Black Chalk (24 page)

Chad curled up on his bed holding one of his pillows tight to his sick-feeling belly. A minute later the thought came to him again. Really, that’s hilarious, they call
that
a punishment?

*   *   *

XLIII(i)
   When I awake I soon detect the symptoms of a hangover. Drink keeps the demons at bay in the night but invites them to breakfast next morning.

Almost noon and this is all I can manage. I don’t think I can walk today. I want only to lie in the park.

*   *   *

XLIII(ii)
   Oh, Jolyon, I’m so happy.

I won’t delay revealing what I wish to ask you. It’s something so silly really. My book of poems, I’ve reached four hundred and ninety-eight. Did I ever mean to kill myself if I reached five hundred? Maybe once, maybe some part of me believed what I told myself. But the whole thing does feel rather childish now.

However, I still keep my book close to me, my poems remain a part of me. Anyway, this is my favour – will you look after my book? Oh, I was going to make up some silly excuse – the lock on my apartment door is weak, the flat below was burgled last week – but I think I should tell you the truth. Coyness be damned, Dee, just come out and say it. Here goes:

I would like you to read my poems, Jolyon, that’s the truth of it. Writing and writing and failing. It would be nice to have one reader in the world. And I am greedily devouring your words, it seems like a fair trade.

I suggest you start at the end and work your way back. (You may wish to stop when you reach the dark centre of my teenagehood.) But you should read my book however you wish. And then when you are done telling your story, you can return it to me.

We were together for only a few days all those years ago, but now I look back, I realise that I was so wrong and I’m sorry. I should have trusted you, Jolyon. And now I hope to make amends. I am handing my heart to you.

We will find our way back into the world together, Jolyon, pearls before swine. We will read each other’s words and keep them safe.

Friends once more. Fresh words in our story. And let the past fade away.

Kisses,

Dee xxx

*   *   *

XLIII(iii)
   Dearest Dee, I am a man of my word. Of course I will hold on to your book. I will treasure it, I will read every word. And I feel deeply honoured.

Please, no more apologies for what happened in the past between us. What happened was the result of misfortune. Misfortune and Chad. Let us look only to the future.

And I have a request of my own. Surely now we can meet. You will read this at noon. Perhaps we can see each other in the evening.

I know the perfect place. Tompkins Square Park at the end of this block. Toward the middle of the park there is a grassy knoll where the sunbathers tan themselves until the light shrinks away. Near the grassy knoll is a tall evergreen that looks like a Christmas tree. They string frost-coloured lights all around it each year and, lit up, it looks just like the Chrysler Building. If you say yes, we could meet beside the Christmas tree at six. What do you think?

Jolyon

*   *   *

While I am reading Dee’s letter over and over, I realise there is something very important I have to do.

Occasionally, out from the gloom of a hangover, enlightenment shines. Ideas are shaken, disparate thoughts come together, linear turns lateral. And when I read Dee’s words for a third time – pearls before swine – epiphany strikes.

I hurry downstairs to my building’s lobby where the lazier leafleters drop delivery menus or wedge cards into the cracks of the mailboxes. I find what I need, return to my apartment and dial the number.

And now everything is arranged. Early tomorrow. The car will pick me up at six in the morning.

*   *   *

XLIV(i)
   Someone had pushed a note under Chad’s bedroom door, a message from the liaison officer, a summons to an urgent meeting early the next day.

When Chad emerged from his dressing-down, he felt the usual sense of shame. The heat in his cheeks and his forearms itching. The liaison officer had shouted at him for some time, his voice straining like the wail of an old gramophone record. He claimed Chad had let everyone down. Yet the punishment was hardly severe, a housing probation. ‘Another offence and your place in that house will be curtains!’ But nothing would be marked down on Chad’s record. ‘You’re an exceedingly lucky young man – I strongly considered a large fine. Fortunately for you no formal complaints have been brought.’

Lucky for me
and
lucky for you, thought Chad, as he climbed down the staircase out into front quad.

As the shame subsided, Chad began to detect another sensation, some small sense of warmth. Maybe even inflation. Was this the worst shame could do to him? Today really was another day. And yes, it truly did all seem better in the morning. For the first time in his life those clichéd words made sense to him.

Front quad was glistening with morning dew.

Perhaps it was like exercising a muscle, you had to work that muscle so hard that you damaged its cells. And then, as it repaired itself, the muscle would grow. The muscle would come back larger and stronger, ready for heavier lifting.

*   *   *

XLIV(ii)
   Dee approached Chad from behind, unannounced but gently, as he rounded a corner of front quad. She took up his arm and held it in hers as if clinging to a mast.

‘Hey, Dee,’ said Chad.

‘How was your date?’

‘You English would probably say something like,
slightly disappointing
.’

‘Oh dear. That bad?’

‘She didn’t show. No one in the house is speaking to me. And I just spent fifteen minutes being bawled out by Lord Greyskull. Oh, and if I put another foot wrong…’

‘Oops. Maybe not ideal to be playing a game of wrong feet then.’

‘I’ll just have to get smart. Hey, maybe you and I should form an alliance.’

Dee laughed. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I’ll consider your offer very carefully, Chad.’

And then a silence fell between them as Dee rested her head on Chad’s shoulder. Her hair smelled of woodland and vanilla and they walked on slowly through the cold stone passage out onto back quad where the vast tree was now pimpled with green buds and the flags were swaying like fishtails. Then, with a squeeze of his arm, Dee said, ‘You know you have absolutely no reason to be embarrassed, Chad.’

‘Really? Because I have this weird little itch that tells me you’re wrong,’ he said. ‘It’s funny though, there’s also a small part of me that doesn’t care any more.’

‘Good,’ Dee said, and she squeezed him again. ‘But all the stuff you said in the Great Hall yesterday – don’t worry, I’m not planning to remind you of everything – but there’s just one thing, Chad, one question I have to ask you.’ She tilted her head to look up at him. ‘Why didn’t you just tell us you grew up on a pig farm?’

‘The others knew,’ said Chad. ‘I guess it must have come up before I met you, Dee.’

‘No,’ said Dee, ‘I asked everyone. And Jolyon knew. But of course Jolyon knew. The others thought you were brought up in New York City.’

‘Dee for detective,’ Chad smiled. And then he paused, he felt the press of the new feeling in his chest. ‘I don’t know, Dee,’ he said, ‘I’m ashamed of a whole bunch of things. I guess that once it has a hold of you it’s like shame has the freedom to roam. If I think it through logically, I can’t think of any good reason I wouldn’t tell my best friends I grew up on a pig farm.’ He paused and tried to work it out again for the thousandth time. ‘The thing is, it’s as if there’s another creature inside here who refuses to explain anything he does. Does that even make any sense?’

Dee pushed her head further into the crook between Chad’s shoulder and neck. ‘Of course it does, Chad,’ she said. She let out her breath with another expansive huff and clinging tighter now to Chad, she said, ‘We’re all ashamed of too many silly little things. I used to be ashamed I didn’t have a father. I knew my mother had died when I was three. But my father? Who knows? Maybe he was dead too, or maybe he was alive but just didn’t want me. Maybe there was something wrong with me that made him leave.

‘When I was little, when I was scared of the dark in my bedroom at night, sometimes I would count up to a hundred. And if nothing bad happened before I got all the way there, I’d tell myself everything was OK, I was safe from the monsters. But to make this work, I had to offer something in return, like a sacrifice. Very
small
sacrifices. If I didn’t get told off at school or hit by a foster-parent, I had to cut my hand with a penknife or stab my arm with a compass. And then, when I was eleven, I thought up this way bigger deal than anything I’d come up with before. I decided I’d write five hundred poems, I was always good at poetry at school when I was little. So this deal was with God, I was daring Him to exist, daring Him to let me go through with it. Anyway, I made a wish that, before I got to the five-hundredth poem, my father would find me. But I had to put something on the line. So I made this threat … Well, you know what that was, I don’t need to say it out loud.’ Dee was quiet for a while and then quickly she rubbed Chad’s forearm as if it needed warming. ‘So there you go,’ she said, ‘that’s one of my very best secrets. And I think you deserve to hold on to it in return for so many of yours.’

Chad tilted his head so his temple was resting on the top of Dee’s skull. ‘Did you ever try finding him, isn’t there anything you can do?’

‘Oh yes, we orphans have rights these days, not like poor Oliver,’ said Dee. ‘Apparently my mother refused to say anything. No one knew if she was seeing anyone at the time she got pregnant. All I can do now is wait.’

Staircase six was just a short way across a cobbled rise. They felt the press of the stones through the soles of their shoes. Dee’s head rocked on Chad’s shoulder and a loose hair made him want to sneeze but he didn’t brush it away.

He opened the door and gestured, after you. Dee went in and they climbed up through the creaks to the room at the top.

*   *   *

XLV(i)
   
Four hours on the road and we find the place without taking any wrong turns. My driver pulls onto the unpaved drive.

It is not a long driveway and the house is modest. Especially modest when you consider the acres of land all around. Two floors, gable-fronted, fifteen yards of porch. The wooden siding is cedar clapboard painted grey with no trim.

Soon after we pull up, before I have a chance to get out of the car, the front doors open. Wooden door, screen door. The screen clatters shut on its springs.

The man who comes out of the house is in overalls and an old flannel shirt. He wears a frayed cap that displays on its brow the Ford logo, florid swan, blue pond. And he carries a shotgun. But the way he handles it, knuckles pink and loose, the gun is not threatening but simply a presence, a yard of potential. He stops and stands on the wooden steps that descend from the porch. And then he spits.

This is perfect, this is just how I imagined it. I want to clap my hands with glee but decide against any sudden movements.

I open the passenger door and step out slowly. The sunlight gently stirs the pig-shit in the air. Palms showing, I raise my hands to my chest the way Jack used to do a hundred times a day. And then the brightness makes me shield my eyes.

Are you Mr Mason?

Who wants to know? the farmer replies.

A friend of your son, I say.

You English? the farmer says.

That’s right, I say. We went to college together.

And your friend in the car there? the farmer says. He go to Pitt too?

No, I say, he’s just a driver. I don’t own a car.

This last piece of information appears to amuse the farmer greatly. I suppose you want to come in, he says. I can’t give you much time. There’s work won’t be doing itself.

He turns and steps inside. The screen door clatters behind him.

*   *   *

XLV(ii)
   
Chad’s mom has given me freshly baked cookies for the ride home, warm pucks cloudy in their wax paper bag.

She comes outside to wish me farewell. The farmer has been feeding his animals. I see him emerge from the large shed behind the farmhouse.

The driver turns off his music as I climb into the car. I wind down a window to wave to Chad’s mother as we crunch down the drive.

Did you get what you came for? the driver asks me.

Yes, I tell him, I think so.

*   *   *

XLVI(i)
   Emilia was becoming tired of Jolyon’s room. The year’s first bright days called out to her from beyond his windowpanes, fields beyond the towers and the spires of the city. It was predicted to be unseasonably warm the following day, so she proposed they should play the next round of the Game somewhere with grass. They could pack a picnic blanket, there would be fruit and sandwiches.

The others acquiesced although Jack took great pleasure in bemoaning the effort required. He also voiced bemusement over the fact that Emilia not only owned a picnic blanket but had brought it with her to Pitt.

Emilia was also the only owner of a bike among the remaining five. The others had to borrow, Jolyon’s requests quickly rustling up another four bikes, fellow students jumping to the task like footmen.

Away they pedalled, Emilia in front, her bare legs turning in the sunshine. She wore a silk scarf dotted with spirals and daisies and her hair was tied back. Chad had to pedal hard to keep up with her, those buttermilk legs going around and around. After the incident in Great Hall, however, he felt awkward enough to stay several bike lengths back.

Jolyon, Jack and Dee formed the peloton far behind. They motivated each other with talk of how good the cigarette would taste at the end of the journey, the wine in the sunlight.