Black Chalk Read online

  But despite his ill mood Jolyon had warmed to the American as soon as he had spoken. Jolyon had taken a year off travelling before college, finding odd jobs as he made his way around the world, always worried the money would run out and he would have to return home to his feuding parents – parents who couldn’t send him any money because they worked as schoolteachers and were both using what little money they had to pay their divorce lawyers. During his travels, Jolyon had liked all the young Americans he’d come across. In Vietnam he had taken up with a group of friends from New Mexico, including the smartest, most beautiful girl he’d ever met. He had planned on sticking with the pack as they headed west to Cambodia, even though he had just come from Cambodia himself. And that’s when the smartest, most beautiful girl had told him about her boyfriend back home. No, more than a boyfriend – she took a deep breath and revealed a ring that she kept in her pocket. Her fiancé.

  So Jolyon scuttled away to Thailand instead. He found a job in a beach bar and barely thought about his feuding parents at all, only about the girl, the feel of the sand between their dovetailing fingers when they would walk ankle-deep through the surf.

  Months after Asia, while travelling around Europe, Jolyon had once again made sure to stay close to backpacking Americans. They had such an easy manner and he felt comfortable and safe around them, especially whenever a situation felt hazardous. Americans believed in their rights and standing up for them vociferously. Jolyon always felt secure in their constitutionalist company.

  One night in Venice he had been crossing the Piazza San Marco, the whole experience like wandering through the jewellery box of a wealthy duchess, and next to him a Montanan named Todd had gasped at the view and said, ‘Man, that’s it. I’m seriously moving to Europe when I’m done with the whole college shitstorm. All the best Americans end up in Europe anyway.’

  The notion that all the best Americans ended up in Europe appealed to Jolyon and Jolyon liked to cherish and cultivate the notions that appealed to him best.

  And this Chad looked like one of the good guys. Jolyon had teased him about his name only to indicate that potentially he liked him. But then Jolyon remembered that, unlike the British, Americans tended not to initiate their friendships this way. In his head he now ran over the words he had spoken aloud. ‘Who on earth names their son after a Third World fucking country?’

  Yes, perhaps his crabbiness had made the words, intended as a welcoming joke, sound a little severe.

  IV(ii) ‘I wasn’t baptised Chad,’ said Chad. ‘It’s from my middle name – Chadwick.’

  But Jolyon couldn’t abandon the joke, he had to follow through to show it had been only a joke in the first place. He tried to sound playful. ‘So you actually choose to be named after a Third World country?’

  The English had such a sarcastic way with their vowels. To Chad’s ears everything for those first few months had sounded biting or wry. I’m going to the sooh-permarket for some booh-ze and cheeh-se. It was like living submerged in an ocean of Oscar Wildes.

  He couldn’t think of an immediate response to the Third World quip. Everything had gone wrong in the span of mere seconds. To have approached this foreign stranger in Pitt’s front quad was the número dos bravest thing he had ever done. But now courage felt like foolishness. He felt the blood climbing toward his cheeks, the patter of its hot little feet.

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m a little tired and I didn’t mean to . . . I’m Jolyon,’ said Jolyon, offering his hand. ‘Like Julian but pronounced jolly, which might seem ironic right now.’

  Chad initiated part two of the plan. ‘Jolyon,’ he said, pronouncing the name carefully, Jolly-un, so that he would not forget it. And then Chad abandoned the plan completely, still smarting despite the apology. ‘Sounds like a country and western singer,’ he said, ‘You know, with suede tassels and big hooters.’

  Jolyon considered the foreign final word, its alien vowels and consonants. Hooh-durrs. What did it mean? But then the universal gesture of men the world over, hands cupped above the midriff, gave the game away.

  ‘Jesus, you’re right, Chad,’ said Jolyon, taking absolutely no offence. And then, laughing and leaning in, Jolyon pointed over Chad’s shoulder. ‘You see that guy over there?’ he said.

  Rounding the other side of Pitt’s front quad and being helped by his parents and two more second years was yet another freshman. He was wearing a businessman’s blue pinstripe shirt tucked stiffly into black jeans.

  Jolyon leaned in further. It made Chad feel like his most trusted confidant and together they were about to embark upon an act of heroic subversion.

  ‘That guy’s name is Prost,’ Jolyon whispered. ‘I met him in the bar when I came up for interview. You know how most people, when they take a year off before starting university, visit Asia and come back as Buddhists? Or try and sleep with as many Scandinavians as they can while backpacking round Europe?’

  Chad nodded for want of a better or more truthful response.

  ‘Well, Prost over there took a year off and you know what he did? He worked for a bank. I swear to God, a major bank for an entire year. Commercial loans division. I bought him a pint and he told me all about it like he’s so much better than everyone else who, you know, maybe just wanted one last scrap of fun before entering the big, bad scary world of adults.’ Jolyon leaned back and raised an eyebrow. ‘The guy’s a one hundred per cent, grade A, total fucking cock.’

  Chad laughed, his splutter too loud so great was his sense of relief.

  Jolyon clapped him on the shoulder. ‘You know, now I come to think of it, Chad’s a cool name. The incorruptible cop, the sheriff who stands alone against the band of outlaws.’ Jolyon smiled. It was the sort of smile you longed to earn. And then he said, ‘If you help me with my bags, I promise I’ll buy you a pint.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Chad. ‘You know, I kinda planned to offer anyway.’

  ‘Excellent,’ said Jolyon.

  So they were going to be friends. It was agreed.

  Jolyon had decided.

  V(i) Something someone once said all those years ago has stuck in my mind. Although I can’t actually remember who said it.

  Someone else had come out with that old line about winning not being everything. Probably Emilia, that’s exactly the sort of thing she liked to believe. And then one of us replied . . . perhaps even me, I’m not sure . . . one of us said, Of course winning is everything. Why else do you think we call ourselves the human race?

  V(ii) But tell me, what did we do that was so wrong?

  We played a game. That’s all. A game. Isn’t this how we teach children the ways of the world? Are we not all supposed to learn early in life how to cope with defeat?

  But then there were the consequences, the price paid for losing.

  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 see
med 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.