Black Chalk (20 page)

It was Middle again that day. He entered without knocking. And then, keeping his head low and looking at no one, he wheeled the chair from the desk to the wall, far from the play.

‘The Picture of Dorian’s Rage’ having been performed, and only two pieces of paper now in the pot, they had to agree upon a replacement. Mark waited outside while they talked it through. The discussion lasted barely two minutes.

Dee was nearest the desk so she wrote down the agreed-upon words. Chad liked the way she held the pen, dainty and ladylike, her gestures elaborate as she looped her Gs and crossed her Ts. She was wearing green army surplus cargoes and a shirt in gunmetal grey. She also had on a woollen cream scarf, long enough to hang beneath her knees. It all seemed very restrained to Chad, except for the addition of bright blue pumps and an azure fedora with a tawny feather tucked into its band. He began to imagine her writing a poem, a poem for him, the unveiling of a hidden love. But no, secret poems were too passive for Dee. Dee was stronger than him, Dee would act. She would come knocking on your door late at night or she might tell you very matter-of-factly while sitting beside you at dinner in the Great Hall.

That morning Mitzy had found him eating breakfast in the kitchen and gabbled her way into making a tenuous link between Chad coming from New York State and there being a band playing at a pub called the Albany that night. And then, as if the thought had only just struck her, she invited him along, she was going with Jenna and Fredo. And what with Jenna and Fredo being like totally icky all the time together, he’d be doing her a favour. Chad had told her that, oh shoot, he really wished he could but he had already made plans with friends. ‘What, those English friends of yours?’ Mitzy had said, and then left the room with a snort when he nodded.

When Dee finished folding the consequence and dropped it into the pot, Jolyon called Mark into the room. He headed straight to the coffee table, not with any great speed but with something like a look of intent. He plunged his hand into the pot, swirled the three pieces of paper and plucked one up as if it were a prize.

The slip of paper required five or six unfoldings. Already Chad could see Dee’s handiwork, the flourishes in ink. Dee’s handwriting but his idea, the others having leapt at his suggestion. All except Emilia of course. Four votes to one.

Mark’s cheeks paled as he read. ‘That’s not fair,’ he said, ‘I’m not doing that.’ He slapped the consequence down on the coffee table.

‘Don’t worry, Mark,’ said Emilia. ‘Whichever one it is, I’m sure you can do it.’

‘Well, that happens to be irrelevant because I’m using my veto. We each get one veto, OK. So I veto this and we move on.’

Dee spoke his name, long and susurrant, ‘Mhhhhaaa-ark…’

Jolyon made his voice gentle as well. ‘Mark, there aren’t any vetoes. We never discussed vetoes. If you want to talk about a rule change then we can do that. But only for future rounds.’

‘Fuck off, Jolyon.’

Dee snatched up the slip of paper. ‘The picture of Dorian’s rage, part two,’ she said, displaying the consequence to the others.

‘After being upbraided by Dorian you feel a great sense of injustice. You were only trying to help him win. You will stride up to him in the bar and tell him as much. You will then produce a leather glove from your back pocket with which you will strike him while challenging him to “a fist duel”.’ Although the essential idea had been Chad’s, both the leather glove and the phrase ‘fist duel’ were Jack’s garnishes.

‘I mean, it’s stupid for a start,’ said Mark, his voice only a few degrees from shouting. ‘Since when did students believe in fighting? No one at Pitt fights. No one’s going to buy this, it’s just ludicrous.’

‘Then it shouldn’t be so hard,’ said Chad. ‘Everyone will presume it’s just a crazy kind of joke. Everyone already assumes you’re a crazy kind of person. Did you see last week’s
Pendulum
?’

‘And what if he says yes?’ Mark turned and stared at Chad, his eyes like flint.

Chad acted confused. ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘you just told us no one at Pitt believes in fighting. So why would Dorian say yes?’

And then Jolyon spoke, his voice still measured and low. ‘If he says yes it’s up to you, Mark. You can go through with it or you can back down. Your choice.’

‘Shut the fuck up, Jolyon, I didn’t fucking ask you.’ Mark took a long breath and then tried to restore the cold sense of certainty to his voice. ‘I’ll do it on back quad or in the Churchill. Just not in front of everyone in the bar.’

‘What?’ said Chad. ‘Mark, do you even begin to get the point of this game?’

‘Sorry, Mark,’ said Dee, nonchalantly adjusting the feather in her hatband. ‘You have to do it just how the card says.’

‘Fine,’ said Mark. ‘Then like I told you, I’m using my veto.’

Jolyon spoke less gently now, still calm but with loose threads appearing at the edges of his voice. ‘There’s no veto,’ he said. ‘Come on, Mark, you have to know you’re in the wrong here. You’re easily intelligent enough to know that.’

Mark screwed up his face in disbelief at Jolyon. He turned quickly and snatched the slip of paper from Dee, rolled it up between his fingertips and fed himself the ball of paper as if the consequence were a peeled grape being lowered suggestively onto the tip of his tongue. He swallowed with an exaggerated gulp. ‘How’s that for intelligent, you arrogant cunt?’

Middle let out a long sigh and Chad turned to see him shaking his head, staring at a spot on the floor between his feet.

All gentleness departed from Jolyon. ‘Me arrogant?’ he said. ‘It’s not
me
who thinks I’m so special the rules don’t apply to them.’

‘Fuck you, Jolyon.’

Emilia tried to soothe Jolyon with a touch but he brushed her roughly from his arm. ‘No, not fuck me, Mark. Because I’m not the one who’s fucked. I’m not the one who’s talking about avoiding a consequence. So I’m not the one who’s going to forfeit his deposit.’

‘Oh, here we go, Jolyon the rule master. Just who the fuck do you think you are?’

Jolyon’s eyes were like metal balls drawn back in a slingshot. ‘Who am I? I’m the one who plays this game properly, that’s who I am, Mark. I’m the one who pays attention to which cards have been played and doesn’t make stupid mistakes that earn them two consequences in a single round. And I’m just one of many people playing the Game a whole lot better than you, that’s who I am. Which means the only real question here is who are you, Mark? And the only answer I can think of is this – you’re the stupid one, Mark, that’s who the fuck you are.’

‘What did you just say to me?’

‘I said. You. Are. The stupid one. And you are. You must be a bit dim. Why else do you think you’ve had more consequences than anyone else? It’s not unlucky cards and bad rolls. It’s because you’re just a bit thick, Mark.’

Since the earliest days of their making friends they had all, except for Emilia, freely and liberally insulted one another. Anything was permissible, desirable even. Each night they would eat and then they would drink and then they would argue. And no one would flinch. Or Emilia might flinch just a little. And while Chad enjoyed the verbal roughhousing, he felt more comfortable tussling in his language of
fricks
and
shoots
. But all insults were acceptable, debating points that were forgotten by the next drink. And obscenities were not terms with which they could hurt or offend one another, such words meant almost nothing beyond ‘I strongly disagree’. But never, not once, had any of them around that coffee table used such a word to describe another. Never had any of them called another stupid.

Mark leapt to his feet. ‘Fuck you, Jolyon. I mean really fuck you.’ You could see Mark’s teeth when he swore as if he were tearing the obscenities clean out of the air. ‘Oh, Jolyon’s so masterful at cards like everything else in the world. Well, fuck you. Yes, you, Jolyon, the wannabe Renaissance man. Jolyon who knows everything, who everyone loves. But you’re such a fraud. And I’ve seen how you play your game. You’re just a con man peddling vapid ideas to people, empty little theories that sound pretty, and then you pretend to care what they think. Like with Chad. As if you give the slightest shit what Chad thinks about anything.

‘There’s not a single person on the whole planet you don’t secretly despise for a thousand obscure reasons while at the same time you try and sell everyone this bullshit shtick about believing in human decency. And it’s all one big power trip like this dumb fucking game of yours. It’s pulling the wings from insects and picking on fat kids. So fuck you, really, this time.’ Mark’s body began to lurch back and forth as if he were hurling his words. ‘You’re a bully, as plain and boring as that, Jolyon. Just like the worst kids at our schools we couldn’t wait to get away from. You’re wrong in the head. You’re a phoney. And when everyone else round this table figures this out, they’re going to make you pay for it.
Joe
.’

Jolyon started to rise but Emilia caught hold of his shoulder and it was she who stood up instead. ‘Enough!’ she shouted. ‘Stop it now, the both of you. Don’t you dare say a word, Jolyon. I’m serious, not one word. And, Mark, sit down and shut up, I bloody mean it.’ Mark sat down and crossed his arms. ‘And now I’m telling you what we’re all going to do, OK?’ said Emilia, although having said this she began to look uncertain. ‘Right then, well, we’re going to vote. Yes. On Mark’s veto. That we all get one and only one. And if we vote in favour he can use his today if he wants to.’

Jolyon slapped his hand against the coffee table. ‘You can’t do that, there’s no –’

‘Yes, Jolyon, yes I can. I’m sorry but you’re bloody well wrong. Now isn’t the time for your cast-iron principles because what we have here isn’t theories or justice systems in textbooks. This is friends and real life and sometimes you need to know when to turn it off. And I’m telling you, Jolyon, it’s right now or I’m walking straight out this room and never coming back.’

Jolyon fought to keep the words from flying out. If his words surged too quickly then soon he would follow them and everything would soar away, out of control. ‘Refusing a veto for Mark today has nothing to do with what I want,’ he said. ‘It’s about the Game, Emilia, it’s about rules and fairness to everyone.’

‘Listen very carefully to me, Jolyon,’ said Emilia. ‘If I walk out that door then it’s not just this game I’m walking away from. You understand that?’

‘Fine then,’ said Jolyon. ‘Have your little ballot. You know my vote.’

Emilia slumped back down in her chair, an emptiness fading away, a warmth bleeding back. ‘Thank you, Jolyon,’ she said. ‘Right. Jolyon votes against the veto and we know Mark’s vote, don’t we? So now it’s down to everyone else.’

‘I’m with Jolyon,’ said Chad immediately.

‘The evil twins vote as one, what a surprise,’ Mark snapped. ‘Little fucking lapdog.’

‘Leave it, Mark,’ said Emilia. ‘That’s two each then,’ she continued, ‘because I’m voting for the veto. But I want to say why. I’m voting for the veto because our friendship is what matters the most. There are things about this game we couldn’t have guessed beforehand. And no one’s to blame, no one at all. But I think if we’d seen more clearly how the Game would go, we’d have done things differently.’

Chad snorted. ‘How does Mark’s veto change anything, Emilia? He’ll get another consequence and we’ll be right back where we started. You’re delaying the inevitable. There’s kindness, and there’s decency, and then there’s utter pointlessness. And this veto idea doesn’t have any logic to it. It doesn’t do anyone any good in the long run.’

‘His master’s poodle barks out his latest tune,’ said Mark.

‘Screw you, man. If you haven’t got the balls for any of this then that’s your problem. Fine, I’ll say it, I don’t care. I’m better than you at the Game, Mark. You might understand ten dimensions but you have no idea about our game. I’ve had the fewest consequences of anyone but if I draw the worst I’ll do it, no complaints, no tantrums. I almost wish I could vote for your dumb-ass veto just to see you screw everything up again. You’re losing, Mark, so do what you’re supposed to do and then you can call it quits like a man. You’re not going to win, not in this lifetime.’

‘Woof woof woof.’ Mark snapped his hand like jaws. ‘Yap yap yap.’

‘Jack,’ said Emilia, ‘your turn to vote.’

‘I know, I know. But before I vote I want to say something.’ Jack looked down mournfully.

‘OK, Jack,’ said Emilia, ‘of course you can say something.’

Jack looked quickly to the ceiling, pausing to gather his courage. And then he said, ‘Am I the only one here who thinks Dee’s hat makes her look like a medieval troubadour? I mean, where’s your fucking lute, Sir Prancelot?’

Emilia swung her foot at Jack but he was prepared and already dodging the kick before her foot came close. ‘What?’ he said. ‘Bad timing?’

‘Just vote, Jack,’ said Emilia. ‘Jesus!’

Jack shrugged. ‘I just thought I felt a certain chilly atmosphere in the room,’ he said. ‘I don’t know if anyone else in here noticed. But it must be the hat, I can’t think of anything else. And someone had to
fuckingwell
say something.’

Dee snorted and something in the room softened. ‘Don’t make the mistake of thinking that medieval fashion is passé, Jackie-oh.’

‘Oh no,’ said Jack, ‘that’s a mistake I’ve made once too fucking often.’

‘Come on, Jack,’ said Emilia, ‘this is serious,’ she said, but she couldn’t keep a half-smile from appearing at the corner of her mouth.

‘I vote veto,’ said Jack. ‘I’m sorry, Jolyon, Chad. In theory I’m completely with you. A hundred per cent. But in practice I have to go this way right now.’ Jack swallowed and his eyes darted to Jolyon but Jolyon was looking elsewhere.

‘Three votes in favour of the veto, two against,’ said Emilia. ‘Dee, it’s all down to you, I’m afraid.’

Dee removed her hat and smoothed her hair. She seemed not to have to think very hard before giving her answer. ‘I’m against the veto,’ she said.

‘Fuck that,’ Mark shouted. ‘Why? What the fuck, Dee?’

‘I don’t have to explain myself,’ said Dee. She put the hat back on her head and then cocked it forward and slightly askew.