Black Chalk Read online

  But today I awake to the pleasure of an exciting new discovery.

  Allow me first a brief explanation, some background. My apartment is a railroad flat, to use the local parlance. The name refers simply to the fact that such apartments are long and thin. Mine consists of three slender rooms, one after the other like the coupled carriages of a train. The kitchen is located at the back, the living room at the front and the bedroom in the middle. There are doorways but no doors and windows only at each end. And while the light from outside bleeds into the kitchen and living room just a little, my bedroom forms the heart of darkness in this railroad flat.

  So this morning when I awake and find, for the first time in three years, my bedroom half lit by the sun, I discover the presence of a large closet at the foot of my bed. And I feel almost as if this closet has suddenly blinked into being. Yes, of course I suppose I remembered the presence of a large closet at the foot of my bed. I may no longer have a wife but I am not divorced entirely from my mind. However, my curtains and blinds have remained shut for such a long time.

  Furthermore I am not an enthusiastic switcher-on of lamps or overhead lights. In the bedroom there are absolutely no working light bulbs. Because what else do I do in the bedroom but sleep? In the dark! In fact, for use in the gloomiest hours, I carry around a flashlight fastened to a loop of string that allows me to hang said flashlight from my neck. And when I need it, I use it. When I don’t, I preserve its batteries. I use lamps or overhead lights only when a task requires two hands.

  But I have become distracted from matters more pressing.

  Yes, this morning in the lengthening sunlight, I notice a closet and the following thought occurs to me – I have not opened the closet for so long I have forgotten its contents.

  I am leaving you here on the table a moment. Discovery calls out to me. I will report back immediately, I promise you.

  XI(ii) A kind of hell. Nine, ten, eleven hours ago I descended into some circle of hell. That large closet is nothing but a vault in Satan’s armoury of evil.

  When I slide open one of the doors and swing my flashlight’s eager eye across the closet’s contents, I find the following: Monopoly, Chutes & Ladders, Buckaroo, Chess, Guess Who?, Clue, Operation, Risk, Backgammon, Connect Four, Scrabble, Yahtzee, Electronic Battleship, Uno, Checkers, Mah-jong . . .

  At first I feel so happy to have stumbled upon such a treasure trove. I feel like Ali Baba in a cave of riches. So many games. So much training equipment. A mental gym, no less.

  First I pull out that old family favourite, Monopoly, and choose my foes, Hat and Car.

  I roll first and buy buy buy. I give my imagined opponents inferior strategies and trade properties at prices advantageous to myself. But even so I lose. The dice are against me, I couldn’t buy a roll in a bakery. Such a stupid game with so much luck involved. Such a stupid fucking game that I don’t even finish. I throw the board across the room and the paper dollars into the air. I tear up the Chance and Community Chest cards so I will never, ever have to play that stupid fucking game again.

  I decide next to select a game that relies less on luck. I remove Scrabble from its dog-eared box, place the board gently on my bed and sense the excitement building again in my chest. I decide to make this a game for just two. (Not stacking the odds, you understand, merely improving them.)

  I always play a tight and controlled game of Scrabble. Employing this strategy for myself only, as we near the end of the game I have surged almost a hundred points ahead. My crown awaits. And then . . . Which part of my brain despises me so? I see my hateful opponent has the letters IERGOAG. I sneer loudly when I realise these letters form an anagram of the word GEORGIA. Such a shame, I say to my opponent, that proper nouns aren’t allowed. Maybe down in Atlanta they’d give you the points for the sake of state pride. But up here in Yankee New York, well, what can I say, old friend? Rules are rules.

  My imagination idly picks up the word GEORGIA and allows its letters to swim above the board. And then . . . Am I really so deserving of so much misfortune? I see a floating GEORGIA winding itself around the letter P (from my superbly played PRETZEL). Yes, I look on with horror as ARPEGGIO appears. A fifty-point bingo and a double-word score to boot.

  I can barely type these words I feel such rage. I hurl away the Scrabble board where it can languish in hell with Monopoly.

  And how does my luck improve next?

  It does not improve, that’s exactly fucking how.

  I unbox Operation and prepare to cure Cavity Sam of his diseases. I try to remove the wrench from his wrenched ankle and the pail to cure his water on the knee and the butterfly from his stomach. But every time the tweezers descend toward Sam, my fingers start trembling, very soon I twitch and . . .

  Away, rapidly away, goes Operation, Chutes & Ladders, Backgammon . . .

  Finally fate intervenes to save me. The batteries in my flashlight fail halfway through a woeful game of Buckaroo. Darkness has fallen outside, it transpires, so I jump off the bed and run into the living room intending to turn on the lamp. But something hits my toe and a split second later I hear the sound of breaking glass and feel a stabbing pain in the sole of my foot. I hop across the room and fumble for the lamp. When finally my fingers find the light switch, I see in the middle of the floor four empty glasses and the icy slick of a single broken glass. Blood is seeping from my foot.

  I hop back to the bedroom and begin fumbling around for the game Operation. When finally I find it I return to the lamplight of the living room where I use my teeth to gnaw away the tweezers attached to the board. I grimace and then proceed to tweeze a large shard of glass from my foot. Due to my shaky hands, the procedure proves rather difficult and takes some considerable time.

  And then with a great sense of relief, my foot hurting like hell, I remember my painkillers. I hop on my good foot into the kitchen where I see all my mnemonics untouched and in place. So it seems I have achieved nothing today. No water, no food, nothing at all. (Perhaps this explains the shaky hands.) I snatch up a pill but hesitate to pop it in my mouth, staring at this little blue caplet as if there is something wrong. And then I shake my head briskly, my mind cloudy, my foot stinging and throbbing. Quickly my painkillers become the first achievement of the day. And thus, soothed by my meds, I lie on the bed and close my eyes, holding my sore foot and thinking of all those losses. Thinking that, after HELL ONE, this day of defeat is a second poor omen. I have to be better than this. I must grow stronger.

  XII(i) They spoke of nothing but Game Soc all the way back to Pitt. When they passed through the lodge they saw Mark wandering down one side of front quad, yawning and wearing socks but no shoes. He had on a pair of headphones plugged into a Walkman that was clipped to his belt. When they approached him he pushed off the headphones and let them hang from his neck.

  ‘Mark, there’s no tape in your Walkman,’ said Jolyon, pointing.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Mark, ‘is it that obvious?’

  ‘And the play button isn’t pushed down either,’ said Jack.

  ‘It’s worked so far though,’ said Mark.

  ‘What are you doing awake so early, anyway?’ said Jolyon.

  ‘Can’t sleep,’ said Mark. ‘I thought a walk might help. But there are some people round here I’m not so desperate to talk to.’ He unclipped the Walkman and waggled it.

  ‘Would a Hemingway daiquiri help more?’

  Mark blinked serenely in the sunlight. ‘Indubitably,’ he said.

  XII(ii) Mark was the cleverest person at Pitt, Jolyon had told Chad. Chad wasn’t sure how Jolyon had judged this. Jolyon said the cleverest people were never aware of their genius but Mark seemed barely aware of anything. Always groggy, a voracious sleeper.

  Jolyon had taken Chad on a mission of mercy one evening to awaken Mark so he wouldn’t miss dinner a third night in a row. They eventually roused him, Jolyon having to resort to stealing his covers. Mark had been sleeping for sixteen hours straight.

  He then yawned hi
s way through dinner and subsequently drinks in the bar. In Jolyon’s room that night he had catnapped between hash tokes and sips of gin rickey. Mark’s lips made small murmurous movements while he napped. Perhaps, thought Chad, he was reciting equations, formulating new theories in his sleep. Mark studied physics. And like all of them in their circle, his area of study came in some ways to define Mark in the collective thoughts of his friends. Physicist, genius, mad scientist.

  His hair stood in vertical coils, the effect somewhere between untamed bush and bedsprings. And he had a nose ill-suited to lethargy, it being pronouncedly aquiline. Whenever Mark’s eyes began to droop, his gaze would drift down the slope of his nose and settle for a moment on its tip. And finally, with a gentle flutter, the eyelids would shut.

  XII(iii) In his room Jolyon apologised for false advertising, he blamed his poor memory. It was not the right day for Hemingway daiquiris, the ingredients for Singapore slings were already arranged on the coffee table.

  Chad listened in awe as Jolyon then discussed physics with Mark. Although Jolyon was studying law at Pitt, his knowledge encompassed everyone’s choice of subject. Chad had heard him talk often to literature students about numerous obscure novels, which Jolyon always appeared to have read more of than they. He spoke knowledgeably with PPE students about politics, philosophy and economics. He chatted breezily with chemistry students about Mendeleev and the aesthetics of the periodic table. No topic seemed beyond him.

  Mark spoke breathlessly about time being born in the instant of the Big Bang, other universes beyond the tails of black holes and how space was in fact composed of ten dimensions. To Chad it all felt like a high-speed thrill ride and you didn’t have to understand the mechanics of the vehicle, you just sat back and enjoyed the view, the new worlds blurring by beyond the windows.

  And that’s when Chad realised Jolyon was right. Mark spent his life thinking on an entirely different plane to the rest of them and it was the immense weight of his thoughts that tired him out so quickly. Now the latest whirl of worlds was taking its toll. The creator of many universes was rubbing his eyes, apologising for yawning and stating that the time had come for his afternoon nap. ‘Thanks again for the cocktail, Jolyon,’ said Mark, raising himself wearily from the armchair.

  ‘I’m coming to get you again tonight,’ said Jolyon. ‘You’re not missing dinner again, not on my watch.’

  ‘Thanks, Jolyon,’ said Mark. ‘Forgive me if I put up a fight again,’ he said. ‘I’m a terrible riser.’ Mark left the room, stretching his limbs and scratching his head as everyone said their goodbyes.

  Chad wondered if, when he left and headed home, he might find Mark curled in a quiet corner somewhere like the dormouse from Alice in Wonderland. Or like Alice herself, dreaming of extraordinary worlds beyond the ends of rabbit holes.

  XII(iv) The three of them remained to discuss Game Soc.

  They agreed they would sleep on the question of who the other players should be. But Mark would definitely be invited to fill one of the six spots. And Jolyon had no doubt Mark would accept. ‘You heard him. He’s desperate for something interesting to do.’

  ‘And how about Emilia?’ said Jack.

  ‘Oh, she’s great,’ said Chad.

  ‘She is, isn’t she?’ said Jolyon.

  ‘That’s five then,’ said Jack. ‘Why did we tell them six players?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Chad. ‘Six just felt right. Something to do with dice?’

  ‘We need one more then,’ said Jack and they all stopped to think.

  But instead of thinking about a sixth player, Chad began thinking of Emilia, allowing longed-for scenes to loop and spool slowly through his favourite daydream.

  XII(v) They had met Emilia while waiting in line for the cursory medical exam they all underwent before term started.

  Jolyon and Chad and Jack stood together in the line. Mark came from the nurse’s room and as he passed by they asked him what the procedure entailed.

  ‘It’s pretty basic,’ said Mark. ‘An eye test, a stethoscope, one of those cuffs for measuring blood pressure.’

  ‘You mean a sphygmomanometer,’ said Jack.

  Emilia turned slowly from her spot ahead of them in the line. Her look fell piteously on Jack.

  ‘What?’ Jack complained. ‘That’s just what you call it.’

  ‘And just what do you call someone like you?’ said Emilia.

  ‘Oh, so now I’m the arsehole for having access to a vocabulary, am I?’

  Emilia responded with a single blink of her big green eyes.

  Jolyon laughed. ‘I’m Jolyon,’ he said, ‘and this is Chad. And that one’s called Jack and I absolutely promise you he’s way better company than first impressions suggest. And you are?’

  ‘Emilia,’ said Emilia.

  ‘And what are you studying?’

  ‘Psychology,’ she said.

  ‘Psychology’s an amazing subject,’ said Jolyon. ‘I just finished reading some Fromm. I couldn’t believe how political he is. The guy’s a genius.’

  ‘So you’re studying psychology? I thought I’d met all the first-year psychology students.’

  ‘No, I’m studying law,’ said Jolyon. ‘I was just interested in Fromm.’

  Emilia’s eyes narrowed and she cocked her head. And then she said, ‘You know, you’re one of the few people who, when I mentioned studying psychology, didn’t say, oh, so tell me what I’m thinking right now.’ Jolyon peered hard at Emilia. ‘Is something up?’ she said.

  ‘Oh, nothing. No, it’s just . . . you remind me of someone I knew for a short while.’

  ‘Someone good, I hope,’ said Emilia.

  Jolyon seemed to slip away for a moment and an awkward silence fell over them.

  Chad jumped in. ‘What made you choose psychology, Emilia?’ he said.

  ‘That’s a very good question, Chad.’ Chad felt the familiar heat washing over his cheeks. ‘I don’t know,’ said Emilia. ‘Perhaps that’s one of the things I’m hoping to find out before leaving here.’

  XII(vi) While Jack drummed his fingers against his cheek, thinking through possible candidates for the sixth spot, and while Chad thought about Emilia and lingered in his daydreams, Jolyon was thinking of little else but Emilia as well. Or at least his thoughts began with Emilia. Because soon he began to think about his month in Vietnam, the American girl with the same white-sand hair, the same sea-green eyes. The similarity was striking. They could have been sisters. The same coral lips.

  XIII Games have awoken in me unpleasant memories of my divorce. Those boxes represent the only shared belongings I held on to when I left Blair four years ago. I even took the childish games we bought for the visits of her nieces and nephews. My ex-wife chose not to contest the ownership of Chutes & Ladders. Games had always been one of the sore points in our relationship, I couldn’t bear to lose even the friendliest of contests. And Blair deserved better, she only ever wanted to fix me. Poor Blair.

  But never mind yesterday, yesterday was merely a blip. I have bagged up the games with the garbage, there will be no more frivolous pursuits. And today has felt better. My resolve remains undiminished and my story progresses. My evening routine is complete. The evening is a season unto itself, Keats’s autumn, all mists and mellow fruitfulness.

  Chilli and rice. Check. Small nip of whisky. Check. Glass of water. Check.

  Disrobe, brush teeth, take meds. One pink pill, one yellow, one blue.

  And a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.

  Life is a game of balances. Work, play. Wake, sleep. Stimulant, narcotic.

  My snug skin, my cosy mind, the gentle hum of me. Check.

  XIV Chad knocked on the door. He could hear the faint sound of creaks from within, the groaning of floorboards as Jolyon moved closer. Chad sense a tightness in his chest. Was he nervous? That would be foolish, he wasn’t here for any particular reason, only to hang out with Jolyon. At lunchtime perhaps they would go to the Churchill Arms. Maybe they woul
d buy second-hand books beforehand or just sit and drink coffee and talk about the Game. So perhaps the feeling in Chad’s chest wasn’t nerves but a thrill.

  When Jolyon opened his door, he smiled. He didn’t say anything, he only turned around and moved toward his bed where a newspaper was spread out, every inch of the blanket covered but for a small spot to which Jolyon returned.

  ‘I bumped into Prost at the bottom of the stairs,’ said Chad, ‘and he asked me to give this back to you.’ He waved several sheets of paper covered in handwriting.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Jolyon, ‘just leave it on the desk.’

  ‘What’s Prost doing with an essay on Roman law written by you?’

  Jolyon looked confused for a moment. He picked up a page of newspaper and prodded it. ‘There’s a great story in here,’ he said. ‘Mikhail Gorbachev is being hotly tipped to win the Nobel Peace Prize next week.’

  ‘Jolyon, I thought you said – and let me get the words just right – that Prost is a one hundred per cent, grade A, total frickin cock.’

  Jolyon sighed. ‘Look, when I finished my essay yesterday, I found him slumped over his desk in the library. It was midnight, he had nothing but a few torn-up attempts. His tutorial’s today, the guy was panicking. So I lent him mine.’

  ‘Even though he’s a total frickin cock?’

  ‘It seemed like the right thing to do,’ said Jolyon.

  ‘You mean you felt bad for him?’ said Chad.

  Jolyon looked even more confused than before. ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’ he said.

  Chad snorted. ‘Never mind,’ he said. He dropped the essay on Jolyon’s desk and took the chair next to the coffee table.

  Jolyon tore the Gorbachev article from the newspaper, placed it to one side and then turned his attention to Chad. ‘Now then, would you like me to make you some breakfast?’ he said.

  Chad looked around the room. There was a toaster and an electric kettle. ‘You mean a piece of toast?’ he said.