The Suicide Club

by Rhys Thomas

  He looked so much smaller than normal. I thought about how he must have been a few months ago, when his mother died. I wondered what he was like before. He was just lost, that’s all. He was a little boy without a mother. He thought he had protected himself from the grief of it all by making friends with us but now we were turning our backs on him.

  ‘We’re going home,’ I said as kindly as I could.

  Freddy looked at his feet for ages and then brought his head up, his face full of an exhausted rage. He reached around his back and pulled out from his belt a huge hunting knife. He wasn’t like an evil psychopath, he was still a normal human being, just one that had crossed over to chaos. Whatever he was about to do, it would be out of love, not insanity. His own brain was torturing him to the limits. He was going through the exact same thing that Craig had gone through in the headmaster’s office after Bertie had died, what Clare had gone through outside the church at his funeral, what I had gone through last night when I had slashed my wrist. Jenny must have gone through it as well at some point. The only one who hadn’t done it was Matt, and he had gone anyway.

  Freddy was going through what it’s like when you are out of control, when everything hurts so bad that you’re nothing. When you just want to ball up your fists, squeeze your eyes tight shut and scream until your vocal cords snap because you can’t do anything else. That was Freddy.

  ‘Whoa,’ I breathed when I saw the knife, and took an instinctive step backwards. I grabbed Clare’s arm and pulled her towards me. Behind us were thick trees and bushes that we couldn’t get through and we wouldn’t be able to get past him left or right. If we tried to push past him, he would easily be able to slash at us. And if I pushed him too hard he’d fall back into the quarry and I wasn’t prepared to do that.

  ‘Don’t you realize that we have to do this?’ he pleaded. ‘All three of us.’

  My heart was racing, getting ready.

  ‘But I don’t want to die, Freddy,’ I croaked. ‘I want to carry on.’ I couldn’t truly believe that this was actually happening.

  ‘You’re not my friends at all,’ he suddenly screamed, his brain about to pop. His voice echoed off the inside of the quarry walls, ringing around like we were inside a church bell. ‘You just used me like everyone else.’ He took a step towards us and we took a tiny step back, the sharp needles of the trees pricking into our backs, not letting us into the forest. I looked at Freddy. Freddy looked at me. There it was. A tear. Two tears. One for each eye. He sucked in air through his teeth and his lips quivered because he was ended.

  The world breathed in. This was it.

  ‘Fuck it,’ he whispered. He brought the knife up and, with the most force that I have ever seen come out of a human being, he ripped his throat out with the blade. As the knife came away a streak of blood spat out to the left and caught the sun. A lens flare burned into my eye.

  Unable to move I watched Freddy drop the knife. He was trying to hold his neck together to say something. It came out as a gargling sound, guttural and horrifying. I knew what he was trying to say. He was trying to say, ‘Push me.’ He looked at me like I had been the only true friend he had ever had and tried to say it again.

  I shook my head quickly, panicked, scared.

  ‘I can’t,’ I coughed out of my dry throat.

  When I said that, his face turned to that expressionless mask one last time. A lost, hurt desperation crossed his eyes. I had let him down. I suddenly got the impression that he was scared. He was dying. I wanted to push him but I couldn’t. I was too selfish to do for my friend that one last thing.

  After all we had been through, Freddy killing himself had finally shown me that he was not a fraud after all and that our ideals ran through him just as strongly as they ran through me. All of his ideas had come from a truth within. He had meant everything he said. The world would never get him. He refused to surrender his life to the Middle and so he surrendered it to the ether instead because that was the only other option.

  But even though I now realized this, I still couldn’t push him into the quarry, and those eyes he gave me will never leave my memory because they held in them every emotion you can ever experience in life. Not pushing him to let him know that I loved him is my biggest regret. Freddy took two steps back, looked into the chasm like he had a choice, and that was it. When he went over the edge, it was with sadness in his heart, not joy. And that was my fault. Because I didn’t push him. Because I had betrayed him.

  So . . .

  AND THAT’S PRETTY much the end of the story. Just as I hoped it would be, Freddy’s body was found by frogmen and lifted clear by a bright-yellow helicopter. It was even televised, although you couldn’t see his bloated flesh. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t say things like that because it’s crass and I’m just trying to shock. And that’s bad.

  Following what happened at the quarry I was taken to what I suppose was a mental hospital even though they called it a Recovery Clinic. They gave me lots of tests, forced me to eat full meals and took me to see lots of people who tried to cure me of my illness. I even had a long chat with somebody who worked at the hospital who had a degree in philosophy. I told him about my falling through the clouds towards the meaning of life and finding only blackness and he told me that it wasn’t such a bad thing. The blackness, he said, didn’t represent nihilism, it just meant that the answer was so mind-bogglingly vast that it was impossible to visualize and that’s why all I had seen was black. And I suppose that makes sense.

  One day a local news reporter who I recognized off the TV crept into the hospital. He had somehow come across a copy of the Suicide Club Charter and tracked me down. He asked if I would do an interview but I was feeling tired so I said no.

  At the end of the week I was sent home to my parents. I was told that Clare had gone to a clinic as well, and that she too had been sent home. After that week, and after the police had finished with all of their questions, I was released back to the real world where I had to try and go back to Normal Life. The whole process was hard.

  My parents didn’t make it. For the first month after it all they tried to be nice to each other for my sake but after three months they decided to split up and divorce. I felt sad for them but realized that it was in everybody’s best interests. Toby was upset and when my father left the house for the last time he kept hugging his legs and crying like crazy, his face all red like sunburn.

  Although it was decided that Toby would stay with my mum, they said that I was old enough to make up my own mind. I found it so difficult that I let a flip of the coin define my fate and so now I live in a flat with my father. I don’t mind because I know he tries his best and I get to see my mum and Toby most weekends and I also go over there for tea once or twice a week.

  I finished school through home-tutoring but didn’t think that I was ready for university so I stayed at home. Nowadays I spend most of my time in the flat watching TV. Walking around town isn’t as bad as it used to be because all of my friends went off to university. I don’t feel I’m missing out on anything and I’ll probably never go.

  In my bedroom, hidden underneath the bottom drawer of my desk, is the roll of film that I took from Jenny’s camera on the night she threw herself off the bridge. I want to get it developed but I’m scared that the photo-lab person will know what the picture is and give it to the police. I want to keep it for myself.

  I only ever saw Clare once more. When we came back from our hospitals I didn’t feel like calling her because the doctors finally made me realize that she was no good for me and they taught me to fight back the feelings whenever she popped up in my mind. And the same must have gone for her because she didn’t call me either. The one time I saw her was in the mini-supermarket in town. I walked in and there she was, looking into the refrigerated section and picking up a sandwich, her face glowing bright like an angel from those powerful lights they have. If I had been as immature as I had been before, I would have grabbed her hand and whisked her away on the first tra
in out of town. Instead I slipped into another aisle, out of sight.

  Then, in the queue, she was about three people in front of me. All I could see was the back of her head and I thought about her birthmark and wondered if she would ever be able to have it surgically removed so that she could lead a normal life. The shopkeeper served her and Clare turned to leave. As she did we caught each other’s eyes for one last time. We froze for a second but then blinked together and looked away as if we hadn’t seen each other. As she left, the last thing I remember seeing her do was let the door swing shut after her. Later that week her family moved away and I never saw her again.

  But I know that it’s not a bad thing because Sylvia told me that if we had remained in each other’s lives then we would have destroyed each other and she is right.

  When I think of Freddy I guess he was just as doomed as Craig from the start but I’ve been told not to think about him if at all possible because he was a bad person who led me through a bad episode that’s in the past now.

  I sometimes wonder if Craig, Jenny and Freddy are up in that chamber we thought of in heaven, living their dreams just like we said we would. I never told anybody about that because I wanted one little thing for myself. I don’t think that’s so bad. I hope they are waiting for us because I think, I’m sorry to say this, that we will be friends again when we get to heaven and we’ll terrorize the angels or something funny like that. Sorry. I’ve been told that whenever I say or think something bad I have to apologize immediately.

  All in all I’ve learnt a lot from this experience. I know now that the world is what it is and there’s little you can do to influence it. That’s why it’s best to put your head down, be a good person and make the most of your short time. If we all add just a tiny bit to the whole, then we can make it through OK. Sylvia has taught me that people aren’t as selfish as I had once thought – all they’re doing is looking after their own interests because nobody else will do it for them and so we all just have to do our best, I guess.

  My MCR album never showed up and in the end I cancelled the order. I still buy stuff from Play.com and the service is always really good. I guess there must have been a glitch in their computer systems or something. A ghost in the machine. However, you’ll never guess what happened. Six months after Freddy died, Johnny turned up at my flat and had bought me a copy. I had never told him that I was having trouble getting it from Play and when he gave it to me I almost hugged him because he’s one of those people that can do things that make you get goose pimples.

  In conclusion, I miss all of my friends, especially Matthew, but I know that our club was just teenage hormones running away with us. Each of them had their reasons for taking their own lives because there’s always a reason. Everything I did was wrong but everybody will forgive me because I have seen the error of my ways and I’m going to be a normal person, just like them. I will soon be cured and I can start to think about a meaningful career where I can be successful. I hope one day that I can be a productive member of society. If I’m lucky I’ll get married to a nice person and we can start a family together. If I try very hard I can erase Freddy and the Suicide Club from my memory entirely and life will be calm and easy, the way it should be. I know I can do it because anybody can do it. All I have to do is keep trying to be a good boy. And that is that.

  I want to try and make this last chapter sound more hopeful, I really do. But, to be totally honest, I am having difficulty with that. Not because I Haven’t Learnt a Thing, but because I’m still in my recovery period. So, although I can’t truthfully cheer you up by saying something about me, I can show you this picture and that might make you feel better:

  It’s the picture of people ice-skating that Toby drew. I still look at it every now and again and it makes me feel happy. It reminds me that, no matter what, there are little pockets of goodness in the world, trapped in times and places that will always exist. I’m glad he gave it to me. The picture he drew was in colour, but the one in this book is black-and-white. But you can colour the little people in if you want – I’d like that. And Toby would. Colours are good.

  So that’s how it all went and this is me now. Everybody tells me that I’m doing really well and that I’ll be better in no time, which is really nice of them. I checked the weather today and inadvertently discovered that there’s going to be a celestial event. Apparently we’re going to travel through the tail of an ancient comet that has existed since near the start of the universe and there’ll be loads of shooting stars. Me and my dad have bought telescopes from Tesco to watch them zip across the sky from the window. So, if you see one of them, make a wish for me, OK?

  Acknowledgements

  Thank you to everybody who read early drafts of my book, two of whom are my friends Ian Worgan and Richard Jones. They always understood what I was trying to do. Also to my amazing parents, my brothers and sister: Chris, Rhid and Anna, Rachael who set the wheels in motion, Liner, Mal, Tessa for the pics, Hugh Scurlock, Bobby G, Tyrelle & Reiscé, my old friend Rafe, Matthew Hole, Rosie, and of course Mr Owain Islwyn Hopkins. Last but not least, Auntie Margaret, for her pencil marks.

  Thanks also to my friends who have encouraged me in the past by giving their time and not really understanding how much it meant: Folly, News, Groves, Jimbo, James H, Dean, Pup, Jenks, Ang and Dylan. All at C. Really though, this book couldn’t have reached this stage without Laura’s unswerving and infectious enthusiasm, followed up by Rochelle’s creative insight and talent. Writing a book is a solitary thing but working with nice people makes it a lot easier. Finally, special thanks to my friend Neil Arbery, who was there at the beginning and then again at the end.

  About the Author

  Rhys Thomas lives in Wales. He is in his early thirties. The Suicide Club is his first novel.

  Find out more at www.thesuicideclub.com

  TRANSWORLD PUBLISHERS

  61–63 Uxbridge Road, London W5 5SA

  www.transworldbooks.co.uk

  Transworld is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com

  First published in Great Britain by Doubleday

  an imprint of Transworld Publishers

  Copyright © Rhys Thomas 2009

  Rhys Thomas has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

  The Suicide Club is a work of fiction. In some cases real names appear but their actions and conversations are entirely fictitious. All other characters, and names of places and descriptions of events, are the products of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons or places is entirely coincidental.

  The extract from The Poems of Dylan Thomas by Dylan Thomas, published by J. M. Dent, is reprinted by permission of David Higham Associates.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Version 1.0 Epub ISBN 9781409080176

  ISBN 9780552774970

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.