Black Chalk (2 page)

I tasted metal. I had blood in my mouth, but I wasn't wounded. The thought crossed my mind that I might not feel a gunshot, that I would die too quickly to feel the bullet butcher my flesh, but that, in death, I could carry over something so trivial as the taste of blood in my mouth – the last input my brain would have been able to decipher. But I wasn't dead: I just had blood in my mouth.

Anna was crouching next to me, holding my hand, struggling with the onset of a panic attack. For a brief moment, as I squeezed her hand, a sudden sadness weighed on my shoulders. And it was gone with a grunt, one loud grunt at first, and then four more in decrescendo. Jeffrey was on the floor in pain. And Anna was crushing my hand, her breathing reduced to a rasping sound, air scraping into her lungs, her breasts jerking up and down ever faster. In the few seconds I spent stroking her arm and whispering so she would calm down, I was aware of a body I had loved, now fighting itself. I knew I ought to feel something, perhaps apprehension or dread. Ideally it would have been love and forgiveness but I would have taken simple lust. It didn't have to be beautiful. But I wanted it to be strong. Nothing came.

Jeffrey was no longer grunting. Eric wasn't by the window anymore, and pretty Jayvanti's curvy body straddled a fallen chair on the floor. I surveyed the scene. It was meticulous, yes: neat and precise. Even the chaos made sense. Don't listen to me, there was no honour in the chaos. One, two, three, crack. I'd survived. One, two, crack, crack, three, crack. Even now, I can't do the moment justice. Even now, I can't tell it right: the images are there, however smudged, but the words don't follow.

***

They were all still, except for Anna whom I could hear breathing, and Grace whose leg I could see twitching. How long had it been since Eric had come into the classroom? It felt like it had happened a long time ago and that it hadn't happened yet. But the classroom was quiet, except for the three of us breathing and bleeding. Grace made no sound, as quiet in agony as she had been in life. And I crawled back to Anna's side, who was silent now. I lay there wondering what to do about the bullet in my stomach.

If a part of me remembers the pain, another sees me disassociated, above the room, floating amongst ideas and images. My hands were covering my stomach, my back resting against two school bags and part of an overturned table, my knees as close to my midriff as I could bring them, blood slowly seeping out. Help was coming, I knew. Help: the word came to life. I imagined a swarm of doctors resuscitating our limp bodies, lifting us onto comfortable stretchers, airlifting us to a new hospital, removing and discarding the traces of the day from our bodies, and discharging us a day later after a long night's sleep. I needed sleep. And then school would declare a week-long recovery, which I would spend reading and watching cricket.

The picture was too hopeful. Help would be two policemen coming to investigate a routine call, wondering what to do outside the chained door, and deciding to kick it in and assess what was inside before asking for reinforcements. They would come in, see the carnage and then, it was almost worth a laugh, I would die before the ambulance turned up.

***

Help arrived as help is meant to arrive. The spectacle trod on, and I was draining away in its midst, curiously overtaken by a profound wonder. Wonder at the eclectic scene around me, and wonder at the commotion gathering outside. At first, it was the lonely sound of a siren blaring far from all traffic – I imagined its cold blue light flashing past the grey leafless trees up to the cold blue sky. As if it realised its incongruity, it stopped, giving way to a murmur of muddled voices. To the sound of metal on metal: they were cutting through the outside door, and then they were hammering their way through. These were harsh sounds but they had to be. And then a teacher led them to the fire exit on the side of the building, hidden in between two thorny bushes. It wasn't much of an exit, just a low-lying window with a foldable stile. And then they were in. Shock gently etched onto their faces, giving way to an uneasy determination, the scowls and pursed lips smoothing into a final flat mask. There were to be no smiles, no tears – just a job to do.

A woman was sitting by me.

‘Let me see,' she asked. But I didn't want to show her. I told her to go and see to the others, I was fine and they needed help. ‘Let me see,' she said. I told her to take a look at Anna. I asked her whether anyone else was alive. She didn't know. ‘Let me see,' she said. I just had to lift my hand for a few instants.

I noticed sweat glistening on her forehead. She was a nice woman, I decided. ‘Are you cold?' she asked. I was a little cold – she took off her jacket and laid it over me. She told me to stay in the position I was already in. I was doing just the right thing. ‘I'm a natural,' I told her. She smiled and helped me get more comfortable. ‘Is this your blood?' she asked. I explained to her that I didn't know, but I thought a lot of it was Jeffrey's, and a little was Anna's. She wedged a toppled chair between my toes and another table. I hadn't noticed how tense my legs were until I was able to relax them. She asked me what had happened. Such an innocent question, I thought; she didn't need to look guilty. ‘Eric,' I started and stopped. She seemed to understand.

I asked her why she was helping me when so many others were worse off. ‘I'm staying with you until we can take you to a hospital,' she said. I told her she should take care of the others, I was fine. She gave me a tight-lipped smile and said the others were being taken care of. I looked around: there were about ten people in the room, all paramedics except for two people in plain clothes with a bolt cutter having a go at the chain. I recognised the groundsman and an old maths teacher. Their names stuck on the tip of my tongue. A man was by Anna's side, back to back with the woman taking care of me. She told me her name was Liz. Just like my mother. They were about the same age. I couldn't think of any more similarities.

I wanted to tell her something. But I couldn't recall her name. Yes, of course. ‘Liz.'

‘I'm here. I'm still here. You'll be on your way to hospital in no time. Don't worry.'

I told her I wasn't worried, but I had to tell her something. ‘Yes, I'm listening, don't worry.' I explained I wasn't worried, but I wanted her to tell my parents how much I appreciated what they'd done for me, and that I didn't want a grave. I thought graves were too grim. If they needed a monument, couldn't they plant a tree? Liz was nodding along, saying I shouldn't worry – I wasn't worried – and that I would be able to tell them myself. I smiled at her and thanked her.

They put me on a stretcher, stuck a few cushions underneath my knees, and covered me with a blanket. Outside, rain was approaching. A hint of mist was drifting through Hornsbury School but the sun kept on shining. Colours were stronger and warmer for it. The incandescence of the ambulances on the grass, the reflections of policemen's jackets standing guard, the contrasts in the resurgent crowd. I looked for Anna and saw Grace in an ambulance shutting its doors. Liz was still by my side. ‘Where's Anna?' I asked her. They slid my stretcher into the ambulance and she asked me who Anna was. She was already ahead, she then explained. I imagined Anna in an ambulance asking the same questions about me. She'd gone by helicopter, Liz added. Anna would like that, I thought. ‘Where's Jeffrey?' I asked. She said he was being taken care of. I asked whether he was in an ambulance. ‘Not yet,' she answered. I understood what she wasn't telling me.

I needed to stay awake, to fight off the great weariness dulling my pain.

And I wanted to ask where Tom was. And I wanted to know where Mr Johnson was. And Jayvanti Patel, and Laura Clarkson, and Satish Choudary, and Edward Moss, and Paul Cumnor, and Harry Williams. But Harry Williams hadn't come to class today. And Eric Knight. I had to complete the litany.

I looked around myself and wondered where I was, wondered why I wasn't in school. My answers were exotic, my logic capricious, my impressions oneiric. Odd yet normal, twisted yet clear. It had to be a dream, I told myself. But my lacerated stomach wouldn't let me escape. I tried anyway, sprinkling my wishes with realism. It was morning and I was on my way to school, another day except that physics had been cancelled.

The ambulance slowed suddenly. Something rattled, a soft sound of metal on metal, and the spell broke. It started to come to me, a swirl of sensations sweeping all in their way, gathering speed, shimmering outside a familiar building, materialising in anticipation, and entering brashly into an unwary classroom – I stopped the thought. There was no need to go any further, I knew it all so well.

‘That's right, we're almost there. You only need to hold on a little longer. You're very brave, you know. We're in Marston already, yes, it's not far.' She was holding my arm. It seemed like she was whispering in my ear, keeping me from wasting into nothingness with her murmurs.

***

My memories of A&E are incoherent. Like a childhood condensed, I remember things I didn't do and events I wasn't at. Liz had left me, or I had left her. And perhaps necessity unlocked an awareness that let me see my mother drive towards the hospital, or perhaps the vivid details that come to my mind are nothing but the product of a pronounced delirium. Yet there she is, coming out of a lecture and hearing of the shooting. Immediately deciding to drive to the John Radcliffe Hospital instead of my school.

Meanwhile, my flesh was in a large rectangular room on a table that paraded as a bed, surrounded by a team of doctors in garbs. I see them all wearing the same loose sober greens, asexual and indistinguishable. As I was wheeled in, I noticed two teams waiting and one already at work. Grace being brought in ahead of me; I had time to see her unit set up before the curtains were drawn shut. Her team seemed military: a stout man – his silhouette rises out of the fog – delivering curt orders, everyone following them, his soldiers either moving purposefully or standing at attention.

They ignored the shout-fest coming from the team on the other side of the room, but I couldn't. There, looking past two blurry greens, I glimpsed a foreign face: pale and drawn. It was her hair, ash darkened by damp, which I recognised.

A doctor gave me something for the pain: this will make you feel like you've had five pints, I heard. My carcass stopped mattering as its suffering washed away. What was left of my attention, the spirals which had survived the doctors' concoctions, listened to the enumeration of expletives coming from my left. And then I heard her staunch the profane. Was she speaking? My limbs weren't responding, surgeons were at me, I couldn't get closer and decipher her groans. I started to empathise with her pain, but too soon they were barking over her, and I was left to myself. Alive. Alone.

Loneliness was sweeping me towards a hollow, defeated and drained, when I saw my mother by my side. It's the last memory I have of that decisive day, the last memory before I gave in to the inevitable slide. She had followed someone through the electronically locked doors, bravado carrying her past hospital protocol. She stood and looked at me a full minute before anyone saw her. When asked to leave, she approached me. Her fingers covered mine. She squeezed them until she knew I could feel her.

The memories of my early convalescence are of ash and soot. My eyelids too heavy to respond, I was at the mercy of a slow current. My consciousness dragged me through greys and blacks. Through the ash, I glimpsed a small house with no door. I tried to get closer but we were floating in the same river. For all I knew, the house could have been a pile of granite and burned wood. It left me behind when the soot settled.

Respite came when sleepless dreams congealed into dreamless sleep. There were voices around me and then they were gone. I did not have the will to understand them. All my strength veiled the blunt pain that spread through me with every throb.

The soot was more violent than the ash. It took me to a great windswept plain. I was surrounded by an ocean of yellowed grass. And the clouds promised blood. I turned and turned, afraid to look up, searching for shelter, a trench, a furrow.

Dreams went but the pain persisted.

As the slumber thinned, voices became people. There were nurses talking over me, and there were nurses talking over others. A new strand brought me relief: its warm lilt, its limpid diction, its calm command, and the courtesy it elicited. My mother was asking the nurses about me. I could hear her breathing by my side, murmuring, paper rustling. I could feel her hand on my forehead, the familiar calluses, her fingertips lingering at my brow before rearranging my hair.

***

My first complete memory happened on the 12th of February, two days after I was rushed through A&E. I am told that my eyelids flickered and that my tongue gibbered before then. I put my body's twitches to the fever I was fighting, an infection I picked up somewhere between the classroom and surgery, which was draining me quicker than a punctured stomach.

It was the sound of both voices at the same time that pierced through the stupor. And her confessional tones, almost submissive, made the moment stand out.

‘Someone needs to be here,' she was saying.

‘What about James? He needs you too.'

‘Now that you're back, can't you take care of him?'

‘He needs his mother.'

Her words briefly unravelled into inaudible whispers, before her voice reasserted itself: ‘… Nate gets better, I'll spend more time at home.'

They were right by my bed, speaking in hushed tones. I had the sense of listening in to a private conversation, the sort they would have in their room, the door closed, before coming out to present my brother and me with a common front.

‘I sat next to Grace's mother at the meeting this morning,' my mother was confessing. ‘I didn't know what to say… But she understood. It's not what she said, she hardly speaks English.' She paused. ‘Henry, she's so dignified! I wanted to hug her… But I didn't dare, it's not like we know each other. Still, moments like these bring people together.'

They stayed silent for a minute. I wanted to stretch my hand and touch them, but my fingers wouldn't heed my orders.

‘Have you seen Eric's parents?' my father said.

‘Do you think I should?'

‘Well, they were good friends.'

‘Nate's friends with everybody… But I've been thinking about it. His mother must be suffering more than any of us.'

‘No, you're right.' My father's tones became more assertive. ‘You don't have to go see anyone. The police will do all that, and you heard that Hill fellow, they'll let us know what they find. We just have to wait for their findings.'

My mother's voice weakened. ‘But does he really understand? He's got no idea. He can't, he doesn't know what it means to be sitting here.'

My father had come back from overseas, Kenya, I think, where he'd been volunteering for one of his company's pro bono projects. To have them both! I basked in the thought. But the matter of the conversation gnawed through the glow.

I groaned, my eyes half open, light streaming in. They were both up on their feet. My mother stroking my cheek, my father's arm around her. I looked towards them and tried to smile.

‘Is he?' my mother said looking towards my father. She cupped my forehead with her hand.

He went around the bed and laid his hand on my left wrist. ‘Nate?' he asked.

‘He feels cooler. They said he'd hear first.'

I wanted to say I could but my lips wouldn't part fully. I focused on my left hand, on the warmth of my father's skin, and straightened my index finger, a tendon cording out all the way to my elbow.

‘Nate,' my father said, ‘you're safe. We're here with you.'

I could hear my mother crying. ‘Darling,' she said, fighting with her face. She looked to my father: ‘Oh, I'm glad we're both here for this.' Checking a sob, she turned towards me again, studied my face, and smiled timidly: ‘Nate, darling, your stomach, and then that fever… We love you so much, you know.'

I looked at the tears running down her face and felt helpless.

‘We're very lucky…' She was wearing one of my father's old cardigans, the same green one she would take on road trips. ‘And look here,' she moved aside and pointed at the window, ‘isn't that a lovely view? You can even see Grandma's old house from here. We used to go there once a month when you were little. Do you remember? She lived very close to here. I'll show it to you when you get stronger.' She leaned towards me and kissed me on the cheek.

She stopped talking and stood rooted by me. My father's face was tanned for February. I tried to speak and nothing came out. I felt her hair brushing my lips.

‘What about the others?' I whispered. Whispering was all I could manage.

She didn't answer straight away.

‘What did he say?' my father asked.

‘He asked about the others. Your brother was here yesterday, but he's scared of hospitals you know. He's staying with Stan today. I know you want to see him.'

She stopped as if there were nothing else to add.

‘What about the others?' I whispered again.

She leaned back and breathed deeply. Looking at my father, she said: ‘He wants to know about the others. Nate, the most important thing is that you're safe here with us. The doctors say you'll be alright, you just need time to build your strength.'

I tried to speak again, but she didn't lean forward to hear what I had to say. She exchanged a look with my father.

‘Darling, Nate. The others…' When it seemed like she wouldn't say any more, my father said:

‘They told us to let him rest.'

For a moment, I thought my mother would agree with ‘they', the control-men, but she shook her head several times. ‘No, no, that's not how we raised them. Nate, it's not good news…' One hand on my cheek, another stroking the fingers of my right hand, she looked for the right words. I could feel it coming from the coldness of her fingers.

‘It's tragic, Nate, it's so sad, I don't know how to put it. All I know is that you're here, and that's a gift, and we should be thankful for it.' She looked up towards the ceiling, tears illuminating her eyes.

I looked for the right word. It didn't come. ‘Everyone?' I said.

She hesitated. ‘No one outside your physics class.'

‘And Anna?' I asked.

‘What did he say?' asked my father.

‘He asked about Anna.'

‘Ah, yes.'

‘Anna's very weak. And even if she makes it, she won't be the same.'

My father spoke: ‘You'll get better in no time, Nate.'

I closed my eyes and searched for the house again, willing the current back into motion.

***

This morning, I went looking for my old drawing case. My mother thought I'd find it in the storage room under the stairs. The room was full of boxes, crates, and paintings that this new house has no space for. I didn't find it – I may well come across it tomorrow if I rummage through the back section of the room.

My search stopped when I came across a dusty blue chest. It was just as I had left it all those years ago, the rusty padlock testifying that it had stayed closed over the years. I felt relieved. Her son gone for eight years, silent for seven, I would have understood my mother breaking the lock and looking inside. Knowing her curiosity, I'm surprised she left the chest alone. Perhaps she always expected me to come back, or perhaps she preferred ignorance in this one regard. Whatever its source, I appreciate her restraint – I don't think I would be able to face her over dinner tonight if she were armed with my hospital thoughts.

I couldn't remember where I'd hidden the key, so I fetched a large screwdriver from the kitchen and wedged it in the padlock and pushed. I could hear movements within its mechanism but it held together. There was a bigger toolkit in the garage: I found a handheld metal saw. I sharpened the blade and took it to the padlock. Once I managed to nick the shackle, the saw tore through the lock and the chest pried open.

The boy who locked the chest would have been too shy to tackle a reticent padlock. He would have scratched his head and moved on to something else. Or he would have asked someone else for help. Menial jobs, fluctuating finances, and wading through mud must have done their bit.

I've spent the best part of the day sprawled over my bed, immersed in my hospital diaries. In between tentative sketches, I found a medley of spare thoughts and painstaking descriptions. Nine words on Anna, followed by a sketch of my foot, and three pages on the nurses' interactions. A paragraph on Jeffrey, another sketch of my foot, a still life, six words (no verb) on Eric, a page and a half on Inspector Hill's mannerisms.

I'm starting to think that my psychiatrist was right, that I was fleeing it all. And yet, such things affect us differently. My reactions were just as right as those of snarling mothers and pontificating principals.

***

My parents moved to Hornsbury when I was four. A year before I was born, my father had left London and, teaming up with two colleagues, started a management consultancy. As luck had it, my mother was made a fellow of her college just as his business was becoming viable. Tired of their small Jericho flat, they decided to move out of the city and into the country. The way she tells the story, it sounds like it was my father who wanted to raise his children the way he was raised. But when I asked him about it, he explained in his careful, measured voice that he'd had a slight preference towards staying in Oxford, while my mother had had a strong preference for a garden: hence, as couples ought to do, they'd looked for a house in the country, and found what they were looking for in Hornsbury.

Now that I've heard stories of others' childhoods, I realise how good mine was: I had a spacious garden, and up until my brother was old enough to play with me, a father who happily taught me how to juggle a football, catch a cricket ball, swing a racket. During the winter season, my mother drove me to football games, and my father took me along to his squash tournaments. In the summer, I followed him around the county's cricket fields, at first cheering his every run, and then playing alongside him.

I still remember the day I first came on the field. I was eight, and it was only as a substitute fielder, but to me that didn't take anything away from the moment: I was all of a sudden in the middle of everything. Every time a bowler ambled to the crease, I expected the ball to come my way. I walked in as I'd seen internationals do on television: my hands on my knees, a smile betraying my otherwise focused face. Thinking about it now, I realise they'd put me at short forty-five, where the ball would never come fast, especially given the pace of our attack. I still see Garry, the wicketkeeper, crouching over his large belly, and turning to me every third ball to check that I hadn't moved, and happy I'd stayed where he wanted me, giving me one of his cavernous smiles before smacking his gloves together, and telling the bowler to bowl full and straight. And Garry calling to my father, telling him to warm up, and my excitement at the prospect – even then, my father didn't bowl much. And I still remember my father's off-cutter – it was in either his first or second over – and the burly batsman's wild swish, the ball looping ever so high (to my eight-year-old eyes) in my direction, Garry's call of ‘Catch it, mate!', the fear that gripped me, my legs suddenly unsteady, and the ball arching down towards me. The sting of leather hitting my palms, the ball rebounding, and my desperate lunge to grasp it before it hit the floor. I'd made the simplest of catches look difficult, but that didn't matter. It seemed that the whole team was as happy as I was – they were shaking my hand just as they did when adults took a good catch. Even my father offered his hand, gripping mine harder than any of the others, so that I had to massage my palm when no one was looking. I fell asleep reliving the moment for weeks afterwards.

Perhaps I am looking back on my life through rose-tinted glasses, for school also seemed to have gone well. My mother tells me I was a sweet child, content to stay silent when left alone, but ready to break out of my reverie with a wide smile whenever someone talked to me. I found the first few days of school difficult, but I never locked myself in the toilets at home the way my brother did, and I don't remember any problems with the other students until the third grade, when Andrew joined our class.

To the teacher, he was a bright, jovial child with a penchant for practical jokes. To me, he was a selfish brat who wanted to be the centre of everyone's attention. When he walked in one day and, taking on a deep voice, pretended to be the principal, I didn't laugh the way my teacher did. I'm not sure why, but I decided that what he was doing was wrong, and that he needed to be punished. With Jeffrey, I chased him across our primary school's courtyard, caught him, pinned him down and spat in his face. It was a fitting lesson, I thought.

My mother had other ideas: never have I seen her so angry as she listened to my teacher over the phone. She hung up, walked over to where I was sitting, and slapped me. The pain shocked me; the shame had me in tears. She pointed at my room, and in a tone that expected no argument, told me to go and wait for her.