Black Chalk (29 page)

Ah, my later work, Dee laughs. If it’s dark you’re looking for, just wait until you make it all the way back to my teenage years.

We laugh together in the gathering dusk.

The fireflies will soon be out, I say.

Dee lies back on the picnic blanket. Let’s watch them together every night, she says.

I lie back on the blanket as well and the city holds us snug in its sleepy hollow. Soon the evening show begins. Blink flash blink flash. We breathe in deeply, our chests rising and falling in unison. Bright strings, orange threads.

And with Dee by my side, nothing bad can befall me.

*   *   *

LII(i)
   ‘What?’ said Mark. ‘Come on, Jolyon, you’re a liberal socialist pacifist, you’re not going to punch me,’ he said. ‘What’s up anyway?’

‘Don’t pretend you don’t know.’

‘Your eyes are all red, Jolyon. Have you been crying or just not getting enough shut-eye? And you’re late, by the way. We’ve already missed the nine o’clock on M’Naghten Rules. And you could do with a lecture on insanity.’

‘What did you do with my essays?’

‘Why did the chicken cross the road?’ said Mark, shrugging.

‘There were three essays in a red folder on my desk and I know I put them there and…’ Jolyon halted, resenting himself for explaining.

‘Oh, now I see,’ said Mark. ‘You lost something and you think I’m to blame.’ His fingers began to drum at his chin. ‘And you say you know where you put them.’ Mark looked fresh, showered and rested. ‘Isn’t this like the time we had to delay the game because you couldn’t find the cards in your room? Hours later Emilia went to the fridge and hey presto, there they were, next to your milk.’

Jolyon glanced away and sucked his lips. And then he ran back to the top of staircase six.

*   *   *

LII(ii)
   The fridge, shared between eight rooms, was in the corridor. And there they were, underneath his butter.

At first it seemed obvious to him that Mark had moved the essays. But then another alternative jumped into his mind. He remembered finishing the third essay and becoming hungry. He went to the fridge … Did he have the essays in his hand? He could picture them in his hand but imagination wasn’t the same as memory. And it had been so hard to concentrate on the last essay because his mind had been running over and over the break-up with Emilia, her coldness, the cast on her leg covered in messages and drawings. He had asked her if he should write something, a get well, and she had said no. No, Jolyon, just go. And he felt so guilty. And maybe the essays had been in his hand when he went to the fridge. And maybe …

No, it was Mark, of course it was Mark.

Emilia had been in tears at the end. But he should have been the one in tears, he was in the wrong, he was losing her for what he had done. He loved her, he should never have gone along with the miners’ strike speech idea, he should have stood up for what was right. And he could imagine the feel of the essays in one hand, reaching for bread and butter, needing two hands.

No no no.

Jolyon was so tired. He had been awake all night long, had already rewritten two of the essays. But at least now he did not need to rewrite the third. And the way Emilia had looked at him when he left the room, Jolyon had seen in her eyes all the happiness that could have been his. And now that he had lost that happiness, he was slipping down beneath the light. And he wasn’t sure he would ever find it again.

Jolyon dropped the essays on his desk. Of course it had been Mark, of course it had, hadn’t it? He set the alarm to wake him for his tutorial at twelve. But he didn’t get any sleep.

*   *   *

LII(iii)
   Chad crossed the drawbridge to Pitt. In fact it was a flagstone path across a thin lawn but Chad liked to imagine it as a drawbridge. Pitt was a castle, his place of strength. He wondered if he should try someone’s room. Jolyon would be at his lectures. Should he go and see Emilia?

He decided to walk around the college and gather his strength. Yes, he would go to see Emilia and apologise. Perhaps he would even tell her it was all his fault.

And then he saw Dee, reading, sitting on her favourite patch of grass by the ancient tree in the gardens. Her legs were crossed and she was wearing cut-offs and a cardigan. A man’s cardigan, large and grey. The cuffs were frayed and there were holes just above them through which she had hooked her hands.

Chad said ‘boo’ because Dee didn’t look up when he arrived. She didn’t jump. She paused and placed a feather in her book. Shielding her eyes from the sun, Dee looked up at Chad and smiled. There was so much joy in her smile it caused Chad to blush. ‘How many books do you get through a week?’ he asked, hoping to distract Dee from the heat in his cheeks.

‘Six,’ said Dee. ‘One per day. I’m like the Lord. On the seventh day, I rest.’ Dee patted the grass beside her. ‘How’s everything with Mitzy these days?’ she said, when Chad was beside her.

‘She’s enjoying torturing me,’ said Chad. ‘Although no one in the house is speaking to me, it is permissible to speak
about
me. Especially when I’m in earshot. She told everyone that I’m a virgin and whenever there’s a bunch of us crossing paths in the kitchen, she’ll say something like, “So, did anyone hear Chad say he was from one of the Virginias? Or, does anyone know Chad’s star sign? I bet he’s a Virgo.” Oh, and her latest, “I’m going home for spring break, who do you think it would be better to fly with, American or Virgin?”’

‘Oh dear, sounds like Mitzy’s a minx,’ said Dee, pulling her hands inside her cardigan. ‘But never mind, Chad, you’re too good for her anyway.’

‘You never really met her,’ said Chad.

‘Didn’t I?’ said Dee. ‘Well, I still think you’re too good for her. And I’m hugely confident you’re going to find the right girl very soon, Chadwick Mason,’ she said.

‘
Theodore
Chadwick Mason,’ said Chad.

‘Really?’ said Dee. ‘You’ve kept that quite a secret.’

‘Jolyon knows,’ said Chad.

‘Of course Jolyon knows,’ said Dee. ‘It wouldn’t be a secret if Jolyon didn’t know.’

‘I hate it,’ said Chad, his fingers ripping up grass, tossing it aside.

‘No, it’s elegant,’ said Dee. She shook her hair in front of her face, tossed it behind her and tied it with a red band. And then she said to Chad, ‘Oh, here’s something funny. Apparently David keeps bumping into Jackie-oh. Every time he turns a corner. And Jolyon’s warned him that he can’t be rude to him or he’s breaking the rules.’

Chad looked admiringly at Dee. ‘What made you think of it?’ he said.

‘Female intuition,’ said Dee. ‘You boys have such blind spots. Or should I say
spined blots
,’ she added with a wink. ‘But enough games and our ridiculous friends. I have an idea, Chad. It’s such a nice day, how about we go punting together?’

‘Punting?’ said Chad. ‘I thought you hated punting. That was the one expedition of Emilia’s you all refused. You said it was outrageously pretentious.’

‘Really? Are we always that boring?’ said Dee. ‘Well, goddammit, Theodore Chadwick Mason, you and I are going to punt. And we’ll buy Pimm’s and strawberries and I may even purchase a straw hat. Because, even though it’s such a ridiculous phrase,
you should try everything once
.’

‘That should be a defence for murder,’ Chad laughed.

‘Precisely,’ said Dee. ‘Then you’ll come with me?’

‘I have a tutorial over at Bethlehem at twelve,’ said Chad. ‘Will you still be here when I get back?’

Dee riffled the unread pages of her book. ‘Absolutely,’ she said.

*   *   *

LII(iv)
   Jolyon left Jacks’ room just behind his tutorial partner, Prost. He felt so tired he had to steady himself going down. ‘Bad luck in there,’ said Prost at the bottom of the staircase. ‘He’s incredibly hard on you,’ he said. ‘Look, I haven’t forgotten you lending me your essays on Roman law when I was struggling. If you ever want to borrow one of mine…’

‘Thanks, Prost,’ said Jolyon. ‘I’ll get through it, but thank you.’

Jolyon felt his tiredness like a weight in the back of his skull. Did he want his room, did he need breakfast? He plodded randomly around college. And then he saw Dee and his uncertainty dissolved. He swayed from the path and toiled toward the shade of the ancient tree. And then when he reached Dee, without saying anything, Jolyon curled up beside her and fell asleep right away.

Dee looked at him fondly. Jolyon’s hands were between his legs and his knees tucked in. His breathing stuttered on the way in but was smoother going out. She wished she had a blanket to tuck around his edges.

Still asleep, Jolyon rolled over and his face fell against Dee’s bare leg. Then his arm stretched out and soon his fingertips were resting against the inside of Dee’s thigh an inch beneath the fray of her cut-offs.

It felt good, the tingle, the fingertips cool. Dee stroked the hair from Jolyon’s eyes.

*   *   *

LII(v)
   Chad crossed the Bethlehem bridge. There were two punts drifting on the river below, shallow and draped with young limbs. Three swans, the sky cloudless. Chad’s chest was light, the paths of his mind awash with delight.

He took his favourite route back to Pitt via the narrow winding lane. The wisteria growing inside King’s College was slouched over its old stone wall. The lane twisted, turned and Chad passed beneath the old covered bridge that connected the two halves of Holyrood College. He could see the battlements of Pitt, felt himself nearer and nearer to Dee. He tried to rub the grease from his forehead with the back of his arm and wiped the shine from his nose with the hem at the neck of his tee.

*   *   *

LII(vi)
   When Chad reached the garden, they were still there, Dee and Jolyon. A rock and a pool.

Chad slowed down as he approached, as if he might be intruding.

But Dee beckoned him and then gestured shush. Chad enquired with a shrug and Dee responded with a shrug of her own. And then, when Chad was sitting beside her, she whispered, ‘He came over, said absolutely nothing, and just passed out there and then.’

Chad stayed with them but he felt uneasy, a sense of intrusion. At least he had not bought strawberries or Pimm’s already. So he didn’t look completely foolish. But even so his heart was breaking.

When finally Jolyon awoke they asked him if anything was the matter. He looked at Dee’s leg an inch from his eyes and did not seem surprised to see it there. Jolyon said no, nothing at all was wrong. He sounded very convincing. And soon Jack arrived.

*   *   *

LII(vii)
   Jack asked Dee what she was reading. She showed him the cover,
Animal Farm
.

‘Great story. I loved the
analogy
,’ said Jack, although he mispronounced the word as if the first syllables were pronounced
anal
rather than
annal
.

Dee decided not to correct him. ‘You’ve read it then?’ she said.

‘No,’ said Jack, lying back on the grass, ‘but I did watch the porn version on video.’

It was Jack’s final joke, that’s how Chad remembered it. Within five minutes he would be gone. And along with Jack there would depart from the Game the last scrap of any lightness, any humour, any entertainment left in this world of their making.

*   *   *

LII(viii)
   It began with a tease. Jack lifted himself to his elbows and suggested to Dee that in her outfit she looked like a geriatric prostitute. Dee responded that he should be careful, lest she decided to make it her mission to drive him from the Game.

‘Well, that’s me shaking,’ said Jack. It was a mild comeback for Jack and he spoke it without his usual thirst for the fight.

Dee pushed her cardigan sleeves to her elbows. ‘You don’t want to make an enemy of me, Jackie-oh. I’m in the book depository and your entire sense of self is sitting pretty in the car seat next to you.’

‘You’ve fired your best shot, Dee. Next session it’s me gunning for you.’

‘Jack, that was nothing, believe me.’

‘Yeah, sure, Dee, OK,’ said Jack, trying to look bored.

‘You see, the problem you face, Jack, is you know nothing about me. God, you’re such a man. You never ask any questions, it’s all just jokes and more jokes. So you’ve got nothing to go on. Whereas the things I sense about you, Jack, my female intuition, oh boy! I listen to you, Jack, hard though that sometimes might be. I actually pay attention to the things you have to say, I look out for your little twitches. Men can be such dimwits.’

‘Dee, you’re actually becoming tedious now,’ said Jack, lying back again and putting his hands behind his head.

‘The thing is,’ said Dee, ‘all of us here know that half your jokes are an excuse to tell your version of the truth, while the other half are a shield, a distraction from the truth.’

‘That’s right, Dee, it’s all just a shield that lets me tell pretentious bitches when they’re being pretentious bitches.’

Dee smiled slyly. ‘No, I think it’s a little more than that,’ she said. ‘Don’t you want to know what’s next up my sleeve for you?’

‘Not really,’ said Jack, yawning. Chad and Jolyon were staring down at him. ‘But if you really, really want to,’ he said, ‘then just go ahead and
wow
us all.’

Dee licked her lips. ‘So the next time you land yourself with your worst consequence – and let’s face it, Jack, you haven’t been playing so well recently and it can’t be that long – I’m going to suggest for its replacement that you have to go out on a date with dear David.’ Jack closed his eyes. ‘You don’t have to actually do anything,’ Dee continued, ‘that wouldn’t be in the spirit of the Game. You simply have to ask him if he’d like to go and grab a bite to eat one evening. And then after that one’s performed, we’ll replace it with one where you have to turn up naked at his room late one night. Again, it wouldn’t be fair to insist you go through with anything you don’t want to. But if you
should
want to … Do you see a theme developing here, Jack? I can keep going if you like.’

Jack’s eyes were still closed. ‘Oh, Dee,’ he said, laughing, his voice pitched higher than usual, ‘you’re just too hilarious for words.’