The Suicide Club (27 page)

‘Do you want to burn one?' she said.

‘Burn one?' It was obviously a saying of theirs, but I didn't know what it meant.

‘Burn one,' she said. ‘A joint.'

‘Ohhh,' I said. ‘Riiiight.'

‘I thought that's what the American kids called it.'

I made a confused face.

‘I don't really hang around with the Americans.'

‘What?' she almost shouted. She became suddenly animated. ‘If I went to your school, I'd love to hang around with them. They're hilarious.'

‘Really?' I said. I didn't mind the Americans, but I would hardly call them hilarious.

‘They're so stupid,' she laughed.

‘Yeah,' I laughed back, even though I didn't mean it. Americans aren't stupid, they just wear their hearts on their sleeves and cynical people don't like that. I hoped that Sam wasn't a cynic.

She reached over to the coffee table and picked up her bag. From it she took a Marlboro Light cigarette packet and from that she took a joint of cannabis. She lit the spliff and took a few deep breaths from its end. She opened her mouth and, even in the dim light, I saw the smoke swirl
inside like a vortex. Eventually she closed her mouth and, when she next breathed out, there was hardly any smoke left. She took another drag and passed it on to me, before flopping back into the chair and looking at the ceiling.

Just as I moved the joint to my own mouth, I saw a boy placing a CD into the player. He waited for a second, pressed play, and you wouldn't believe the sound that came out.

As I breathed in the smoke from the joint, a xylophone started singing into the room. The tune was so simple, like a little child had written it. All of a sudden a guitar and a bass and soft drums kicked in and the room fell into absolute silence save for the music. I sucked the smoke into my chest and felt the effects right away. I passed the joint on after about four tokes and sat back.

The music washed right into me like my skin was a dry beach as the tide moved in and saturated the sand totally and inevitably from below. I turned to Sam. My mouth was dry and my head was purring.

‘What's this song?' I said so quietly that it was almost a whisper.

She had closed her eyes. I thought she was asleep. Her face looked so pretty. Clare didn't even cross my mind.

‘Velvet Underground,' she said from her state. ‘It's called “Sunday Morning”.'

I touched her hand with my little finger.

‘It's amazing.'

She suddenly opened her eyes and lifted her neck up from the chair.

‘It's my all-time favourite song,' she said, staring me right in the eyes.

The spliff had made its way about halfway round the room and I could feel something amazing in the air, like an electric storm. Everybody was just sat there, listening to the music, glad to be alive. I kissed Sam lightly on the lips.

After about five minutes, she got up from her seat and turned to me, held out her hand. Can you remember at the start of the book when I said that I had never experienced life in slow motion? Well, right then, in that room, I did. Her hand moved towards me whilst the other one picked up her bag. I took her hand in mine and we walked out of the door. The music swelled inside my head as if it was suddenly being piped right into my brain. My heart was thundering because I knew what I was doing. I was crashing through barriers. I was nervous, but I knew that I had to do this.

We went up the stairs and I had to let go of her hand because the stairway was too narrow. We went into a bedroom with the lights turned off. An orange glow came in through the window from the street lamps. Sam went into her bag and took out a personal CD player. From its belly she removed a disc and popped it into the machine. The same song that we had been listening to downstairs started playing and I looked at her and smiled. I was sat against the headboard of the bed. She came over to me and my heart suddenly slumped down an inch. She brought her face in close to mine and I could see her eyes reflecting the amber light. Some people's eyes really reflect light, just like Sam's, and it makes you think that they have a better soul than most people. She was breathing on me and it made me crazy with buzzing before I saw her head tilt slightly, her lips part, her hair flop lazily across her face and her eyes close.

I won't say any more about it because I cherish those memories and you can't have them. I wouldn't know how to write about that stuff anyway because it would either come out as cheesy, or cold and nihilistic. And it was neither of those things. It was perfect.

About an hour later the bedroom door was thrust open
and the light was switched on and I was back in the real world away from the warmth.

I squinted at the person in the doorway. It was Johnny.

‘Have you seen outside?' he shouted. His excitement was always contagious.

Sam and I looked at each other and then out the window and, not for the first time that night, things got a
lot
better. Huge flakes of snow were drifting down out of the sky.

‘Holy shit,' I said.

Sam let go of this shriek and grabbed her clothes. I pulled on my jeans and went to the window. I looked down on the street and saw all of the kids from the party running around, snow lying thick on the ground, being balled in their hands, and being thrown at anybody who got in the way. They were loving it, loving life, just loving
snow
because there's nothing better. This was being alive, I suddenly realized. One night. One night away from the Suicide Club and look at what had happened. I got a sick feeling in my stomach because I started to think that I may have wasted my life up to this point. But I shook that feeling clear because I wanted to enjoy this moment because everything in life is made of moments. Don't ever let an old moment wreck a new one. Please don't do that.

There was a tug at my arm. I turned around and Johnny was holding out my shirt. He was such an amazing friend. So full of life and nothing bad inside.

‘Are you coming?' he said.

THE NEXT MORNING
I awoke on one of the settees in the living room. Cold, grey light lasered in through the window. My clothes were soaking wet from the melted snow and I was freezing. But I felt alive. Each cell in my body was tingling with a new energy. I felt like I was a little kid again.

Looking around the room I saw it was empty. Crushed cans and half-full glasses had been left on the tables and arms of chairs. I sat up and rubbed my eyes. I found my bag, jumped in the shower, cleaned my teeth and got changed into my spare clothes. By now I felt even more refreshed than before.

When I went back downstairs, Johnny was watching TV with a bowl of cereal.

‘Are you nervous about tonight?' I said.

‘Not really. I'm a professional.'

I sat down in the armchair next to his.

‘Yeah, right.'

‘You and Sam seemed to be having a good time last night.'

I looked ahead at the TV, trying to avoid the question.

‘Is she going tonight?'

‘I think so.'

I knew that I didn't love Sam, but I did like her. I hoped that we could be friends and never mention what had
happened the night before. I don't know why I felt that way and in that respect I guess I was a hypocrite because I don't like it when people have sex just for the sake of the physical sensation, which is a self-righteous thing to say I know, but it's just the way I feel. Actually, that's not entirely true. What I should have said is that I don't like it when people have sex just for the physical sensation and then brag about it to their friends – that's what I don't like because it means they don't get how deep human emotions can go and that makes me sad. And on that point I was not guilty.

The afternoon was bitterly cold. I was glad that Johnny had lent me his scarf and gloves to cart the band's equipment from the house to the pub. The sky was a deep, deep blue because there was no pollution hanging in the air – that had been washed out by the snow, which was now clinging to the insides of kerbs and shady walls. Little cotton-wool balls of cloud were in the sky and I knew that the day was going to turn into one of those days that you look back on because something magical happens and it gets ingrained into your memory. Nothing ever happens on such days; there's just something in the air, you know?

I spent the afternoon drinking cans of Coke whilst the band did their sound checks. I even smoked a few cigarettes, which was totally unlike me, because I wasn't drunk. But they made my head feel great.

The day disappeared beneath me, like the road when you're riding your bike and you look straight down.

By eight o'clock the pub was packed and that's when I caught my first glimpse of Freddy. I saw him just as a flash as he moved into a gap between two groups of people before disappearing again like a shark. When I saw him I got a sudden jolt in my upper body. I couldn't quite place the feeling at first. I hadn't seen him since that day in the school toilets when he had said that he wanted us to talk Craig into
killing himself. I suddenly knew what the feeling was: dread. I dreaded Freddy.

I moved in the opposite direction to that in which he was moving.

‘Rich,' I heard a voice call. I looked up. It was one of Johnny's friends. He was stood in a group of boys, some of whom I recognized, some of whom I didn't.

I went over to them but couldn't follow the thread of the conversation because I was thinking about Freddy. Why did he have to be here? Why couldn't I have this time? Why did he have to push in on it?

I kept looking over my shoulder, expecting to see him standing right behind me with that smile of his all over his face. Suddenly the jukebox kicked into life and I jumped. My skin started to crawl when the music came on. It was that Green Day song that has those lines about being alone, and lonely streets.

I hoped to God that the song wasn't symbolic for the moment. I had been feeling so great lately but now I was receding into a malaise. Just because I had
seen
Freddy. I hadn't even spoken to him.

My frame of mind switched in my head and I started looking at Johnny's friends. I can't explain it, but something changed. Emma, my counsellor, had told me that I had two sides to my personality; one was the nice kid and the other was the self-destructive kid, and I think I had just flicked the switch. My skin went clammy and I hated myself for thinking too deeply about things when there was life out there to live. So why did I have to hit these troughs where everything seemed so black? Why couldn't I be the nice kid all the time? How could I change so instantly?

I turned to move away from the group of kids and saw, straight ahead of me, staring at me, Craig Bartlett-Taylor. My heart froze when I saw him. He had his vacant stare on his
face. I could tell that he had reverted to his old depressed self. I could tell instantly. He had receded with me, like our souls were intermingled and dependent on each other. I took a few steps towards him. As I got closer, I saw that his face looked swollen somehow. It was darkish and I couldn't really see him in the low light. As I got closer I saw that he had a black eye.

‘Shit,' I said. ‘What happened to you?'

‘Hey,' called a voice.

I swung round just as a pair of hands pushed into my chest and knocked me backwards. I almost lost my footing but my good balance prevented me from falling. I looked at who had pushed me. There he was, haircut and all. Chad. The American kid from the base.

‘What the fuck are you doing?' I said, sort of offended. I only wanted to help.

‘Get away from him. He doesn't need you, man.'

‘What the fuck would you know, Chaaaad?' I looked at Craig. ‘Who hit you?' I said.

‘What the fuck do you care?' Chad snorted.

I felt somebody on my left flank. I knew who it was immediately.

‘What's going on?' he said.

‘This moron just pushed me,' I said.

Matt looked at Chad.

‘Why did you do that?'

‘You can fuck off as well, Matt. You used to be a nice guy and now look at you.' Chad pointed to the scarf tied around Matt's neck.

Matt just sneered at him, like he was a lower life form.

‘Are you OK, Craig?'

Craig looked at Matt.

‘I'm OK. The kids from my new school don't like the
exceptional
.'

Whoa! I didn't like it when Craig said that. I didn't like it at all. When I had spoken to him in his bedroom, he had seemed to be thinking so straight, but now here he was speaking like Freddy.

‘Come on, man,' said Chad. ‘Let's get out of here.' He threw one of his massive arms around Craig's neck and pulled him away from us, cutting the golden ropes from that rancid bond that had burned up between the three of us when he said the word ‘exceptional'.

And then, just as sharks can smell the scent of blood from miles away, they had all swarmed around me. Freddy was grinning at me, but his eyes looked cold. Clare had her hands in her pockets, her face ashen. Jenny was there with her warm colours but her insides were all twisted up and rotten. I was trapped.

‘You OK, Rich?' Freddy said.

I looked at their faces.

‘Why are you standing so close to me?'

‘What do you mean?' he laughed. There was a pause. ‘What happened to Craig?'

‘I don't know.' I couldn't understand why my heart was thumping so hard.

Jenny folded her arms. She had on her rainbow sweatbands.

‘Tell them what you said to me,' she said.

‘What?'

‘Tell these people, your
friends
, what you said about them.'

I was even more nervous now. It was like I was being hunted. I wondered if this was how people had felt when we had spoken to them. I wondered if I had ever been this intimidating.

‘I don't know . . .' I trailed off.

‘Why did you say that stuff ?' His voice was like a drone, like he was a zombie. Freddy's grin had gone. ‘Are we not good enough for you any more?'