The Suicide Club (3 page)

‘What are you drawing?' I said.

‘Oh, it's just a Christmas picture that I've knocked up.' He spoke with a maturity beyond his years, he really did.

I went over to the table. His picture was actually pretty good. It was a bird's-eye view of a lake that had iced over. Snow-covered pines grew all around it. And on the lake were lots of tiny little people, each of them meticulously laid out with colourful little hats and scarves. Some were throwing snowballs, some were skating and one guy in a corner was actually ice fishing!

‘Oh my God, Tobe. This is awesome.'

He beamed. He loved it when I said nice things to him, and I always said nice things to him when he deserved it, which was a lot of the time.

‘Thanks, Rich.'

‘I'm not kidding. This is really, really good. Have you shown it to Mum yet?'

‘She's not home.'

‘You keep this up and you could be an artist when you're older. How'd you like that?'

Toby shrugged.

‘You could hang in the Louvre.'

‘I'm not
that
good yet.'

I sucked in air through my teeth.

‘I don't know,' I said. ‘This is a nice piece.'

‘I know you're joking.'

‘You just stick to your dreams, Tobe. If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything.' And I ruffled his hair. I was trying to be inspirational. I swept out of the room, deliberately leaving my pearls of wisdom dripping off the air.

I went to my room, got undressed, had a shower, went back to my room, locked my door (I felt so much more
secure behind a locked door), turned on my laptop. Clare was already on MSN (which is a free software package from Microsoft called Messenger that allows you to talk to your friends online in real time which is VITAL), along with my best friend, Matthew, so I asked them what they were doing:

 

I waited. Matthew was typing a message. He always took ages. I swear to God I don't know what he was doing on his end. Just then, my phone beeped with a text message. Weirdly it was Clare:
Can I come over yours tonight?

I quickly tapped into the computer.

 

It was strange because Matthew obviously had no idea what the last two lines meant. Finally:

 

I was already replying to Clare's text:
Wot time?
I don't actually like abbreviating messages because it's not good grammar but sometimes there's just no time. We first started using text speak to mock people who used it non-ironically, but we used it so much that in the end it just became normal, which is quite depressing really. The minute I sent
the text, another one came through:
Soon . . .
Then I was back at my keyboard because I don't like predictive texts as much as typing.

 

Matthew, as usual, spent ages writing his reply. Just as the message flashed up my phone bleeped again.

 

I looked at my phone.
I just want it to be me and you. No Matt.

My heart started thumping. All of a sudden I didn't know what to do. I felt bad for Matthew being left out of all this, and because I was about to fob him off for a girl. Nowadays boys hang around with girls all the time – it's not like it used to be – but it's still bad to sly on a friend. Clare always came over to my house and I always went over to hers, but something was different this time. I texted her back:
I'll call you in a minute.

I logged off without even saying goodbye, which made me feel guilty. I might have texted him later, but I didn't. Then, seconds later, Little SubPop went offline as well, which must have looked incredibly suspicious because we had both come off at the same time. Matthew must have been sat in his room feeling ostracized to hell because he knew what was going on – he was just as clever as everyone else in our group.

I turned my computer off, picked up the house phone, and called Clare.

‘Hi, it's me,' she said. She sounded out of breath.

‘Hi. So what's going on?'

‘I'll tell you later.'

‘Why can't you tell me now?'

She got annoyed at this, in that way that girls do.

‘God, I said I'd tell you later.'

There was a pause. I could hear ‘Planet Telex', an old Radiohead song, playing in the background. Clare had excellent music taste because she had an older brother who taught her everything.

‘You're a really good friend,' she said at last. You know that feeling when at the other end of the line the voice sounds tinny and resounds with silence and drama? Her voice was like that.

I knew what was happening. It was Craig. Back in the yard when I had my arm around her had meant as much to her as it had to me.

I could feel a bond of friendship burning gloriously out of the ether and into life; a shared experience and feeling that connected us. Whenever I make a bond with somebody I imagine a golden rope running out of my chest and into theirs, connecting the two souls. It burns up out of nothing and is just there, linking you to that person, your two souls glowing white-blue in bright orbs. The rope thrums with energy and makes your whole body tingle. It's amazing how people can react to one another, you know, the feelings that come from it.

‘You can come over whenever you want,' I said quietly. It was one of those times when you know the other person is feeling the exact same thing as you. It's the best thing in the world when bonds are forged, don't you think? It lasts for ever if you do it right.

The end strains of ‘Planet Telex' were washing into the line, that bit which sounds like an alien message, or radio static. It was really bizarre.

‘I'll be there soon.' And she hung up.

I got changed into my jeans and pulled on my white Lost Prophets T-shirt. This was a band who all the Californian Girls loved because they were really big in LA at the time. I looked OK in my T-shirt.

I'm quite lucky because I have an athletic frame. I'm not muscly, but I'm not skinny either. I have brown hair that's a little bit wavy and which I grow quite long on top but quite short on the back and sides. My friend Matthew says that my hair looks a bit like a bicycle helmet, a cruel criticism, but one I accept with both grace and dignity. People tell me that my face is ‘cute' or ‘mischievous' but really it looks like it doesn't quite fit on my skull, but in a not-bad way, I guess. It's my big eyes that make people think I'm cute but sometimes they get too big, like when I'm surprised, and then I just look like a spaz. All in all I'm pretty happy with the way I look, which is an oddity for teenagers.

I could hear my parents downstairs but I didn't want to see them. They must have heard about what Craig Bartlett-Taylor had done by now and I really didn't have the energy to speak to them about it – my parents have this uncanny knack of bringing my true feelings up and it freaks me out a bit. On my CD player I started playing my Damien Rice album, which I love. It's a bit depressing but it's perfect for times of reflection.

My parents split up when I was thirteen. It was THE most terrible thing that could have happened. In the months leading up to it they would scream at each other late at night. They thought I was asleep, but I wasn't. Sometimes I would get up early on a Saturday morning and hear them downstairs, already going at it hammer and tongs.

‘You never even fucking loved me,' she would scream, her voice all warbly. It is such a shocking thing to hear your own mother using the F word.

Then my dad would say something calmly which was too muffled to decipher and then you'd hear a mug smash or something and my mother would be crying, shouting, ‘I hate it here. I
fucking
hate it.' She'd say the F word quietly sometimes.

She'd run out and I'd hear her car drive off and when I got up nothing would be mentioned. I still don't know why they split up. I think my mother thought my father was having an affair, but I know that he'd never do that. Not to me.

The emotions I went through at the time were all over the place. But I never thought it was my fault, which can happen sometimes; the kids think it's their fault. My tutor at school would say, ‘It's not your fault,' and I'd say, ‘But they were happy before they had me,' because I was making fun of him.

Of course I felt bad for my parents. I hated seeing them so unhappy. But I also wanted them to stay together and in that respect I was conflicted – I wanted them to stay together but it was their staying together that was making them unhappy, you know?

Anyway, one night my dad came into my room and sat at the end of my bed. He gave me a long speech about how they'd decided to go their separate ways and that it wasn't my fault. I snapped a little bit and told him to stay, not to leave. I was crying my eyes out like a baby, I really was. And I meant every tear. I was being torn apart.

By morning I felt a little better and in less than a week I had concluded that it would be better this way because their happiness was the most important thing. The next feeling I had was embarrassment and it was far worse than the original grief. In school, I felt like a leper or something. Everybody knew what had happened and nobody said a word. It was just the most awful thing. Nothing was ever mentioned, not even amongst my best friends. The only
person I spoke to about it was Matthew. It really was embarrassing. I don't think I ever really recovered from my parents' split, even though they got back together a year later. I developed a lovely little fear of commitment – and I was only fourteen!

There was a knock at my door. It was Clare. I made sure that the back of my jeans dragged on the floor underneath my bare feet because I thought it looked cool.

‘Hey,' I said.

‘Why have you got your door locked?'

‘Because I was—' I almost said something really crass but I hemmed it back in just in time. It would have been inappropriate. We always said shocking things like, ‘Jesus Christ, I hope your parents get cancer,' but we didn't mean it. We're just pushing against a tide of political correctness. When you can't say anything at all, sometimes it all comes flooding out when nobody's around. Floodgates and all that. But saying something crass then seemed out of place.

We were lying on my bed, her head on my chest, and I was playing with her hair. We always did stuff like this – it didn't mean anything. We were watching television on silent whilst listening to Damien Rice. It was like a perfect moment in heaven.

‘I saw the way you were looking at me in the yard today,' she said softly. She's got a brilliant accent. Quite posh, but also lazy, like she doesn't care.

I didn't reply.

She turned her body over and in an instant, like she had been there all along, she was straddling me. Her face came in towards mine, her black hair blocking out the light, and she kissed my cheek.

This was strange. Clare was very capable of playing cruel games with boys and I didn't know what she was doing. All I really knew at that moment was that my body was telling
me that it wanted to have sex with her. That was my base feeling.

Her hair was touching my face. She kissed my forehead, and then my nose, and then my lips. Gently, softly, like in a novel. But it was real. She brought her hand up and, with index and middle finger, placed her flopping hair expertly behind her ear, tracing the line from her temple to the back of her neck. Silhouetted against my bedroom light was the outline of an out-of-focus landscape – a jawline leading to a dark, blurry ear.

She wasn't getting off with me, she was just kissing me. She pulled back a little and her eyes were massive with dark-purple eye liner that was simply perfect. And then she said something in a quiet voice that came out just right.

‘You're gorgeous,' she said.

I couldn't bear it if she was playing with me. I had no reason to think it, but something at the back of my mind was saying, You be careful now, Rich.

She started kissing my face again and with her right hand she grabbed the top of my arm, sliding up underneath my T-shirt. I started thinking about the birthmark on the back of her neck that nobody ever mentioned – the aesthetic taboo. I loved that she had it because it meant that she was vulnerable and I love that in people, especially girls. Her touch was amazingly smooth.

This wasn't my first time with a girl. I'd been with a few girls to varying levels of sexual activity which I don't like to divulge because it's crass, but I had never actually had sexual intercourse. And I knew that I wouldn't be having it tonight either. It just wouldn't be right.

I didn't kiss her back, I just lay there. With her free hand she went for my belt but I grabbed her wrist.

‘What?' she said, her eyes closed. ‘I want to see what I'm doing to you.'