Black Chalk (10 page)

***

Andrew Hill's people came to take my statement two days after his visit. They knocked on the door and pushed it open before I could invite them in. My mother had gone to another ward's corridor to make a phone call. Ever since the inspector's visit, she'd become more dependent on her phone. She'd started using it apologetically; she'd come back to my side and tell me how much she hated mobile phones; but now that ritual had shrunk to a shrug.

Hill had sent me two people, both alluringly young. The more junior of the two must have been in his early twenties. His droopy eyes appeared fixed on the floor for the whole interview. After a cursory nod, he pulled a tape recorder out of a satchel he carried slung across his shoulders, and went about setting it up.

His partner entranced me, and entrances me still. I can still picture her today in a fitted grey suit, its lines following the curve of her hips down and around her arse, before dropping in one clean line to her feet. She was arching her back and holding her head tilted down as if she were looking up to me. I'm ashamed to put it down on paper, but the thought of her has kept on resurfacing over the years, even though I only ever met her twice. Now I can recognise in her allure the shape that some women reach around the age of thirty, but then I was caught unaware, and desire was stirring me into submission.

Her introductions almost made me hers. I was leaning back on my bed with a dumb smile and half-opened eyes, nodding to everything she said. It wasn't what she said: she was resorting to standard turns of phrase. But it was a quality in her voice which changed the meaning of her every word. A quietness. Quiet as a late-night whisper, her breath tickling my ear, one lazy finger stroking the hollow of her waist. It was halfway through her introduction, as lust was tightening its stranglehold, that my mother walked into the room.

‘What are you doing here? I told your inspector you couldn't interview him without me.'

The woman's voice floated across the room, brushing my skin: ‘We haven't started.'

‘Well, you can't start until I give you permission. Do you have my permission?' She paused, daring a response. ‘Give me a moment alone with my son.' She flicked her fingers towards the door. When they didn't move fast enough, she scowled: ‘Now!'

She shut the door behind them and came to my side, her face transformed. Its vivacity gone, she looked aged.

‘Are you ready?'

‘I guess.'

‘Remember one thing, Nate. Whatever you think you've done, shooting Eric saved lives. Think of the room next door. They were locked in too.'

‘I guess.'

She held herself in silence, her eyes still locked with mine, her hand rising mechanically to her temple. Her eyes lost their focus and she turned away. She seemed to stagger on her way to the door – I couldn't be sure.

They were meeker the second time they entered my room. The woman came in behind my mother and stopped a yard from my bed as if she were waiting to be shown where to stand. She turned back to the droopy-eyed man, who'd stopped at the door. Her glance seemed to embolden him: he crossed the doorsill and went back to his equipment. That in turn strengthened her position: she edged closer to me, to where she wanted to conduct the interview from. For a few seconds, she stood with her hands crossed over her stomach, one thumb massaging the other hand's knuckles. My attention slipped from her hands to the turn of her jacket, and, once again, I saw what had troubled me before my mother came into the room.

Then, with a sign from my mother, she started speaking. If it hadn't been for my mother's upright posture, the tension in her jaw, the stillness of her eyes, I would have been lost to the woman as a child to a lullaby. I would have been fooled into thinking that she listened because she cared, and that she cared about even the most minor of details. The warmth of an undivided ear, and in a woman like her!

But my mother was vigilant. She cut the woman early in her spiel.

‘So you're doing cognitive interviews now. And do they work?'

The woman looked startled when she answered my mother.

‘Yes, we are. DCI Hill insists on them.'

‘A modern man in the police force, who would have thought? Well, you're doing a good enough job… Keep at it.'

It took a few seconds for the unease to leave the woman's face. My mother had achieved her purpose: the woman's questions now seemed like they were coming out of an instruction book.

She asked me to tell her my story, and when I stalled she asked me to tell her more. ‘Tell me more…' It could have been a lover's command. Instead, it was a ploy. I told her the story I've already put down. Haltingly. Mr Johnson and his problem set, Eric and his chains, Tom and his sally, Jeffrey and his grunts, Anna and her blood, paramedics and their stretchers, the swelling crowd and ambulances. Tell me more… She asked me how I felt. Despair and acceptance. Fear and adrenaline. Pain and shame. Awe and calm. Tell me more… She asked me to go through events backwards. Arriving in hospital. Liz by my side. Anna's chest whizzing. Shots, shots and more shots. I struggled. Tell me more… She asked me to go through events from another person's eyes. I asked who, they all died. Tell me more… I balked, she retreated.

And yes, I told her what I haven't yet told the white page. Standing up as bullets wailed around me. Walking towards Eric, hands outstretched, coaxing a gun out of his hands, for him and against him, making and breaking a promise. One, two, three.

I told her what I felt: the burn the barrel left on my fingertips, the gun's weight and easy balance, the shock through my hand as my bullet left its chamber, and the overriding pain as his bullet missed my head and plunged into my stomach.

I told it to her backwards: dropping the gun and staggering back, pain gone blind on the count of three, my escape on the count of two, the trust in his eyes on the count of one, the implicit promise, my fingers curling around the handle.

I couldn't tell the story from his eyes. He wouldn't have understood – to him, I was a brother. Such things are better left untold.

***

The nights were slow, I remained stuck in bed, and I was growing restless. I'd been going to the bathroom on my own for some time. Doctors had advised me to consult the physiotherapist before getting back on my feet. But as it was merely advice, I could ignore it: I started by walking around my room. It was more of a slow shuffle than a purposeful walk, but it was a steady sort of movement. My legs were still faithful even if weariness piled down my spine. The ache in my stomach remained dull, but for certain movement that sharpened the pain, jolts radiating from the wound until my jaw clenched and my lips curled. I couldn't stretch my back or lean to the side, for example. But I could, a hand pushing along the IV stand still plugged into my arm, the other clutching my drawing pad and a pencil, keep my midriff steady and shuffle through my hospital wing.

My new ward looked much like my old one. The walls were painted green rather than yellow, but the patients looked just as wrinkled, and the nurses just as occupied. There was a gate at the end of the corridor, which opened silently onto the heavy grey doors of an elevator. I remembered the nurses who'd moved me: one floor, they'd said. The weight of the pad in my hand had me thinking of the old man upstairs. Pressing a few buttons, the elevator swallowed me in and spat me out. A nurse helped me through the door to my old ward: pulling was trickier than pushing.

When I came to the open room that used to be my own, I stood by the nurses' desk, as the young man and his blue sling had done, and looked at the great window. The ward looked ordered from afar, beds symmetrically arranged, the floor uncluttered. The city's lights broke through the distance, dimming points in the room's reflection. I was there too, in my pale hospital robe, spotty stubble darkening my chin, my back bent forward. The sight held me for a moment.

I recognised a nurse walking by.

‘What happened to the old man who used to be in that bed?' I pointed.

She pursed her lips.

‘The dark-skinned one,' I said.

‘Oh yes, he's gone.'

‘Dead?'

‘No, gone home.'

Relief mingled with disappointment. We had spent days facing each other. Days of boredom, introspection, and solitude. And somehow, despite our proximity, we'd erected a barrier we never dared break.

I took the elevator down to a cafeteria I'd seen signposted. People were scattered in clusters across the expanse of tables. Opening my sketchbook, I sat in between two groups. A greying man talking to a woman with a creased pink shirt. And an Asian family: two sons sleeping over beds made of chairs, an attentive daughter tucking her mother's arm, a father typing away on his phone. I sat and sketched and then I had enough. I preferred walking.

As I weaved my way back, two floors below my own ward, I heard a patient grunt. The sound stopped me. A guttural burst breaking down into a howl. I peered into a room at the man's pain, but my mind was going elsewhere. I was back inside the classroom and Jeffrey had fallen to the ground with a loud grunt. He was on the floor, leg twitching, a new grunt rising muted past his rasping breath.

My body was going rigid – I had to think of something else. Grunts and Jeffrey… My brain parsed through hundreds of mornings, afternoons and evenings I'd spent with him over the years, until, as the seconds passed and the classroom threatened its return, I remembered that Jeffrey used to grunt on the cricket field. Gentle men in floppy whites, glare reflecting off the wicket, freshly mowed grass, the images came together and the classroom was banished out of my mind.

Jeffrey used to roll his arm over and hope the ball would swing, seam and spit. He called himself a fast bowler – when I made fun of his speed, he told me he bowled a heavy ball.

‘Ask the three batsmen who couldn't play me last week. I'm quicker than I look.'

They'd been swinging across the line with their eyes closed, and one of them had connected five times before finding a safe pair of hands on the boundary. But that hardly bothered Jeffrey.

When I told him he was slow in the nets, he'd rise to the banter and scoff back an answer. One day he'd say that he reserved his best for matches. On another, he'd tell me that I wasn't worth the effort. This isn't to say he fooled himself. He was well aware that he was on the slow side of medium. But he preferred to think of himself as a fast bowler. When I told him that he should take a closer look at Ashley Giles, he laughed dismissively. It would be Brett Lee and Shoaib Akhtar for him.

If my advice had no effect, he was willing to listen to my father. For years, we'd seen him score a hundred every third match. His quietness at the crease, the restrained backlift, his backfoot punches, we'd spent years trying to emulate him. One day, my father took Jeffrey aside and said:

‘Forget about speed. It's all in here.' He tapped his skull. ‘Fool me and you'll get me out.'

Jeffrey took that to mean he should start grunting. He would start with three standard deliveries, respectable stuff on and around the off stump. On the fourth, we all expected it, he would sprint in, grunt, and bowl a slower one. The grunt would come early in his delivery stride, as if he was coiling so far that it was straining his back. He would land with a roar, release with a snarl, only for the ball to lob gently towards the batsman. Wary of losing their wicket, batsmen would generally pat the ball back, and smile at the laughing wicketkeeper.

Jeffrey's tactic worked once. A spiky-haired twelve-year-old blocked Jeffrey's first two deliveries, cut the third for four, and then tried the same shot on Jeffrey's slower ball, only to see the ball go over his slanted bat and dislodge a bail. Never one to miss a celebration, Jeffrey planted both feet on the ground and looked up to the sky, his arms outstretched. When he looked down, we were all around him, cheering him on. Ignoring the rest of us, he found my father and embraced him.

The image of my father and Jeffrey, arm in arm, brought up an overpowering melancholy. Drained, I made my way back to my room. The next day I told my mother I wished my father would visit more often.

‘He wants to. He does. But he's busy, you know how it is. And he's got to take care of James.'

There was a sadness in her voice that stopped me from asking any more questions.

***

It was a day before Hill's last visit that my mother seemed to break the distance that had grown between us. Despite my best efforts, I could ignore it no longer. She'd never made me feel so caught up in my own silence. Whenever she entered the room, I'd pull out a novel and bury myself behind its cover. Even when she sat quietly, I dared not interrupt her for a slight furrow across her brow.

But that day, her phone clutched in her hand, she walked into my room with a smile I hadn't seen for many years. It was the same smile she'd had when her lab received a large grant. Or when she'd ensured her favourite doctoral student was offered a fellowship.

I was sitting on a chair, my forehead glued to the window, staring at the town below. Arching my neck, I immediately felt myself drawn towards her. She was pulling up a chair next to mine, her voice carrying the warmth of fresh gossip.

‘There's a rumour going around,' she said, lingering over the word ‘rumour', ‘that they're going to replace Andrew Hill.' On that, she leaned back and stared up at the ceiling. ‘Ah!'

‘Why? What's he done?'

Her smile grew to include me. She tapped her phone absentmindedly.

‘It's what he hasn't done that people worry about. Every morning, there's fifty journalists waiting outside his door for a coherent story, and he can't give it to them. He has twenty officers working late into the evenings and he can't give it to them! That's what he's done. That's what he hasn't done.'

Her enthusiasm was overpowering my confusion. I grinned as I spoke.