Trapped Between

I felt terrible reading about it when the news was still so fresh, so raw, but I was the kind of person who needed to know the details. We had all been informed, well, as informed as we needed to be, in an impromptu assembly yesterday morning.

Mr. Sharpe, our headmaster, was a stickler for keeping to his rigid timetable, so we all knew, as we trouped into the main hall, that whatever he had to tell us would not be good news.

And it wasn’t.

He stood on the rickety podium at the front and started with the usual mundane school notices. Our normal weekly assembly was held on Monday mornings so, since it was Friday, there was plenty of news from the last few days to bore us with first. The first eleven football team had advanced to the quarter finals of the County Cup and Andy Malone, the team captain and smuggest guy ever, stood up to smirk his way through the match report.

“Who cares?” I muttered under my breath to my best friend Jess, who was sat on the hard plastic chair next to mine. Andy schmoozed on to say that they would be playing Stanton All Boys School on Sunday. This bit of news did, however, interest Jess. She nudged me in the ribs wiggling her eye brows suggestively. I rolled my eyes at her, she might be interested in watching a field of filthy football boys dramatically throwing themselves to the ground, but I certainly wasn’t. Football guys were not my thing.

Mr. Sharpe stepped down and Mrs. Ashburn, my art teacher, took to the podium to tell us all, in her quiet mouse-like voice, that the Year 12 coursework sculptures would be on display in the school reception.

“Please make sure you all take the time to have a good look at each piece,” she said proudly, beaming at the mass of kids in front of her. “Elizabeth Sutton’s work, entitled ‘Limbo’, has been photographed this week for the school website so I know you will all want to take a closer look at that particular sculpture.”

“Well done Beth!” Jess whispered in hushed tone beside me. I kept my eyes forward feeling the familiar tendrils of heat creep their way up to my cheeks. Of course I already knew about this bit of news. Mrs. Ashburn, in all her mousey glory, had ushered me out of class on Wednesday and into the reception to pose next to my sculpture, which was a monstrous creation made out of steel chicken wire, papier-mâché and large headed galvanised fencing nails. I wasn’t convinced it was quite finished but Mrs. Ashburn had told me that she knew a masterpiece when she saw one and had set it smack bang inside the main school entrance. So I had posed awkwardly next to ‘Limbo’ for Mr. Reynard from the Media department to take the picture. I had tried to concentrate on keeping the humiliation from showing on my face as Reynard said cheese and the flash had near blinded me leaving a large white rectangle embossed on my eyes for the next few minutes.

Mrs. Ashburn scanned the sea of faces in front of her with her beady little eyes before finding me and offering me a totally uncool thumbs up as she stepped down from the front. As if having my work and my face on the website wasn’t humiliating enough, I was now being given the thumbs up by a teacher in front of the whole school. How embarrassing.

My face had chance to cool down as Mr. Sharpe, rather slowly and seriously, climbed back up the couple of steps to stand in front of the microphone. He put on his reading glasses, that he always had tucked inside his jacket breast pocket with a pack of extra strong mints to try to hide, unsuccessfully, his coffee breath and unfolded a piece of paper he had been holding in a clenched fist. His hands seemed to shake as he pressed the piece of paper onto the stand and he cleared his throat before looking up at our expectant faces.

The atmosphere in the hall changed.

We all seemed to know that this was the reason why we were sat in assembly, as opposed to our usual form rooms, and everyone seemed to sit up a little straighter in their orange chairs and lean forward. Mr. Sharpe, in a low and sombre voice, told us, minus the details, that David Pearson in Year 10 had committed suicide the night before.

The sounds of fidgeting bodies and bored sighs stopped instantly. It was as if the hall full of individual students had become one massive creature, a being with hundreds of pairs of eyes that had turned at once, aghast, and focussed all its attention on Mr. Sharpe’s grave face.

He was holding an e-mail that David Pearson’s parents had sent him from the hospital outlining what had happened.

Mr. Sharpe told us that, even though the news was horrific and distressing, he wanted us to try and treat the day like any other school day and carry on as usual. He told us he wanted us to remember that first and foremost we were a school, a place for education not bereavement therapy, and if anyone was really struggling to deal with the news that they were to go straight to his office and he would arrange for them to go home. He told us that he didn’t want to see clusters of distraught children in corridors; he wanted to see mature students getting on with the job at hand, which was learning.

Shock. Panic. Horror. I couldn’t get a grasp on the numb feeling that was creeping its way through every artery, every vein in my body leaving me freezing whilst Mr. Sharpe spoke. Teen suicide. A random fact that I must have read somewhere sometime forced its way up out of the cold fog that had now seeped its way into my brain, suicide is the second leading cause of death amongst teens aged between fourteen and nineteen, running a close second to road traffic accidents. A random fact that was now no longer random, it was relevant.

The frigid January air nipped at our faces with relentless icy fingers as we walked home from school. Jess was talking ten to the dozen about the forthcoming football match and whether or not any of the boys from Stanton All Boys School would be fairly hot, mega hot or hot as hell. This was her standard way of differentiating between how good looking boys were. The bar was set with Patrick Airey in Year 13 as fairly hot, Ashley Banjo as mega hot and Robert Pattinson as hot as hell. But I wasn’t in the mood to be drawn into a conversation about boys we didn’t even know. Jess started to prattle on about how hot Robert Pattinson looked in his new film, I bobbed my head up and down every now and then to look like I was listening but wasn’t really paying her any attention. She came to an abrupt stop and turned to look at me.

“What’s bothering you, Beth?” She shook her head with a puzzled look on her face and her long blonde hair fanned out around her in the cold breeze like a mermaid’s tresses caught by a rogue wave. “It must be something serious considering I just told you Robert Pattinson had recently admitted in an interview that he likes to dress in drag at weekends and you just nodded along as if this was old news.” She laughed as she repeated her bit of made up celebrity gossip.

“Sorry Jess, I just can’t get what Mr. Sharpe told us out of my head. I know we didn’t even know the kid but it’s still horrible, you know?” Horrible didn’t even go half way to explain the feeling of utter powerlessness that had been stifling me, drowning me, since assembly.

“I know,” Jess replied, her open smiling face darkening with the memory of Mr. Sharpe’s words.

Jess took her usual leave at the corner and I watched as her lean frame disappeared from view. Jess, beautiful and optimistic Jess, never let things bring her down. She would feel bad of course for David Pearson’s family and friends, she would be respectful and considerate to those who were suffering the loss of a loved one, but it wouldn’t drag her down, affect her like it seemed to be affecting me. It wouldn’t horrify Jess to the point of almost immobilizing her to the spot in her plastic chair; it wouldn’t fill her stomach with a sense of loss and emptiness that wouldn’t blow away even as the cold January wind seemed to swirl straight through your skin and rattle around your bones.

So that was why, at half past ten, the following morning I was on my laptop in my bedroom reading all the details in an article that an unofficial local news site had just posted.

Newlington School, with its small body of just over 600 students, has been once again devastated by a tragic suicide. David Pearson, a young boy of just fourteen, took his own life on Thursday evening at his family home. His mother found him unconscious in the bathroom with an empty bottle of painkillers and a pool of vomit at his side. He had left a suicide note on the bedside table in his bedroom. An ambulance was called for but David passed away before it arrived…

The article went on to explain that his mother was distraught because the painkillers were from her prescription and that she blamed herself for leaving them in the bathroom cabinet. I sat back from the laptop and let out a long shaky breath. I couldn’t believe that this had happened at my school. My stomach felt heavy, full of stones. The feeling of despair that had taken root yesterday still lay there, cold and hard. I turned my attention out of the window and stared out of the rain spattered glass at the miserable January morning, a miserable morning to match my miserable mood. Yesterday’s wind had not died off in the night, if anything it had only gained in strength and it whipped now at the trees lining the road.

My eyes slid back to the screen, away from the bleak grey scene out of my window, and I reread the sentence I had been on.

An ambulance was called for but David passed away before it arrived.

There was no wonder Mr. Sharpe hadn’t told us all the details. We didn’t need to know.

“Beth, can you come down here please?”

“I’m coming, Mum.” I shouted down to her in a more cheery voice than I felt. I left my laptop to put itself into sleep mode and took the stairs with a forced spring in my step. I didn’t even know David Pearson, so I was going to get a grip and shake the story out of my head.

I walked into the kitchen to find my mum, with her sleeves rolled up, surrounded by every piece of kitchenware we owned. She was leaning on the worktop flicking through the pages of the cook book I had got her for Christmas. It was the same scene I had walked into every Saturday morning since she had unwrapped the damn book.

“Beth,” she said, without even looking up. “I’m going to do a new recipe for dinner tonight but I need some unusual stuff. If I stick it all on a list will you go with your dad up to the market for me?”

“Sure,” I sighed. She looked up and grinned at me. There was always some weird and wonderful ingredient to make me look a fool as I tried pronouncing it to the greengrocer. It wouldn’t be a normal Saturday without this cringe-worthy start to my weekend.

“Thanks sweetheart”.

“No worries Mum, I’ll just my coat and iPod.” I grabbed the list from my mum, who was already back to scrutinising the recipe.

A few moments later I was in the car with my dad, holding a list of ingredients that I was sure I wasn’t going to be able to get at Newlington’s Saturday market. The plan of attack was I would jump out and get all the stuff on Mum’s list whilst Dad parked up in our usual spot.

Typical.

Dad would be nice and warm, sat back listening to Talk Sport whilst I froze my fingers off looking for, I glanced at the list with a grimace, a kohlrabi, a Jerusalem artichoke and Okinawan purple sweet potatoes.

As I walked past the bus station I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the window and it did nothing to lighten my mood. My reddish brown shoulder length hair had frizzed up; more so than its usual mass of curls, due to the damp air and my eyes had deep black shadows under them. I made a mental note to actually turn my laptop off when my mum told me too. All the late night and early morning surfing was starting to catch up with me. I cranked the volume of my iPod up and trudged off to find what Mum needed.

Fifteen minutes later I was laden down with bags galore full of exotic fruit and vegetables ready for tonight’s dinner. Rather surprisingly, the bizarre kohlrabi, artichoke and purple sweet potatoes were tucked into three of my many brown paper bags. As I rearranged the bags into a more comfortable position I noticed a boy I didn’t recognise next to the new-age jewellery stall. It wasn’t the fact I didn’t know him that made me look twice; it was his fashion statement of wearing head to toe grey. He was wearing a pair of ripped jeans in a washed out slate colour and a pale charcoal leather bomber jacket, and even his hair was a sort of faded ashy colour.

The pineapple I was carrying under my left arm was in danger of slipping, and as I put down my bags to reshuffle my load I saw the bottom half of his legs and steel grey trainers dart past me. I straightened up and looked in the direction he had gone but he had disappeared.

I reached down for the last bag and before I could get my fingers through the handle it was picked up by a tattooed hand.

“Alright Beth, need some help with those?” Michael Whittaker’s breath stunk of stale alcohol and his bloodshot eyes swam as he leered at me. I gagged a little and took a step back.

“No,” I said through clenched teeth, trying not to breathe in his foul stench. It was hard to be courteous to Michael Whittaker, he set any normal persons skin crawling whenever he spoke to them. “I’ve got them, and my name is Elizabeth”.

Michael Whittaker was one of those guys that just about every town has. A few years over thirty, doesn’t have a job, has loads of gross tattoos and loads of equally skin-crawly mates that hang about with him. My dad once told me that there was a rumour that he sexually assaulted some girl round the back of the snooker club a few years ago but no charges were ever brought against him, I guess it couldn’t have been true but even so he still gave me the creeps. I turned away, and as I did I noticed the grey boy a few stalls away staring at Whittaker with an intense look of concentration on his face. I was surprised; it seemed Whittaker didn’t just evoke disgust in people he spoke to anymore; merely looking at him seemed to be enough.

As I mooched around the rest of the stalls I felt Whittaker’s leery eyes on me, and the weird thing was every time I looked up to make sure I wasn’t too close to him and his vile tattooed mitts, the boy in grey always seemed to be there too, just in the fringes, just out of eye shot. Strange. I made a conscious effort to check after that and, sure enough, wherever Whittaker and his goons were there was the grey boy hanging back out of sight.

How did I not know who he was? He looked about my age, but he definitely wasn’t at my school. He looked effortlessly cool in his leather jacket, the kind of boy Jess would certainly make it her business to know, but I was positive I’d never seen him before. The strange thing was he obviously knew Whittaker, so he couldn’t be a total newcomer to town.

I felt a peculiar impulse to go over and speak to him, to ask him who he was, and just as I was about to I felt a hand clamp down on my shoulder. I whirled round and came face to face with my dad.

“Jeez, Dad!” I gasped, my heart thundering in my chest.

“Caught you pinching sweeties have I, Beth?” Dad wiggled his eyebrows, laughing at my jumpy behaviour.

“Very funny, Dad,” I said as I caught my breath. “Weirdo Whittaker’s about and-”

“Enough said,” he interrupted me, putting his arm loosely round my shoulders. Everyone in Newlington knew who Whittaker was and everyone in Newlington tried to give him a wide berth. My dad glanced round keeping his protective hold on me. Once he was happy that the nearby area was clear of tattooed freaks, he took the bags from me and set off back to the car. I told him I wanted to check out a bangle I’d seen and Dad happily marched off ahead whilst I wandered back towards the jewellery stall. He was more than likely pleased he’d get a few extra uninterrupted minutes with the radio.

Who was I kidding? I didn’t give two hoots about a bracelet. I stood with my back against the stall with a jittery feeling in my guts and started looking around for the boy in grey. I couldn’t see him, and that bothered me far more than was acceptable. What was wrong with me? I felt unbalanced, like the stones that had been laying heavy in my stomach since I’d heard about David Pearson had suddenly shifted, rolled over and set my stomach churning. I took a deep breath and came to a standstill. I had promised myself that I would get a grip; this weird feeling was probably just the left over bile that I’d gagged on and swallowed after my close encounter with Whittaker. But I knew it wasn’t. It was a feeling of anticipation, almost crazed desperation to see a boy who was no longer there, and the fact that he wasn’t left me oddly deflated.

I turned away, and as I did the stones shifted again, this time rolling up into my throat cutting off my breath.

He was there.

He had his back to me. He was on the other side of the market looking up the main channel between the stalls. Whittaker and his cronies had taken up residency at a stall run by an overly tanned bimbo who appeared to be selling cat scratching posts. The boy spun round and I found myself trapped, locked, by his piercing grey eyes.

The same strange compulsion that I had felt before came over me and I took a step towards him, trance-like, lifting my non pineapple carrying hand towards him. The second my hand began to raise his mouth dropped open and his grey turned incredulous. How bizarre, I had never seen him before yet he was looking at me like I was something peculiar. Admittedly a frizzy haired pineapple carrying girl might not look all that ordinary but I had been coming to this market to buy our fruit and veg since I was about eleven, this was my turf.

I started to feel the heat of embarrassment colour my cheeks as I stared back at him, it worked its way into my hair line and broke its way out of my skin as pin pricks of cold sweat all over my scalp.

The seconds seemed to tick by slowly, and even though I was dying a mortified death inside, I was frozen to the spot, with my hand half way up in some kind of weird salutation, staring at his face, which was still filled with astonishment and confusion. I finally managed to drag my arm back down to my side but before I pulled my eyes away from his, he held up his hand with his palm facing me, his slim fingers held tall and straight.

I jolted back into life.

Next he pointed at the brown local information sign that pointed toward the Newlington War Memorial. I’d seen the sign almost every day of my life but I followed his finger and reread every word again. I looked back to where he stood, with what I could only assume was an idiotic expression on my face, but he was gone.

I blinked several times and seemed to struggle to get a hold of my bearings. What had just happened? What did he mean and how had he suddenly vanished? The stones in my throat dropped back into my stomach and my breath came out in rush. I felt light headed, dazed.

Five.

That’s what he must have meant with his hand gesture. But five what? I looked at my watch. Not five minutes surely? There was no way he could expect me to get to the memorial in five minutes; I was still laden down with all my bags and the damn pineapple. Five o’clock then? Five o’clock in the park at the war memorial.

Is that what he had meant?

Did I really have the balls to go meet a stranger at five o’clock at the war memorial? A boy, who was dressed head to toe in grey that I’d never clapped eyes on before in my life? A boy dressed head to toe in grey that I’d never clapped eyes on before, who was following Weirdo Whittaker and his gang round in Newlington market with a look of murder in his eyes?

“It’s not locked,” Dad leaned across from the driver’s seat and spoke through the open passenger side’s window.

I started at the sound of his voice. I hadn’t realised, as I had been asking myself the same questions over and over in my head, that I had done the ten minute walk from the market to the car park. I shook my head to clear it and opened the door. My dad smiled at me and started the engine. I smiled back but it felt forced, fake.

On the way home I stared out of the car window at the sky. It was full of roiling grey clouds but I only saw grey eyes. Grey eyes that when they had fixed me in their sights had filled me with something that I was unsure of, something that I hadn’t ever felt before, something unsettling and electric.

I flicked my iPod, looking for something to make me feel like myself again, something that would make my heart stop racing and stop the stones from twisting in my belly. I selected an album, tried to offer my dad a more genuine smile, and leaned back into my seat. I forced myself to think about the here and now, not five o’clock. My mum’s weird vegetables were purchased, my dad looked happy with his morning’s listening to the radio and my mind was made up.