Black Chalk (15 page)

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XXVI(vi)
   I’m sorry, I don’t want to do this, I don’t want to interrupt the past with the present. But I had to stop writing. I had to get up from my work. Rewind.

*   *   *

XXVI(vii)
   The intercom lets out a long, sour buzz. Someone outside at the door to the building.

I decide to ignore them. Probably just a neighbour who has forgotten their keys, it happens all the time. But I am writing and the scene is important, my old diary is hazy on the exact words we exchanged that morning. And then frustratingly another buzz and another. I try to ignore the fat-fly sound. I close my eyes to recall how things ended in Chad’s room, whether we said anything more that might be important. I feel tantalisingly close to the end of the chapter. And then another buzz and another and again and again.

I slam my diary shut and jump to my feet. I can’t work like this. I go to the intercom.

What is it? I shout.

Help me, please help me. A woman’s voice.

My anger vanishes. The chill wind of panic blows through me. What’s wrong? I say.

Quickly, please, he’s going to … And then a scream.

I’m coming, I say. Just hold on.

I feel frantic. I look at my bare feet, think about shoes, wipe my hands at the hips of my pants.

I run out the front door. A neighbour stands at the entrance to his apartment along the corridor fumbling for keys, patting his pockets. I think about asking for help.

No time to explain. My bare feet slap against the stone as I run down the stairs two and three at a time.

I am running too fast, I might break my neck at this speed.

I slow down. And then I slow down some more.

Halfway down and I stop. I lean against the balustrade, clenching my fists to the rail.

And then something terrible happens … I’m so sorry, if only I were all the way fixed, if only my recovery were complete, if I felt stronger then perhaps I could … I turn and walk back up the stairs, neighbour still fumbling for keys, swearing now as he pats every pocket again.

I close my door and fall to the floor, breathing heavily. And then a minute later I get to my feet and rush to find the ice-cube tray. I snatch up my evening dose of pills and swallow them desperately. The guilt is awful, the guilt makes me

and now somebody somewhere is tapping and tapping and tapping and

think that the world doesn’t want me to
tap tap tap
that sound like a bad memory makes me feel so sick and Jesus will you please just let me finish this chap

or knocking perhaps

maybe someone is knocking on my

*   *   *

XXVII(i)
   It has been at least a week since I last wrote anything. Ten days perhaps.

It starts with a headache. I wake up with a start as if woken by a great roaring, as if the earth is splintering outside my window. And then I feel the pain in my head, such a sore head that I don’t move from my bed for a day. (Note to self: The pills are part of your routine. The pills are there to take away the pain. More pills, less pain.)

I lie there trying to recall a peculiar dream. Was it the dream that woke me? Not the six of us this time. I am with a woman, somewhere crowded, words tumbling uncontrollably out of my mouth. Emilia or Dee? The woman in my dream seems to be sometimes one and then the other, or at other moments instead of a dream it feels like a memory of sleepwalking – trudging along in a trance to a bar, talking about the Game and drinking whisky, shot after shot. The whole thing starts to take on the feeling of a hologram, fuzzy at its edges and yet somehow real as if I could reach out and touch my memories. I feel sick, lying there in my bed, as if I have been drinking heavily. But I was drinking only in the dream, wasn’t I? And how can a dream cause this physical pain in my head?

Even the next day the pain is still there, lessened but present, and I can’t write. Is the headache a symptom of my writer’s block, or is it the cause? Or has this listless state been induced by a fear of writing the rest of my story?

I could delay the inevitable, put off the decline. My story could linger wistfully on our trip together to London for Mark’s birthday. But what would such a chapter tell you? That we had a wonderful time and everyone was happy. We revelled in our youth and the discovery of a new group of people we thought truly unique.

No, the words will not flow. This is a hitch in my recovery and yet I do my best to fight back. I force myself to answer the call of my sneakers each day. And I travel further than on my earliest walks. I wander as far as Times Square. Bold and brash, dumb and beautiful. I move through Chinatown, fresh with the arcs of live fish and tubs brimful with alien fungi. I make it across to DUMBO via the Manhattan Bridge, walking high above the grey hide of the East River. I stroll Wall Street with its towers leaning in above my head like the trees that line French avenues. I move through the old ironwork and new glass of SoHo. I do the two bays, Kips and Turtle. I round Ground Zero.

And then something happens, a shock to the system. And as you can see, I begin to write again.

This is what happened –

*   *   *

XXVII(ii)
   I pull on my WALK NOON sneakers at 11.59, leave my apartment and shuffle out onto the street. I have Central Park in mind, an ambitious distance, but I need to shake off this listlessness. And then I notice my breakfasting neighbour coming out of his own front door across the street from me. He looks over at me and waves, just as he does when we see each other on our fire escapes. But neither of us has any breakfast and he pauses hesitantly. (Record this moment, the fighter makes a breakthrough in his training.) I take a deep breath and hold up a finger. My neighbour smiles. A taxi rolls by and I cross the street.

*   *   *

XXVII(iii)
   I greet him awkwardly but successfully negotiate the exchanging of names. Although please forgive me for having forgotten his name in the unsettling rush of what happened next. My neighbour asks me where I have been for the last three years and I make something up about a sick mother in England. And then my neighbour says to me, Is that where you got married, back in England?

I give him a confused look.

Sorry, he says, just a girlfriend then? It’s just, I never see the two of you together, so I thought to myself, hey, then she must be his wife. My neighbour laughs awkwardly. Sorry, dumb joke, he says.

I have no wife, I say, I’m divorced. No girlfriend either.

My neighbour swallows. Right, right, he says. Of course, just the maid. He slaps his forehead. Hey, maybe you could let me have her number, he says. I guess I’m pretty neat but I could get dirty for a hot maid like that.

He laughs and punches my shoulder playfully. But something about the way I force out a laugh causes him to fall quickly silent.

Are you saying that you’ve seen a woman in my apartment? I ask my neighbour.

The question startles him. Uh, yeah, he says, his
yeah
like a
duh
.

I lower my head to think this through as quickly as I can. And then, looking at the smudged words on my sneakers, I say to my neighbour, Do you see her at the same hour each day? Always at noon?

Twelve o’clock? Sure, now you mention it.

I place my hand on my neighbour’s shoulder. He looks down slowly as if there might be a large poisonous spider climbing its way up his body.

I have to go, I say, turning and starting to run.

*   *   *

XXVII(iv)
   I am quiet with my key and light on tiptoes. Soon I have looked everywhere except for one place.

Something about the sight of the closet makes me feel sick and afraid. What do I keep in this closet?

I beat my fist against its surface. Come out, I say, come out, I know you’re in there. I have a gun, I say, and if you don’t come out I’m going to start shooting.

I wonder if I should get a knife from the kitchen. And then a vague memory washes through me. I own only butter knives.

This is your final warning, I yell.

When was the last time I opened this closet? Perhaps not opening this closet has become part of my routine. But wouldn’t I have left myself something to remind me of this, something that would seem out of place there? Electric cables looped around the brass knob? Something kitchen-related wedged in the crack of the door?

I press my ear to the closet and listen hard. And then I throw open the door in a breathless rush of adrenalin. I let out a guttural roar and raise my fists.

Nothing, the closet is empty. Mostly empty. Then I notice that, lying on the floor, there is a very small, green plastic house.

I turn the little house over and over curiously in my fingers. It takes me a minute or so before I remember Monopoly and then the other board games. I drop the house in the garbage. This is not one of those important memories I need to retain.

*   *   *

XXVII(v)
   I perform my afternoon routine quickly and then hurry back to my story. I want to read everything I have written so far with great attention to detail, right from the very first word.

And now, as sleep begins its pull on the cords of my eyelids, I have something to report.

*   *   *

XXVII(vi)
   First let me say that my mind is not what it used to be. And even in the past it was not exactly free from hairline cracks, or the odd crevice or two, so please read the following statement with some degree of caution.

I cannot say with utter certainty that all of the words in this story have been written by me. It seems that some of them may not have been my own.

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XXVIII(i)
   Mark’s birthday was a loose affair, a gathering of friends old and new in a Thames-side pub. A bewildering number of friends, thought Chad, and all of them like characters from a book that once would have made him feel callow and small yet eager to climb into a world way above.

When the pub closed they fell out of its doorway straight into the home of one of Mark’s friends whose parents were away for a month, business and pleasure in Cape Town. And the party began anew, its vigour refreshed.

When at last they headed back to Mark’s mother’s house, the new day was at their backs, raising itself over Victorian rooftops. And in the half-light, drunk and in a whirl of other hazes, Chad felt almost like one of Mark’s London friends. As if overnight he had been lightly sketched in by the brush of the city.

*   *   *

XXVIII(ii)
   When he awoke his head hurt and there was a note next to him on the floor. They had tried unsuccessfully to rouse him. ‘
Hair of the dog, the Starling
,’ the note concluded.

Oh shoot, Chad groaned. And then he remembered himself, rose, showered and dressed. But none of it made his head feel any better.

The pub stood at the far corner of the square. A residents’ key was required to access the private garden and beyond its black railings were trim lawns and gravel paths as yellow as a beach. Chad ran his finger along the tips of the railing spikes as he walked, as he promised himself that one day he would live somewhere like this. It was the sort of thought he could only allow himself to enjoy without Jolyon present.

He found them lounging in the pub, near to the fireplace. Jolyon, his arm around Emilia, had a chair and a beer ready for him.

Emilia saw him approaching first. ‘Oh good,’ she said. ‘How are you, Chad? I was so worried about you this morning.’

Instead of replying, Chad dropped heavily into his seat and let his head fall to the table.

‘See, I told you. He’s the silent type, Emilia,’ said Mark. ‘Or maybe that’s just his game-playing tactic. They say it’s the quiet ones you have to look out for.’

‘I know,’ said Emilia, ‘but I can’t work out which type of silent type Chad is.’

Chad peeped up at Emilia. Of all her sweet faces, perplexed was perhaps his favourite.

‘Is he the strong silent type or another type of silent?’ she said. ‘Are there any other names for any other silent types? There should be. There should definitely be
the stupid silent type
.’ And then Emilia looked alarmed. ‘Oh, I’m not saying that’s you, Chad. Sorry, just thinking out loud.’ She hmmed and bit her lip. ‘The shy silent type, the weak silent type. The psychopathic killer silent type. Come on, what type of silent type are you, Chad?’

Chad pushed himself up and back into his seat. He stared at Emilia, not blinking. He stared and stared.

‘I’m sorry, Chad,’ said Emilia, her fingers dancing at her neckline. ‘I really didn’t mean to offend you.’

Chad laughed. ‘No, I was answering your question,’ he said. ‘I’m the silent silent type.’ Emilia laughed too but it came out rather forced.

Jack stepped in – there could be no humour in Jack’s presence without Jack’s approval and involvement. ‘No, he’s the last one, psychopathic. Silent but violent. Like a fart,’ he said.

Dee looked disgusted.

‘What?’ Jack complained. ‘Surely you did that at school. I thought everyone did.’

‘Being at school with you must have felt like one long trip to the circus, Jackie-oh,’ said Dee.

‘You tell me, Dee. What was it, a hundred schools you went to? Two hundred? You must have passed through my hood at some point.’

‘Oh, it’s
let’s make fun of the orphan time
, hooray,’ said Dee. ‘I do so love our quality time, Jack. I only wish there’d been more tragedy in my life for you to mine with your cute little funnies.’

‘What? I’d have loved being an orphan. You think four parents are better than none? I’d have killed to have no parents.’

‘There’s still time for that,’ said Chad. ‘We could make matricide and/or patricide one of the later consequences.’

‘See, I told you,’ said Jack triumphantly. ‘Silent but violent.’ Jack shaped his hands as if around a crystal ball and gazed into the imaginary globe before him. ‘Chad, yes, I see you now. Leg chains and handcuffs and a prison boiler suit. But which one of us did he kill?’ Jack’s eyes widened and he let out a scream, oblivious to the silence it provoked in the crowded pub. ‘Let me put out my eyes.’ He mimed driving a pair of spikes into his face. ‘The horror, the horror.’