Black Chalk (16 page)

Dee applauded sarcastically. ‘Bozo the clown brings the house down again,’ she said. ‘You’re quite the prognosticator, aren’t you, Jack.’

‘If whatever you just said means psychic, then yes,’ said Jack. ‘I mean, come on, it’s not like any of our futures are that hard to predict.’

‘Oh really?’ said Emilia. ‘Why don’t you try us then, Jack?’ She now wore her serious face. Almost as sweet as perplexed.

Jack returned to his imaginary globe. ‘Emilia, the pretty one who pretends to have no hate,’ he said, affecting a soothsayer’s croak. ‘Emilia will marry first of everyone gathered here today, for she cannot bear to be alone. She will marry a country veterinarian named Giles. His family own a stud farm on great England’s southern coast.’

‘Crap,’ said Emilia. She folded her arms disagreeably. ‘I’d never marry a posh Tory type,’ she said. ‘My dad would never speak to me again.’

Jack raised his finger to silence the interruption. ‘She does not like the truth but truth must out,’ he said. ‘Giles has red hair and freckles and they have children four, all ginger sons. Giles in his spare time is a Mick Jagger impersonator and his band is named the Rolling Clones. And what a merry band they are, the most in-demand Rolling Stones impersonators at all the weddings taking place within a thirty-five-mile radius of the city of Winchester. For three years running.’ Everyone was laughing except for Emilia, her folded arms stiffening. ‘At forty years of age,’ said Jack, ‘Emilia wonders why she never made use of her psychology degree. She volunteers as a prison visitor and develops a dubious rapport with one prisoner in particular. Inside of jail he is known by a single moniker. Gash.
Aargh
, put out my eyes again, for Gash is none other than Chad.’ Jack closed his eyes and then opened them again. ‘The vapours have passed now,’ he said.

‘You’re such an arsehole, Jack.’

‘What? It’s a way better future than mine,’ said Jack, and then his eyes drifted back to his globe. ‘Yes, it is Jack I now see before me, the handsome funny one. Forty years of age and still with youthful hair and striking bones of cheek. Yes, Majestic Jack, such a success in whatever his chosen career happens to be. Film scripts probably, insightful comedies. Oscars two or three I see. And everything else he ever wanted from life. Money, a beautiful wife, the perfect family. But most importantly of all, the intellectual self-esteem that comes from being a far greater success in life than all of his friends.

‘But what is this I see now? A catch. Oh no, Jack, no. He has everything he ever desired and yet life still presses heavily upon him. Yes, Majestic Jack soon discovers that his cynicism for every last shit-scrap of the world stemmed not from any material lack in his life. No, instead Jack’s cynicism stemmed from one thing alone. A singular inability to be happy. Poor Jack, for he discovers that he has a heart yet cannot feel, he is the Tin Man in reverse,’ he wailed. ‘Storm clouds gather. I see Majestic Jack slide headlong into the kind of sordid midlife crisis for which he once despised so many dismal middle-aged men, not least his fathers, two.’

Dee wiped fake tears from her eyes. ‘Oh, stop it, Jack,’ she said, ‘you’re breaking my heart here.’

Jack continued, his croak filling with sadness, his words slowing down. ‘Success brings to Majestic Jack nothing more than misery and the cruellest loathing of self.’

‘No, Jack, no,’ cried Dee. ‘I’ll be nice to you, I promise. I’ll laugh at all your jokes. I’ll write you happy stories and teach the mockingbird to sing your name.’

‘The vapours have passed,’ said Jack. He looked intensely proud of himself. ‘So you see, Emilia, you get off lightly in the long turning of life’s bitter wheel.’

‘Well, I disagree with everything you’ve said so far,’ Emilia snorted. ‘I think we’re all going to be happy and successful and go wherever we want in life. We’re young and we’re smart and I think everyone here is just great. Even you, Jack. Just occasionally.’

‘Maybe you’re right, Em,’ said Jack. ‘What the fuck do I know, right?’

And then there fell a brief silence. Chad looked at Jolyon and wondered if he too was thinking this had been a mistake, the revealing of a weakness to his opponents. Jolyon returned the look with a small shrug.

‘Come on then, Jack,’ said Dee. ‘You know you want to.’

‘Want to what?’ said Jack, acting confused.

‘Want to perform your little trick on me. Let’s just get this over with.’

‘No, you’re too easy, Dee. You’ve already written your own future. After completing your five hundredth poem you’re going to commit suicide, aren’t you?’

‘So you keep reminding me, Jackie-oh.’

‘Please address the oracle by her birth name,’ said Jack. ‘Her cognomen is Psychic Fucking Sue.’ Jack lowered his eyes. ‘I do not know this Jackie-oh,’ he said. ‘Though I see you speak of him with tones of hate deployed to hide your sexual love.’

Dee sighed and mimed a swoon. ‘Will no one rid me of this turbulent Jack?’

Jack gave Dee a piercing look and the act began anew. ‘And now I see before me a female who goes by the name of Dee, the artsy histrionic one. A twist, I see, for Dee survives her time at Pitt. She had been beaten to the suicide punch, Christina Balfour got there first. They say no one ever remembers who comes second and so Dee was forced to bide her time. And now five hundred poems I see at Dee’s feet, unpublished, for the poems are almost certainly derivative teenage shit. And lots of haikus, no doubt. Yet on she goes unscathed, six hundred, seven. To London she moves and for the BBC doth work. And meanwhile bides her time and thinks about which branch of the arts to favour with her creative brilliance. Time passes. Ten turns round the sun and Dee festers on where we left her, the arts still devoid of her benefaction. Yet then she leaves her job. Yea she leaves and doth marry a lawyer who can support her latest life choice. To write a series of beautiful, groundbreaking and utterly unpublishable novels.’

‘Oh, I do so look forward to that.’

‘Time passes. Ten more turns round the sun and Dee remains very much unpublished. When suddenly at forty Dee changes forever her life’s meagre course. For so many years nothing but rejection until at last she relents and writes a tale about a downtrodden girl working a lowly media job who overcomes the male hegemony, takes over the company, and finds love in the most unlikely of places.’ Jack flung up his hands like fireworks bursting in the sky. ‘Success at last. The novel becomes a best-seller and in record time reaches UK sales of five hundred thousand copies … And then, and only then at last, Dee fills up her pockets with stones, walks to the end of her garden path and finally out into the river.’ Jack flung out three final fireworks in front of his eyes. ‘The vapours pass,’ he said.

‘Oh, Jack,’ said Dee, ‘you know me better than I know myself. It’s extraordinary. And I love your use of the five hundred theme, how it comes back to haunt me when at last I sell my soul to the devil of the mainstream. And a suicide just like Virginia Woolf. How did you know that’s how I was planning to go?’

‘Never doubt the powers of Psychic Fucking Sue.’

‘Oh, how I love Psychic Sue. Please, we need more.’

‘Well, I did Chad already.’ said Jack. ‘Life imprisonment for gruesome murder. The victim was obviously Jolyon by the way. A fight broke out between the two of them following a rule dispute during a hard-fought game of snap. Jolyon was –’

‘Don’t even think about doing me, Jack, I’m warning you,’ said Jolyon, laughing.

Jack acquiesced quickly. ‘OK, Jolyon,’ he said, ‘I truly wasn’t planning to predict how, in an ironic twist, Pitt’s most popular student ends up sad and all alone. So just don’t go chucking one of your spanners at me, all right?’

‘There’s only Mark left now,’ said Chad, while Jolyon threw Jack a playfully threatening look.

‘Oh, Mark’s the easiest,’ said Jack.

Mark’s eyes had closed but he opened one of them to peer at Jack suspiciously. ‘Go on then, if you really must,’ he said.

‘Mark, the one who hides his ruthless streak behind sleepy eyes. I see the managing director of the world’s largest and fastest-ever-growing company,’ he said, ‘which Mark started from scratch with only twenty pounds. He worked and worked for twenty-five hours a day zealously back-stabbing his way to the top. His employees call him, among other less complimentary names, Marcus Brutus.’ Jack stroked his globe one last time and finally sat back with his drink.

Mark yawned and closed his eyes again. ‘Yep, you’ve got me pegged,’ he said.

*   *   *

XXIX(i)
   I scribbled some notes late last night during the whisky hours of the night-time that I’d like to share with you now.

I have a number of points I would like to make regarding the narration of this story. And also some questions and thoughts. But first of all let me make one thing clear – when I leave at noon today, I plan to buy for myself a pair of powerful binoculars.

So on to point one. It seems I now have two audiences. The first, my reader. The second, my visitor.

Point two (for my visitor). You should know right away that I have no interest in trapping you in my apartment, I will allow you some time here. I will not return until two o’clock, you have until then. But in exchange for this kindness I expect some answers.

Point three (also for my visitor). Furthermore you may by now have deduced why I intend to buy for myself a pair of binoculars. You may as well come to the rear window right now. Look for a rooftop with a white picket fence. You might also wave to me. Let’s start out on polite terms.

Point four. Breaking into a gentleman’s home is generally considered rather impolite.

Thought one. These walks of mine, I’m sure they were my idea. They must have been, yes? But when I read my words again I wonder if I have really been so insistent about them. Because the following (point five) has occurred to me – while I have been out walking, my visitor has been in here with her eyes on my story, her fingers on my keyboard. (Thought two. But I remember wanting to build the walks into my routine. I do remember that, don’t I?)

Thought three. I’m not saying dishonesty worms its way through this tale. Even if the words are not all my own, I have read and reread this story and everything rings true. But I am left with some questions.

Have I filled in the gaps myself for the sake of the story, or has someone else done this for me?

Who are you and what do you want?

And finally, what have you done to my story?

*   *   *

XXIX(ii)
   I am out of breath. My purchase swings in its plastic bag – I have been casting off its packaging as I run to my neighbouring block. Earlier I took note of the height and colour of the building and I find it soon after passing the tattoo parlour whose sign reads Cappuccino & Tattoo. I don’t even pause to take a deep breath, I slide my hand
glissando
down the intercom’s buttons. An impatient voice answers, ‘Whaddya want?’ Before I even offer an excuse, someone else has buzzed me in. I run up the stairs, fingers crossed, and pause in silent prayer before pushing the door at the top. And it opens.

The sun is fierce and no one is up here. I run across to the white picket fence and impatiently pull the binoculars out of the bag. I lift them to my eyes and start fumbling with the focus.

My breakfasting neighbour didn’t appear on his fire escape today. I wanted to shout across the street, My visitor, does she have blonde hair or dark hair?

And now, the image sharp enough, I try to peer into every corner of my apartment. I can see no one. I am thinking about my dream, the one I had the night before my writer’s block began. A woman somewhere crowded, Emilia or Dee?

Sweat drips from my brow, stings my eyes. I lower the binoculars, dry my face with my shirt. Blonde hair or dark?

And then, when I look up again, the door to my apartment, distant and made ghostly by the dark reflections in the window, opens slowly.

*   *   *

XXX
   Jack cast off his shroud of doom with a great flourish and the others sat back in their seats. They cradled their drinks and began to laugh about other things.

Chad was quiet, only half listening to the words spinning around him. His hangover had deadened any will to speak but his mind was wandering, at first drifting in one direction and then taking a sharp turn in another.

Dee was saying something about Jack keeping his filthy hands off her soul.

And then Jack was laughing about the cartoon that had recently appeared in the
Pitt Pendulum
. Jack said you could tell from the way they had drawn the hair that it had to be Mark. It was called ‘Home on Derange’. He’d heard there were more in the pipeline.

Chad closed his eyes. His thoughts were strange distortions as if he were seeing them through Jack’s crystal ball, the light bending and everything stretching then shrinking away.

When he opened his eyes he saw a television parading silent pictures above the bar. The stern faces of generals, a lurching camera chasing flashes in the dark of a distant night. Weapons from the skies in the Persian Gulf, Baghdad being bombed by the Coalition.

And that’s when, very suddenly, Chad’s mind lit up with an idea. Yes, it was time for a change. It was time for the Game to become less random, for the consequences to become more personal. If you could take careful aim at another player’s weaknesses, his or her innermost fears, then this would bring a whole new dimension to the Game.

He was about to excitedly reveal the idea, it felt very important, but Jolyon had shushed everyone and was pointing to the silent television. There was a headline displayed at the bottom of the screen. The United States had issued a twenty-four-hour ultimatum for Iraq to begin withdrawals from Kuwait. In the absence of any such withdrawal, war would begin on the ground.

Jolyon’s chair screeched as he pushed himself back from the table. ‘When was it the Berlin Wall fell?’ he said, squinting as he performed a calculation in his head. ‘Well, we had something close to peace for just over a year,’ he said, and then he took a long drink from his glass.

And now it felt wrong for Chad to say anything about the Game. Anyway, perhaps it would be better to keep the idea to himself for now, he thought. And better still, perhaps he should speak to Jolyon first. Jolyon would know how to talk everyone around.