Most Beautiful Suicide Method
The Volvo starts on the first attempt, a rare and unsettling event. Hill curses and revs the engine loudly over and over. He looks up towards Roger’s bedroom and revs again, even louder, attempting to blow the engine.
Conceding defeat, Hill puts the car into second and turns it to face the driveway.
***
The journey off the island is broken up by two traffic delays, both seen as signals by Hill that he shouldn’t go through with the school visit.
Once on the mainland, the journey to Rose College is an unpunctuated twenty-minute drive along a grey dual carriageway that runs adjacent to the Irish Sea.
Hill picks a cassette at random from the glove compartment and puts it in the player.
Hill puts the car into fifth and looks straight ahead as Do They Know It’s Christmas? begins playing through the one working speaker.
***
Hill parks the car beneath the large Rose College sign and immediately feels weak and nauseous. Planted deep into a vibrant, immaculate lawn, the billboard projects the Rose College crest and school’s Latin motto out towards Colwyn Bay; a permanent, belligerent IMAX for the town’s inhabitants.
TrUtH, kNoWleDgE, fAiTh™, Hill thinks.
Hill gets out of the car and begins walking towards the main reception. The email said that Hill would be met by the head of the English department.
Sweating, Hill thinks.
McCarthy, Hill thinks.
Nope, Hill thinks.
Hill turns around to walk back to the Volvo. He doesn’t want to do this. He doesn’t need the money; this week, today, right this instant, he doesn’t need the money. He has enough money on him to drive to a supermarket and buy discounted packet sandwiches. Hill wants to buy a packet ploughman’s sandwich, a packet cheese and onion sandwich, a packet egg and mayo sandwich, and eat them one after the other in a large supermarket car park. Hill wants to finish eating them and then carefully fold the empty packets into each other to make one tightly packed empty packet before returning to the supermarket to buy more. This process will be repeated indefinitely.
Most beautiful suicide method, Hill thinks.
As Hill turns, he hears a voice calling him. A girl in a dark pinstriped trouser suit is saying his name. She is tall and has long dark hair with highlights. She walks over to Hill and introduces herself as Molly Edwards-Jones, Head Girl. She has four gold badges on the lapels of her suit jacket and small piercing holes on her right eyebrow and down the side of her right ear. Her skin is clear and her teeth are straight apart from the middle tooth on the bottom row which cuts across somewhat.
McCarthy can’t come, Molly says. He’s, something, I don’t know what.
Great, sure, thank you, Hill says.
It’s amazing you’re here, Molly says. Your Instagram is properly dry, haha. I have to give you a tour of the new astroturf or something. Make you aware of our alumni donation appeal?
Oh, great, Hill says.
Hill and Molly begin walking through the quad and up the concourse. The astroturf is made up of three large pitches, overlooked by a glass-fronted pavilion, and behind that a large newly-built classroom block. Molly is talking about her parents forcing her to stay in Dubai over the summer when a Boost wrapper blows across the ground towards them.
Don’t, Hill thinks.
Hill bends over to pick the wrapper up.
Just Done It™, Hill thinks.
Hill looks around for a bin. They are walking across the middle of the astroturf, there are no bins anywhere.
Don’t do it, Hill thinks.
Hill puts the Boost wrapper in his pocket and squeezes it, digging and grinding his fingernails into the palm of his hand.
Beyond redemption now, Hill thinks.
Buy ten of these after, Hill thinks.
Eat until you die, Hill thinks.
He looks towards Molly, now talking on her phone.
Molly puts her phone in her jacket pocket and stops walking. She faces Hill and puts her hand on his arm. This must be so boring for you? she says, grinning. This whole place is really, really awful. Do you wakeboard?
***
Hill finishes talking to the group of English students, smiles, and pretends to make a note in his diary as they clap enthusiastically, their apparent sincerity catching him off-guard. It’s the same classroom that Hill was in for his English A Level and hasn’t changed much; the thin wooden tables, posters for Titus Andronicus, Death of a Salesman, Macbeth, the single-glazed stained window panes, albeit the wooden frames now restored. Hill looks towards the corner table where he used to sit next to Clemmy. A girl with braces is sitting there, her eyes closed and facial expression neutral and calm. Her fingers are miming playing the piano.
What the fuck, Hill thinks.
The students begin asking questions, one after the other, a relentless quest for truth and information.
What are you currently working on?
What do you like to experience outside of work and does this inform your output?
Has the trade-off between a large studio and Jack Black’s indie meant a more intimate experience?
Do you wakeboard?
How big a part do you think Rose College has played in your success?
Do you offer an internship?
What do you believe is the relationship, if any, between, but not limited to, the artist’s need to tell the profound truth and or deliver entertainment to the intended audience?
Will you ever tweet again?
Do you wakeboard?
Do you wakeboard?
Is it true you took Mr McCarthy’s house bell in Norton and mailed him photos of it in various locations? [Uproarious laughter] If so [laughter still going], if so [laughter increasing], if so, what tips would you give for anyone wanting to do something similar in the future? [Uproarious laughter].
The pupil asking this question is a boy with short, side-parted hair and clear braces. He is wearing a light grey pinstriped suit and has a new-looking copy of Atlas Shrugged in front of him on his desk, the book’s spine facing Hill. Hill looks down beneath the desk and sees a large iPhone propped up in landscape against the boy’s belt, its unblinking lens and cracked fascia seeming wildly menacing.
The boy is staring at Hill, waiting for an answer.
Hill forces a smile and pretends to make a note in his diary.
***
Hill sits in the driver’s seat of the Volvo and looks ahead at the car parked in front of him, an Audi A1 with the number plate M0LLY ED and a Love, Laugh, Live,Wakeboard sticker in the bottom corner of the rear window.
Molly… Clemmy… Dubai, Hill thinks.
Families That Rose College Together…, Hill thinks.
Hill sees his phone flash with an email from Roger.
He looks up towards the third floor of Central Block and the ornate stained-glass windows that run across the length of the English department.
Where was McCarthy, Hill thinks.
Hill puts the car into second, revving the engine violently as he pulls out onto the road and away from Rose College.