Lace scans the letter. ‘You got the last place?’ She feels retrospectively alarmed at how close she came to going there alone. ‘I didn’t even know places were limited.’ She’s made little effort to research where she’s going, caring only about getting away from where she is now. Chummie has signed, sealed and stamped her departure — something for which she feels so grateful that she almost forgives him for never buying toilet paper.
‘Yes, and it was pretty late in the day to register. Also, during the phone call, I happened to mention that I knew you — which it turns out wasn’t the best idea.’
‘Do we have to pretend not to be friends?’ Lace becomes even more alarmed; she isn’t sure she has the energy to keep up any charades.
‘No, it’s fine now. They were just concerned in case we were a couple —’
But Myrtle is beside their table, with strudel, scones and a steaming mountain of eggs. ‘You two are a couple at last? That’s wonderful!’
‘No! No, we’re not!’ Gibby looks acutely uncomfortable and a tide of red rises up his neck.
‘You’re not? What a pity.’ Myrtle’s newly hitched-up stockings slump in disappointment. ‘You could have been our new Valentine’s couple. Our last poster children passed away at Christmas. Seventy-five and seventy-eight, they were.’
Gibby presses his flaring cheeks against his water glass and waits for her to leave, wending her way back to the kitchen through Zimmer frames and walking sticks. ‘Obviously,’ he mutters to Lace, ‘they don’t encourage couples where we’re going. It interferes with the group dynamics. Then, once I’d set them straight, they asked if I was coming only as moral support for you.’
‘But you told them your own story, right?’ The moral-support idea has also occurred to Lace as she lies on her sleepless sofa. The fear of being a burden — not just to Gibby but to anyone at all — feels like a crushing weight on her chest.
‘Of course. After that they welcomed me with open arms, and then they sent me written confirmation, which unfortunately was glimpsed by my mother, who now suspects we’re in for more than relaxation massages.’ Now that Myrtle is out of sight, Gibby can safely grind copious amounts of pepper over his pale insipid eggs.
‘Couldn’t you just tell her? It might be easier in the long run.’
‘Maintaining the illusion of normality is a full-time occupation in our house.’ Gibby sneezes. ‘God knows what she’d do if I told her. Probably take to the bottle.’
Lace laughs, although she feels like crying. She crams her mouth with scone.
‘But do you think she’ll be safe when I’m gone?’ asks Gibby abruptly. ‘I mean, my father can’t be trusted with anyone’s security unless it involves motion-detectors and floodlights.’
Lace drives her fork into the strudel. Considering what she already knows about life, she can’t say Don’t worry! Everything will be fine! Eventually, pouring cream over the strudel mess, she simply says, ‘You can’t stay at home forever. You’re not the parent.’
‘Of course not, I know that.’ Gibby ploughs on through his eggs. ‘They’re the parents. I’m the kid. End of story.’
It isn’t, of course, and they both know it. Age has little to do with experience. The room is full of quiet chitchat, the clicking of teeth, and murmured gossip softened by the passing of decades. An old woman in a red wool hat is feeding sausage roll to a cat sitting on a chair beside her.
‘Remind me again why we come here?’ Gibby picks a splinter of eggshell out of his mouth. ‘Remind me again?’
‘I like the strudel,’ says Lace. The truth is, in spite of her unblemished skin and starry eyes, she’s old. From the age of eight, she’s felt as old as the hills, and it isn’t at all comfortable. Here, surrounded by people three or four times her age, she feels almost ordinary.
OUT
HE’S DRESSED CAREFULLY FOR the journey, in mustard velvet trousers and a navy-blue jacket with gold trim.
‘Shipshape!’ This is what he’ll say to his father in fifteen minutes time when the car slides up to the curb. ‘You’re probably glad you’ve only got one son to sartorially embarrass you.’ Then he’ll laugh, to emphasise that this is a friendly joke rather than a defensive one, and he’ll offer the Reverend a Smint, shaken from one of five new packs bought for the ride.
It’s a relief that the day’s arrived — or, to be more precise, that he’s made it to today. He stands on the steps, shoulders back, and takes deep breaths, filling himself with relief, anticipation and unexpected gratitude. ‘By the way,’ he’ll say, after they’ve been driving for a while, and the tyres are warm, and the too-clean air in the car has been roughened by conversation, ‘I want to thank you.’
‘For what?’ His father looks a little startled, thumbs moving involuntarily on the steering wheel. It’s been a long time since his son has had reason to thank him. At least this is how it appears from Bright’s sharp green perspective, and it’s quite possible that his father agrees, even if he won’t admit it.
‘Thanks for finding me gainful employment.’ But this may sound flippant to the Reverend’s super-serious ears. ‘Thanks for getting me out.’ No, this isn’t an optimal reply either; it has a ring of ’Nam to it, a suggestion of choppers, airlifts and muddy trenches. It’s true that, before the ledge and ever since, Bright has felt as if he’s in great danger — as if he’s bleeding internally, though that sounds melodramatic. Today, for the first time, the painful leaking feeling has eased.
But where’s the car? Already it’s 11.02, and both Tom and the night guard have passed on messages from Bright’s father to be ready at 11 a.m. with his bags packed. The Reverend’s an on-the-dot man, a sharp-o’clocker — not for him the sliding quarter, the blancmange minutes tolerated by other people. Bright glances nervously over his shoulder at the building, but all venetian blinds remain closed, no distorted lines, no peering faces or muzzles of rifles.
Whissssshhh! The wind rushes up, rakes its fingers through his hair. ‘My cap!’ exclaims Bright. He only just stops himself from turning and running. It’s the first time he’s been outside with his head and eyes exposed for many days. He throws his arm over his face — defence or fear? — and at the same moment a black BMW slides up beside him.
‘Mr O’Connor?’ The voice rolls over the shiny roof in his direction.
Bright lowers his arm to see an unfamiliar face: round cheeks under a peaked blue cap. ‘Where is he?’ He peers inside the car, first at the front seats and then the back ones. In the tinted windows, nothing but the reflection of his own double row of ridiculous brass buttons, superimposed on a fine leather emptiness. ‘Where’s my father?’
‘He had to go away.’ The man sounds awkward. ‘Didn’t he tell you?’
‘No.’ Bright is still bending and peering, can’t bear to give in and look up.
‘My name’s Lewis. I’ll be driving you to the Continent. Is it just the one bag?’
Bright clutches at his side. The pain has returned suddenly, and it’s so intense that he lurches on the pavement. Smints spray from his pockets.
‘You all right?’ Lewis looks professionally concerned. ‘We should make a start. We don’t want to set off late.’
‘No. Not all right.’ He’s breathless, takes a stumbling step back towards his home — but it’s already disconnected from him. Betrayal in front of him, and alienation behind: Where to now? Even the sky has become a large leaden plate clamped over the city.
Lewis has already started the engine. ‘Please, sir.’ He holds the back door open. If he weren’t employed by Bright’s father, he’d probably say Just get in or Hurry up.
The wound inside Bright tears open with such ferocity that he’s flooded with rage; it pumps into his fingers and swells his feet. Quite involuntarily, he raises his arms to the sky like a rock star farewelling his fans. ‘Goodbye, you fuckers,’ he shouts savagely, turning in a circle, saluting the shuttered windows. ‘Goodbye, my friends!’ But there’s no one there to watch him leave. Eduardo’s
in Monte Carlo, Mrs Robinson in a spa or someone else’s bed, and all his other neighbours are stacked inside like layers of a rich decaying cake: deaf or half-blind, drowning their sorrows or counting their money, dying or half-dead.
Only Bright is consumed by the immediate present. Abandoned again. How could he have let this happen? He bellows his farewells with the anger of someone wrongfully accused, who’s about to be led to the gallows.
‘Sir? Sir?’ The voice comes only dimly through the burning, which seems as if it will never end. But finally it loosens its grip, and Bright falls sideways through the back door onto the leather seat, and lies still.
Lewis turns off the engine and speaks into a dull, clear silence. ‘Are you all right?’ This time he sounds as if he really means it.
It’s so quiet that Bright can hear the breeze-wafted leaves against the tyres, and the tick of the cooling engine. Not all right. Not at all all right. His throat is completely blocked and it’s impossible to breathe.
‘Your father had to go to Florida at the last minute.’ Lewis sounds apologetic. ‘He said that you knew.’
Summoning all his energy Bright manages to close the door. He’s sealed in: no going back.
‘Can we leave now?’ Lewis has lost all his initial certainty, what with the raging, the storming, and the sudden collapse. ‘Shall I start the car?’
Half sitting, half lying, Bright can’t speak. Instead he waves his hand in a way that, in less ragged circumstances, might be interpreted as languid or even lordly. The car starts more quietly than he expects. With his head lolling sideways, he watches his old life slide away behind him.
THE EMPTY CITY
THE MEN ARRIVE AS soon as it’s light. It’s their first job; they have a long line-up ahead. They’ve worked as a team for eight years, so they no longer have to speak. Ropes, pulleys, body harnesses, hard hats. One of the men has a headache: a hangover from a wedding party the night before. He’ll be the liability today.
‘A shame to pull her down.’ It’s the first line spoken by any of them since they left the depot. Look at her! Gleaming thighs, curving buttocks, swelling breasts and shining lips. By tomorrow her place will be filled by a shampoo bottle taller than a ship’s mast, with tsunami-size blue waves curling from its open mouth.
It doesn’t take long: a swift ride in an ear-ringing lift, a few steps up to an open roof, then into the ragged dawn light. ‘Someone jumped from here a while back. Hear about that?’ The hangover man sounds black at heart, alcohol riding uneasily in his blood and his gut.
The one man left on the ground is nothing but an ant-figure, gripping the stabilising rope in unseen hands, securing it to the lorry. ‘Ready!’ This is what they assume he’s shouting as he raises both arms.
Zing! The first man takes the leap out into thin air, is caught by the ropes, jerks sharply upwards and comes to rest with his feet braced against the bunny girl’s left shoulder. Pow! The second man follows suit, leaping, catching, jerking, bouncing up against a soft pink throat.
Here goes nothing. It’s the turn of the hangdog man. He jumps with a prayer and a curse, whispering into the wind. For a moment, his eyes are closed.
They abseil with the grace and strength of mountaineers, climbing, hauling, releasing and half-floating against printed flesh. Gradually, one by one, the sustaining hooks fall away, and the bunny girl crumples inwards as the tension is lost.
Far below the passers-by stop, hold their breath, fearing and hoping for disaster.
The vast girl rolls downward in a single movement: head disappearing into pelvis, then knees, then toes. For many months she has held the city in thrall: male drivers have grazed safety barriers, mesmerised by the alluring plunge of her breasts. Now she’s nothing but an expensive roll of canvas, lowered from above, winched in from below.
Her time is over. Soon she’ll be bundled unceremoniously onto a lorry and laid to rest in a dark storage container out the back of an airport. Ah, Christ. The hangover man is retching into a drain, while his team mates heft gear into boxes. Autumn clutches at the sides of the buildings, and the wind rises. Already the city is ringing with emptiness. The bunny girl is disappearing, Gibby and Lace are packing their bags, and Bright — well, Bright has already been taken away. Leaves fly. Everything is falling.
PART TWO
* * *
THE JOURNEY TO WHERE
FRANCE IS WET AND grey. The roads are clogged with lumbering lorries. Mutilated plastic bags hang from the trees.
He’s moved to the front seat. Clearly his father intended him to sit in the back. Intended him to feel special, without ensuring it. Hoped he would feel ‘treated well’, while treating him impersonally. The Reverend’s absence is everywhere: in the vast spaces between towns, the blinking gaps between road markers, and the tiny swallowing voids between changes of gear. But it’s nothing new. In fact the familiarity of it restores strength to Bright. Goddam you to hell, he says in his head, conversationally. Africa, Florida — it’s all the same to me!
Since moving seats twenty minutes into French territory, he’s been sitting bolt upright: very uncomfortable, but it helps the return to his old barbed self. ‘Have you ever noticed,’ (he swivels in his seatbelt so he’s staring straight at Lewis) ‘that unintelligent women’s names often end in i?’
Lewis’ profile remains Mount-Rushmore immovable. He keeps his eyes fixed on the tail lights in front of them, curving in red crescents like devil’s horns.
‘I suppose you’re too tactful to agree,’ comments Bright. ‘Or too loyal. But I’m not asking you to pass judgment on my stepmother, Lewis. Let’s put it another way. You look like a man of the world. How many women have you known with diminutive names and IQs to match? Surely you’ve slept with a ditzy Mitzi? A silly Lilli, a dim-witted Danni or a simple Cindi?’
Lewis doesn’t flinch. After all, he’s trained to stay calm on slippery surfaces, and to manoeuvre through potentially dangerous obstacles. ‘I’m not sure we know each other well enough for this conversation, sir,’ he says, with a sharp flick of his headlights. Is the reproof aimed at the black Mini Cooper that has switched lanes unannounced, or at his inappropriate passenger?
Bright sighs. ‘You’re missing the point. You seem like a sensible man, Lewis. What’s the name of the woman you married?’
‘My wife? Joanna.’ At this revelation, Lewis shows himself capable of embarrassment; he tugs his ear, scratches his neck and changes gear unnecessarily.
‘There you are. And I’m sure she’s no pea-brain.’ Bright continues to scrutinise the side of Lewis’ face. ‘Whereas my father — well, the Reverend has gone to Florida, along with my stepmother, otherwise known as Mimi. Is Florida the sort of place one would go on important church business? Or is it —’ He pauses, in the musing manner of a chat-show host. ‘Or is it, in fact, a place where a young woman named Mimi might go to investigate contacts for importing expensive European beachwear?’
‘I really couldn’t say.’ Lewis purses his mouth.
‘I’m sure we’ve both seen Merchant Ivory films featuring loyal butlers,’ says Bright sharply. ‘In which case we’re both aware that the line “I really couldn’t say” is using courtesy to avoid truthful answers.’
‘Respectfully,’ says Lewis, not sounding at all respectful, ‘I need to concentrate. The conditions are far from good.’
‘You can say that again. I’m exhausted by the whole bloody stand-off already.’ Bright’s eyes sting at the thought of unsatisfactory conversation all the way. ‘And miles to go before I sleep,’ he mutters to the windowpane.
‘But I have promises to keep,’ retorts Lewis tartly.
‘You know Robert Frost? Where on earth did my father find you?’ For a moment Bright feels almost impressed by the Reverend’s hiring skills.
‘Used to be a limo driver. Waiting was deadly. Read everything I could lay my hands on. Photographic memory.’ Lewis snaps his mouth shut.
‘I see you’re fond of abbreviation when it’s co
mes to speech,’ observes Bright, ‘even if you won’t comment on the same when it concerns women’s names.’ He turns his attention to the drab beige fields pouring past his window. The windscreen wipers squeak in a resentful way.
‘If only you’d answered your phone,’ says Lewis at last. Is he implying that Bright shouldn’t shoot the messenger?
‘You mean so I could hear my father make a feeble excuse in person?’
‘He left you a number of messages,’ points out Lewis.
‘On a phone I never once answered,’ counters Bright. ‘Do you think my father’s a particularly stupid man?’
‘I really couldn’t —’ Lewis checks himself. ‘I mean, no.’
‘Of course he isn’t.’ Bright snaps his seatbelt in a confrontational way. ‘He’s very intelligent, in his own reptilian way. He continued to leave messages on my phone because that would put him in the right. And being right — or righteous — was of far greater importance to him than the ostensible goal of reaching me.’
‘Does he know where you live?’ Lewis sounds hopeful: perhaps Bright has kept his address a secret, meaning that it was impossible for the Reverend to deliver a message in person.
‘Oh yes, he knew and loved where I lived. You’ve seen my neighbourhood! My street was right up his street, so to speak.’ Bright gives a derisive laugh.
‘Well, what about your phone?’ Lewis returns to the subject like a dog hunting for a bone. ‘Have you lost it?’
‘It’s right here!’ Bright brandishes it like a weapon. ‘I’ll let you in on a secret. I have a phone phobia. Strange, but not that strange, according to the people who know about such things. Finally, when I forced myself to turn it on, I found that my account was suspended. Bills, you see. I haven’t paid them.’
‘But aren’t you famous? Don’t you get royalties or whatever?’
With relief, Bright spies the loop of golden arches in the middle of the grey-green fields. ‘I’d make as much money flipping burgers. Speaking of which, shall we stop for one?’
Suicide Club, The Page 15
