Black Chalk (35 page)

I think about the gift for some time and how genial Chad seemed in the airport. And I wonder if I am mistaken about the purpose of his visit. Perhaps he wants everything to be finished between us, a renewal of friendship, remembrance of happier days.

Two eggs. Old friends. So much potential.

*   *   *

LXII(i)
   Jolyon’s diary extracts counted out his days for him like a prisoner’s scratches, the marking of time on the cell wall. No. 3, no. 4, no. 5, no. 6, no. 7 …

And then he could take no more, he kept his eyes low in the bathroom, ignored his final humiliations written up there in his own words.

Saturday arrived, the Game’s hiatus would be over the next day. Again they had pushed a note beneath his door to inform him.

Jolyon lay on his bed looking up through his window all day. The darkness was falling into his room. And that’s when a new sensation suddenly flooded his chest, a feeling that broke over him even before the words. He whispered it out loud, the words turning a feeling into truth. ‘I can quit,’ he said. ‘In the morning, I’m going to quit.’

Jolyon jumped off his bed, he should write it all down immediately, his formal resignation from the Game. To have such a letter waiting on his desk would be a release from everything. Maybe he wouldn’t need the pills any more. Game Soc would return his deposit and he would give the thousand pounds to Mark right away. The solution was simple. Everything would be over in only a day or two.

He wrote the letter hurriedly, offering congratulations to his opponents. He was leaving without any grudges and wished them the best of luck. And when Jolyon finished and read the whole thing over, he started to laugh. He laughed at the silly lines he had strung together from all those silly letters looped into even more ridiculous words. Words like
sincerest
,
wholehearted
and
aforementioned
. The pomposity was hilarious. And then he realised, while reading the letter, that his fingers were playing with something they had idly picked up from the desk, turning the small thing over and over.

Jolyon looked down and there it was, his tooth. He placed it in front of him on the desk. ‘The tooth, the whole tooth and nothing but the tooth,’ thought Jolyon, everything now so amusing. His lucky charm stood there, casually leaning on the tips of three of its roots, and suddenly he began to hear a voice. He could almost see the regimental tie. ‘Have you noticed, old chap, how the dentist always arranges the most painful procedures to take place at two thirty? Ha,
tooth hurty
, every time.’ Jolyon smiled at this joke – yes, he had noticed the same thing. And then the tooth spoke again, but this time in a deep and serious voice. ‘Remember, old chap,’ it said to Jolyon, ‘you can’t be beaten. There’s nothing they can do to you. Nothing at all.’

Jolyon blinked and looked around the room. He felt disorientated, as if he had just awoken from a dream. He stared hard at the letter as two choices jostled inside him. A minute later, he picked up the letter and started to tear it to pieces.

When he was done he took one of the strips of paper, rolled it into a ball and popped it into his mouth. Jolyon chewed until the ball became a soggy pellet which he manoeuvred with his tongue to plug the gap where his tooth had been. He piled the remaining strips of paper into an ashtray and set them alight.

When the letter was nothing but ashes, Jolyon got up from his desk and moved to the spot on the wall that roared in the night-time. And he started to tap with his head there, gently and rhythmically at first. Then harder and harder and harder. And was it the sound of his head, the beat of a song? Or maybe someone was knocking on … Yes, someone was knocking on his door.

Jolyon staggered across the room. He had to lean against the wall to keep himself upright as he opened the door just a crack, just enough to see her standing in his hallway.

*   *   *

LXII(ii)
   He had not seen Emilia for two months. Not since Dee had come into the room and spoken their names, two loud exclamations. ‘Jolyon! Emilia!’

Dee had run from the room. And Emilia, her eyes brimming with her wounds, would have run from the room too were it not for her leg in its cast.

*   *   *

LXII(iii)
   His head didn’t hurt. It must have been the new pills. Emilia was flickering in the half-light of the corridor. Jolyon shook his head and managed to steady the picture. ‘Emilia,’ he said, sounding delighted to see her.

Her nostrils were flaring and the track of a single tear marked one of her cheeks.

‘What is it, Emilia, what’s wrong?’

She began to lift her hand, her fist was holding something. When her arm came level with her face, she opened the hand. And out fell a piece of paper.

Jolyon looked down. He saw the
no. 10
and the fragment of her name vanishing into a crease. ‘Oh, Emilia, no, no, I … I didn’t mean any … It was just lashing out, venting, like therapy, you know, I felt awful…’

When Emilia turned, Jolyon noticed that the cast was gone from her leg. But just as before, when she left him, she left slowly. The picture was flickering. But his head didn’t hurt him at all.

*   *   *

LXIII(i)
   I write, I drink, I take pills. When I get home from the airport, when I wake up at five the next morning. I write, I drink, I take pills. Rewind and repeat.

So much to tell and so little time.

The intercom buzzes. Chad’s voice.

*   *   *

LXIII(ii)
   Excuse the mess, I say, turning to lead him from one end of my sty to the other.

Jolyon, maybe you should put on some clothes, Chad says.

I look down. OK, I say. You wait in the living room, Chad. Anything else I should do?

You could offer me a drink.

I have only whisky.

I’ll take a water.

So I dress, I find a glass among the swill of my apartment, I pour water for Chad and then take it, along with the whisky bottle, into the living room.

Chad inspects the filth-encrusted glass, its rim blackened with Magic Marker like the salt on a margarita. He places it on the table and pushes it away.

Have you come here to gloat? I say, indicating the mess all around.

You know that’s not why I’m here, he says.

No, I know why you’re here.

Well, it has to end, Chad says. He is sitting on my writing chair wearing crisp, dark jeans and a bright cerulean shirt with sleeves rolled up past the elbows. Chad now possesses forearms in the sense that Popeye the Sailor possesses forearms. He sighs as I fall onto the sofa. I feel bad, Jolyon, he says.

Fuck you, Chad, I shout.
I feel bad
. You feel guilty.

No, he says, I don’t feel guilty.

Well, good for you, I say, that’s probably what makes you such a winner.

I haven’t won anything, Chad says. Not yet, Jolyon.

I laugh and take a swig of whisky. The chair creaks as Chad arranges his muscular frame into a fresh position of refined easy-goingness. What the hell do you
do
? I ask, moving my hands as if measuring the breadth of his shoulders, his chest. Do you work out for a
living
, what is this?

Chad chuckles. Just diet and exercise, Jolyon. Living well, you know. And how about you? Did you become a lawyer in the end? Crusader for justice, defender of the poor and innocent, that was always the plan, correct?

I pursued other avenues, I say.

Chad laughs and waves his hand. Oh well, we have more important matters to discuss, he says. Three more days, your birthday. Shall we say two thirty?

Two thirty? I say, starting to laugh. Two thirty, tooth hurty? And then I laugh so hard that my body convulses, I have to slap my thighs. I’m sorry, Chad, I say, recovering slightly. It’s just … it’s a private joke, don’t worry.

Chad starts to get up. His smile looks forced, his eyes uncertain. OK then, Jolyon, may the best man win, he says, offering me his hand.

Reluctantly I respond and we shake.

And just as I think Chad will turn and leave, he takes a deep breath, holding on to my hand a moment too long before letting go. And then he says, Jolyon, whatever happens later, you do understand that none of this is personal any more, right? I want to make sure you know that.

You mean it
was
personal? But it isn’t now?

Chad sits back down. I guess it must have been, right? he says, leaning his elbows on his knees. God knows it wasn’t the money, the money was never enough to explain anything. Perhaps it was something to do with Emilia, or something to do with Dee. Or maybe I just wanted to beat you more than anyone else. That’s not so unusual, is it, Jolyon? You know, like fathers who flat-out refuse to let their sons ever beat them. Or someone who’d rather lose to any person in the world other than his own brother. I suppose that’s personal, right?

And now? I say.

You know what it’s all about now, Chad says. It’s all about escaping from Game Soc, of course.

We could make a pact, I say.

Chad laughs. I wondered that too, he says. And if I thought it would work … but they’d just come after us both, Jolyon. Anyway, what do you even stand to lose here? He waves his hand at the filth and the wreckage. I’m sorry, he says. And then Chad stares off to one side. Honestly, I wish I’d just lost the whole thing fourteen years ago without knowing what I know now. And then he turns back to face me. Did they send you the green-ink letters as well?

What letters?

You’re kidding me, right? Chad snorts. What letters? Tell me, Jolyon, what do you know about Game Soc?

Nothing, I say.

Nothing? Then what do you have to be afraid of, Jolyon? What are you hiding from?

This is what I think about saying in reply – Oh, I have my reasons, Chad, trust me. I have plenty to hide from. I’ll let you read all about it one day. Skip straight to the chapter that follows this encounter, you’ll find out soon enough.

But instead I say to him, What letters are you talking about, Chad?

Anonymous letters, he says. Bundles of letters written in green ink making certain grand intimations about Game Soc. Almost certainly from Tallest or Shortest, is my guess. And they were clearly intended to frighten me, so Tallest is the most likely, I think. What with him being such a fan of yours, Jolyon.

A fan of…? What? Chad, I don’t have the faintest idea what you’re talking about.

Chad blinks several times at me. And then he throws himself back in the chair. You’ve got to be kidding me, Jolyon. You don’t know what we were to them? Because if you don’t know even that much then you know almost nothing at all. He looks at me and waits to see if I comprehend any of what he’s saying.

I shrug.

Chad holds his head in his hands. He starts to mutter and shake his head. Muttering, muttering, shaking. When he drops his hands from his face, he says to me, We were
their
game, Jolyon. They were playing and we were just their little pieces. Knights, bishops, pawns. Tallest backed you and Shortest backed me. So if you win, Tallest wins as well. If I win, then it’s Shortest who gets the prize. You didn’t even know that much?

I shake my head. But how do you know all of this? I say.

The letters, of course, Chad says, although there is something hesitant to the way he says it and this makes me wonder if he’s telling me the truth. There were nine of them originally, Chad continues, all members of some rich boys club. Rich and bored and kicking around looking for something fun to do. And it was Tallest who came up with it. An astonishing, life-changing game. A game just like one he and some friends had played at boarding school to pass the time.

The details were never revealed to me, Chad says, but I know a few things. I know about the prize for winning. And I know Game Soc weren’t the winners. That’s why they had to find someone. Someone else to play, that was the price for losing.

Then who were the winners? I say.

I have no idea. But they were all rich, all from wealthy families. They were young and smart and well connected. And money meant nothing to them. So instead they played for something much more valuable. They played for power. Those who lost would be beholden to the victors for the rest of their lives. Whatever positions they reached, whatever stations in life, they would owe favours. Be they government ministers, influential bankers, publishing magnates, captains of industry … they would all look out for the winners, they would support them utterly and without any questions. Jolyon, you have to understand, our game was
nothing
compared to any of this.

And they had their own form of deposit as well. Money might not have mattered to them. But their standing in the world meant everything to them. And so that’s what they all deposited. Their reputations.

So when Middle walked away … Look, like I say, I’m really not sure exactly how it all went down. Maybe the rest of them, whoever the rest of them are, simply decided that he needed a gentle reminder of his obligations. Anyway, a few years after we were done playing, Middle was doing very well climbing the greasy pole of a prestigious private banking house. Until one day he was arrested for the possession of a particularly large quantity of cocaine. He managed to wriggle out of serving any jail time, but he lost his job. And after that, no one in the banking world would touch him.

The letters told you this? I say. But how do you know any of it’s true?

The information about Game Soc’s game? I don’t know if it’s true. But Middle? Along with the letters I was sent a whole bunch of additional reading material – we’ll come to that in a bit. But one of the things that was included was a bundle of press clippings, news stories all about Middle’s arrest, the trial … and one of the press clippings had a note written in green pen. It said something like, Middle is aware there are considerably worse crimes on the statute book than possession of class-A drugs. And that was it. Chad claps his hands in sarcastic delight. In the very next letter, I was sent another bundle of press clippings. Can you guess what the story was this time? Let me see if I can remember one of the headlines – Oxford Student’s Suicide Offers Grim Reminder.