On Suicide

It wasn’t the first time that Mathias had attempted suicide, and Toby feared that it wouldn’t be the last. On his way to the hospital, he had pounded the steering wheel and let silent tears slide down his cheeks in anger. He wouldn’t let Mat see any emotional outburst: he had learned a long time ago that the younger man would just stare at him impassively and wait for it to pass. Getting angry with Mat never worked. Getting upset had never worked either. In fact, Toby was yet to find a way to get through to his friend in a way he could understand. After leaving the hospital each time, he wouldn’t talk about what he had done, and if anyone mentioned it he would just shrug it off and say ‘it was a stupid thing to do’. Until the next time.

Toby had deposited a characteristically quiet Mat into the passenger seat of his two-seater sports car, and had driven the two hours up to Oxford in silence. He didn’t know what to say, and Mat clearly had nothing to say. The dark-haired Parisian sat with his head resting against the window, staring outside at the passing countryside blankly. Toby had thrown a blanket over him, and he had twisted his hands into it at some point, so tightly now that his knuckles were white. Toby could see the hint of a white bandage nestling underneath the long sleeves of his top, and the thought of his friend alone in his flat cutting deeply into his own skin made him nauseous.

The cottage was outside Oxford itself, nestled in a small copse with a long gravel driveway leading up to it. The days were still short, and the sun was setting just as he pulled up to the front door. He had left the lights on downstairs, to make the place feel a little more welcoming. Sami would be here soon; he had gone to Mat’s flat after leaving the hospital to pick up some clothes and necessities for them both. For Sami, that meant hair gel and his iPad. For Mat, he would pick up medication, warm clothes and the assortment of products he so obsessively used on his skin every day, living in fear of getting wrinkles or blemishes. Their friends found some amusement in Mat’s obsession with his looks, and every time he ended up hospitalised they would swear not to make any more jokes or cutting comments. But those promises never did last long and it wasn’t before long that Toby was sending out group emails telling them to cut it out or else.

He dumped their bags and his laptop in the living room, and left it a moment before following Mat upstairs. The door to the guest bedroom was ajar, and the bedside lamp cast a dim glow out into the hallway.

“Mathias?” He nudged the door open, and gazed and the still figure of his friend lying curled up on the bed. Mat’s eyes were closed, but he wasn’t asleep. He needed a cocktail of drugs to get him to sleep these days, and those drugs were somewhere en route to Oxford with his brother so Toby knew he was just pretending so that he could avoid any awkward questions or conversations.

Leaving the door open, Toby wandered back downstairs and sank down on the sofa to watch TV, feeling utterly drained. The week seemed like one big, anxious blur and he could barely remember Sami’s frantic phone call on Monday afternoon. He could barely remember picking Mat up from the hospital earlier that day, in fact. All he wanted to do was sleep, but he knew he had to wait for Sami to arrive before he could even consider that.

Every fifteen minutes for the next hour, he got up and checked on Mat who was religiously feigning sleep. He shook him a couple of times and received a blank, tired look in response. ‘I’m fine,’ he always said. ‘Let me sleep.’ Toby covered him with a blanket and returned downstairs, only to check on him again a short while later. Mat didn’t object, just accepted it dully. They had been through this saga before, and he knew the routine well.

A while later, around 9pm, Toby was dozing in front of the fire when the low hum and crunch of gravel signalled the arrival of Sami’s Mercedes. Even though Toby favoured women, he was always a bit awe-struck by the classic handsomeness of his oldest friend. Watching Sami sling an obviously heavy sports bag over his shoulder with ease and stretch, cat-like, Toby felt the familiar stab of jealousy. Where he was slim, Sami was muscular. His hair was mousy blonde and unruly, while Sami’s was dark and always looked immaculate. He dressed impeccably, religiously abusing his loyalty discounts at the designer boutiques in London, and always sported a perfectly trimmed five ‘o’ clock shadow. Looking at Sami next to Mathias, nobody could ever guess they were brothers. Mat stood a few inches shorter, and since his teenage years had been erring on the side of painfully thin. Medication, an extreme dislike of most foods, and the constant admissions to hospital kept him looking pale and tired, and he never paid much attention to what he wore, trusting Sami to fill his wardrobe with the latest designer gear.

‘Where is he?’ Sami dropped the sports bag on the floor and shrugged off his jacket. ‘Fucking traffic, crash on the M40. I’ve been doing 45 most of the way here.’ He was already halfway upstairs and Toby followed but stopped at the door to the guest room, not wanting to intrude. Sami was boisterous and loud by nature, but not where his little brother was concerned.

‘Hey,’ he brushed Mat’s hair out of his face and the brothers exchanged a smile. ‘How are you feeling?’ He knelt down on the floor by the bed and pulled the blankets closer around Mat’s shoulders.

Toby retreated downstairs, wanting to give them some privacy. He picked up the copy of an old Orwell book he had been thumbing through, and tossed another log onto the somewhat dimming fire. He heard Sami go up and down the stairs a few times, presumably fetching and carrying whatever Mat asked for, before he finally came to sit down with a bottle of beer in hand and a scowl on his face. He let his head fall back onto the sofa with a thud, and covered his eyes with his arm.

‘When the fuck is this going to end?’ His voice was muffled, thick with emotion. ‘What am I doing wrong?’

‘It’s not you,’ Toby shook his head. ‘Mat’s been like this for a long time now; you’ve done everything you can. We just need to be there for him, try and help…’

‘How many fucking times have I heard that? How many? And how many times has he ended up in the damn hospital?’ Sami’s voice was low and tight with anger. Anger at Mat, anger at himself, and anger at the whole tragic situation. ‘He needs help, more help than you or I can give him. But he won’t fucking take it. What do I have to do, force him? You know what he’s like, he’s the master of playing along to fool people into thinking he’s fine. Then when they take their eye off him for a second, that’s when everything goes to shit again. I just…’ Sami swallowed, clearly fighting back tears. ‘I don’t know what to do anymore. I don’t know what to do for him.’

Toby had no answers. They both sat in silence for a long time, staring into the fire until the flames dulled and the embers glowed red.