Robbie forces himself through the gate and up the mottled pathway. The lawn needs mowing, and he wonders if his father is still up to the job. Robbie and Nick used to fight over whose turn it was. The mower was temperamental to start, black smoke billowing in their faces when it eventually got going. He assumes his father bought a new one, or maybe he gets someone in to do the lawn for him. The thought of his father being afforded this small luxury – even though the current state of the grass disproves it – pleases Robbie.
‘Hasn’t changed a bit, has it?’ Celia says.
Her arm is hooked through his. If it wasn’t for her grip and determined stride towards the house, he doubts he could go through with it. Every fibre of his being wants to turn and run. The front door – shabby and in need of a paint – appears in front of him. Celia turns the handle, and suddenly they’re ensnared in the hallway. Robbie stops dead. Celia pushes him forward.
‘It’s all right. There’s nothing to be afraid of here.’
A glance into the front room: same floral carpet, new couch and curtains. His parents’ bedroom is on the opposite side, door closed. His mother and father are waiting in the kitchen. Once again, Robbie is struck by how old they are. How white – both their hair and their skin – and frail. Mum steps forward, as though to hug him. He flinches. She looks hurt and fills the kettle instead. Dad is sitting at the table, fingers laced, as though bracing himself for bad news.
‘We’re here.’ Celia states the obvious before pushing him towards the rear extension. ‘Come on, Robbie. Keep going. We’ll come back for tea when the tour is over.’
She was insistent about doing this. About facing his demons, which are here, within the walls of this tired suburban house. And at the school, of course. But the school is gone now, demolished. There’s satisfaction in that image: a wrecking ball smashing through those grim brown-brick walls. Flattening the hall, the science labs, the changing rooms, and filling the maze of corridors with rubble. It was the corridors that were the worst. Too narrow to pass by unnoticed. No escaping without turning back the way you came and hearing their mockery behind you.
Celia opens the door to his bedroom and memories slap him in the face. He recoils. Makes a sound that’s not unlike a child’s cry.
She steadies him. ‘Come on, you’ve got to do this. It’s not as bad as you think.’
He looks around with slitted eyes. Same posters on the wall. Parallel single beds, neatly made, as though waiting for Nick and him to return. Robbie almost laughs at the thought of the two of them, grown men, being restored to those beds.
Celia whips open the wardrobe doors. ‘Some of your clothes are still here.’ She looks him up and down. ‘They might even fit you!’
Robbie stares into the gloom. His school uniforms, a couple of shirts that were trendy at the time, some jackets. He can actually smell his teenage self from the clothes, but that can’t be possible, not after all this time. Now he feels like he might faint. He pushes past Celia, sits down heavily on the bed. The room is swimming. The posters – Coldplay, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Foo Fighters – whirring round and round, mocking him.
Celia is crouched down in front of him. ‘Are you okay?’
‘No.’ He’s angry with her. For bringing him here. ‘Can you open the window at least?’
She pulls back the net curtains and a disproportionate amount of light pours in. The window slides upwards, and suddenly there is air, scented with gardenias from the garden.
‘Can you leave me alone for a while?’
‘Sure.’ She squeezes his shoulder as she leaves. His sister is a good, kind person. He doesn’t deserve her. Doesn’t deserve his parents either, who’re waiting for him with mugs of tea and a plate of ‘good’ biscuits that are usually reserved for visitors. That’s what he is now: a visitor. Or a ghost. They’re all scared he’ll disappear again.
Celia said coming here would be closure. ‘You need to see there’s nothing to be afraid of. What happened was more about your state of mind than the actual place.’
She fancies herself as a psychologist. She’s wrong, though. Doesn’t know what the fuck she’s talking about. It is the place. Just being here weakens him. His shame is almost part of the furnishings.
Pull yourself together. Pull yourself together, you weak fuck.
He opens the top drawer of the bedside cabinet. Stray pens and paperclips. His student ID. A birthday card. Dear Robbie, Hope you have a wonderful day. Xx Katy
She was the only one who remembered, other than his family. Every year she’d decorate his locker and leave a card. She did it because she had a kind heart, not because she actually cared. She had no idea how much it meant to him, her kindness. How it kept him going.
He opens the bottom drawer, which is deeper and filled with old exercise books. It smells of school: a mix of lead, sweat and boredom. He flicks through an English book. Sees his teenage handwriting, reads some of it and thinks it’s decent: at least he was able to string sentences together and use some fancy words. There are drawings on the inside cover, as he knew there’d be. Elaborate depictions of daggers, pistols and nooses. He poured a lot of detail and time into those drawings. It was all he could think about: how to end it.
He goes back to the wardrobe. Slides his hand along the top shelf. His fingers come away with a thick layer of dust. He tries again, going on his tiptoes, reaching back further. His heart stops. It’s gone. How can that be?
His eyes are drawn to the bookshelf, over by the window. There it is, its spine tattered and readily identifiable, propped up by smaller, thicker volumes. His mother must have put it there, or maybe Nick or one of the kids when they’ve come to stay. Robbie pulls it out.
You don’t need to do this. You don’t need to torture yourself.
But he still does it. Sits on the floor with it cradled in his arms. Dares to read the front cover: Yearbook of Macquarie High, Class of 2000. Forces himself to scrutinise the photo beneath, taken outside the gym, everyone’s arms in the air: school’s out.
His heart is beating again, erratically, painfully. The book opens on Zach Latham’s page, and Robbie’s handwriting – deeper and better formed than the writing in his exercise book – fills the right- hand margin.
Fucking bastard. Hope bad things happen to you and you have a miserable life. Fucking bastard.
Stop, he implores himself. Stop. This isn’t doing you any good.
He can’t stop. It’s like scratching a scab. He’s bleeding but he has to keep gouging.
Grace’s page. Cute ponytail and smile. More notes etched in the margin. Vacuous bitch. No thoughts of your own. You’re just as bad as them.
Melissa. Luke. Annabel. Faces plump with youth and self-confidence. So, you think I’m disgusting, do you? Well, I think the same about you and worse!
Katy’s page is the only departure. A love-heart with an arrow through its centre. You’ll never know how much you mean to me.
Finally, Jarrod’s page, near the front. Sports captain. Grinning at the camera. Holding up a large trophy, probably for rugby or cricket. The same phrase engraved a hundred times over, on the margins, amid spaces in the text, even across the photograph. Leave me alone. Leave me alone. Leave me alone. Leave me alone...
Oh God. Oh God.
Robbie wants to hide. He can’t go back out there and face his parents. Doesn’t matter how much it means to them. He can’t do it. He wants to – needs to – hide.
He crawls inside the wardrobe, shuts the door. Blackness. Nothingness. Just the sound of his own sobs.