Black Chalk (8 page)

Chad copied the procedure. He had no idea what bruschetta was. But the whole thing was delicious, it was perfect, and for a moment he chose to believe that twenty-seven seconds really was the secret. He could tell that Jolyon had meant it very much in earnest.

*   *   *

XV(i)
   A sudden thought. The spring air feels so fresh I should enjoy my breakfast on the fire escape outside my window. I hope you can excuse the insertion of an aide-memoire at this point in the tale. I prefer physical mnemonics but if I do not somehow mark things the moment they occur to me, they tend to slip away through the cracks.

Note to self: Must remember to place some trinket on the breakfast plate to remind me to breakfast al fresco.

Yes, a very good idea.

*   *   *

XV(ii)
   My intercom buzzes. Delivery.

I let him into the building but open my front door suspiciously and only a crack – I don’t remember ordering anything. I sign his piece of paper and ask him to leave the box where it is in the corridor. When I am sure he is gone, I open the door wider and heave the large box into my kitchen.

A dozen bottles of whisky. I pull them out and line them up on my kitchen counter beneath the three bottles of whisky that stand on my shelf. Why did I order more whisky before I got down to my last bottle? And why so many?

I go to my computer to check. And there it is, my order confirmation from yesterday. Yes, I did indeed order twelve bottles of whisky.

I go back to the kitchen and shrug as I line up my bounty on the shelf. This is not exactly an unusual occurrence. I ordered more whisky than was strictly necessary – so what? Or perhaps some part of me yesterday was thinking more clearly than today. And when I think it through again the ordering of so much whisky makes more and more sense. Yes, there is much work to do writing my story. And then there is my recovery, my training. Long days of hard graft lie in front of me.

Twelve green bottles. Work work reward. A squirrel hoarding nuts for the pitiless winter ahead.

*   *   *

XVI(i)
   It was the usual night-time scene, young bodies strewn around Jolyon’s room, it was only ever the numbers that varied.

It was midnight and the bar had been closed for an hour. Jolyon, Jack and Chad, the three of them waiting, cherishing for now the secret of Game Soc. Emilia, Mark and Toby, sipping Tom Collinses as they chattered. The music from Jolyon’s radio cassette blew over them all. The Stone Roses, ‘I Wanna Be Adored’. An ascension of guitars and then breathy vocals like the cigarette smoke in the room, curling, climbing.

Toby reached for the ceiling and yawned. ‘Well, I think that just about does it for me. Thanks for the cocktails, Jolyon.’ But Jolyon seemed not to hear him, was scribbling something on a scrap of paper resting on his thigh. Toby shook his head briskly. ‘Tutorial at two tomorrow and I have only half an essay. Love to stay longer otherwise.’ He stood up and found his jacket. ‘See you later.’

They all replied except Jolyon, who continued to scribble.

Emilia waited until Toby could not possibly remain within earshot but she spoke in a half-whisper anyway. ‘What on earth have you got against Toby, Jolyon?’

Now Jolyon did look up. ‘The guy’s dad owns a racehorse,’ he said, ‘a thoroughbred.’ Emilia shrugged. ‘You know Toby went to Eton.’

‘What does that matter? It’s not Toby’s fault.’

‘I totally agree, Emilia. But it’s a fact that at places like Eton they train their pupils to get into this place. Show of hands, did anyone in this room receive any special intensive training for the entrance exam? The interview?’ No one moved. ‘A good friend of mine, the brightest guy at our neighbouring school, got turned down here. No training. He froze in the interview. I only scraped through because I think Professor Jacks, my law tutor, is some sort of undercover Marxist on his own mission to even up the score. So I got lucky. And my friend got unlucky. And Toby got trained, just like his father’s thoroughbred racehorse. Us here in this room, we’re just the old nags. So we all need to stick together, that’s massively important. Just like they do with their hereditary titles, their exclusive schools and old boys’ clubs. So anyway, there’s no way I was getting out the hash until Toby left. If he wants a smoke he can invite us to his room. And he can use some of his stabling expenses to buy the stuff.’

‘But Toby’s sweet enough,’ said Emilia, ‘he doesn’t rub it in your face.’

‘You’re right, Emilia, sorry. I have nothing against Toby himself. It’s just he’s not right for … I’ll explain later,’ said Jolyon, crossing something out on his piece of paper. ‘OK then, Jack, second drawer, you can roll tonight.’

‘Why can’t Chad roll? I rolled last night.’

‘Because last night was
best-looking-guy-in-the-room
night and tonight it’s
funniest-guy-in-the-room
night. The honour’s all yours again, Jack.’

Emilia looked over at Chad and he glanced down quickly. He had watched Jolyon roll a joint and memorised the procedure. But his own fingers had never heated and crumbled resin or curled cardboard into a roach. The licking and sealing and packing seemed like a process for practised hands.

‘Jack’s sister has a pony and you seem to like him,’ said Mark, not opening his eyes. He was lying on the floor, his Tom Collins resting on his chest in the V of his T-shirt. To manoeuvre the drink from there to his lips was a model of efficiency.

‘But I never had a fucking pony,’ said Jack. ‘Don’t go labelling me some kind of pony owner. You know the quality of present I received when I was my sister’s age? When
Stars Wars
was massive and everyone had a lightsaber and battalions of stormtroopers, I got a
Star Wars
jumper for Christmas.’

‘That doesn’t sound so bad,’ said Emilia.

‘Really? Well, for one, my mother knitted it herself. And then, two, she can’t even fucking knit. The thing ended up looking like it read
Straw Arse
.’ Jack rubbed the back of his neck. ‘If I shaved off my hair you’d see thousands of scars left by hundreds of pairs of Doc Martens on my scalp.’ He pretended to choke back tears, pestling the socket of his eye with his fist for effect. ‘I had it tough. I know about tough.’ He swatted his hand toward Jolyon, who was sitting on the bed. ‘Tougher than Little Lord Fauntleroy up there on his throne.’

‘It’s my room,’ said Jolyon. ‘And anyway, you’re welcome to sit here if you like.’

‘No, I’m good in the cheap seats here,’ said Jack. He bounced on the desk chair to make the thing squeak. ‘My parents might not be schoolteachers but they taught me to know my place.’

‘Do you have any idea how little a teacher in this country gets paid? Your dad is some kind of manager. You tell everyone he works for the Post Office so they’ll imagine him plodding the streets with a sack slung over his shoulder. Meanwhile he’s in his London office making scores of workers redundant every day.’

‘He earns less than two teachers.’

‘No he doesn’t – he just bought a pony.’

‘Fine, fine. We’ll just call it a draw then.’ Jack peeled a skin from its orange packet. He licked and split a cigarette, then started to burn the corner of a thumb-long piece of resin, chasing its snakelets of smoke with his mouth, nothing wasted.

Mark’s eyes had been closed since his goodbye to Toby but he opened them now. He drained his drink and rolled onto his side, ‘Have any of you been summoned to one of the warden’s meet-and-greets yet?’ he said.

‘Yes, I’m due up this Sunday,’ said Jack. ‘You too, Emilia, right?’

Chad looked over at Jack and tried not to feel bitter toward him. The Americans were slated to meet the warden together as a group in three weeks’ time.

‘I’m subpoenaed next weekend,’ said Jolyon.

‘Well, one thing that makes it worthwhile, at least the wine’s good,’ said Mark. ‘But the trouble is, the only topic of conversation the warden has any interest in is what your father does for a living.’

Emilia shook her head resentfully.

‘So I was talking to that posh girl Elizabeth,’ said Mark, ‘when up he sidles in his weekend woollens and leatherette slippers.
Hellay
, he says, I’m
Rafe
Wiseman, Warden of
Peett
. How
jew doo
, and how
jew doo too
. And
jew
are, and
jew
are? Tell me now, what is it that your father does? So I told him my father works in a bookshop and my mother … Before I could say anything else, he’d already spun away, a blur of old bones. And then he says to Elizabeth, and
high abite
your father?’ Mark looked around the room, their eyes all upon him. ‘Well, it turns out the lovely Elizabeth’s father is a judge at the Court of Appeal. Old Ralphy promptly led her away by the elbow. I don’t think he said another word to anyone else at all.’ Mark rolled onto his back and closed his eyes again.

‘We’re not keeping you up, are we, Mark?’ said Emilia.

‘No,’ said Mark. ‘Honestly, this is the time of day when I most come alive.’ He repositioned the pillow beneath his head and became motionless again.

Chad tried to think of a recent injustice to share with the room but nothing came immediately to mind. And then he did think of something Pitt’s liaison officer had said about preferential access to the computing suite, the computers there having been purchased with donated American dollars. But Jolyon spoke before he had time to weigh up the tale’s worth. ‘OK, Jack. I bet you a tenner Wiseman shows less interest in my teacher dad than your Royal Mail executive father. Assuming you don’t lie and say postman as usual.’

‘Come on,’ said Jack, ‘you have to allow me postman. Just to see him sprint away like he’s bumped into a pigeon-toed leper.’

‘God, you should hear yourselves,’ said Emilia. ‘Little boys turning this into some kind of game. My dad’s not this, my dad’s not that, but your dad’s definitely the other.’

It had taken Chad some time to adjust to their ways. While Chad felt ashamed of being a farm boy, his new friends all seemed proud of their lack of breeding, everyone trumpeting their poor upbringing or the inadequacies of their high schools. Pitt College felt like America turned back to front and maybe also on its head. But gradually Chad had come to understand his friends, they had all made it to Pitt because of intelligence. They had, every one of them, proved themselves the cleverest at their schools. But intellectually they began here as equals, not one of them could yet be identified as top of the heap.

What they did have was background and so lack of privilege or money became the medals of honour they polished in public each day. They were the brightest of the blooms that had sprung from the harshest soils, like a long-distance runner from Kenya who had trained in the dust with no shoes. A natural. Each of them yearned for the great status that disadvantage could bestow, because in truth they all felt scared, fearful they had slipped through the net and they really didn’t belong there at all.

Even Emilia played this game. She tried to sound weary of the boys, their public breast-beating, their peacock displays. They might as well have hung their disadvantages out from their jeans and compared lengths. She was like a schoolgirl disparaging schoolboys fighting dustily in the playground but then dating the one to emerge with the best of the scalps and the scars.

‘Look,’ said Jack, ‘Mark’s dad might just work in a small bookshop but he does
own
the bookshop. And his mum is a lecturer at LSE. And if you’re a teacher like Fauntleroy’s parents, you have at least been to university. My dad started on the counters, sixteen, straight out of school. No one from my family has even been to university.’

‘You’re just a bunch of soft southerners,’ said Emilia. ‘And you all lose, by the way, not that any of it matters.’

‘Just being from Yorkshire doesn’t automatically entitle you to win,’ said Jack. ‘But come on then. Let’s hear it, blondie.’

Emilia lifted one of her legs and propelled the sole of her boot into Jack’s shin.

Jack cried out in pain. ‘Jesus, that
fuckingwell
hurt,’ he said.

‘That’s right,’ said Emilia, ‘and next time you call me blondie I’ll punch you in the face.’

‘All right, all right,’ said Jack, raising his palms in surrender. ‘Go on then, tell us your tales of northern fucking woe.’

‘My dad was a miner,’ said Emilia.

‘Oh Christ but that’s perfect,’ said Jack.

‘What do you mean?’ said Emilia, readying her foot.

‘Nothing, nothing,’ said Jack, waving furiously at Emilia’s boots. ‘Really, nothing bad. We’ll explain later. We are going to tell them later on, aren’t we, Jolyon?’

‘Absolutely,’ said Jolyon. He folded his piece of paper in half and placed it on his bedside table. ‘A miner. That’s … really fascinating, Emilia.’ He had wanted to say cool but cool might have sounded insensitive. ‘So what happened to him when Thatcher felt like going to all-out war on the working class?’

‘He lost,’ said Emilia. ‘They all fought and then they all lost.’ She glanced down and swallowed. ‘He’s fine now. It took a while but he’s working at last. He fits kitchens. On and off. But the fight destroyed my parents’ marriage.’

Chad sat quietly in his armchair pushed up against the wall. From this angle he could look at Emilia without turning his head, needing only to shift his eyes so she wouldn’t catch him staring if she glanced his way. He kept telling himself to meet her gaze and hold it for just a moment too long.

‘But how about you, Chad?’ said Emilia. ‘These little boys won’t be happy until everyone’s played.’

‘I’m American,’ said Chad. He shrugged. ‘What do you think?’

‘That you’re culturally inferior,’ said Jack, ‘and you brazenly stole most of the glory of winning the Second World War from us.’ He lit the joint and used it to gesticulate, trying to sound tough in his best American accent. ‘Yo,
Emeel-yah
, Chad is from the
muddah fuhkin ciddy
of
Noo Yoick
.’ He laughed. ‘Sorry, that’s the worst accent since Dick Van Dyke doing cockney.’ Jack rehearsed his accent a few more times, then became quickly excited. ‘Oh, I know,’ he said, ‘here’s an idea. We should all fly out and stay with Chad for the summer. And make mine a pastrami on rye, even though I have absolutely
nofucking
idea what that means. And I’ll eat mine on top of the Empire State Building. Like King Kong.’