‘That’s completely different.’ Gibby speaks severely. ‘You met me in a normal way, in a park. Not in a car park, crashing unconscious onto tomorrow’s news.’
‘Just get it over with.’ She puts a coin in the slot, watches coloured balls clattering out of the table’s dark belly. ‘Like going to the dentist.’
Gibby has picked the longest cue. It towers above him like a warning sign: Unstable Machinery! Keep Clear! ‘It’s more complicated than you think,’ he mutters. ‘Just before he was carted off in the ambulance, he asked me not to tell anybody.’
‘Tell anybody what?’ Lace is gathering the balls together. Clacking, jostling, they remind her of the way everyone crowded around Geoffrey yesterday, jockeying for position.
Gibby glances over his shoulder as if expecting police to burst out of the wood-panelled walls. ‘He said… he was pushed.’
‘Pushed?’ Lace stares, drops the balls. ‘He was pushed off the building? Jesus Christ. Why didn’t you say something earlier?’
‘Because he asked me not to!’ Gibby looks defiant. ‘Anyway, I don’t know if I believe him — like, suddenly someone appeared behind him? He was already nineteen floors up on a ledge. What do you think he was intending to do, play Hacky Sack?’
Lace falls silent. She starts chalking her cue with a vast squeaking, and the dust rises around her. Under the noise, inside the dust cloud, is Bright’s voice reading aloud to her even though he’s agreed not to, as if the words are too much to hold in one human head. I am of course alone. She wants to go to him, very badly. To hold his attention, to hold his arm — to hold him. She stares at her blue chalky hands, eyes smarting, while Bright’s voice reads on. Something about needing company, seizing it, then seeing it scattered to the winds…
She feels so angry that she wants to smash the cue against the edge of the table, plough up the green felt: anything to catapult Gibby into action. ‘So what are you going to do when we’re in group sessions with him?’
‘D’you think he’ll talk about it?’ Gibby grips his overly long cue with both hands.
‘What else do you think he’s come here for? To discuss the plot of his next novel?’
‘All right. I’ll simply go up to him at dinner tonight and say, “Hi, remember me? My newspaper cart broke your toe and saved your life.” Yes, that’ll go down a treat.’ Now Gibby also sounds angry. He slams down the cue ball and takes up what is, for him, a rather aggressive position: elbow pulled back, cue sliding threateningly on his splayed fingers.
Lace sighs. ‘I’m sorry. You’ll find a way.’ The tiredness is back, sitting on her shoulders, pressing her down. It’s hard being rescued; it’s hard being a rescuer. Both are true. She sinks onto a chair and waits for Gibby’s first shot, wishing she were somewhere else.
‘I’m sorry, too.’ Gibby’s put down his cue and is standing in front of her. ‘I’m not good at dealing with emotions.’ He bends and gives her an awkward hug, crushing her ear against his chest.
This is better, and worse. She sits there listening to the thump of her best friend’s heart, while wishing her head was resting on someone else’s chest. How has it happened so fast? Something to do with the quiet fields, the sound of Bright’s voice, the blurred sun — and for the first time feeling herself at the centre without any pressure at all.
‘You’re doing fine.’ She takes Gibby’s hand, but her mind reaches through the wall, across a short expanse of tufted grass, to where he stands. Not so far away, with his flaming hair, his searching eyes, his outer restlessness and his inner steadiness. At any minute she could walk out and find him. The thought both frightens and reassures her.
‘Shall we play?’ She stands up, keeping her back to the window. But her voice is chalky with longing.
CATS ON A HOT TIN ROOF
NOW THAT GIBBY HAS pyjamas (mid-blue cotton, with a thin white stripe) he feels more like himself. He has also established some routines:
— getting up as soon as the first orange streaks appear in the sky to ensure he has the communal bathroom to himself
— collecting the newspapers from inside the gate and delivering them to the door of Admin’s office
— checking the online weather report against the one on the radio
— making sure he spends at least fifteen minutes a day sketching in his notebook.
‘Why do you bring in the newspapers when you’re not paid to?’ This is Mirabelle, the more inquisitive of the Twins. ‘Why do you keep such a close eye on the weather? Why are your shoes always so white? And why —’
‘Why, why, why… well, why not?’ replies Gibby teasingly, making Mirabelle giggle and flush, and visibly reconsider her allegiance to Bright.
But her questions are valid enough, and the answer is simple. A few self-imposed rules keep chaos at bay. They remind Gibby of who he used to be, and who he wanted to be, before arriving in this odd place surrounded by fields and mountains, with a small town half a mile away. His ideal day is orderly, his perfect evening quiet: no roaring crowds (real or televised), no clashing glasses or slamming doors.
Smoothing his mind. This is how he considers the task that lies ahead, his reason for coming here — although Mr Lux would say he’s ‘sorting himself out’. Gibby has lived with the waves inside his head for years; when he thinks of Geoffrey he sees him sitting in a boat, raising one long-fingered hand, taming the swells until the sea lies flat and obedient forever.
Pyjamas, papers, clean shoes: carefully calculated estimations of temperature and air pressure. They’re reassuring, but they can’t stop the future. And already the next ordeal has arrived. It’s part of the wave-taming process, of course, but nonetheless Gibby swallows loudly as he follows Lace into the room.
The mid-morning sun is harsh, highlighting cracks in plastic seats and dents in the floor. Gibby shuffles his chair backwards, out of the circle. ‘The light’s in my eyes,’ he explains. But his excuse boomerangs in an unconvincing way off the walls.
‘All ready? All set?’ Geoffrey’s there already, wrapped in a cape, wrapped in shadows. His low chair (padded rather than plastic) is pulled even further away from the circle than Gibby’s, almost scrunched into a wood-panelled corner.
Ready, set — go! Gibby twines his legs around his chair to stop himself bolting. ‘Lace…’ He tries to keep his voice level. ‘Do you want a glass of water? I could go and get some.’
But even as he speaks, the rest of the group arrives. There’s Savage, with his blunt woodcut nose, and behind him is Raven, her appropriately black hair swinging, making it impossible to see both her eyes at once. Then comes the ghostly Swedish artist whose eyes are always red as if he’s spent too long around turpentine and paint — and Mirabelle and Rosalind, with identically anxious expressions and identical pink lip gloss.
‘I’ve already got some water, thanks.’ Lace offers her bottle to Gibby, but she’s not looking at him. She’s gazing past the Swede and the Twins towards the gaping doorway.
‘Open the top window, would you, Gibby?’ Geoffrey, who, despite having publicised the fact that he detests fresh air, suddenly seems in need of some. Or is it a ploy? When Gibby returns to his seat, having left it for about fifteen seconds, he finds it’s been moved back into the circle. He darts a sharp look at Geoffrey and receives a beatific smile in return.
‘Well, now, let’s begin.’ So it’s a fact! Geoffrey has magician-like qualities. Although he’s sunk in his chair in his customary slouch, his voice has the resonance of a Shakespearean actor and it seems to come from all corners of the room.
‘We can’t begin, we’re not all here!’ Although Rosalind’s consternation is huge, her voice sounds tiny. ‘We’ve looked everywhere for him,’ explains Mirabelle. ‘He must have slipped away.’ The two of them sit like small coiffed lions on gateposts, guarding the empty chair between them.
‘This isn’t a classroom,’ pronounces Geoffrey in his impressive surround-sound voice. ‘I am not a headmaster. You are not pupils. Punctuality
is not a requirement but simply a matter of courtesy.’
The Twins’ pearly throats quiver. ‘Perhaps he’s had another accident?’ They swivel their heads in unison towards the open door.
‘You know about that?’ The words burst out, in spite of Gibby’s certainty that he’ll be rendered speechless in any group session.
Rosalind nods, her eyes still fixed on the doorway. ‘He fell from a window ledge. At a party.’ Her voice trails over her pink knitted shoulder.
‘Wa-as-ted?’ Savage’s voice is so slow and lugubrious that it splits the word in three; nonetheless, there’s a flicker of interest in the last raised syllable.
‘To be precise,’ corrects Mirabelle, ‘he was pushed off a window ledge at a children’s birthday party. He’d been hired as a professional storyteller. He landed on a birdbath. It broke his fall and broke his toe.’
‘Well, they got the storyteller part right!’ Outraged, Gibby turns to Lace. But, like the Twins, she’s staring through the door into the corridor — and, in a matter of seconds, everyone else is doing the same. Gibby is probably the only person in the room hoping for Bright’s non-appearance, and the realisation fills him with despair.
‘Excuse me.’ Geoffrey’s interruption is polite but commanding. He’s repositioned himself, standing in the centre of the circle like a ringmaster. ‘This session has now begun. And the goal of this session is to focus on why you yourselves are here, rather than speculate on why someone else is not.’
‘No more speculation necessary! Here I am!’ He’s framed in the doorway, the Missing Person, the Teller of Stories, the Breaker of Toes and Hearts. ‘Oh!’ The Twins clasp their hands in matching joy, while Savage rubs his scarred head vigorously and Raven pushes back her curtain of hair: All the better to see you with, my dear! ‘That’s a relief,’ Lace whispers to Gibby, ‘though I guess there was no real need to worry.’
Gibby nods, although his agreement is with the second half of her statement only. Certainly, there’s no need for Lace to worry about a maverick who’s made the room wait for six and a half minutes in collective anxiety over his safety and the state of his metatarsals. No need to worry about a tricky writer who keeps his fans in suspense as to whether he’ll write another novel or (as has been mentioned in interviews) move to the Hebrides and start a sanctuary for injured kestrels. No need to worry about this red-haired clown who’s shedding scarves and throwing out apologies, appeasing Geoffrey and charming females: an irrepressible anti-hero who talks at top speed and is still alive to tell the tale of plummeting nineteen floors to the ground.
‘The queues!’ He’s opening his satchel and producing two large paper bags spotted with grease. ‘Apparently everyone knows you have to get there early on strudel day. Everyone but me.’
‘Thoughtful of you.’ Geoffrey accepts a bag and peers inside. He looks approving, rather than reproving. ‘A tad disruptive, but thoughtful. Many thanks.’ The Twins begin passing around paper plates, their eyes as bright as their well-polished brogues.
Bright hops on his non-damaged foot. ‘There’s more, but I need some assistance!’ The sun blasts through the window and lights up his thin, excited figure. ‘Would you help?’ He looks across the room, from under the blaze of his orange-red hair, straight at —
‘Me?’ Gibby half-rises, startled.
‘I think he meant me,’ says Lace apologetically.
‘Of course.’ Gibby flushes. He watches her disappear into the corridor, and seconds later reappear carrying one side of a huge coffee urn, with Bright tilting on the other.
‘Did you ask the catering staff if you could take that?’ asks Geoffrey in an interested voice.
‘Can strudel be enjoyed without coffee?’ counters Bright.
‘Do you often feel entitled to what doesn’t belong to you?’ enquires Geoffrey.
‘Only when the well-being of others is concerned,’ answers Bright.
‘Like Robin Hood!’ Mirabelle beams and offers a laden pastry tray to Gibby. ‘Strudel or Danish?’
‘Neither, thanks.’ He sits quietly, folding and refolding the empty white disc of his paper plate until Lace returns to her chair.
‘Not eating?’ She smoothes out his creased plate. ‘Here, have half of this. You should try it, at least.’ Even though she’s smiling at him her eyes are slightly unfocused, like someone who’s just walked out of direct light into a dim room.
Although the strudel lies heavily in Gibby’s stomach and the coffee tastes like hot burnt plastic, he has to admit the success of Bright’s gesture. The flurry of crumbs and soft drifts of apple, the plump raisins that fall from plates and roll under chairs: who knows how stilted this meeting might have been, were it not for such an unexpected sweetening? As for Bright’s sunburst entrance, his charismatic parrying and enigmatic truths — these, too, have had had an overall brightening effect on — well, pretty much everyone except Gibby himself.
Now that the room’s been opened up, it’s time for work. Geoffrey returns to his corner, lying back in his chair with steepled fingers and encouraging phrases. In the aftermath of the pastry storm, with honeyed mouths and sugar breath, the others recount the highlights — or rather lowlights — of their lives. For example:
Savage: alcoholic and drug-user since the age of twelve. Was once beaten on account of a stolen wrap of cocaine until his jaw was broken and his nose turned to pulp.
Raven: experienced an emergency aeroplane landing in Cairo during which the inflatable chute puffed up like a cobra, preventing escape from the nearest exit. Has had a pathological fear of enclosed spaces ever since.
Rosalind: has an array of obsessive-compulsive disorders. Tends to become obsessed with people. Shakes if her twin isn’t somewhere nearby.
Mirabelle: suffers similar problems to Rosalind’s, although less intensely, perhaps taking her twin’s problems as her own due to an overdeveloped sense of empathy.
As people stand and confess, encouraged by Geoffrey’s repeated interjection, ‘Very good, very good’, Gibby’s hands become sweaty. He glances sideways at Lace for courage. She’s sitting, quiet and composed, listening intently to the Swede’s tale of what he refers to as the Never-Ending Winter, during which he never got out of bed.
‘Not once? Not to shower?’ The Twins are aghast. ‘Not even to pee or poop?’
‘Bedpan,’ says Erik tersely. ‘My mother acted as nurse.’ He tells them that he was horizontal for six months, like a root vegetable under soil, waiting for the light. ‘I was drained of energy. Bereft of hope.’ He doesn’t seem ready to reveal why these things had occurred. An awkward pause follows, broken only by Geoffrey’s murmured ‘Good, good!’ and then it seems that Lace will speak. She clears her throat, combs her long fingers through her scissor-chopped hair. What’s her secret?
‘I feel better now I’m away from home!’
All eyes swivel to Gibby. How has this happened? Somehow he’s ended up standing right in the middle of the circle. ‘Sorry!’ He claps his hands over his mouth. ‘Did I interrupt?’
‘Plenty of time for everyone.’ The voice from the corner is mellow, cinnamon-coloured. ‘Now you’ve started, would you care to elaborate?’
In fact he can’t, because the pronouncement is just as new to him as it is to the group. Instead he simply repeats himself, in a dazed voice. ‘I feel better, I feel stronger, now I’m no longer at home.’
‘Aha!’ The triumphant exclamation comes from Bright.
‘Aha, what?’ Gibby feels a stab of anger. ‘Aha’ is the line of a professional, a prosecuting lawyer or a scientist who’s made an extraordinary discovery, not that of a twenty-year-old upstart in the game of life. But Bright isn’t looking at him, he’s looking at Geoffrey. ‘You see?’ He crouches catlike on his chair, peering over the heads of the others. ‘Remember what I said in your office?’
Geoffrey sighs. ‘Please don’t undo the good work you’ve done today, bringing gifts, becoming part of a community.’
‘You heard what he
said!’ Bright gestures at Gibby as if he’s an item of evidence. ‘Everyone feels better away from home. That’s nothing out of the ordinary. That’s NORMAL.’ He produces the word with a courtroom flourish.
It’s Geoffrey’s turn to become like a cat, sitting up, sharpening, eyes and ears alert. ‘You’ve just revealed more about yourself, Mr O’Connor, than about Mr Lux.’
‘Home?’ blurts Rosalind. ‘But I love my home!’
‘You’ll be back before you know it.’ Mirabelle pats her on the hand.
Bright subsides, and Gibby also sits down. How does he feel? Relieved at having overcome his fear; conflicted by his strong desire to launch at Bright and punch him — and, when he looks at Lace, guilty. He suspects he may have taken the floor to stop her from speaking. He doesn’t want to hear what’s wrong with her, nor believe it. But when he looks at her hands tearing at a paper serviette, he knows what he has to do.
‘We haven’t heard from Lace yet.’ He forces out the words, his eyes stinging with the effort.
‘Oh.’ Lace shreds and twists. ‘Okay. Well.’
He wants to hold her hands to keep them still, but after such a superhuman exertion he has no energy left. He simply sits like a statue and waits, as do the others.
Finally she comes out with it. ‘I never feel happy. I haven’t felt happy for twelve years.’
Gibby gulps. This is far worse than speaking himself. He’d give anything not to be sitting here, listening to someone he loves say such things.
Bright leans forward in his chair — leans so far forward towards Lace, in fact, that it looks as if at any moment he might crash onto the floor. ‘Twelve years?’ he says wonderingly. ‘Such a long time.’
Shreds of paper stream from Lace’s fingers. Her eyelids dip, then slowly raise. ‘I think there’s something wrong with me. I always feel alone.’
This is even worse. Now Gibby is truly turned to stone. Through stone ears, he hears Geoffrey commending Lace on a brave start. Couldn’t I help you? Can’t you lean on me? These are the questions he wants to put to Lace, but his tongue is too heavy in his stone mouth. His arms, immovable. His neck, barely turnable. His desperate eyes slide sideways in his immobile face. Only a few inches between their chairs — but she’s out of his reach.
Suicide Club, The Page 24
