Black Chalk (21 page)

Emilia gave Dee a confused glance and then looked consolingly at Mark. ‘I’m so sorry, Mark,’ she said.

‘But I didn’t lose the vote,’ said Mark.

‘You didn’t win it, mate,’ said Jack.

‘But I didn’t lose the vote. I didn’t
lose
the fucking vote. So fine. I’m out of this horror show and you can keep your stupid childish little game. And I get back my deposit. Because the vote was inconclusive.’

Jolyon and Chad had visibly been making an effort to remain detached from the conversation. But before Chad could think of what he wanted to say, Jolyon was shouting. ‘No you don’t, Mark, no way. That’s not in the rules. A player performs all consequences drawn before leaving the Game or the Game keeps that player’s deposit and adds it to the prize fund. We were always explicitly clear about that.’

‘Fuck you, Jolyon.’ Mark’s anger flared again but its energy was sapped. He had to stir himself for the fight this time.

‘Oh, not this again,’ said Jolyon. ‘It’s becoming tiresome, Mark. Fuck me? OK, fine. That’s me fucked then. And now we’ll have another vote if you like. I say no deposit, so that’s one. Dee?’ Dee shook her head. ‘Chad?’ Chad did the same.

‘Fuck the three of you,’ said Mark. ‘But you, Jolyon, you listen to me. I’m getting my deposit back and I’m holding you personally liable. You, Jolyon,
you
. This doesn’t end until you place that money in my hand. Personally. You don’t sleep, you don’t get to read quietly in the refectory on your own, you don’t get to walk down the street without … without something … You’ll see. You just wait. Until this injustice … Until then.’

Snap. And it was Jolyon’s teeth now. He was untethered, the last cable severed. Throat and gut and spleen, words were not sounds any more, were no longer vowels or consonants. Words were feelings and the feelings were good. His words were soaring, Jolyon was flying.

And then Mark was on him, his flesh but even more his bones. Knucklebones, kneebones. And then a crush as other bodies piled above him, above them both. Jolyon felt a panic, the lack of a breath, two breaths, three.

Then at last the relief of fresh air, the hard suck and swallow of life returning. And Mark receding. Jack and Chad receding. Mark shouting again. ‘I’m telling everyone, I’m telling everyone about your stupid game.’

Suddenly Middle jumped to his feet. ‘No,’ he cried out, ‘no you can’t.’

‘Everyone,’ Mark shouted back at him.

And Middle moved toward him but not with any sense of threat. Placing a hand on Mark’s shoulder, he glanced at the door and then spoke in a low voice as if afraid that someone might be listening. ‘Please,’ said Middle, ‘you don’t want to do that, Mark.
Please
.’

And everyone in the room became quiet as they were surrounded by the gently echoing sincerity of that final word.

Jack and Chad were not holding him tightly now and Mark’s body slackened. He looked confused and uncertain.

Chad opened the door. Three bodies departed. The door closed.

*   *   *

XXXIX
   I am overcome with joy.

This happens to be true. I’m not saying this solely to please my visitor.

Yes yes yes. I agree to all rules, guidelines, frameworks …

And I mean this as well, absolutely I do. But my feelings of joy at seeing that my visitor had left me a note were soon transformed into a sense of breathless panic. Because, you see, I don’t remember the pool table or being thrown out. I don’t remember my drunken declarations of love. And therefore I have no idea whose name I called out. And if I reveal this to my visitor now, if I admit to forgetting her a second time …

Yet neither name seems any more likely than the other.

Emilia, Dee.

Dee, Emilia.

I loved them both. If things had only turned out differently …

And so now there is something important I must do with my story, something I need to tell you about. Henceforth, when I type in italics, these passages will be strictly for your eyes only. For you and only you, my reader. Which means there now exist two versions of my story. Not that I will be writing an entirely different account. Both versions will be the same file copied and recopied to keep them identical. The only difference will be the italicised passages, these italicised passages, which my visitor simply must not read.

This italicised version will lay hidden, buried like pirate gold, nestling inside a folder inside a folder inside a folder … the last in a series of Russian dolls, folders with names like Utilities, Dialogues, Cookies, Mnemonics and Preferences. I have created blind alleys and false leads like the wrong turns in a maze. At certain dead ends I have thrown in older versions of this story, or articles I worked on years ago for the paper. There is no way that my visitor can find the hidden treasure of this second version.

Because I want to be honest with you, my intended reader. I want to be honest with the world. But my visitor will expect me to start using her name, hence my panic. And I don’t want to lose her again. I don’t want to lose her for good.

*   *   *

I pace around my apartment in a state of high anxiety. Emilia or Dee? Dee or Emilia? I lie on my bed, sit at my table, stand by my window. Nothing comes to me. I pull on my sneakers.

*   *   *

I start to walk aimlessly, my mind whirling pointlessly without anything physical that might nudge me toward remembering her. Emilia or Dee? Dee or Emilia? My system has failed me. Or maybe I have failed my system. I loiter in a drugstore staring at its shelves of cigarettes. I go into a liquor store to pore over its bottles of whisky. And then I stand outside a women’s clothes store blinking at the window display, its crowd of draped mannequins. But nothing comes back to me.

Evening has arrived when I find myself in the park.

And that’s when it happens.

*   *   *

I hear a voice calling out, Hey! Hey, you! The voice is getting louder. Looking up, I see a young man staring angrily at me, striding closer and closer. When he is in front of me, he pushes my shoulder and yells, I said, asshole, you owe me twenty bucks.

I look at my shoulder and then the young man. I have no idea who you are, I say.

Bullshit, motherfucker. Twenty bucks now. He pushes my shoulder again, harder this time.

And I try to push him back. Get off me, I say. But, the final word is swallowed as I feel a sudden pain in the left side of my face. I stumble forward, something catches my shin and I fall
,
my head hits the ground with a hollow thud.

I roll over and the young man is above me. He has my lapels in his fists. Twenty bucks now, he says. His face is dark against the sky bright above. The pain rings out in my head. And that’s when it comes back to me with a jolt. I let out a laugh of childish delight. Yes, I say, yes, I do owe you twenty dollars.

So where is it?

Let me get up, I say.

The young man keeps a hold of one of my lapels as we get to our feet.

I reach into my back pocket and find a twenty-dollar bill. I laugh again as I hand it to the young man. There we go, twenty dollars, I say. And thank you, so much.

The young man looks nervous now, confused as he takes the money, pushing me away as he lets go of my shirt. Dude, you’re on some serious crack, he says.

You’re right, I say, tapping my head as if my finger is the needle of a sewing machine. You’re absolutely right, I say.

The young man examines the bill in his hand and starts to back away from me. When he turns, he puts a little more speed in his step.

And now I know. It came to me quickly, behind the pain. The whole scene played itself out in my mind in the space of less than a second.

*   *   *

How about we make it interesting? I say. Twenty bucks a game?

Sure, the young man replies. Whatever, dude. One of his friends begins to massage his shoulders.

We put our money in the slots. The young man’s friend starts to chant. Skee ball, skee ball, skee ball.

Nine balls later – nine awful, drunken arm jerks later – I look up at the score.

I have ninety points. My opponent has trounced me. My opponent has five hundred points.

Five hundred.

Moments later I am on the pool table. I am calling out her name, drunken declarations of love.

*   *   *

Yes yes yes. I accept your terms, Dee. Anything and everything. Unequivocally and overwhelmingly yes.

*   *   *

XL(i)
   Now they were five.

Monday lunchtime and the bar was empty but even so they all leaned in, elbows on table, so as not to be heard.

‘You mean he followed you?’

‘No,’ said Jolyon, ‘he didn’t follow me. You couldn’t call it following. He walked beside me as if we’re still friends.’

‘Mark still
is
your friend,’ said Emilia.

Jolyon didn’t acknowledge her words. ‘I went to a lecture this morning,’ he said, ‘and he sat right next to me.’

‘Mark got up early to go to a lecture?’ said Jack. ‘Then he’s definitely lost it.’

‘What did you do?’ said Chad.

‘Nothing,’ said Jolyon. ‘I didn’t acknowledge him but I didn’t ignore him. I don’t want him to think he can affect me. He can’t affect me.’

‘And what happened when you left the lecture?’ said Emilia

‘The same as before, walking beside me. I went into a shop for cigarettes and he waited outside like a dog tied to a lamp post. When I came out, he picked up where he left off, at my shoulder as if we might start discussing the finer points of the eggshell skull rule or Lord Denning’s greatest judgments.’

‘But he never said a word?’ said Dee.

‘Not until I went back to my room. And he didn’t follow me up, he just held the door for me. And then he said, as if the thought had only just occurred to him, oh, and Jolyon, don’t forget about that thousand pounds you owe me.’

‘What did you do?’ said Dee.

‘I told him very politely that it wasn’t going to happen.’

‘And what did he say?’

‘He said, see you tomorrow.’

‘That’s so creepy,’ said Chad.

‘But that was the odd thing,’ said Jolyon. ‘It wasn’t creepy. I mean it was, it was creepy as hell. But only because he seemed so unthreatening. He acted just as if yesterday never happened.’

‘Where is he now then?’ said Jack. ‘He didn’t follow you to lunch.’

‘But it’s not the rest of you he’s after,’ said Jolyon, ‘it’s me.’ He lifted his beer to his lips, drank and leaned back.

Chad looked at his friend and admired him once more. Jolyon looked incredibly dignified, regal almost, proud of being the chosen one.

Emilia raised her hand as if she were sitting in class. ‘I have a question for everyone,’ she said. ‘What do we all think about Middle? The way he said
please
yesterday, it gave me the creeps.’

‘Well, that was the point,’ said Chad. ‘He was acting, he worked out the quickest way to get Mark to shut up and he did a good job.’

‘It’s not like Middle could have outright scared him into submission,’ said Jack. ‘Not like that troll Shortest, he’s got some psychopathic Ewok thing going on.’

‘Really?’ said Dee. ‘I always thought of Tallest as the creepiest. For some reason he makes me think of undertakers, quiet and pale and you wonder what’s really going on beneath all that surface dignity.’

‘Don’t worry, Emilia,’ said Jolyon, ‘they’re all harmless enough.’

‘So, Chad,’ said Jack, ‘did you meet up with the liaison officer?’

‘I did,’ said Chad, ‘it’s all arranged, just waiting on a couple of OKs. Friday at two.’

‘That was fast.’

‘The power of the almighty dollar.’

‘So you’re not going to pull a Mark on us then?’ said Jack.

Emilia sighed and placed her hands in her lap one atop the other. She looked like a priest’s wife left alone in a brothel, her husband busy absolving upstairs.

‘I can do it,’ said Chad.

‘Sure you can do it,’ said Jack. ‘Anyone could literally do it. But it’s not just about doing it, is it?’

Dee took her pipe from her mouth and used its end to prod at Chad like an accusing finger. ‘Forgive me for saying this, Chad,’ she said, ‘but you’re not the most self-confident person I’ve ever met. I mean, Jack could do it and probably feel nothing. Yes, you can do it but how are you going to feel the next day?’

Chad leaned back and stretched his arms along the top of the bench. ‘Well, I guess I’m about to find out what I’m made of,’ he said.

*   *   *

XL(ii)
   After lunch Chad went for a walk to think everything through. Past the old city wall and its vines, the ivy-clad towers. Past the spires and domes and cool stone porches.

After Mark’s exit the day before, they had played on, Jolyon had insisted. No one wanted to provoke Jolyon and so everyone seemed to go easy on him. Perhaps this was why Chad, sitting to Jolyon’s left, had lost badly.

But so far he had played the Game well. This was his first serious consequence and that was down to misfortune, a bad situation, an unlikely roll. But the Game was still in its early stages and he doubted it would come down to cards and dice now the consequences were becoming stiffer. Survival would come down to mettle and spirit and perhaps down to nature as well, some part of themselves they didn’t yet know. He wondered how many of them realised this.

He passed Bethlehem College and then St Christopher’s where a famous English poet had kept a bear in his room after the college had banned the keeping of dogs. Chad had taken the open-top bus tour in his first week in the city, a fact he had not told his friends, who would have despised such behaviour.

He took the scenic route home along the river and as he wandered opposite the slipways and boathouses he thought about the consequences awaiting the others. What lurked in each pot remained a secret from each of them. And in many ways the threat of the unknown was a good element of the Game. But surely if some of them knew what might befall them, the play might progress a little faster. And Emilia in particular, if Emilia … And then, feeling guilty, Chad snapped away from his thoughts. Instead he stared at an eight on the river, their pairs of oars folding and straightening, the ephemeral fog of their breaths.