Black Chalk (26 page)

‘No,' I rushed in. ‘No, of course not. You know…' I could see Amanda's face growing more worried. ‘I really felt like I had to leave. After all that happened, I couldn't stay. Does that make sense?'

‘Not really,' she said.

Her father cut in:

‘Vicki, don't be thick.'

She shut her mouth, stared at her plate for ten seconds, and jumped to her feet. Her chair toppled and hit the floor. After exchanging a look with his wife, her father went after her.

‘Have some vegetables,' Amanda told me. ‘Go ahead, serve yourself.'

I felt Leona's hand brush my thigh under the table. The first time felt accidental, but then I felt her knuckles run against my trousers. Her lips were pursed mischievously, as if the whole outburst hadn't happened. Her mother was recounting a scandal about a local councillor, looking as if she expected me to listen, or contribute even, while Leona's hand was brushing, poking, squeezing, and most of all, eluding my grasp. The fifth time I tried to grab her hand, Vicki came back with her father, her cheeks damp but her face otherwise composed, and I once again felt that I was to blame for the awkwardness in the air.

‘Leona tells me you were living in the Alps,' Amanda said.

‘Yeah, I worked a few seasons there.'

‘Oh, and were you falling off cliffs then too?'

‘I remember that,' David said. ‘I tried to rescue you. If that tree hadn't caught me, I would have landed on you,' he chuckled.

Vicki stayed quiet while we compared ski slopes and mountain shapes. Leona chirped in once or twice, but for the most part, she seemed happy to watch me immersed in her family. Her hand squeezed mine whenever her parents laughed. After snow, it was sand, and then, as the meal neared its end, I asked David about his business. I could see it in the three women's faces – it was the right question at the right time. Even Vicki nodded. Warmed by half a bottle of wine, mellowed by an apple and rhubarb pie, his voice went low, and softly, he recounted his original vision and its happy realisation.

***

Dinner ended when Amanda laid both hands on the table and stood up. While I fretted over a drying rack with a damp towel, she asked me what I wanted for breakfast. Then she asked Leona whether we needed another mattress. Leona shook her head, a half-smile on her lips. And so, to my surprise, I realised that I was expected to spend the night at their house, with Leona, in her single bed.

‘Give him a towel,' Amanda said.

Her bare shoulders pointing proudly forward, Leona led me past the picture frames and up the stairs. I had my right hand in hers; the other trailed over the dark wood handrail.

‘The bathroom's at the end of the corridor. Come, I'll give you a towel.'

While she looked through a drawer by the bath, I turned and looked at the four doors, two on either side, giving onto the corridor. The close one on the left used to be her parents' room; the three girls used to share the room on the right.

‘Which one's your room?'

‘The one by the stairs.'

‘That used to be your father's office.'

‘Not that one. That's Vicki's room. The other one.'

She grabbed my hips and whispered in my ear:

‘I have your towel. Let's go to bed.'

She laced her arms around my stomach and pressed her breasts against my back. Her hair tickling my ear, she pushed me, step by step, towards the door. When she reached for the doorknob, I expected blue walls covered with Led Zeppelin posters, a mattress on the floor, and dusty Lego boxes next to the window. Instead, the corridor light shone on a narrow futon, traced shadows around hung picture frames.

We reached for the shoulder-high light switch at the same time.

‘How did you know it was there?'

‘Just guessed… That's where they always are, right?'

The walls were pinkish now; the fluffy carpet was gone, stripped off to the original wooden floor, a brown rug covering half the strips; there was a small desk with a computer where the Lego boxes used to be.

She put her things down, turned on a weak desk light and flicked the ceiling light off.

‘I've slept on this bed most of my life, but I've never had a boy here before,' she said, her lips inches from mine.

I smiled and she kissed me. Tugging my belt, she pulled me down onto her. While I was on top, I smelled her hair, tasted apples on her lips, blew hot air on the side of her neck. But when we tumbled over, I lay flat on my back, a hand and a leg propping our two bodies back onto the bed. She laid her head on my chest, and I looked up at the slanted ceiling, on which I'd bumped my head many times before. The top three buttons of my shirt were undone, and her lips were edging towards my nipple. The paint on the walls was mauve – perhaps they'd tried to paint it pink, and it'd become this colour because of Jeffrey's blue.

I crossed my arms over her shoulders and pinned her against my chest.

‘I don't understand,' I said.

She sighed, and I felt her breath under my shirt.

‘What?'

‘This is Jeffrey's room.'

She instantly stiffened; the point of her chin pressed hard into my ribcage.

‘It was,' she said.

‘Yeah, it was. And you haven't said anything about it.'

Her hand found my navel under my shirt. She scratched her nail against its contour until I felt a deep burn, and with the pain came the feeling that I wasn't holding the girl I'd met in the Covered Market. The Leona scraping the top layer off my stomach wasn't trying to tease me. She was trying to hurt me.

‘No,' she said tightly. ‘Why would I?'

The hostility in her voice stopped me for a second. But I had a right to speak.

‘I don't know,' I started. ‘It's not a small thing. It's like you've forgotten him.' Her finger started digging into my navel. ‘Easy there!' I tried to move her finger but she didn't budge. Now that I'd started speaking, I had to finish: ‘You're in his room and… No pictures of him anywhere. We didn't talk about him at dinner either. It feels strange. When I used to come here, I spent all of my time with your brother. Now, nothing…'

‘So what, you expected a shrine?'

She took her finger out of my navel, and started kneading my stomach, as if she were trying to pull my intestines out through my abdomen wall.

‘No, no, I don't know what I expected. Stop, you're hurting me!' I reached for her hand, but she was too strong for me. This meant more to her than it did to me. All I could do was move her hand to my back. When the pain stopped, I added: ‘Each to their own, I guess.'

‘There's not going to be a shrine! I haven't forgotten him. He's with all of us, alright?'

Her nail cleaved a path into the small of my back.

‘Yes, he is. Of course, he is,' I whispered. ‘It's alright. Just a random thought, that's all. Nothing to worry about.'

‘I don't have to apologise.'

‘No, you don't. Don't worry. Here, give me your hand. Softly now, don't hold so hard, that hurts. Softly.'

She propped herself on her elbow, let go of my hand, and stared at my crotch.

‘Are you hard?' she said, and she reached for my crotch. ‘Why aren't you hard?' She turned towards me, her hair dishevelled, strands shrouding her eyes. ‘Take your shirt off.'

I undid a button.

‘That's too slow.' She grabbed a button and pulled. When it didn't give, she used both hands and yanked hard. The shirt opened, and two buttons landed on the wooden floor.

‘You're getting hard. Hurry up,' she said.

I didn't have time to react. It's a testament to denim that she didn't rip my jeans off. She straddled me without worrying about a condom. When I tried to take her top off, she pushed me back on the bed. She raised her hand and curled it into a fist. I tracked it as it rose high and fell in a sure arc towards my face. I caught it not a foot away. Her hand yanked back up immediately. This time, I put my arms up in a shield, but her fist followed a different arc, and she beat her chest three times, just between her collar-bones. The third time, she dropped her hand to her side and grabbed hold of my thigh, clawing her nails into my flesh. With that gesture, I stopped being afraid, and the pain ruffled me in a nice way. Her eyelids half closed, she looked at the ceiling while her hips swivelled. We changed position once, when she asked me to take her from behind. ‘Slower, slower,' she said. ‘In circles, yes, that's it.' And a minute later: ‘Faster! Faster!'

I obeyed until she collapsed. I put my arms around her: the tension in her body stayed for a few minutes, and then it was gone, and she was as soft as she'd always been. She cried quietly and fell asleep.

***

David and Amanda were whispering in the corridor and the sun was beating on the curtains. It was 6 a.m. I could make out what they were saying through the door. I remembered Leona's yelping, grunting, screeching only hours earlier. Readjusting the pillow under my head, I closed my eyes and hoped the darkness would absolve me. Time passed, but sleep stayed a step away.

To avoid the dreams, I tried to think. In his room, as hot in the morning as it used to be, I couldn't help but think of him. There was a dent in a beam above me that I recognised. His oldest cricket bat in hand, the one with the chopped toe, he'd been tossing a tennis ball and I'd been hitting him catches. But as the memory sharpened, I felt a ghost spread from my oesophagus. And it flashed to life: his leg twitching its last, all the more powerful for the grunt that he couldn't hold back. I forced it down, and my bat smashed into the beam.

‘Shit!' I said, but Jeffrey laughed, and his laugh became increasingly guttural. It took a sudden rush of will, and the moment was gone. The dark shook, and a tree propped me high, its leaves shielding me from the sun, its branches ready to catch me if I jumped. Eric was talking, but no, I would not listen! Once was enough. I knew better now. I distorted his voice until it was nonsense, until it became two voices.

David and Amanda were in their room again, speaking in low tones. Moving Leona's arm from my chest, I spread the sweat beads down to my stomach and closed my eyes. When the front door clicked shut, I couldn't do it anymore. I rose softly so as not to wake Leona up, and put on a jumper over my ruffled shirt to hide the missing buttons.

Amanda was alone downstairs, wiping a kitchen counter.

‘Nate, quite the lark, now? You used to sleep until eleven.'

‘I wish I still did, but now I'm up before nine even if I went to bed at five. Work habits and all that… I guess that's why I'm going back to my studies,' I said, willing myself into a lighter mood.

‘Yes, regular hours do that to people. And that room gets a lot of sun in the mornings. So, you told me you like fruits for breakfast? Well…' She put the kettle on, pulled out a chopping board, and reached for an array of colours: gala apples, strawberries, a kiwi fruit, a pineapple. Her hands got busy, and the fruits were peeled, diced, mixed. ‘How about some mint in there?' she said, and I laughed.

‘Normally, I just have a couple of bananas,' I said.

‘You should be eating a varied diet. And don't you think this is a normal day! It's been a long time since you've been sitting in that chair asking me for more jam.'

I smiled.

‘This is better than anything I'd make myself,' I said. Then I remembered seeing her in the supermarket. ‘I thought that you wouldn't want…'

I looked at her, hoping I wouldn't have to say more, wishing I hadn't said anything.

‘You know I like to cook,' she said, still smiling.

‘It's just that last time I saw you…' I started, despite myself.

‘When?' she frowned, and then she remembered: ‘Oh, Nate, don't be thinking anything like that. It was your mother I was angry with. Never you, now, how could I? You'd just been shot. But Liz…' She hesitated for a second. ‘How are you supposed to react when someone asks you how you feel, and then goes and repeats everything you said to some journalist half an hour later? You never saw her, bedbound as you were, but she was always on the phone, and I guess she was worried about you, but… But I guess you know all that now, don't you?'

Apprehension mingling with curiosity, I ignored my unease and kept the conversation on the subject:

‘Just that she was on the phone, as you said, but she never made phone calls in front of me. Thought she had to shield me from all that, I suppose.'

‘Protect you, yes. Can't fault her there.' She grabbed an apple and studied it. ‘I shouldn't be telling you this… But look, I know it was her who told George Hume your story, and I just wish she'd let the police do that. It was their job after all.' She shook her head and put the apple down on the table. ‘She was everywhere, Nate, everywhere, and she was the only one who still had her baby breathing.' She paused, and her face opened up. ‘Thank God for that.'

I smiled and for a moment, everything was as it used to be. Then she frowned and rose to her feet.

‘You know, Leona tells me everything, and what I can tell you is that she's never liked anyone like you before. Now you know what I think of you.' She leaned against the counter, facing me. ‘But you see, I'm a little worried. Leona…' She glanced down briefly. ‘In my mind, you're Jeffrey's friend first. In David's mind too. The other girls were a bit young. They might not remember. But Leona…'

‘She doesn't want to remember,' I said.

‘No, it's not that. She cried non-stop for three weeks after he died, she did. And then, one day, her father went to speak to her. Told her she had to make a choice. And she came down and she said she wouldn't cry anymore. And she stopped, didn't shed another tear. You see?'

‘I guess.'

‘Then, one month after he died, I asked everyone to follow me outside. A few seconds of silence, joining hands around the apple tree. Didn't expect anything, I just thought it was important. Well, Leona, she started yelping, an awful sound! Like a stray dog with a broken leg. We thought the neighbours would call the police. I took her back inside, but she lashed out.' She tapped her stark-white front tooth. ‘Fractured. Didn't mean to, of course, and it wasn't hard to fix, standard procedure and all that. Anyway, she calmed down. Took her a few minutes, but she was calm as normal.' Amanda looked straight at me. ‘Do you see what I'm getting at?'