The Suicide Club

by Rhys Thomas

  ‘Not bad,’ Alan said.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ I called to them from across the garden.

  Toby didn’t answer immediately.

  At last he said,’ Building a weather experiment.’

  ‘So what’s that?’ I asked, pointing at the bottle and shoebox. ‘A rain gauge?’

  They both nodded slowly.

  ‘So how are you going to tell how much rain has fallen?’ I crossed the lawn and picked up the box and tilted it in their direction. Toby looked scared, like I was about to smash it up and humiliate him in front of his new friend. ‘This bottle doesn’t have any measurements on it.’

  Alan and Toby looked at each other sheepishly, realizing their mistake.

  ‘Come with me,’ I said at last.

  Thankfully, they followed. I took them to my bedroom and lifted a geography textbook off my shelf. Finding the page I wanted I threw the book on to my bed so that they could see.

  ‘Do you know what that is?’ I was pointing at a photograph of what looked like a white bird house with slatted sides, mounted on a sturdy central post a metre tall.

  The two boys said ‘No’ at the exact same time and thought nothing of it.

  ‘It’s a Stevenson Screen,’ I answered. ‘It’s designed for measuring the weather. You put your instruments like thermometers and barometers inside. Because it’s white it reflects the sun’s rays so the temperature you get is always accurate. Did you know that official temperatures are always taken in the shade, usually in one of these Stevenson Screens?’

  They didn’t.

  ‘And they’re always kept on the top of one of these poles, which are always a metre tall exactly. That way, no matter where you are in the world, your recordings are consistent, which is exceptionally important in good science.’

  They had blank looks on their faces.

  ‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Let’s go to the hardware store. We’ll buy some wood and some white paint and we’ll make one.’

  Their faces came alive and lit up like Christmas trees when I said that.

  ‘Really?’ Toby said excitedly.

  ‘Sure,’ I beamed, feeling great. I needed this.

  We set off right away. I took all the cash I had in my cash box, which amounted to nearly £60. I left my mother a note explaining where we had gone and we set off.

  It’s nearly two miles to the hardware store and we took the river route because if we had taken the road my schoolmates might have seen me and shouted things at me in front of Toby. I hadn’t been down that muddy path for years and I had forgotten how peaceful it was; one of those places where you can hardly hear the cars. It was like the place I imagined going with Clare in my daydreams.

  Alan turned out to be a delight. He was almost as bad as Toby for his country-gentness but at least he liked sports.

  It was an amazing day. It took us about three hours just to get to the shop because the river turned out to be much more fun. We tried damming it in the narrow parts but it never worked. It was just like being a kid again, or maybe like being a father, I don’t know. At one point I took off my shoes and socks even though it was the middle of February and freezing and was giving them piggybacks whilst they cracked up in the way that kids crack up when it’s not even that funny.

  Toby had forgiven me for Bertie and I hadn’t even had to apologize. I could have apologized but it would have been so awkward there was no point. It wasn’t because I paid him off with the weather station, it was because kids aren’t as stubborn and they don’t hold pointless grudges. They haven’t hardened. By taking Toby to the hardware store and building him a Stevenson Screen (which is still in my garden, by the way) I had shown him that I wasn’t such a bad person after all, and that was good enough for him because he was Toby, he was my bro. If he had made me apologize, it would have been the end because apologies are just words that people are forced to speak to make other people feel superior. If you’re really sorry about something, you don’t have to say it because you and the person you’ve hurt just know it. That’s all.

  Alan turned out to be the first in a long line of friends that he would make. Soon, Toby started to tell jokes and act cheekily in front of people, instead of being naturally funny by just doing stupid things. His dress sense sharpened and I remember the day that my mother finally put his red corduroy trousers and his other country-gent clothes into a bag for the Salvation Army. His bedroom got messier and he started lying on the sofa more often. Pretty soon he wasn’t drawing pictures at the kitchen table any more because there were better things to occupy his time. It was sad for me to see because all that stuff was what made him Toby, but it was good for him because he was finally becoming normal. I guess that’s just the way life goes.

  38

  THE AMAZING SUNNY weather lasted through to Sunday. I heard a weather report saying that it was set to last for at least another week and probably longer because there was this rare weather condition called a Blocking High which sinks down from Russia and stops all the rain and wind and stuff coming in from the Atlantic, which was awesome news because I love the sun.

  I didn’t eat breakfast or lunch and I found it difficult to think back to the last time I had eaten a meal. It was a long time ago, literally months, but I definitely didn’t have an eating disorder or anything like that so I didn’t care.

  I was in my room when something smacked into my window. I sat up on my bed, where I had been lying. Then something else smacked into the glass, this time with a loud crack. It took a few seconds for me to realize that somebody was throwing stones. I jumped off my bed and went to the window. My heart soared when I saw who it was.

  Freddy and Matt were out there on their BMXes. They looked like the kids from the film ET in their colourful hoodies pulled over their heads. I smiled massively and waved like a madman.

  Incredibly, I hadn’t spoken to Freddy or Matt since Jenny’s death. My computer had been seized and my phone was smashed up so there was only the house phone, which would have meant me calling Matt’s landline and running the risk of his parents answering. Which I couldn’t have faced.

  I crept downstairs and snuck out of the back door of the conservatory. I tore across the lawn and wrenched my bike out of the shed with pure being.

  ‘Let’s go,’ I breathed and we burned down to the bottom of the lane where my parents wouldn’t be able to see us.

  We pulled up at the end of the lane and looked at each other for a long time. Matt’s black eyes had all but gone. All that was left were two red crescents under his eye-sockets. There were so many things that I wanted to say to him, my best and longest friend. But I couldn’t articulate any of my thoughts. My mind was going so fast that I couldn’t keep up with it.

  ‘I’m so sorry about Jenny,’ I said. What a pathetic thing to say. This one chance I had of saying something beautiful, and I blew it.

  He smiled a little.

  ‘Matt,’ I said, trying to make up for it. ‘I don’t know what to say.’ I was having difficulty saying anything as I looked at him, just a fifteen-year-old boy sat on his BMX. So much of his old life was gone. It wasn’t just Jenny. It was so much more. Even his goodness had leached.

  ‘It’s OK.’

  I think that what I wanted to say was that Jenny was amazing, that she had killed herself and opened the door for us, that she was so brave. But I found myself holding back. The thought was too radical to speak aloud, even for us. Matt needed more time before we started talking like that.

  Apart from that though I wanted to tell him that I was there for him, to help him through this, just like he had been there for me countless times in the past. But I couldn’t. I didn’t like the way that I couldn’t tell him how I felt deep down. If he was my best friend, I should have been able to tell him anything. Instead, all I could do was look at him with a stupid smile on my face because all of my words had jammed.

  Freddy interjected.

  ‘So. Expelled.’

  I waited for a moment,
trying to order my thoughts.

  ‘Expelled,’ I confirmed, glad for some normality to return. If expulsion can be called normal.

  ‘We all heard what you did. You know that everybody thinks you’ve gone nuts.’

  I huffed.

  ‘Well.’ That was all I could offer.

  ‘I thought it was awesome.’

  I sighed and picked at some of the rubber that was coming off one of my handlebars.

  ‘I couldn’t handle that school any more.’

  ‘Have you heard about Matt?’ Freddy asked.

  Matt was sat on his saddle, one foot on the ground, the other on a pedal at the top of its arc.

  ‘My parents have taken me out of school,’ he said.

  ‘You have got to be kidding.’

  ‘Nope. It’s good though because it’s just what I need after my true love just threw herself off a motorway bridge,’ he said sarcastically. ‘Anyway, whatever, as of Monday morning, I will be an official student of the comprehensive.’

  ‘Holy shit.’ I laughed at the horror, trying to cheer him up. ‘They’ll tear you to bits.’

  Matt nodded. He was trying to put on a brave face.

  ‘Hopefully. My parents reckon they don’t want me to hang around with you lot any more.’

  We all laughed because he had already broken their wishes.

  ‘Well,’ I said. ‘Fuck it. If you’re going to have your life torn apart, you might as well do it right, right?’

  Matt was undoubtedly going to get beaten up at that school. His parents probably thought that they were doing the right thing for him by keeping him away from us, but they were wrong. They had basically thrown him to the lions.

  Freddy sat on his bike with a slight smile playing on his mouth.

  ‘But that’s not all. You realize that we’re not going to Jenny’s funeral, right?’

  ‘What?’ I coughed.

  ‘Her parents have said that they don’t want us there. Not even Matt. Can you believe it?’

  ‘I haven’t heard that,’ I whispered, reeling. If Jenny would have wanted anyone there, it would have been us.

  ‘The school will call your parents soon.’

  This was so wrong that I thought that the world was going to stop spinning and we’d all turn into monkeys or something. I felt like I’d just been stabbed.

  ‘I can’t believe it. What are they doing? Trying to get us to kill ourselves?’

  ‘You can’t believe it?’ said Matt. ‘What about me? How do you think I feel about it?’ He laughed a little when he said it because what was happening was so ludicrous. ‘I was in love with her.’ I saw his eye-line shift to the floor.

  ‘Fucking idiots,’ Freddy laughed. ‘I love the way everybody’s blaming us.’ He was speaking in his calm voice again, the one he used when he tried to get a point across. ‘Just because we signed the Charter. If they actually read the thing they’d know that it’s their fault, not ours. It’s all there in black-and-white but nobody can accept it because they’re too stuck in their ways.’

  ‘They’ll never get it,’ Matt sighed. ‘That’s the point, isn’t it?’

  We all digested that.

  ‘So where’s Clare?’ I asked.

  ‘She’s not coming,’ answered Freddy quickly.

  ‘Not coming where?’

  ‘With us.’

  ‘With us where?’

  ‘The forestry,’ he said with a smile.

  ‘The forestry?’ I moaned. ‘Jesus.’

  ‘What’s wrong with that?’

  I huffed.

  ‘It’s just so . . . uphill.’

  Freddy laughed and patted my back.

  ‘Come on.’ And he zipped off up the street, the bright sun shining off his back.

  Now that Freddy was gone I could talk openly to Matt. The atmosphere turned melancholy, the unspoken presence of Jenny weighing down on us. When Freddy had been with us the mood had been lighter. But it was fake. This was real.

  ‘Are you OK?’ I said.

  His voice snagged.

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Matt, you do know she’s waiting for you in the chamber, don’t you?’

  He couldn’t look at me and I buried a thought that had crept into my brain – Matt didn’t believe. If Matt didn’t believe in the chamber then I had lost him. If he didn’t believe in the chamber then he didn’t believe in me, didn’t trust me. My best friend. I had to change the subject.

  ‘Where’s Clare really?’ I said, knowing that I would get an honest answer out of him.

  ‘He wouldn’t let me ring her.’ He looked down the road to Freddy.

  I thought about this for a second. I knew what Freddy was doing. He was isolating Clare so that she’d be next. If she found out that we had gone to the forest without her she’d be really upset and then Freddy might try something else, something more, to push her further, to force her into doing something stupid and I couldn’t bear thinking of her like that.

  ‘Give me your phone,’ I said, looking up the street, seeing Freddy as a black speck a hundred yards away.

  I dialled the number. When she answered, her voice sounded just so beautiful that all of my feelings suddenly burned up inside me. Her voice was all crackled and distant.

  ‘Clare, it’s Rich,’ I said enthusiastically, trying to make her feel better because I could tell she was down just by the way she answered.

  ‘Oh,’ she said, surprised because I was calling from Matt’s phone. ‘Hi.’ Her voice actually perked up when she found out it was me, it really did.

  I was hopelessly gone for her. I hoped all this could fade away so that I could tell her I loved her, she could tell me that she loved me and we could live happily ever after.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I asked.

  ‘Nothing.’

  I switched hands.

  ‘This might sound a bit weird but we’re going for a bike ride up to the forest. I don’t suppose you’d fancy it?’

  ‘Who’s going?’

  ‘Me, Matt, Freddy.’

  There was a pause. She was reticent, which I think means hesitant.

  ‘Please come,’ I said genuinely.

  She thought about it for a second more.

  ‘OK,’ came her voice and I pictured her up in her bedroom, devastated like a smouldering crater, cross-legged on her bed, alone.

  ‘I know it’s childish,’ I started.

  ‘I want to go,’ she interrupted. ‘I’ll borrow my brother’s bike.’

  ‘OK.’ I didn’t know what else to say. There was a lump in my throat that I didn’t understand. ‘We’ll come and get you,’ I recovered.

  ‘No,’ she blurted. ‘If my father catches you near the house he’ll kill you.’

  ‘Not if I kill me first,’ I said, trying to make light of the fact that we were in an active suicide pact. ‘Shall we meet you at the war memorial?’

  She paused.

  ‘No. I don’t want to see anyone.’

  I felt bad when she said that because what she meant was everybody hated her. Everybody.

  ‘Well, what if we meet at the bottom of your drive, where it meets the main road?’

  ‘Yeah, that’d be good.’

  ‘Can you be there in ten minutes?’

  ‘Sure.’

  I looked up and panic fizzed into my chest. Freddy was coming back.

  ‘OK, I’ve gotta go.’ And I hung up. It was a weird reaction because it wasn’t really founded on anything other than a feeling. It was difficult to picture Freddy as a monster, even after everything that had happened, so why did I feel like this? That’s instinct, I guess.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he said.

  I was suddenly nervous.

  ‘Asking Clare to come.’

  ‘What?’ He raised his voice. ‘What for?’

  ‘Why not?’ I asked, trying to be brave.

  Freddy shrugged and wheeled around the back of me where I couldn’t see him. When he was behind me I held my breath, expectin
g I don’t know what. He seemed to be behind me for a long time, during which I was genuinely terrified. He reappeared on my other side, standing on his pedals and leaning over his handlebars. ‘Whatever.’ He started pedalling. ‘Come on.’

  We were soon at the entrance to the drive that led up to Clare’s house, which was at the top of a steep hill. She was wearing these pink sandal-things with white socks, reminding me again of the harsh reality – we were still kids, even though her shoes were a fashion thing.

  Weatherwise it was still insanely bright but the air was death cold. We snaked through town like we were all tied to a piece of long thread, and reached the forest in about fifteen minutes, which I was happy with because when I was a little kid it used to take me about an hour to get up there.

  We were all shattered when we reached the narrow road that leads up between the pine trees. You know how you think of Transylvania? That’s what the forest was like. Well, a mixture between that and the wildlife programmes set in Canada with all the bears and lakes, you know?

  We started to climb up the steep, bendy road until we came to the bike track that we always take up to the top of the mountain. Matt sped up it like a dog off its lead, Freddy on his heels all the way. Clare had already dropped behind. She must have felt so left out it hurt and when I saw her round the shoulder of asphalt and head for me, still going, not giving up, a slick of tragedy leaked into my ribs. She had lost everything.

  When she finally caught up with me, she said, out of breath,’ Can we stop riding these fucking bikes now?’

  I instantly cracked up with the way her words had cut my melodrama in half, and a few seconds after that a smile creased across her cheeks like it wasn’t supposed to be there, like her smiles were finished but one last piece of joy had stolen out of her heart and shot into her face.

  We hid our bikes in some trees and walked up the path.

  ‘Are you feeling OK?’

  ‘No,’ she said softly. ‘You know how it’s been at school.’ She paused. ‘Does it seem weird? Not having her around, I mean?’

  ‘Jenny?’

  She nodded ever so slightly.

  My hand suddenly exploded like stardust because Clare had taken hold of it.