care. I hated these people. Now there was a clear line: our side . . . and theirs.
At lunch I saw Freddy for the first time since the headmaster’s office. I was with Matt and Jenny when he came over to us.
Freddy immediately picked up on something that I hadn’t.
‘Are you OK, Jenny?’
She looked at him and I shook with the look they exchanged. Matt didn’t seem to see it, that quick glance that told me instantly that Jenny was totally under his spell.
Jenny smiled, but only with her mouth.
‘I’m OK.’
‘Don’t let anything get you down. I wasn’t even allowed to go to Craig’s funeral, but I won’t let them beat me.’
Jenny nodded and looked past Freddy’s shoulder. I thought she was going to start crying.
‘What happened in the headmaster’s office after we left?’ Matt said. His black eyes were starting to bruise out on to his cheeks. They actually weren’t that bad – they looked kinda cool, like he had goth make-up on.
‘He said I had to apologize but I just couldn’t do it.’
‘Didn’t you want to go to the funeral?’ said Jenny suddenly. She was glaring at Freddy, as if his non-attendance was a personal attack on her.
‘I—’ He didn’t know what to say. He looked lost. ‘Please don’t talk like that, Jenny. You know that—’ He cut himself off.
Jenny’s teeth bit her swollen lip, restraining her tears.
This was unbearable.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. And then she started sobbing.
Matt grabbed her and hugged her, but she pulled away from him. She used her hands to cover her face, but she was standing on her own. Matt looked at me, as if I could help in some way, but what could I do? That act had made perfectly clear that, although Matt was her boyfriend, she was dealing with this on her own. She was not using Matt for support in any way. Everything that had happened had encroached on her heart and push
ed downwards, and she had no one to share it with. Her parents would certainly not have helped, her old friends had all but deserted her because she had stuck up for me after Bertie, and now, as she had just demonstrated, Matt couldn’t help either.
‘Jenny,’ he said, and put his hand on her shoulder, one last effort. But she shirked him off again and carried on sobbing into her hands.
I glanced at Clare. She grabbed my hand and pulled me away.
‘Come on,’ she whispered,’ let’s give her some space.’
We wandered some ten yards before turning back to see what was happening. All there was was Jenny, her head bowed and Matt standing in front of her, a metre away, not saying anything.
‘Did you see the way she looked at me?’ Matt said.
I didn’t know what to say. What could I say to him?
‘She doesn’t love me.’
Things were reaching a point now where everything was descending into chaos. We as a group were supposed to be tight, but it wasn’t seeming like that. Things were disintegrating. Jenny was fracturing away from us. It was like we were all on a raft out at sea, each on our separate piece of wood, the pieces bound together by rope, keeping us whole. But Jenny’s wood was loosening and her section of the raft was drifting away. We were trying to pull her in but she refused to help herself. The gap of water was growing larger, waves were coming up between us and she was disappearing and reappearing from sight. Why wouldn’t she listen? ‘Hold on,’ we called to her, but she didn’t want to. She had given up. For her, holding the raft together was just too hard and she was just too tired. Overhead, it started raining. Everything was geared towards us losing her. ‘Stay with us, Jenny,’ we screamed but the sound of the storm was too loud and she couldn’t hear us any more. As we watched her piece of wood drift away to the ocean, we kept looking at her because that was all we could do. We maintained eye contact.
That was how I saw the situation.
But what about Matt as well? Jenny had just broken his heart. Now his rope too was starting to unravel.
‘What can I do, Rich?’ he asked.
We were passing the art department, on our way to the first lesson after lunch. The bell hadn’t gone yet so the corridors were relatively quiet. It seemed that things couldn’t get any worse, but it’s funny how the world can always find something to push you even further down. To this day I believe that what happened outside the art classroom was the trigger for Jenny’s death, that final event that snapped the twine that had wrapped itself around her heart.