Black Chalk (3 page)

Ah, the consequences.

Yes. We went too far.

Well of course we went too far. Why else would I be living in this dark hole, hands shaking as I dare to let in the sunlight for the first time in three years? Obviously we went too far. But no one was supposed to get hurt.

When a boxer dies in the ring, whatever our views on the sport, don’t we accept that the boxer knew the risks? We don’t blame his opponent. In law there exists a doctrine that covers this.
Volenti non fit injuria
. To the consenting person, no injury is done.

Yes,
volenti non fit injuria
. That should serve as my defence. But, instead, I stare at the blood on my hands every day and allow the guilt to suffocate me once more.

We went too far.

I went too far.

But it was never supposed to be that sort of game.

*   *   *

VI(i)
   The bar was underground and stone and ancient. From his seat at the middle of the crowded table Chad gazed around him and savoured once more the mustiness that gave the place a taste of the religious. Interconnecting rooms dimly lit. Wooden tables and benches like pews.

Throughout Chad’s time in Oxford, they would frequently find something to raise their glasses to at Pitt. It was 3 October 1990, and Germany had been officially reunified since midnight. So that night they drank to the end of the Cold War, which had not been announced by the world’s powers but inferred by Jolyon. And Jolyon had insisted on buying drinks for the whole table to celebrate. They toasted each other ‘
Prost
’ and ‘
Zum Wohl
’ and Jolyon taught them a drinking song he had learned in Munich. A boy named Nick teased Chad about his German pronunciation and Jolyon wagged his finger at Nick over the table. ‘You do know that Chad’s fluent in Spanish, right? So how’s your
Español
,
Meestah Neeck
?’

‘No, fair point, Jolyon. It was all Latin, Kraut and French at school. Sorry, Chad. Fluent, huh? That’s actually pretty amazing.’

Chad wasn’t fluent in Spanish. And Jolyon knew this, they had already compared tales of their schooldays on different continents. Chad had only studied Spanish at high school for a few years. ‘
Salud!
’ he said, raising his glass to Nick.

While Nick returned the glass-raise with a respectful nod, Jolyon tugged at Chad’s elbow. ‘Come on, Chad, let’s go, I can’t breathe down here any more.’

Jolyon believed the world was becoming impossibly overcrowded. But Chad already had a deep understanding of his new friend and it was clear to him that Jolyon believed the world was becoming overcrowded because he was so frequently at the centre of a crowd. Jolyon was like a fireplace in wintertime, people liked to warm their souls around him.

‘Cocktails? Your room?’ said Chad.

‘Absolutely,’ said Jolyon. ‘And just the two of us tonight. I need some space.’

Chad’s adventure was only eleven days old and already a success. And the número dos bravest thing Chad had ever done was the número uno reason why. Because even after knowing him for only a few days, Chad’s friendship with Jolyon made him feel immensely privileged. Everyone who had met Jolyon in those first few days at Pitt already seemed to crave time with him. And yet Jolyon chose to spend most of his waking hours with him, Theodore Chadwick Mason. Such an embarrassingly lavish name for a poor small-town boy. Theodore felt too grand but Ted and Teddy had always felt too gentle. Chad was the lesser of several evils. And better still for the fact that Chad was his father’s least favourite of the available options.

Chad finished his beer, hiding his grimace inside the mouth of the pint mug. His American taste buds had been trained on Bud and Coors, great lawnmower beers said his dad, although the farm didn’t have anything resembling a lawn. It would take Chad several months to wholly acquire an appetite for English beer. Yeasty sweet yet at the same time bitter like burnt nuts.

A good-looking boy named Jamie called after them. ‘Jolyon, Chad, don’t leave us this way.’

‘Back in a minute,’ said Jolyon.

Jamie winked, made a gun shape with his fingers, a clicking sound with his tongue.

*   *   *

VI(ii)
   The bar’s steps brought them out by the fine bulbous rear of the Hallowgood Music Room. They walked around back quad, moonlight shrouding the tallest of Pitt’s towers, its proud flagpole stripped for the night. Some of the students referred to the tower as Loser’s Leap because, as Jolyon had recounted to Chad, five years ago a girl had thrown herself from its battlements having failed an exam. Since then the tower had remained locked and chained. Chad couldn’t help himself from peering down at the gravel whenever he passed by, as if he might spot a bloodstained stone underfoot.

As they made their way toward staircase six, Jolyon shared with Chad entertaining facts about the crowd they had just been drinking with. ‘That attractive girl, Tamsin, with all the fake fur – she has a phobia about the sound of other people vomiting. She had to move from her room near the Churchill Arms in case she might hear the customers throwing up as they left. Jamie and Nick, meanwhile, they like to masturbate in adjacent stalls in the toilet while they talk about sports. And all of this is why you should always feel proud rather than embarrassed you don’t come from a wealthy family, Chad. The evidence is overwhelmingly stacked up round here.’

‘How do you know all this stuff? I was at the same table, I didn’t get any of this.’

‘People just tell me things,’ said Jolyon.

They reached the door marked VI and Chad savoured the kiss of cold stone on his palm as they climbed to the top of the narrow staircase. Inside the room, Jolyon reached for the cocktail bible they had bought from the creaky used bookstore on Martyr Street, near the Oxonian Theatre whose name was another of the university’s peculiarities, Chad learned – the Oxonian ‘Theatre’ was used for ceremonies, music, lectures … but never for plays. Jolyon turned the book’s pages with reverence and great care, the brown-taped thing nearly thirty years old. They had bought it after their first night in Pitt’s crowded bar, Jolyon having felt quickly crushed and unable to hear Chad though the din.

First they had made Manhattans in honour of Chad’s heritage and decided they liked them on the sweet side of perfect. The next night came rusty nails, Drambuie with whisky, which tasted of heather and honey. Chad and Jolyon would spend the rest of term turning their gins pink or into gimlets and Gibsons, making concoctions for the delight of their names. Monkey glands, weep no mores, corpse revivers.

The liquor collection was clustered on Jolyon’s desk. He had spent hundreds of pounds from his student grant to acquire what their book called ‘the basics’ and refused any offer of money from Chad. ‘What goes around comes around,’ Jolyon had said.

On the coffee table stood an unopened bottle of framboise. ‘Ah, that reminds me,’ said Jolyon, ‘I bought this so we could try Floradoras tonight.’

‘Twist my arm,’ said Chad.

*   *   *

VI(iii)
   Jolyon’s room looked best in the lamplight at night when the stark walls glowed and the ceiling beams cast dramatic shadows. The towers and domes of the city became obscured by the windows’ inward reflection but there was time enough to enjoy towers and domes in the daylight.

As they sipped their Floradoras they returned to their favourite topic, an idea for a new kind of game that had been amusing them for several days already. When Chad finished the last of his cocktail he turned in the armchair to hang his legs over its side. He let out a long sigh, his inner bliss now drifting around him like smoke.

Jolyon seemed to have been asleep for the last minute but then he opened his eyes. ‘I think those girls really liked you, Chad. Tamsin and Elizabeth. I could tell.’

Chad blushed, hoping Jolyon wouldn’t notice. He had always wondered if behind his teenage mask there was someone worth looking at. ‘Liked me?’ said Chad. ‘It was you they spent the whole night talking to.’

‘Talking’s easy. You could program a computer to say the right things to make people feel special. If I had your looks, Chad, your softness. That’s real charm.’

Chad would cherish the warmth of this compliment for the rest of his life. Better even than his adventure made him feel. Lighter yet than the cocktails.

‘I’m starving,’ said Jolyon. ‘How about we order some pizza?’

‘No, let’s go out. Hey, we should go back to that kebab van. What was it you made me get? A doner and cheese with the works and extra chilli sauce. Man.’

Jolyon was lying on his bed, limbs spread and belly up, a starfish gazing absently at the plasterwork and timbers. ‘I have no legs,’ he said. ‘Really, not even jelly, just a complete nothingness.’ Jolyon wallowed in the pleasure of his total immobility. ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘they’ll deliver pizza to the lodge and I’ll pay if you’ll pick the thing up.’

‘I don’t even like pizza,’ said Chad.

Jolyon lifted his head and looked quizzically at his friend. ‘Who on earth doesn’t like pizza?’ he said. ‘No one doesn’t like pizza.’

‘I don’t like pizza. I just don’t.’

‘Is it the tomatoes?’

‘What does it matter why I don’t like pizza?’

Jolyon let his head fall back against the bed again and Chad relaxed, his fingers having been clenched to the armrest from the moment that word had been spoken. And then when the topic seemed to have receded, Jolyon spoke again. ‘I’ve seen you eat tomato sauce,’ he said. ‘And cheese. And bread. Which means it’s logically impossible for you not to like pizza.’ He raised himself onto his elbows and stared curiously at Chad.

Chad turned again in the chair, gathered his knees and hugged them in his arms. ‘It’s not about the taste,’ he said. He couldn’t find a good place for his limbs. He dropped his knees, crossed his legs.

‘What is it?’ said Jolyon.

Chad felt a ballooning sensation in his head. The alcohol, the surprising urge to tell. ‘Oh, shoot,’ he said, uncrossing his legs. ‘OK then, you see all this?’ he said, tapping a finger across his brow and down past the bridge of his nose.

‘All what?’

‘Scars!’ said Chad. ‘Craters and pits.’

‘I hadn’t noticed,’ Jolyon lied. He squinted and pretended to see for the first time.

‘I was the first kid in class to get a zit,’ said Chad. ‘Thirteen years old, a big yellow sucker right between the eyes. It’s hard not to notice when everyone at school stares you right between the eyes.’

‘Every teenager gets spots. I had them quite bad for a while.’

‘No, Jolyon –’ Chad’s tone became full of voluminous certainty – ‘you didn’t have what I had or you wouldn’t be you. Trust me, that just wouldn’t be possible. Anyway, within a week I was covered. They grew fat and yellow and when they faded turned red. A sea of red, here and here and here.’ Chad dabbed at his chin, his cheeks, his forehead. ‘And there was always a fresh batch growing on top of the red sea, bright yellow bubbles.’ He paused, his body stiffened. ‘So when I think about it now,’ he said, ‘I guess Pizza Face is a pretty accurate nickname.’

Jolyon sighed and shook his head. ‘Kids are cunts,’ he said.

‘Yes, they are,’ said Chad. He nodded over and over. ‘And it didn’t stop at Pizza Face. There was Pizza Boy, Pizza Pie. Oh, and Chuck E. Cheese, which soon became Chad E. Cheese. And when I came into the room, invariably someone would ask,
Who ordered delivery?
I couldn’t even stand hearing the word …
pizza
. I don’t even like saying it now. And if a commercial came on TV, I’d start to burn with shame. And there are a lot of you-know-what commercials on American TV.’

Chad laughed, so Jolyon laughed too. ‘How long did it last?’ he asked.

‘I still get the occasional zit,’ said Chad, ‘but throughout high school was the worst, the names never went away until college. I guess over the last two years it cleared up. Perhaps it hasn’t looked so bad for a while.’

‘Didn’t you use anything? I thought they had good stuff for acne nowadays.’

‘Yeah, they do,’ Chad said. ‘Only this wasn’t acne, this was bubonic
frickin
plague.’ He lowered his eyes. ‘I had some liquid stuff from a doctor, made my face stink and turn green. Loads of different pills. I tried a flesh-coloured cream but someone at school said I had make-up on. Or rather he shouted it out in the hall and everyone came running to see. Anyway, none of that crap really worked. Except the fleshy cream made me look better but I didn’t dare use it after the first day.’

‘So you really don’t like pizza at all?’

‘I guess maybe I liked it before I was thirteen. I don’t remember exactly. But in my head I’ve convinced myself now I can’t even stand the smell.’

‘So let’s order one,’ said Jolyon. ‘What better way to exorcise a demon than to tear him apart with your teeth? I promise you’ll like it. And if you don’t, I will personally trek to the kebab van and buy anything you like. With extra chilli sauce.’

*   *   *

VI(iv)
   They sat around the coffee table and ate from the box. Neither of them said anything until the last slice was gone. When he was done, Chad fell back into his chair and placed his hands upon his belly. ‘That was great. I feel great,’ he said. ‘Thank you, Jolyon.’

*   *   *

VII(i)
   A new day. I stand at my window looking down along Seventh, as restless as a barn-sour horse. It feels as if I am poring over the pages of an atlas. The sun topples into the room, further urging me to leave this dank hermit’s cave.

In five weeks’ time we play again, our fourteen-year hiatus will be over. Did I really think I could escape? And if I can’t escape, if I have to play, I must be ready. Because if I can’t even face the outside world, what chance do I stand against the Game?

So yes, I will go out now in broad daylight. For three years I have left this apartment only in narrow daylight, the thinnest hours of the morning. Fleeting 6 a.m. trips every two or three weeks to drop garbage in the trash and walk to a small bodega at the corner of my block. Enough to satisfy my needs. Not so many needs. Thin needs. Milk and coffee. Bread and tea. Tea to remind me of England, Lipton in brash yellow boxes, impossible to brew strong unless you use two bags but the double expense feels excessive. Jif peanut butter. Cans of chilli, boxes of rice. Confectioner’s sugar which I eat by the spoonful to help me through occasional energy emergencies. If you suck it just right, the dust in your mouth turns to smooth sugar frosting. And whisky as well, my one extravagance – although of course whisky cannot be bought from a bodega. Or anywhere else at six in the morning. But for the twenty-first-century hermit, the world of online shopping caters conveniently to almost every need. And yet I keep a thin oar in the water of life – I continue to visit the bodega because if it ever feels safe to emerge from this cave, I must be ready to face the real world.