One beautiful young woman, two young men vying to protect her.
When Bright is suddenly catapulted to fame, he can’t cope with the pressure. He decides to end it all by jumping from the 20th floor of a high-rise on his twentieth birthday. He’s saved by the quirky, eccentric Gibby, and soon the two boys find themselves in a love triangle, competing for the attention of the beautiful, brilliant, unreachable Lace, and also trying to protect her from harm.
The three misfits — close to genius, close to the brink — travel from England to a beautiful old spa town in Bavaria. Here, in an experimental institution under the colourful Dr Geoffrey, the pressure mounts. Soon it’s no longer clear who’s in the greatest danger, and who needs saving the most.
The Suicide Club examines the last taboo in our society — as well as our deep human desire to connect. Unflinchingly, tenderly and often humorously, it explores why we feel the need to extinguish our lives, how we can pull back from the edge, and how — by saving ourselves — we can sometimes also save the people we love.
Contents
PART ONE
THE BEGINNING AND THE END OF IT ALL
ACROSS TOWN
OH, VEGAS!
A CAR HORN AFTER MIDNIGHT
THE UNCLE PHENOMENON
ON THE BENCH
ONE GOOD ACCIDENT
WHEN THE RAIN BEGAN
HEARING THE HOLES IN THE SURFACE OF THE WORLD
STATE OF LACE
THE ASH CAN
FUNERAL MEATS AND GAMBLING TABLES
WHERE ANGELS FEAR
THE WINDOW AND THE LIGHT
WHAT THE BLAZES
TRYING TO REMAIN INVISIBLE
SAVAGE DAWN
OUT
THE EMPTY CITY
PART TWO
THE JOURNEY TO WHERE
ACCIDENTS AND EMERGENCIES
CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST
THE ARRIVAL
THE CURSE; OR WANTING TO BE NOWHERE
THE AMENITY COUNT
THE MEMORY LAPSE
ARRIVAL, TWO
PART THREE
THE CORRIDOR
PEAS, BEANS AND STORMS
THE PRINCESS OF TEARS
TAKING UP POSITIONS
THE SQUARE, THE TRIANGLE, AND PARALLEL LINES
THE 3 P.M. SWAP MEET
CAUGHT BETWEEN
CATS ON A HOT TIN ROOF
INERTIA, AND OUT OF IT
IMAGINE THIS
THE ASTRONAUT HOUR
WHILE GIBBY SHINES, THE WORLD WATCHES
OUR FATHER IN MAIDA VALE
THE GREAT PRETENDER
MAKES THE WORLD GO ROUND
TRUTHS ON BANKS
HOW TO HELP
PREPARING FOR WHAT
INFLAMMATORY
COLD FLOORS, STRANGE BEDS
AWAY FROM THE EDGE
THE FINAL BREAKFAST
PROMETHEUS AGAINST STONE; OR ROCK PAPER SCISSORS
MESSENGERS
THE KEEPERS
FOLLOW PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE
For Margie
for always being there
PART ONE
* * *
THE BEGINNING AND THE END OF IT ALL
IN THE MINUTES BEFORE Bright O’Connor tumbled nineteen floors to his death, he thought about everyone he’d ever known. Even those he wished he’d had nothing to do with flickered there in the high windy darkness, lit by a row of harsh spotlights intended to illuminate only the image on the side of the building. Get out of my floodlighting! hissed the billboard girl with the three-foot-high pout —
and Bright might well have said the same words, had he not been preoccupied with staring down his past. Bouncers he’d insulted, fans he’d endured, girls he’d tried to escape from: even Vincent Delatour had showed up to farewell him, which was astonishing considering that the last time he and Bright had met they’d punched each other until the blood streamed.
For a short while there was quite a horde teetering on the gritty, blowing parapet. Not a bad crowd! The billboard girl, her semi-nude body stretching over multiple storeys, raised a sexy eyebrow that was as large as a bridge. Yes! Bright, too, was surprised. He wasn’t a People Person; this had been ascertained by the time he was twelve, written indelibly on his school report and subsequently his character. But his green eyes had a certain magnetism and his flaming hair was frequently mistaken for a beacon in what is — let’s face it — this fairly rough sea we call life. And once people had made their way towards Bright and reached him, they often found it hard to let go.
‘Unique.’ This was another term often applied to Bright. ‘An individual.’ ‘One of a kind.’ He objected loudly whenever he overheard this crap, but only on the grounds that everyone is singular, however much we might prefer not to be. Admittedly, there was an element of the gritted teeth about these descriptions of him. When other people said, ‘They broke the mould when they made Bright O’Connor’, the comment was only half-admiring. What it also meant was that they had no idea how to place him within their own familiar boundaries, which is naturally upsetting for anyone.
It’s true he’s a solitary; that’s one reason he’s avoided living in London and is hiding here in this non-descript city, which is constantly, vehemently, hopefully/hopelessly being touted as the next new ‘Capital of the North!’ (the exclamation mark is always included). He may be a loner but, as many people have learnt, he’s also very special. So if you care to look at the final moments of a special and unforgettable boy, who’s about to soar feet-first, then head-first, then arse-first feet-first head-first (arms spinning in a Catherine wheel of nothingness) —
past windows light and dark, past humming photocopiers and half-empty coffee cups and crooked desks and office chairs reeling on carpet, all the way down to the final floor, and the street-level doorways, and then the hard ground rising to meet him and finally the thudding splintering SMASH —
Well, if you can bear to glance this way before the End begins, you’ll see that all the people who have brushed against Bright’s life for a month, a year or even a minute, have gathered to nod to his death. They may look like nothing but moths, flickering in the glare of extinction, but Bright could tell you (with a laugh or a roll of the eyes) exactly who it is you’re seeing:
— that’s Mary-Jane Vesey, from the days when Bright was captivated by art history and all who studied it, particularly those with rounded breasts and double-barrelled first names
— that’s Teddy McPhee, aka the Vulture: the first to pick Bright out of a slush pile on an agency floor and let him shine
— and that’s Dr McLaverty, better known as Dr Lavatory through no fault of his own but simply because once he witnessed a tear fall from Bright’s gooseberry eyes
— and there’s the old librarian from Maida Vale who used to recommend World War Two histories as good bedtime reading, as well as whispering inappropriate comments about —
But the onlookers are too numerous to name, particularly as many of them have played spectacularly insignificant parts in Bright’s two-decade life. Besides, already they’re passing along the ledge at a pretty fast clip, even Bright’s cousin Edgar who usually walks infuriatingly slowly but particularly when a) rain is pouring down one’s neck, b) sleet is flying up one’s nose, c) one’s bladder is so full that it’s become a hot bursting pain.
‘You were a pain,’ says Bright, almost affectionately, for some reason speaking in the past tense as if Edgar is the one about to be dead. How strange! Even tardy Edgar, normally so slow that you might expect a gleaming snail-trail to appear behind him, is now dancing frenetically in front of Bright’s eyes.
He can’t help himself. He looks for his parents. Typically, they’re way out near the periphery, almost beyond the circle o
f light, with a whole lot of gusty air between the two of them. They’re not even looking at him. His father’s profile is turned stubbornly in the direction of Africa, while his mother’s bird-mouth is pouring forth a litany of justifications, mercifully drowned out by the squeal of tyres far below. ‘Bye, then!’ says Bright in a forced, casual voice.
It’s almost beautiful: hundreds, perhaps thousands, moving like flames in the night wind. A quick parade in front of Bright and the ninety-foot two-dimensional girl dressed as a provocative lingerie bunny, before they disappear fast into thin air, not wanting to see a human body (particularly one they’re acquainted with) exploding into bone and flesh and matter. (Now Bright hears the voice of Aunt Eugenie, otherwise known as Aunt Euphemism.) But can you blame them? If you’re at all squeamish, this might be a good time to look away.
‘Is it just me, or is it cold?’ There’s a quaver in Bright’s voice and there’s no one left to answer him.
When does the soul leave the body? This is a never-ending issue for philosophers, who are often fonder of posing questions than providing a limiting answer. But honestly —? It seems unlikely that the soul would wait until the moment after impact, having to clamber from the wreckage, pick its way out of split skin and pieces of bone whacked apart so hard that they could cause nasty cuts.
Bright’s eyes are smarting. He takes a deep breath. I could tell the philosophers a thing or two. For instance, that in the second before death one’s sense of smell becomes so strong it’s almost overwhelming. Even nineteen floors up, he can smell the tobacco-scent of leaves crumbling on branches, and the sweetness of oil lying like dark coins under the lorries parked in the loading bay. There are separate layers to the wind: exhaust fumes and pure air, yesterday and tomorrow, anticipation and a sharp regret for a lost summer. And there’s his own sweat, and the pigeon shit on the ledge beside him, and the dank moss crawling under the ledge (suddenly he’s choking).
The departure of the soul might be an individual matter, but Bright feels it occur just as he positions his toes over the edge, teetering like a ski jumper whose tracks will lead straight out into the dark reaching air. At this moment he feels newly and utterly empty.
Nineteen floors up — this had been a mistake. He’d tried to exit the stairs on the twentieth floor; he’d decided this some time ago, perhaps because the same number of years is folded up behind him. But the twentieth-storey door was jammed shut: dangerous when you think about the fire risk in cheaply constructed buildings like this. Although Bright has actually chosen to die here, there are plenty of people who wouldn’t: who’d rather choose to burn up any place other than between these shoddy walls with an unprepossessing cityscape leaping on the other side of the glass.
As the twentieth floor wasn’t possible, Bright had trudged back down the stairs to the echoing landing between floors, and then one more flight to the door marked ‘19’. It was okay going lower than planned. There should be a humility to death, he thought, trailing his hand over the window ledge, ruffling up dust and the veined wings of flies.
He’s wearing black jeans, a thin black pullover. Nothing ostentatious, no hoods or belts to catch or be caught at. His fall is to be clean and unencumbered, the way he’s tried to live. The clarity of a deep-sea diver, the inevitability of the skydiver. These are the words he’s heard all day, as he’s walked around the city looking with heightened interest at squares and parks he’ll never see again.
The problem is, he’s become muddied by the moth parade. He came here expecting to see no one but the bunny girl, whose monstrously slender thighs are pixellated when viewed at close quarters. Instead, he’s seen everybody.
One of his bootlaces has come untied. Is this right at such a time? There are plenty of things he’s been meaning to find out before this moment — definitions never verified, family secrets never revealed — but suddenly it’s his bootlace that’s troubling him the most. Should he retie it? If he doesn’t, will his boot fly off in mid-air? (He’s doing what his grandmother called dithering, something he’s always despised about himself.)
Before he can weigh up the importance or otherwise of dying with a pair of double-knotted boots on his feet, it happens. He feels a pair of hands in the small of his back, pushing him outwards, towards oblivion. ‘I’m not —’ he cries. ‘No, I’m not —’
But in the end he goes. Somehow jumping seems easier than stepping back.
ACROSS TOWN
ACROSS TOWN SOMEONE ELSE is descending at rapid speed — plunging, almost plummeting, towards the ground. Reeling on her sparkly heels, reaching out a quick hand to steady herself against the padded walls. The lights above the door are a golden blur, her blonde hair billows around her slightly flushed face. Is it normal for a lift to move this fast? Perhaps it’s picking up on her urgency? For she has an extreme desire to escape, and a pressing need to pee.
Cables roar over the pulleys, falling in unseen loops above her head. The lift slips through the dark fingers of the block of flats towards a landing pad of fake marble. Hurry, hurry! The whole world wants to help Lace — even inanimate objects. It’s the way she is.
She flies out of the half-open lift, skids across the foyer, slams her fist on the red exit button by the main door — and is ejected into the night. The cold air catches imploringly at her throat. Please stay! And the wind whispers, It’s lonely out here, Ice Queen. ‘I’m afraid I can’t stop,’ cries Lace. Her over-the-shoulder apology leaves a faint smudge on the frosted ground.
‘Hey lady, what’s the hurry?’ A tramp rises from a bench in a cloud of whisky fumes and admiration. ‘Late for a wedding?’ The hem of Lace’s white dress brushes his knee like a blessing. Should he cross himself —? But the bottle in his hand distracts him from reverence, even in the wake of extreme beauty.
A policeman is about to arrest the tramp (for consumption of alcohol in a public place, plus loitering) but he changes his mind on seeing the sprinting girl. He stops thinking about handcuffs and starts thinking about other possibilities. This is the way his thoughts progress:
deadbeats night-beats knife-edge heartbeat heart!
‘Miss?’ he calls loudly, with something like desire in his voice. ‘You dropped something.’
But Lace is burning on across the square, comet-like, unstoppable. ‘You — can — keeeeep — iiiit!’ Her words trail out behind her, hanging for several seconds in the air.
‘Bloody hell — I mean, Burger King!’ He’s training himself out of swearing by substituting names from fast-food chains, though ironically these sound more obscene than any oath: ‘Sweet mother-Dunkin’ Donuts, that’s finger-lickin’ good!’ In the past hour the policeman has busted two coke dealers, tackled six punks at a drinking fountain, and got through an increasingly querulous phone conversation with his wife; but the sight of the blonde girl in the white dress and black coat, Trebor mints falling like stardust from the holes in her pockets, is the only thing that has made him weak at the knees.
‘Have a seat,’ says the tramp sympathetically. The policeman sighs, sits, holds an extra-strong mint in his hand while accepting a nip of the hard stuff. Lace flies on into the future; the men are left behind, felled by life and a real but momentary love.
On a usual day Lace cares a great deal for the homeless, and little for the law, but in this ice-sharp moment her concern is solely for herself. Her open coat swings like a pendulum around her long slim legs: tick tock, tick tock. Glittering office buildings range about the square; it’s like being in a stadium strewn with frozen dog turds and printouts from cash machines. ‘How fast can you run?’ She pants out the question taken from her favourite film, and answers it too. ‘As fast as a leopard! As fast as a —’
With that, she’s in the train station and it’s all garish light, squeaking floors and empty escalators whistling down to deserted platforms. Her leopard-legs hurl her down a flight of stairs and along unpeopled corridors into the bowels of the building. She bounds, leaps — and crashes into a turnstile, blocked by
bristling brooms and mops.
‘Noooo!’ she cries. And then ‘Hellooooo?’ — hoping that tonight it’ll be the elderly male assistant with the soft bread-roll stomach rather than the monosyllabic woman with the mole on her neck. ‘Is anyone there?’ She throws her voice as far as she can, hurling it across the turnstile so it rolls all the way along the freshly mopped corridor to the cleaners’ door. ‘Is — anyone — there?’
The silence grows until it feels as if the roof will blow right off the station. ‘For Christ’s sake,’ shouts Lace, ‘I know you’re in there. Come out, come out, whoever you are.’
The monosyllabic mole-woman emerges, one reluctant inch at a time. Foot, knee, elbow, and, finally, the whole of her. She glances sideways along the corridor, as if turning front-on will be taken as an invitation. ‘Closed,’ she says loudly from the corner of her mouth.
‘Shit.’ Lace speaks under her breath. More audibly she says, ‘If you let me in I’ll give you a really big tip.’
‘Closed,’ repeats the woman, sounding less certain.
There’s hope. Lace brushes back her hair. ‘I’ll give you —’ She pulls off her shoe and peers inside (she carries most things in her pockets or her shoes). ‘I’ll give you all the money I have!’
‘No,’ says the mole-woman.
‘Holy crap.’ Lace begins to dance on the spot.
‘Crap?’ The woman turns and looks directly, avidly, at Lace’s slim white-stockinged legs. ‘Crap?’ It’s unlikely that she’ll be swayed by faecal misfortune — but at least it would liven up her night.
‘Not crap in my pants,’ shouts Lace. ‘It’s a saying, you dunderhead! Like Sweet Jesus or Bloody Norah or Up Your Arse, you Cunty Custodian of Public Amenities, you!’
‘Cunty?’ The woman takes a step towards her, pulling on a menacing pair of rubber gloves.
But already Lace is gone, whirling up the stairs like a tornado. Clearly her magic is wearing off — although the monosyllabic toilet attendant has always proved resistant to her spellbinding qualities, and part of her is glad about this. It’s hard work being magnetic, high time to be normal. But as she sprints out of the deserted station she’s thinking more about the body than the mind. By now she’s obsessed (this is not too strong a word) with finding somewhere to pee.
Suicide Club, The Page 1
