by Rich Allen
Suicide Vacation
© Rich Allen 2012
Dedicated to those who died too soon.
Chapter One:
‘We are the choices we have made.’ That line from Meryl Streep in The Bridges of Madison County popped into Jack’s head. His mind was an auditorium and big screen quotes echoed around it in Dolby Stereo.
Yeah, Jack was the choices he’d made. Lousy ones, he thought. Especially his choice of career. He stared long and hard at the bottle of pills which clung to his sweaty palm. More than enough to do the job, considering he’d knocked back half a bottle of whisky. It would all be over in a matter of minutes. He felt sick again and glanced away from the pill bottle to take in the magnolia vista of the lounge. An empty shell. In the corner, a sleeping bag lay folded next to a blue North Face duffel bag. Everything else had gone.
Jack stared through the worn net curtains. He hated the view. Roofs of back to backs, with occasional slates missing and guttering buckled by the heavy winter snow. He checked his watch, a gift from Fiona. It triggered a familiar, haunting memory: Fiona kissing another man. If only Jack hadn’t seen the evidence with his own eyes. He heard the pills calling him again. “Take me. Go on. Get it over with.” No. He’d stick to the plan.
Jack grabbed his jacket and headed downstairs. He’d forgotten to get rid of the bike in the hallway, not that it was worth much. As he opened the front door he noted the empty parking space outside. He’d loved his racing green Mini Cooper, and it stuck in his craw that he’d let it go so cheap. He could have used the cash to pay off some of his debts, but he’d decided to go out in style.
It started to rain as Jack walked the dirt caked pavement. He entered the Post Office and wiped the water off his specs with his t-shirt. He joined the queue and put his glasses back on. All steamed up. In his head, Rocky Balboa offered some wisdom. ‘Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It is a very mean and nasty place and it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't how hard you hit; it's about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward. How much you can take, and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done.’
Great speech, Jack thought, but he’d taken too many punches and it was time to hit the canvas.
Last week, another letter from the bank, inquiring why Mr Jack Holden had again defaulted on his payment. After threatening eviction, they’d urged him to get in touch, but he’d simply scanned the letter with indifference before binning it.
Jack moved up the queue. Must be pension day. He looked at the old folk in front of him. The Post Office harboured the sweet smell of decay. Death with just a hint of life. The name for a new fragrance perhaps, though he doubted whether anyone would really wish to bottle the smell of a British Post Office.
“Next please.”
Jack went over to the now vacant kiosk. “I’d like five hundred pounds worth of euros please,” he said to the balding man in his fifties, seated on the other side of bullet proof glass.
The man gave him a suspicious look, as though nobody had the right to exchange that amount. He tapped away at an oversized calculator as Jack counted out the fifty pound notes from his wallet.
“You can get five hundred and seventy seven euros for five hundred pounds and fifty pence sterling,” the man said in heavy Geordie.
“That’s fine,” Jack said.
With the exchanged currency in his pocket, Jack walked through the downpour and back to the flat. He climbed the stairs and checked the two bedrooms. All empty except for a bedside table which the house clearance guy hadn’t been able to fit inside his van.
Into the lounge, and he checked inside the duffel bag. Everything he needed for his final vacation: clothes, wash bag, netbook and passport, along with three photos. One of his mum and dad taken in the late seventies, one of his sister Rose on her graduation and a photo of the girl he thought he’d marry one day; Fiona. They’d all left him, apart from Rose. He’d been tempted to go on because of her, but she’d understand. He’d send her an email explaining his future actions, but not yet.
Jack thought about his mum. Twelve months had passed since her funeral. She’d died the week after he got the boot from Spirit FM. He never got the chance to tell her about losing his job, and he felt grateful for that.
He hadn’t been on the radio for a year and he’d missed the buzz. He didn’t know why. The business had royally shafted him. At least his replacement on Spirit FM had managed to halve his audience. Soon the cycle would repeat itself. New boss, new presenters. Switching stations every two or three years had been fine in his twenties, but not anymore. Jack was forty and jaded by the itinerant lifestyle of a radio jock. That had been the reason behind getting a mortgage when he’d taken the job at Spirit. He needed somewhere to settle.
It hadn’t taken away the loneliness though. There were ex colleagues and old acquaintances that he could call up for a chat, but nobody with whom he felt a real connection. His only friend in the north east was Steve, who’d managed to hang onto his job at Spirit because he was on staff, unlike most jocks that were freelance.
Jack stared through the net curtains. The rain had stopped so he grabbed his jacket and headed downstairs. Something was sticking through the letterbox. He assumed it was just another takeaway flyer, but this one felt like card. On closer inspection, it was a regular piece of white card about four inches across by two inches high. Weird, he thought, as he read in large handwritten capital letters, the words: “JESUS LOVES YOU.”
Jack felt uneasy. Over the last few weeks he’d heard several knocks at the front door, but when he’d answered it, there had been nobody there. He’d blamed it on kids at first, but his paranoia now began to kick in. What if it hadn’t been kids, but some religious freak? John Lennon seemed to have the right idea when he imagined no religion.
As he held the piece of card in his hand, he pictured himself as a child, glancing up at a doorbell whilst clasping a copy of The Watchtower magazine. For a moment, that familiar feeling of dread returned to the pit of his stomach. Please be out, he used to think. Please be out. The ignominy Jack felt when a kid from school answered the door. There he’d be, smartly dressed, stood next to an uncle or auntie as everyone over thirty seemed to be referred to. It had been the anticipation of being found out that he’d dreaded the most. As a child, he wanted to blend into life’s colour scheme as a beige or magnolia, not stick out like a pink or yellow. Why couldn’t he just be normal and play football down the park on a Saturday morning instead of being some Bible basher’s miniature sidekick.
After his father had died, Jack told his mum that he didn’t want to go to any more meetings at the Kingdom Hall and surprisingly his mum had acquiesced.
Rose was the only family Jack had left. He loved his older sister, but not enough to abort his plans. He grabbed his wallet and placed the ‘Jesus Loves You Card’ inside. He wanted his own Personal Jesus; someone to hear his prayers, someone who cared.
Chapter Two:
“Beep…beep.”
Bloody Hell! Jack hated that awful sound. He snatched the mobile phone and turned off the alarm. Six forty five in the sodding morning. The flight to Barcelona left at ten, so Jack had to get to the airport for eight. He’d already sorted out the accommodation; the same place where Fiona and he had enjoyed a wonderful break two years earlier.
Post ablutions, Jack got dressed, gathered his toiletries together and fixed his hair. For the past twelve months he’d lived through anxiety, stress and pain. Now he’d take charge of his own destiny. Jack’s new mantra came courtesy of Tyler Durden from Fight Club: ‘It’s only after you’ve lost everything that you’re free to do anyt
hing.’ Yeah, he was free.
He checked his watch. Seven forty. He locked the front door behind him and out of habit pocketed the key. Not that he planned on ever needing it again. He stood outside in the early morning sunshine and took a final look at his flat. “Goodbye,” he said in valediction. The postman must’ve heard him because he gave Jack a funny look as he passed him in the street. With his duffel bag over his shoulder, he walked the dirty pavement towards the Metro.
He didn’t have to wait long to catch the airport bound train. Once on board, he found an empty carriage and grabbed a discarded newspaper. He hadn’t followed the news for about three months. Job losses and banking bailouts filled the pages.
It was just after eight when the Metro arrived at Newcastle Airport. Jack joined the queue at the My-Jet counter and waited in line to check in. In the past, whether as a child or an adult, he’d always felt a frisson of excitement when arriving at an airport. On this occasion, Jack felt strangely unexcited. He just wanted to get on that plane and get on with things.
There were two ways he could approach his vacation: have one final blow-out - or spend the time in a stupor of self-pity and regret. Unfortunately, the latter had been his default mindset for some time, and anyway, if he forced himself to have fun then there might be the chance that he’d talk himself out of the job in hand and that would never do. No, he wanted to wallow in self-pity, in the sunshine, surrounded by memories of happy times spent with his one true love. That was pathos, and Jack had a passion for it.
The queue for the check in moved painfully slow, but Jack didn’t mind - unlike the couple in front. They were about to go on holiday, but chose to curse and moan like tortured souls. They looked like the sort of people that would demand compensation for receiving a funny look in the street. Finally, Jack got to the front desk and handed over his passport and the email confirmation.
“Just one way is it, sir?” The girl behind the desk with Sunny Delight basted skin asked him.
“Yes,” Jack replied.
“Have you packed the bag yourself, sir?”
Jack nodded. Here we go. “Yes I packed it myself,” he said.
“And has anybody asked you to carry anything for them on board your flight today?”
“Nope.” He smiled. Like anybody ever answered that question in the affirmative.
After taking out his netbook Jack dropped his duffel bag onto the conveyor belt and the girl printed out a tag which she placed around the handle. She then handed Jack his boarding card along with his passport.
“Have a nice flight, sir.” She was a rusty faced machine, he thought. He admired Americans; they really knew how to be false. Brits working in service industries could never quite mask their indifference to the customer. “Have a nice flight, sir” might as well have been “I couldn’t give a shit about your flight, sir.”
Jack hated the whole airport safety rigmarole. For some reason, he always seemed to set off the metal detectors. He emptied his loose change into the plastic tray along with his belongings and a security man ushered him through the detector doorway. Get in! No beep this time. It always felt like reaching sanctuary when you got past security. Like on Logan’s Run. Jack grabbed his belongings off the conveyor and headed towards the bright lights of Duty Free. He checked his watch and went over to one of the big screens.
“Awaiting Gate,” it said on the departure board for the Barcelona flight. Time to kill. Coffee sounded good. He made his way towards Costa Coffee where he ordered a large Americano and found a seat looking out onto the Air miles masses. He’d always loved to people watch. Jack took his time over the coffee and then headed for Duty Free Shopping. Maybe he should take up smoking again? He could laugh in the face of the giant health warnings. Cigarettes would never kill him. He smiled as he toyed around with the idea of buying a carton. Tempting, but why sully his one great achievement in life.
Instead he chose to spray his wrists with the men’s eau de toilette tester bottles. By the time he’d finished, he smelled like a Turkish brothel. Not that he’d ever visited one, well not in Turkey anyway. It brought to mind the episode at the bordello in Portugal, but that had been a genuine mistake. He should have twigged when the taxi driver told him to knock three times on the door. He’d been twenty one at the time, holidaying with his best mate, Mark. They’d asked the taxi driver to take them somewhere with lots of attractive girls. After knocking three times on the door of Twins Bar, a shifty gentleman had let them inside. There, they’d been waved at by a selection of beautiful women sat on a couch. Most men would have twigged at that point, but not Jack and Mark. Even when they had to pay a fortune for a glass of beer, they still didn’t cotton on. When a sex show got underway, they realized that Twins Bar wasn’t like any of the bars back home in Yorkshire, and, to quote a once popular Sunday newspaper, they ‘made their excuses and left.’
Jack stood in front of the departure board smiling as he always did when he remembered the episode in Twins Bar. Sadly, he’d lost touch with Mark. Last he heard - he had four kids and an ex-wife. Ouch!
Per instructions, Jack made his way over to Gate Twenty Four. He arrived there to find two yellow uniformed ladies brandishing walkie talkies. No sign of any plane though. Always the way. Jack sat down as everybody else formed a snake like queue. The plane finally showed up thirty minutes late, and then the comedy of Speedy Boarding began. Pay ten pounds extra to get on the plane first. Jack smiled when he saw the bus which would drive them to the plane. Guess what Speedy Boarders? First on the bus - last on the plane.
On board, Jack relaxed in a window seat, hoping against hope that nobody would sit next to him. As was the norm, several people boarded late. Why did that always happen? Jack reckoned that they were probably the same annoying people who turned up at the cinema after the film had started. Jack never turned up late for flights, and certainly not for the cinema.
For once, his luck was in. The seats next to Jack remained empty. He turned off his phone and thought about listening to some music on his iPod. Jack had, even if he said so himself, a rich and varied taste in music. He hated music snobs; people who looked down their noses at you because you didn’t like the sort of music they did. He moved his watch forward an hour to synch himself into continental time then sat back and closed his eyes. In the past, he’d always made an effort to take note of the robotic safety demonstration, but today he couldn’t care less. It would be unfortunate for his fellow passengers and the crew should the plane plummet into the sea killing all on board - but it would save Jack a job.
Maybe he should have taken a book to read. Jack had actually written a book of his own: The Stone of Destiny - a children’s fantasy novel about a boy thief and a lonely middle aged man who embark on a quest to find the older man’s missing goddaughter. It had taken him nearly three years to finish. Just a shame, he thought, that none of the agents that he’d approached had offered to represent him. He must have written to dozens. One by one the usual “thanks but no thanks” replies came back. Some of them hadn’t bothered to reply at all. Their loss!
As the plane reached its cruising altitude, Jack plugged in his earphones and turned on his green Nano. He selected the Shuffle feature. Sometimes when he’d been out running or taking a walk, he’d play his iPod on Shuffle, and it seemed that every song had been perfectly chosen with his mood in mind. Jack believed in this synchronicity. He sometimes felt it in the minutiae of his life. The soaring intro of Joy Division’s Love Will Tear Us Apart slipped into his ears like soothing honey running down a sore throat.
Jack tapped his fingers on his knee to the beat of the tune. Another sign, he realized, of middle age. He closed his eyes; partly to hide from the trolley wielding attendants heading his way. The selling began as soon as you got in the air: food, drink, perfume, scratch cards. Jack likened budget flights to mobile shops.
Crowded House’s A Sigh took over from where Joy Division ended. Jack loved the haunting, ethereal quality of Neil Finn’s voice. His breathing
got deeper and the music quieter. When he awoke he wiped away the dribble running down his chin. How embarrassing. Fortunately, nobody seemed to be staring at him. He checked his watch: one twenty. He’d been asleep for ages. Looking out of the window, he saw the diamond bright reflection of the sun bouncing off the azure ocean. Freddie Mercury’s angelic voice slipped into his ears, instructing him not to try so hard, not to take it all to heart.
After disembarking, Jack made his way through passport control and then on to the arrivals area where he picked up his duffel bag from the carousel. He walked past the black horse statue and on towards the RENFE train terminal. A train was waiting to leave, so he motored towards a ticket machine. He pressed the multi-language button and found the Union Jack logo. Only three euros into the centre of Barcelona by train.
On board, some of the returning locals had given up their seats for sweaty foreign tourists. This would never happen back home, Jack thought. The natives seemed rightfully proud of their city and wanted to create a good impression for any visitors. He overheard a British girl ask one of the locals for directions to her hotel. The middle aged lady spoke good English and offered to walk her there personally. A different world from England, where, to Jack’s mind, people seemed to have no natural affection for one another.
