The Trib Read Online Free PDF Page A

first date with me. Not as my date, obviously – he came along to act as witness in the event that I ‘scored’. When you’re fourteen, ‘scoring’ is everything.
    He cycled behind me to the venue, Sandycove train station.
    â€˜What’s that smell?’ he shouted at the back of my head. ‘It’s like oil and cat piss.’
    â€˜Don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I cycled faster, knowing full-well what the smell was. It was the contents of a bottle of my dad’s Eclipsol hair tonic. We skidded into the lane overlooking the tracks.
    â€˜What’s up with your hair?’ Brian was examining my forehead. A mixture of sweat and hair restorer was trickling down my nose.
    â€˜I haven’t washed it for a week,’ I said, ‘and I used Ted’s hair stuff. It helps to keep the bounce down.’ Bouncy hair was for girls. My mother always said my freshly-washed hair reminded her of her own.
    â€˜You’ve got my hair.’
    â€˜No I don’t.’
    â€˜Yes you do.’ My father ran the palm of his hand over his bald head. ‘Don’t worry, you’ll be like me some day. Then you won’t have to worry about having bouncy hair and looking like ... Barry Manilow.’ Bullseye.
    Brian leaned his bike against the wall. ‘Go on, then.’ I could hear him chuckling as I nervously approached my ‘girlfriend’.
    â€˜What’s that smell?’ asked one of her friends. ‘It’s like pee.’
    â€˜Why’s your hair greased up like that? Are you trying to look like Elvis?’ I had hoped I looked like Elvis.
    â€˜Did Elvis ever work as a toilet cleaner in a Pet Shop?’
    â€˜Or an old folk’s home?’ Brian fell over his bike laughing.
    I didn’t score. The love affair ended soon afterwards.
    The day Brian moved down the country was the bleakest of my young life. I couldn’t tell him I was going to miss him. You didn’t say that to your mates. We played ‘Baggy Trousers’ on my Lloytron tape recorder over and over again as he unsuccessfully attempted to blow up his tree house with bangers. ‘I’m not leaving it for the next family,’ he said, despite my protests. Looking back, he was scorching the earth of his childhood.
    Before he left, he handed me his half of our walkie-talkie set. I traded it for some now-forgotten item. I couldn’t share it with anyone else.
    Years passed and we lost touch. We picked up our friendship again when he eventually moved back. Then we both got night jobs and lost touch again. We orbited the same crowds, but never seemed to meet up.
    In November 1992, Brian walked into his local and settled a few small debts. He was in good form. He was twenty-five. Later that night, Brian turned the exhaust pipe in on his car. He killed himself. No one had seen it coming.
    I try not to think of his final moments. How alone he must have felt. How his family felt when they heard the news. How whoever found him felt. How I felt.
    The fourteen-year-old who shared my growing pains was gone. The reason why is not important now. I have other questions. What would his children have been like? Would he have enjoyed my wedding? Would we still be friends, tilting at the bar in Finnegan’s?
    Brian – that’s not his real name – came back to me last Wednesday when I read that the Marks & Spencer model Noémie Lenoir had tried to kill herself. I was surprised at how hard that story struck me. Lenoir is young and beautiful: people like her don’t kill themselves. People like Brian don’t kill themselves.
    Newspapers generally don’t carry suicide stories because of the ‘Werther effect’, where reporting might encourage copycats. Sadly, Lenoir’s attempt will have sown the seed in some minds.
    The suicide rate here has risen by 35 per cent since last year (CSO) as more people succumb to depression. Two years