The Suicide Club (32 page)

‘Get up,' said the first kid. He took a step towards me and went to grab me but I just rolled away from him, my black jacket that I had worn for the funeral sinking into the wet mud.

I saw out of the corner of my eye that Matt had now stepped between me and the boy but then he disappeared into a mass of teenage bodies as they took him into their midst. I heard him grunting as they attacked him. I looked back down the corridor of trees from the direction we had come and saw something that I never wanted, nor expected, to see. The comprehensive-school girls, with all their greasy hair and crass jewellery, had jumped on to Clare and Jenny. Those girls were pure horror. They were thumping the back of Clare and Jenny's heads because they had lowered them to protect their faces. It was just so brutal. My beautiful girls were being beaten up. Those comprehensive-school girls looked like monsters with their faces folded up in rage.

My strength returned when I saw what was happening. I got up on to my knees but was pushed back into the mud.

I tried to think if these kids would feel remorse in the future for what they were doing to us. Of course they wouldn't. They'd justify it to themselves by saying that we deserved it because that's what a mediocre person does for 90 per cent of their lives; justifies the bad things they do.

We didn't deserve it. We had lost our friend and look what was happening to us, just half an hour after his funeral. It was not in balance with the order of things. This should not have happened. I lay on the ground and just let the punches sink into me. I felt a weird leathery sound from where the kids had totally lost control and were kicking me in the skull with their hard shoes. I felt my skin split on my cheek but I just let the mud wash in because there was nothing I could do.

When they were finished they didn't even run away. They simply walked.

So what do you think? Are you glad I took that beating from those kids because I was getting my comeuppance for being so weird? If so, stop reading because I don't want you coming with us on this final leg of the journey. But if you're feeling sad because these kids were punching me and my friends because they couldn't handle who
they
were, then read on, come with me, come with Matt, Jenny, Freddy and Clare, we'll point the headlights into the night and follow their silver lines and we'll go to the dark places hand in hand because, if you know what I mean, we're all going there in the end anyway.

I DIDN'T GO
back to school that day. None of us did. By the time the kids had left us alone we were too badly bruised and upset. The girls were crying and Matt's face was all lumpy. I was probably the least injured. Apart from the cut on my face and some aches on my body and head, I was fine. On the outside at least. Inside, I . . . I don't really know how I felt. I wasn't upset, or angry, I just felt . . . beaten. Like there was no hope left.

By the time I let myself in through the back door of my house I simply felt numb. Both of my parents were at work and Toby was in school so the house was empty. I picked up the mail, going through normal motions, trying to stay in control, when I noticed that there was a letter for me. My name and address were handwritten on the envelope.

Sat at the kitchen table, in my silent house, I opened the letter. Inside was a sheet of notepaper. As soon as I saw the words, ‘Dear Rich', I knew that I was reading Craig's suicide note. The bottom dropped out of my world:

I felt a tingle in my stomach because, at last, there was a bond. That gold rope had finally come up between me and Craig. I don't know when it happened, when it was that I made the connection, but the fact that he had written his note to me was proof. All of the time I had spent trying to be nice to him, to help him, had finally paid off. I noticed a few tears had dropped on the page and smudged some of the letters. I dried my eyes with the sleeve of my muddy jacket, sat back in my chair and looked at the ceiling. My whole body was coursing with pain but at last I knew that I had, in some way, helped Craig. I know he was still dead, but at least for the last few months of his life he had had real friends. He had never had that before and I was glad that we had been able to give him that gift.

As I sat at the kitchen table and tried to pull myself together I pictured Craig's glazed expression one last time. I saw him sat at the edge of his bed staring at the parrot poster on his bedroom wall whilst his parents brought in a plate of tea and scones. His mother set them down on the desk and buttered the scones. They had to pass the plate to Craig but that was OK because he was their son and they loved him more than anything.

Craig was never going to live longer than his parents because his mind didn't fit in this world. No matter what his parents had done, they could never have saved him. What we did, how we befriended him, it hadn't made any difference because Craig was doomed, whatever. He was sentenced to an existence inside his head where the outside world could only knock at the window – it could never come in. I finally understood this. Even his suicide note was cold.

My house phone started ringing, jolting me back to the kitchen table and reality.

It was Matt.

‘Hello?' I said.

‘Can we come over?' he said.

‘Who?' I asked, drying my eyes again.

‘Me and Jenny.'

‘What for?'

His voice sounded almost bored.

‘I don't know, we just want to see you.'

I sniffed.

‘OK. Come over.'

‘Are you OK?' he said.

There was a silence at both ends of the line and I closed my eyes.

‘Yeah.'

‘We'll be there soon. See you.'

The brief conversation made me feel happier. Just a little.
I loved Matt so much because he always knew when I felt at my worst and always made it better. Before they arrived I called Clare to ask her to come over as well, but her mobile was going straight to voicemail.

There were a few cans of Coke in the fridge so I took them out and went back into the living room. I set the cans down on the table and almost broke down in tears again.

‘Fucking hell, Rich,' I said. ‘Pull yourself together.'

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.