The Suicide Club (2 page)

He didn't take his eyes off me as he cut his call short and dialled for an ambulance. When he was finished he asked which room Craig was in and walked out of the office. He sort of ran but he sort of walked too. Like a few steps and then a skip so that he didn't look like he was too concerned. Even though a child could be potentially dying right now.

This wasn't the first time that Craig Bartlett-Taylor had done something like this. He's got this thing in his head where he just hates everything. At least, that's the impression I get. When he's being nice, he's too nice, you know? Like it doesn't mean anything and he's just going through the motions. I think he'd had a nervous breakdown. You
never recover from one of those because it's Not Natural.

Once, when we were kids, we were making fun of him. So he said he was going to throw himself in the river and end it all. He strode off down the street and around the corner. We knew he wouldn't go through with it though. He was feeling bad because his mother had just had a stroke and one of the older kids had stolen his ice cream and thrown it at the church. We were only about ten at the time. Any way, he came back five minutes later. We asked him why he was still alive and he said, and this is completely true, that he'd forgotten his bathers.

Then he tried to kill himself again when he was thirteen, but this attempt was more serious. He threw himself out of his bedroom window. But only broke a leg. His parents must have been cartwheeling with worry. That was around the time when I stopped making fun of him.

For some reason I started wondering if my MCR album had turned up from Play. My Chemical Romance are a band that I really like. They're punkish but they get slated and called emo a lot, though that's not really what they are. Sometimes they are a bit though. Lots of people don't get it, but that's not my fault. I love them. Play is the Internet shop where I get most of my albums. It's my parents' account but they let me use it as long as I tell them. It delivers for free and the albums are cheaper than anywhere else I can find in the
real
world. Even cheaper than Tesco, and they're pretty good. Sometimes I'll still go into HMV to get an album, but they're more expensive – I just go there because sometimes I like going into record shops because there's always a good feeling in those places. In truth I probably started thinking about the album to distract myself from Craig. I do that a lot. But now I've totally lost the thread of the story so I'd better get back to it.

We were all outside because we'd been told to wait in the
yard. The flashing blue lights of the ambulance were shining off all the walls – you can see them from around corners they are so powerful. The drama of it all made some of the girls cry and you can't blame them: death's an awful thing.

One of my best friends, a girl called Clare, who has really black hair and wears pretty cool clothes which she designs herself, was stood on her own. It was strange for her because she was one of the most popular girls in school and always surrounded by an entourage of other girls. I was with a couple of my friends, but she looked so pretty stood all on her own that I wanted to talk to her, so I went over.

‘I hope he's OK,' I said, as if I was full of worry and concern. Which I was.

‘What the hell was he trying to do anyway?' she said.

Clare was pretty great because if she was just hanging around the streets she'd wear jeans, studded belt and some hoody, but when she went out she'd wear skirts and look awesome. She liked the same sort of music as me but, just like me, she wasn't into it so much that she was like a goth or anything. You could say we were emo, which is short for emotional. It's sort of a term used for more sensitive kids who like music and films more than sport, I guess you could say simply, but it's a word I don't really like because I don't think you can put people into groups so easily, and I'm not really emo anyway, only a little bit, but I guess if you had to stick a label on me then it would be the closest thing. Maybe I'm a hybrid of emo and indie. Clare was more emo than me. But only just. Although extremely pretty she was one of those girls who you've known for so long you don't really think
like that
about them but sometimes you also do, you know?

‘I guess it all got too much for him,' I said sarcastically, to cover up my fear.

‘You really do say some weird stuff sometimes, Richie.'

‘Thank you.'

‘No, thank you.'

We both looked at one another and tried not to laugh. There was a small red blotch next to her nose that I guessed was the start of a spot, which was strange for Clare because her skin wasn't like that.

‘He probably did it as a plea for attention.' I said ‘plea for attention' because that's what morons would say.

‘You shouldn't joke about it – he must be pretty fucked up to do that. He could
die
.'

When she said that, some weird distant thought climbed inside my head, which I didn't want to think about in case I started doing something stupid, like crying. I had to change the subject. It was best to think about something else entirely so I tried my best to pack the thought of Craig up into a box and lock it away.

‘Are you going out tonight?' I said.

I felt bad because I was picturing her naked, even though she thought I was just her friend. That made me feel sleazy. She didn't realize that I sometimes thought of her in that way. When I spoke to her I was sometimes getting something out of it that she didn't know about, because she thought we were friends, and that's not the right thing to do.

She shrugged and looked at me with that wicked twinkle in her eye, as if she knew what I was thinking.

‘Why don't you just ask me out?'

‘Yeah, right.'

‘I'm serious.' She took a step closer to me. We always played stupid little games like this. ‘You like me, I like you. We could do stuff.'

I thought she might actually grab me and get off with me right there, but she didn't.

‘You've got an overinflated sense of ego,' I quipped.

‘You just don't want to admit how you feel.'

‘Who the hell was that kid who put him in the Recovery Position anyway?' I asked. I wasn't changing the subject because I had just seen the same kid out of the corner of my eye and it was a natural progression for the conversation. He was dressed quite strangely because instead of wearing the school blazer he wore a sweater.

My school is a very good school. It is eclectic, which means it has a nice mix of people. Rich people. Firstly, it's a private school, so you have to pay to go here. My dad's an air traffic controller and my mother's a private doctor so we have a lot of money in my family. Both my parents inherited a lot too. It's not a fair system but it's nothing to do with me. I didn't choose to go to the school – my parents sent me.

Secondly, the school is right next to an American airbase so there are a lot of American kids who go here which means we have a fairly transatlantic vibe going on. Whatever's big in America comes to my school first.

Thirdly, because it's such a good school, lots of parents from all over Britain want to send their kids here and so it is also a boarding school, which means that some of the kids actually
live
here, which is a concept beyond my understanding.

But don't think for a second that my school is like one of those old buildings with old trees and leafy paths because it's not like that at all. You've got wholly the wrong idea if you thought that. Many of the buildings at my school were put up in the seventies and are quite hideous.

‘He's a new kid,' said Clare, hooking her arm under mine and leaning her head on my shoulder. ‘It's his first day. Did you see him? He was awesome.'

I had to admit that he did handle the situation well. He may well have saved the boy's life, which was quite a thing to do on one's first day at a new school.

‘He's really good-looking,' she said.

Another fact that I had to corroborate. He had Chiselled Features, which I realize is cheesy, but it was true. He was one of those people whose hair always looked cool. It was quite long, nearly down to his shoulders, but he definitely wasn't a goth because it was healthy and curled intellectually away at the ends, like my little brother's. I'm not bad-looking at all but he was much better-looking than me.

‘Have you met him?' I said.

She was staring at him, not even listening to me. If I'd known then what I know now about Freddy, I'd have told her to snap out of it. It was like she was in a trance. I dread to think what was going through her mind – it was probably pretty dirty. She's done some wild stuff. I always tell her that it's because she hates herself and we have a good laugh about it. We laugh at psychotherapy because we consider it to be a pseudo-science.

Anyway, all of a sudden a gurney was being rolled out of the front door, on top of which lay Craig Bartlett-Taylor. He had a drip in his arm but we could all tell that he was alive. For a second there I started feeling a little bit dizzy. All of my excuse thoughts drained away and my worry about Craig returned. I was suddenly struck with a feeling of inconsolable sadness. I started wondering how his parents would feel when they found out that their son had tried to kill himself. Again. Then I started to think that Craig Bartlett-Taylor was a selfish little shit. He always wore long sleeves, even in summer, because he used to cut himself. He wasn't trying to hide his cuts out of shame; everyone knew that long sleeves in summer was a sure sign of a self-mutilator. He
wanted
people to know because it's kind of cool to do that stuff, not that I ever would. It appeals to intelligent teenagers because we understand drama and romanticism, but have fucked-up hormones.

The paramedics hoisted him into the ambulance and I felt
Clare's head lift from my shoulder. We looked at each other and smiled a little in a rubbish attempt at reassurance that Craig would be OK. I unhooked her arm and put mine around her. She rested her head back on my shoulder and we didn't say anything as the ambulance pulled out of the yard and started up its chilling sirens.

Soon it was gone and the teachers were saying things like ‘OK, everybody back inside' but Clare and I waited for a moment, staring at the autumn leaves scuttling and hopping across the dry ground. I shifted my eyes to the kid who had saved Craig. He was on his own with his hands in his pockets. Suddenly my gaze was being returned and we stared at each other from across the yard. I smiled to him and nodded my head and he smiled back. There was a brief moment between us and I found myself pulling Clare closer to me. Then Freddy went inside.

I WALKED HOME
on my own that night. I was conflicted. On the one hand I was happy and excited at the prospect of receiving my new My Chemical Romance album from Play, but on the other, Craig Bartlett-Taylor had tried to commit suicide.

Although I felt bad for Craig, what he had done had annoyed me more and more as the afternoon had passed. If he wanted to kill himself then fine but he should have thought about his parents. Imagine it. Imagine going home and finding your mother dead on the floor. You'd always thought she loved you but how could she if she was prepared to leave you? If you're a parent reading this, imagine being told that your son was dead – and through his own choice. It would be like having metal rods at the centre of your skeleton and having them ripped out by a giant magnet. Yes, I felt sorry for Craig, you don't do something like that lightly, it's just . . . I don't know.

I checked the post but my MCR album hadn't turned up. I heard noises coming from the kitchen and as I walked along the hallway I tried not to think about Craig.

My house is like a typical suburban English house. My mum likes to keep it neat and tidy, although my room is a bit of a mess as she's not allowed in there (even though I know she goes in there because she stacks my mess into neat little
piles). We're lucky because the rooms are quite big but other than that it's just normal. Actually, I have an en suite bathroom in my room which I guess is not normal, but hey-ho. Apart from that though the only big difference between my house and other houses is that the fairly long hallway is full of books. Not just a few books, I mean
hundreds
of books. My mother's obsessed with them.

I like books and I don't like books. Books are certainly good as storytelling devices because you can get really involved with one. But people whose houses are lined with books I think should spend more time living and less time reading, you know? It's like they have books instead of walls and they think it's really impressive, but it doesn't impress me. I'd rather be fooling around with a girl than reading a book.

In the kitchen, my nine-year-old brother Toby was sat at the big pine table. The sun had nearly set because it was October. As usual, Toby was drawing a picture with his coloured pencils. All he did all day was draw pictures and write poetry. He didn't have any interest in sports whatsoever.

‘All right, Tobe?' I asked. I noticed that his feet didn't get to within a foot of the floor because he was so short.

He looked up. He had blond hair that curled at the ends like Freddy. It wasn't curly, apart from at the ends.

‘Hiya, Rich,' he squealed.

The trouble with Toby was that he was just so tiny. His body was so frail that if he ever got hit by a car he wouldn't stand a chance.

I spent a lot of my time worrying about him getting killed in an accident. I WCSed it all the time, but I won't go into it here. It's awful. But I knew that it would happen. I could just tell that he was the type of kid who would get himself killed somehow – one of those people who you can imagine being gone from the world with a bang of tragedy. Some people you can't imagine being not there – but some people
you can. When I was out with Toby I always kept an eye on him.