The Devil's Trill Sonata (20 page)

“Off…”

“Is he ill?” she asked, unusually bluntly.

“Um, sort of,” Jayden said. “Not…I mean…he suffers from depression.”

Ella’s perfect eyebrows rose slightly. “Ah,” she said.

“Yeah. And he’s been…really quiet lately, and…”

“Well, what’s the cause?” she asked.

Jayden blinked. “Cause?”

“Yes, why is he depressed?”

“Um…I don’t know, I mean…I presume there’s, I don’t know, his brain chemistry is a bit messed up or something, it’s…you know, it’s not like he’s being abused or something, you know. He just…he just
is
.”

“He didn’t seem the type,” she said, sipping daintily. “He was quite…bullish, I suppose. No offence meant, of course, that’s just my opinion.”

“Um, well, that’s…I mean, he doesn’t express his emotions a lot,” Jayden tried awkwardly. “He, um. Well, he bottles a lot up, you know, he keeps a lot to himself, so I guess that might be some of it, you know. He was under loads of pressure at home when we met, he’s gone against what his father wanted him to do, and he’s quite distant from them, and…”

“He’s like, what, eighteen, nineteen? He needs to get over his family issues,” Ella said dismissively.

Jayden stared at her. “Um, Ella, you don’t really know…”

“Oh, come on, Jayden, you told us he’d moved out and was working and everything. It’s not like his father’s living with him anymore, is it?”

“Well, no, but…”

“The thing is,” she carried on obliviously. “The thing is, people with mental illness and stuff, you know, depression and bipolar disorder and everything, a lot of it stems from a lack of structure and discipline of the mind. You should read
The Paradox of Choice
, it’s very interesting, about how an unstructured society leads to high mental illness rates in a population because…”

“Ella, it’s not…you can’t just pull yourself together,” Jayden interrupted. “I mean, when he gets in his moods…I mean, yeah, there’s no
rational
reason for it, but it
happens
, like he wakes up and he can’t think properly or do anything, there’s no drive, it’s…”

“Honestly, Jayden? I don’t want to cause offence or anything, but it sounds more like, well…you know, idleness? Perhaps he has a vitamin deficiency or something, maybe…”

“Nobody tries to kill themselves over a vitamin deficiency!”

“So he
has
tried?”

“Well, yeah,” Jayden said, even as his stomach twisted. Not in a long time, but he
had
. He’d said he had, he’d admitted it.

“Why isn’t he in a hospital, then?”

“What?” Jayden said blankly.

“If he’s a danger to himself, he needs to be in a hospital.”

“…You can’t just lock someone up because they’ve hurt themselves sometimes. It’s not like he’s a raving lunatic.”

“Honestly, Jayden, trying to kill yourself, that’s a pretty mad thing to do. What could possibly be that bad?”

“His
depression.
That’s what makes him want to…”

“He needs to get a bit of a grip,” she said ruthlessly. “I mean, it’s selfish, Jayden. The whole suicide thing, you know? Who
does
that to their friends and family? It’s an awful thing to do, I’m really against it.”

“It’s not a political position, Ella, you can’t be
against
suicide like that. I mean, nobody’s pro-random-suicides, it’s horrible, but imagine how someone must feel…”

“Nothing’s
that
bad,” she repeated insistently, still sipping at her wine and looking completely nonchalant and…and
casual
, like they weren’t discussing something so…so… “I mean, really, Jayden, from what you’ve said, Darren’s had a nice life so far. His parents are nice, well-off people…”

“They’re not
nice
,” Jayden objected.

“Well, they don’t abuse him either.”

Jayden privately thought that that rather depended on whether emotional neglect counted as abuse, because they
did
ignore him, completely since Jayden had forced him out of the closet after he’d been attacked, and Jayden had never been able to imagine a mother who didn’t at least care what her son was up to. Mum was
nothing
like Alison Peace. Or whatever she was going to be called after the divorce.

“I’m just saying,” Ella continued blithely, “I think a lot of mental health issues are puffed up by people not wanting to accept responsibility for their own actions. I mean, if Darren feels no drive, he needs to
make
drive, just get out there and
do
it, you know? It’s not that hard.”

“It
is
hard when you…”

“And,” she continued, barrelling onwards without hearing a word Jayden said, “I think if he stepped back and really looked at his life, he’d see it’s a bit silly to be depressed about it, you know? He should be thankful, there’s people in way worse situations.”

Jayden stared at her, not quite able to compute it. He’d never really talked to anyone else about depression—it wasn’t really
his
story to tell, was it, it was Darren’s, and Darren didn’t like people knowing in the first place—and Ella’s blunt dismissal of the entire thing was…

She couldn’t have seen it, surely? She
couldn’t
have. She couldn’t have seen someone change the way Darren changed, from his dry, sarcastic, quietly loving
okay
days into…into the black moods, the dark lethargy, the way he’d just curl up into Jayden’s hold and
sag
, like he’d stopped existing, just
stopped
, when the moods took hold of him? The way he
hated
it, the way he broke in on himself like he was suffocating, the way he’d cling like he’d drown if Jayden let go, the way he rubbed his fingers and picked at his nails as if he was trying to force some kind of reaction, some kind of feeling through the onset of the entire horrible thing, the way he
hated
himself and all that quiet, easy confidence just
bled
out of him?

There was no way she could have seen that, right? And yet he opened his mouth to tell her she had no idea what she was talking about, and paused. He’d done his own research, years ago when Darren had first told him, and it was a little bit different for everyone, wasn’t it? Or maybe she’d seen the outskirts of it, because Darren could hide a
lot
if he really wanted to, he’d hidden the depth and scope of it for years from his other friends and from his family. He was
good
at it, so maybe Ella had only seen the outskirts of it? And anyway, it wasn’t her fault if she’d never met anyone who suffered properly.

So Jayden shut his mouth again, downed his wine, and excused himself. He had work to do, he told her, but in reality, he didn’t want to hear any more of it, and wanted to just curl up in bed and focus on Darren.

It felt like it had been a long, long time since he’d been able to do that.

“I’ve got them!”

Jonathon’s pronouncement was loud in the quiet of Ella’s room; she was working on an essay, and Jayden was revising for an exam. The entire corridor was quiet, mostly for the same reason, and then Jonathon disturbed it all by parading in with a sheet of paper above his head, and looking smug.

“You’ve got what, the clap?” Ella asked, unusually crudely. She was moody when stressed, and she was definitely stressed today. She’d been snappy since breakfast.

“No.” He swatted her with the sheet and bounced down onto the bed between them. “The tickets! Paris! It’s all booked!”

“Ooh!” she squealed, abandoning her laptop and peering over his shoulder at the paper. “When? After exams?”

“Duh,” he said. “First weekend after.”

“What?” Jayden said.

“Yep,” Jonathon said proudly. “Twenty-third to the twenty-sixth.”

Jayden’s gut clenched. “That’s…that’s the weekend I’m going to see Darren,” he said.

Jonathon’s face fell; Ella frowned. “Well, change it,” she said.

“He’s booked the leave…”

“He can cancel it, it’s plenty of notice,” she said. “And anyway, we have the next two
weeks
off, so you can still go and see him.”

Jayden chewed on his lip. It was Darren’s birthday on the twenty-eighth. He couldn’t bail on his
birthday
weekend, right, especially when Darren had never really liked birthdays and Jayden had made a habit of trying to make them more special for him. Every birthday, even the one after he’d been stabbed, although they’d actually held that birthday late, if that made any sense, because Darren had been in hospital. Jayden couldn’t bail on his
birthday
, but…but
Paris
.

“I can’t change them once they’re booked,” Jonathon said apologetically. “And your name’s on one of the tickets. You
have
to come, Jayden, come on. It’ll be great, and you can always go and see Darren afterwards. Just, you know, shuffle the dates a bit.”

Jayden stared at the sheet of paper. A booking confirmation, and his name
was
on it, and…and Paris.
Paris
. This would be his only chance to go—he couldn’t afford it himself, and he wouldn’t be able to for years, because Jayden loved English and scriptwriting but he wasn’t stupid, he wasn’t ever going to get rich from it, and…and
Paris
. It was right there, right there for the taking, but why did it have to be
that
weekend?

“I don’t know…” he whispered.

“Come on, Jayden,” Ella wheedled, crawling around Jonathon to hug him with her bony arms, her hair spiralling down his back like a curtain. “It’ll be amazing, just the three of us in Paris, just for a weekend. It’s one weekend, he can’t begrudge you one weekend.”

“He’ll understand,” Jonathon said lowly.

Would he? Jayden wasn’t sure. Darren didn’t like them; he was bound to be pissed off Jayden was bailing for them, and being in Paris on Darren’s birthday weekend without him…it felt weird, it felt a little bit wrong, but there was no way Darren would be able to afford to come too, he wouldn’t be able to take the leave, and anyway, his training pay was awful, so…

“Just rearrange it,” Ella said. “You can see your boyfriend anytime, it doesn’t matter.”

“You’re giving him enough notice for the leave issue,” Jonathon said evenly. “It’s not like it’s tomorrow. And hey, he could take the leave anyway, have some down time. It must be stressful in his job.”

Ella rolled her eyes, but Jayden smiled gratefully. “Maybe…”

“Anyway, the twenty-sixth is the first day of the Easter holiday, so we have four weeks to do whatever after that. I mean, I have to get a research paper done, but you know, you could always go and spend a week in Portsmouth.”

“Southampton.”

“Southampton, yeah, sorry. You could spend longer to make up for it. He’d like that deal, right?” Jonathon pushed. “I mean, it wouldn’t be the weekend, but if you stayed like a week, it’d be way more time for the two of you.”

He
should
, really, if Jayden spent longer. And he might be able to—his finalised timetable had only one exam after the Easter break, and that would be okay. He’d have coursework to do, obviously, but he could do that while Darren was at work, and a week of evenings
was
still more time when you added it all up than a weekend…

And
Paris
.

“I’ll talk to him,” he said slowly.

“But you’re coming,” Ella said decidedly.

“Yes,” Jayden conceded, “but I do have to talk to him.” And probably instigate an argument in the meantime.

God
¸ he hoped work had been good today.

* * * *

Darren didn’t get out of training until five usually, so Jayden tried calling at half past, but the phone was switched off. He decided against leaving a message, and lay on his bed editing his final essay for Byrnes before trying again at six, and this time, the phone rang. And rang. And kept on ringing.

“I don’t want to do this,” he whispered to the ringing, and then it stopped. “Hey,” he said. “Um, you’re free, right? I mean, you’re not busy, or…”

“I’m free,” Darren’s voice was a deep roll of easy vowels; for a moment, Jayden curled his toes into the duvet and smiled, a little twinge of
miss you
rising like a bubble in his chest. “Barely, though, five minutes earlier and I’d’ve been driving.”

“You just got out of work?”

“Yeah,” Darren said. Jayden heard a door bang and a muffled thump, like something being tossed to the floor. “Ran late. They were taking our hair and fingerprints and shit for the DNA database, and sent one poor woman for a training class of twenty. Took forever. Anyway. Spit it out.”

“Huh?”

“You called for a reason.”

Jayden wriggled his toes and eyed the closed door of his room. “Maybe I just wanted to talk to you,” he hedged. His heart was clenched and painful, and he didn’t want to do this. Darren was going to be so angry, and he’d been so
weird
lately…

“You always use Skype when you just want a chat,” Darren retorted. “This is
about
something, so spill it.”

“Maybe I missed you.”

“You use Skype for that, too. And now you’re being coy, so I’m worried,” Darren said easily. A echoing sounded faintly in the background, combined with rattling glass; Jayden estimated that he’d opened a fridge. “Bloody Rachel.”

“What’s she done?”

“Snuck in and nicked my butter,” Darren muttered. “Thief. Anyway. Stop evading, Jayden, what’s up?”

Jayden took a deep breath. “Um, well. You remember that Jonathon invited me and Ella to go to Paris with him? Like, a little weekend trip?”

“Yeah, you were dead excited.”

“Mhmm.”

“Going, then? Over Easter or something? Send me a postcard,” Darren said. “On second thoughts, don’t, postcards are tacky.”

“I’ll get you a tacky gift,” Jayden said. “It’s traditional.”

“Yeah, that’ll do. Bring me a fridge magnet, I can start a collection of crappy decorations in my kitchen.”