Black Chalk (32 page)

Chad got to his feet, took Emilia’s crutches for her and held her hands to help her sit. She was wearing a slip of a top, her blonde hair kissing the tops of her shoulders.

Chad sighed. ‘I’m sorry I haven’t seen you since the accident,’ he said. ‘We came to the hospital. And then I thought you wanted nothing to do with us…’

Emilia nodded uneasily and then with more vigour. ‘I needed some time,’ she said, ‘But now I’m good, really good. And you, Chad?’

Chad’s skin was cool, the gin had numbed his nose. But deeper down, his rage lingered on. ‘I’m just on top of the
frickin
world, Emilia.’

Emilia paused and the silence became awkward. Eventually, she broke it. ‘So how’s your silly game going?’ she said.

‘Silly? How can you say that after what Middle told us?’

‘Told us when?’ said Emilia.

‘Just before your … Never mind,’ said Chad. If the accident had caused her to forget then he was the only one who knew. And in that case … He pinched at the grass, ripped it up, tossed it over his shoulder. ‘Look, Em,’ said Chad, ‘you know I can’t talk about the Game.’

‘Yes you can. You can talk to me about it.’

‘I especially can’t talk to you.’

Emilia lowered her chin and lifted her eyes. Chad felt his resistance diluting. ‘OK, OK. Look, I can tell you this much but only this. Jack’s out of the Game,’ he said, and then leaning forward, ‘it’s down to the final three. Dee, Jolyon and me.’

Emilia put her hands together, fingers writhing, ecstatic snakes. ‘Ooh,’ she said, ‘how on earth did Jack go out?’ She screwed up her eyes speculatively. ‘Please, Chad,’ she said, ‘you have to tell me now. It wouldn’t be fair to tease me like that.’

‘No way, Em, you know I can’t tell you. But you can go and ask Jack, if you like. Come on, Emilia, whatever gets you in the end is a deeply personal thing.’

‘So you’re saying it was a deeply personal thing then?’ said Emilia, her eyes narrowing further. ‘How titillating. Oh please. I’ll keep it to myself, Chad, promise.’ Emilia moved her hand to her chest. ‘Cross my heart,’ she said.

Chad watched the X being drawn over Emilia’s breast. ‘I wish I could tell you,’ he said. His mouth was dry. ‘But it’s the rules,’ he said, ‘I can’t.’

‘Oh, but Chad,
pleeease
.’ Emilia ran her fingers up and down Chad’s bare arm. ‘Please, Chad. Please?’ Chad was shaking his head. And then Emilia said, ‘But Chad, I thought you loved me.’

Chad flinched. The snap of his body could have been Jolyon’s gesture, his eyes could have been Jolyon’s eyes. ‘Get the hell off me,’ he said, swatting Emilia’s hand from his arm. ‘Jeez, Emilia, love you? Don’t be dumb. Is there something the hell wrong with you? I was drunk when I said that, I was steaming drunk.’ Although Chad’s resistance was diluted, his rage was distilled. ‘Don’t you remember, Emilia? You were part of the crew pouring whisky down my neck. Love you?’ he snorted. ‘Emilia, I couldn’t love you. Because I don’t even respect you. And you want to know why?’ Chad licked his lips and pinched the bridge of his nose. The words were about to spill out of him just as before, words he had thought but denied. ‘I’ll tell you why I don’t respect you, Emilia. It’s because you’re
blah
. You’re not one thing or another. You’re so permanently on the fence, you’re just so…’ He tried to think of another word and couldn’t. ‘
Blah
, Emilia,
blah blah blah
.’

Emilia’s eyes began to fill with tears. She tried to get to her feet but the cast held her down.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Chad, ‘I’m going.’ He stood up and took a swig from his bottle. His words felt harsh now, yet the rush of release remained, a fresh wind that whipped all around.

*   *   *

LIV(vii)
   Jolyon left Mark leering in the pub, taunting him as he left. ‘One–nil. Fifteen–love. That’s a hundred points above the line,
Joe
.’

Jolyon longed to be alone in his room. When he got there he curled up on his bed and fell asleep.

He woke to a light knocking sound, turned and wondered if he had locked the door, or if he should have done. The door began to open.

In came Emilia, or the upper half of her body, her shoulders bare but for the lacy straps of her top. She was not crying but it seemed as if she might have been only minutes earlier. ‘Do you mind if I come in, Jolyon?’ she said.

Jolyon wondered briefly if Emilia had come to confront him about Dee. But no, she was blinking and confused. ‘Of course you can come in, Emilia,’ he said. And when she moved into the room on her crutches, he thought about the stairs. ‘My God, Emilia, how did you get up here?’

‘It took a while. But you get used to it,’ she said. ‘My shoulders are going to look amazing by the time the cast’s removed.’

The comment cast an uneasy silence between them. And then Emilia’s body shook with a sudden shiver.

‘What’s wrong? Are you cold?’ said Jolyon. ‘It must be almost seventy today.’

‘No,’ said Emilia. ‘Yes. I don’t know.’

Jolyon jumped off his bed. Emilia was shaking as if sheathed in wet clothes. He took her crutches and led her to his bed, peeled back the duvet and helped her climb in. She crossed her arms and another chill ran through her. ‘What’s wrong, Em?’ he said.

‘Nothing, Jolyon, nothing,’ said Emilia. ‘Probably just the painkillers.’

Jolyon held the back of his hand to Emilia’s forehead. ‘Em, I’m so sorry,’ he said. He felt his face bunching, tears squeezing to the surface. ‘Please, I’m so sorry, I should never…’ but the words were silenced as he started to cry.

‘Shh, I believe you, Jolyon,’ said Emilia. ‘It’s all right, really, it’s OK.’ There were tears in her eyes as well. She lifted the covers. ‘I just want you to hold me, that’s all I want. To be held, Jolyon. I promise, nothing more.’

Jolyon got under the covers and Emilia rolled against him, her warm breath pooling in the hollow of his neck. He wrapped his arms around Emilia and held her. Only held her. And then Emilia said, ‘We can be friends again now, can’t we?’

‘Of course we can, Em,’ said Jolyon.

Emilia wriggled against him beneath the covers until more of her was touching more of him. And in a few minutes’ time they were both asleep.

*   *   *

LIV(viii)
   Chad stumbled around Pitt until he finished the gin. This, he had ordained, was the signal for action, the starter’s gun at a race. He threw the bottle into the bushes at the bottom of staircase six.

He did not knock when he got to Jolyon’s room, he was furious and ready with challenges. And then he stopped and looked at the two figures asleep in the bed. He turned around, he closed the door gently. And then Chad headed for the library.

*   *   *

LIV(ix)
   ‘I’m seeing him after my tutorial,’ said Dee. ‘What’s so urgent it can’t wait?’

‘I’m not supposed to say,’ said Chad. ‘I don’t know.’

‘I want to read through this essay one last time.’

‘It’s amazing, Dee, it’s bound to be. You’re amazing. Just go now, it’ll only take a few minutes.’ He turned off her reading lamp and closed the three large books on the desk. ‘I’ll return these,’ he said. ‘You just get going.’

Dee sighed, doubtfully, but then packed her things as fast as she could.

There was a spring in her step as she hurried over back quad toward Jolyon’s room. She had been working on a poem for the last three days and now she knew how it would end. There was a wonderful inevitability to everything, if you only had the right light.

*   *   *

LV(i)
   
This is our fourth Christmas-tree meeting and yet the greeting kiss lands on my forehead just as lightly as ever. Perhaps my tactics require adjustment. Maybe the time has come for me to make my move.

Dee appears to be in a jocular mood. She is bouncing above me on the balls of her feet. Come on, Jolyon, she says, let’s do some real training. She makes fists and starts to hum boxing music. Come on. She pulls me to my feet.

I laugh and play along but I can’t seem to work out which foot to lead with. Dee’s music swirls, she opens her fists to offer me two targets weaving sparkler patterns in the dying light. I try to swap my feet, see a flashing white streak and swing. Sights blur and sounds muffle. Feelings slide.

And then I feel such a pain in my nose. Has Dee hit me? Why would she…?

My face is pressed up against something, taste of earth in my mouth. No, it wasn’t Dee who hit me. It was the ground.

I roll onto my back. Dee is brushing my face, wiping the grass from my lips. Oh, Jolyon, what happened? Does anything hurt?

The pain in my nose is immense.
I’m fine, I say. I think my foot got caught in a rat hole. Don’t worry, Dee.
She looks so hurt for me that it makes my heart leap. Perhaps one day she will kiss all the sore parts of me better.

Dee fusses over me and I push her away, embarrassed. After spitting out more grass, I say to Dee, Maybe we should hold off on the skipping rope for a couple more days.

But Dee doesn’t laugh at my joke, she starts rummaging through her bag and I feel the first trickle on my lips as she fishes out a packet of tissues.

The nosebleed lasts for twenty minutes, a magician’s handkerchief display. Dee rubs my back, passes me tissues. When the bleeding stops a gory mass of paper is piled up next to the blanket.

And that’s when I feel it, the jolt. That’s when it comes to me –

Tomorrow, I say. JFK airport, 12.35 p.m.

Dee gives me a curious look.

That’s when Chad arrives. Tomorrow, I say. And then the last of the information buzzes into my mind. Virgin Airlines, I add with a snort, wiping the last crust of blood from my nose with the back of my hand.

*   *   *

LV(ii)
   We are silent for a while. Then Dee tries to tell me not to worry, everything will be all right. And so on and so on.

She stares down at the blanket for a new set of words, the ones she really wants to say. Jolyon, I’m sorry, she says, but I can’t help noticing a certain aroma on your breath whenever we meet. How much whisky are you drinking each day?

Perhaps more than usual, I say. But everything’s under control, I add frantically, worried at the thought of anyone interfering with my routine.

And the pills?

I need them, I say, thumping the blanket.

It’s OK, Dee says, touching me gently. No one’s taking anything away from you, Jolyon. I just want you to cut down a little. Can you do that? For me? Will you promise?

I feel my nose, the lightest of touches and yet still my head swims. OK, I say, I promise, Dee. Less of everything.

Less whisky and pills, she says. The same walking and writing, meeting in the park, poetry reading.

Yes, the same routine, I say. Meeting in the park, poetry reading. I half turn to look for it beside me at the corner of the blanket.

So have you committed tonight’s poem to memory? Dee asks me.

Where is it?

It’s OK, Jolyon, you don’t have to read to me every night.

Where is it?

Jolyon? Jolyon, is something wrong? Jolyon, tell me what’s wrong?

*   *   *

LVI(i)
   Jolyon woke in the night,
tap tap tap
on his window. Half asleep, impossible. There could be no tapping on his window, no trees, four floors up.
Tap tap tap
. Still half asleep he thought of Dracula movies and jumped up out of bed. He pulled the curtain, nothing. He opened his window and leaned out. There was nothing to see in the darkness, except for his neighbour’s window open, a faint light from within. And then he remembered, his
new
neighbour.

He went back to bed, held the pillow over his head and fell asleep again.

And then with a start he was awoken once more. For a second he thought that the world was ending, a great roaring of the earth being torn apart. And then the panic subsided as he realised that the sound was music, loud and distorted, and coming from the wall beside his bed. He held his hand there. The source of the din was only inches away, he felt it pump into his fingers. And then it stopped.

An hour later the tapping. An hour later the roaring. An hour later the tapping …

*   *   *

LVI(ii)
   Dee played a low card. Jolyon knew she had higher. Two against one.

Chad won with another low card, the six of clubs. And when Jolyon had to play next, he knew they would screw him again.

They did. Jolyon picked up the dice, five dice, and dropped them into the cup. Hard to roll low with five dice and he didn’t. He rolled very high.

Dee and Chad looked pleased with their work.

Tallest looked less satisfied than Jolyon would have thought. When the five dice fell showing a total of twenty-one, Tallest removed his glasses to his jacket pocket and looked at Jolyon, squinting and blinking. Perhaps it was pity, or maybe Tallest was tired, just like Jolyon after his sleepless night. Maybe Tallest had been enjoying late nights drinking with other men who looked like accountants, or soirées with girls in nice floral dresses.

Jolyon yawned and held his head in his hands. Dee started to clear away the dice and the cards. ‘How can you trust someone like that?’ he said.

‘What I trust,’ said Dee, ‘is my own eyes.’

‘Chad sent you here,’ said Jolyon. ‘He sent you here to see whatever you thought you saw and he’s playing you, Dee, don’t you get that?’

‘Chad did the right thing,’ said Dee. ‘Unlike you, Jolyon. I saw you with my own eyes, and…’ As Dee tried to finish her sentence, Chad put an arm around her shoulders. He squeezed and out came her tears.

Chad didn’t look at Dee as he made gentle shushing sounds. He soothed Dee but he stared at Jolyon.

Dee cried some more and then sniffed. ‘I hope you don’t quit too soon, Jolyon,’ she said. ‘I really think you should suffer for this.’

*   *   *

LVI(iii)
   No, he wouldn’t quit. How could he quit? What had he done? He held Emilia when she was hurt. Only held her.

He was innocent. And now he was wronged. He would not quit. It would be a dreadful injustice were he to quit, it would be a terrible, terrible wrong.