Black Chalk Read online

  ‘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.’

  Chad had quickly discovered that the British could think only of Manhattan at the mention of New York. But he didn’t correct Jack. Chad hadn’t told anyone in England about the farm on which he grew up, a world away from Manhattan. Except for Jolyon, of course.

  Manhattan, that shred of land at the bottom of the state like the immeasurably modest penis of an ancient sculpture. Chad had visited only once as a child, a four-hour drive from the farm, the swine-stead upstate between the Catskills and the Adirondacks. And even four hours north of the city was only halfway to Canada. No, the British didn’t understand that when you said New York you were speaking of an area the size of England. So Chad played the Manhattanite whenever prompted by false assumption. Although the role hardly suited him.

  ‘Hey, of course,’ said Chad. ‘You’re all invited. And pastrami on rye is a sandwich, Jack. Cured beef piled high between two slices of rye bread. And in New York City they’re the size of your head.’

  Jolyon smiled at Chad and chose to say nothing. If this was how Chad wanted it then Jolyon would play along.

  But it seemed a great shame. Jolyon’s own modest past felt like an unfair advantage when he had listened to Chad a few nights ago, both of them sipping Brandy Alexanders. And as Chad revealed more and more of his past, Jolyon had begun to envy and admire his new friend. The boy from the richest country on earth, a pig farmer’s son. The smell of the family business smeared every day on his clothes. The morning wait for the school bus, standing in the too-still breeze with the sweet and sickly shit-scent clumped in his hair. The green-tinged muck forever . . .

  But perhaps Jolyon had over-varnished the story, added in detail that would allow him to cherish the tale even more. Because to Jolyon the notion of the peasant triumphant represented a romantic ideal. Chad, the boy who had risen from the straw and the sties to become his high school valedictorian. The straight As, the scholarship, his escape.

  But if Chad didn’t want to share the story with anyone else then perhaps there was something more, something Chad didn’t want any of them to know. Not even him.

  Jolyon slapped his thigh. ‘So it looks like Emilia wins,’ he said.

  Chad wished that he had been the one to have declared Emilia’s victory. He sucked on the joint and decided that marijuana tasted of sage and burnt toast, his mother’s Thanksgiving stuffing. He blew the smoke hard and tried not to splutter. It felt like a bright balloon was inflating in his head.

  Emilia’s eyes had shut for a moment, it was safe to look at her, to linger a while. Chad felt soothed by her face like he might by a sunset. Emilia’s blonde hair had fallen onto one of her cheeks and he imagined lifting the hair and hooking it behind an ear. The thin down of her face gathered the light at one corner of her jaw. He would be gentle and she would tremble, she would make sweet sounds of soft pleasure. Then she would roll into his arms, her nose nuzzling his neck.

  Chad wondered if he must be lacking in testosterone because it was thoughts of closeness and clinches that dominated his desires. Perhaps his father was right about him. Perhaps real men had thoughts more carnal than these. Which was not to say that his puberty had passed by entirely without erections and bathroom ceremonies. But he had tried to limit himself. There seemed something wrong with self-abuse (why did his brain even use such a terrible, loaded phrase?), something disrespectful toward an unknown and future wife. Right now, most of all, he wanted to hold Emilia in his arms and kiss her gently.

  She opened her eyes and smiled at him and briefly he smiled back. Then Chad let his gaze slide quickly away as if continuing a journey around the room. He hated himself for his pitiful spinelessness. In that moment he vowed one day he would tell Emilia he loved her. But the setting would have to be right and the words ready. Just the two of them. Candles, good music. Billie Holiday, Chet Baker. And inside of him a half-bottle of wine, warm and inspiring.

  XVI(ii) Jack passed the joint to Mark and then started to play with Jolyon’s possessions, picking them up and absently moving them around the desk. There was a mug holding a bottle of aspirin, a toothbrush, a plastic fork and a strip of photo-booth pictures of Jolyon. The mug stood on Jolyon’s diary and a thin volume on Roman law. And both books were balanced on two water glasses. In the bottom of one glass lay a thimble and also the small dried bud of a rose.

  ‘Don’t touch that,’ said Jolyon. He hadn’t noticed Jack’s toying at first. He jumped up and snatched the mug from Jack’s hand. ‘Just leave my stuff alone, all right?’

  ‘What is all this, a fucking art installation?’

  ‘No, his daily to-do list,’ said Chad and then, seeing Jolyon’s lips draw back against his teeth, wished he’d said nothing at all. ‘Don’t ask,’ he added. ‘It’s nothing important.’

  Jack drew away from the desk and then wheeled himself back on the chair as Jolyon, muttering, began arranging everything back in its proper place.

  Emilia tried to defuse the sense of tension now filling the air. ‘So, Jolyon,’ she said, ‘when do we get to hear whatever it is you’ve been saving up for us all night?’

  Jolyon turned his head, his lips softening then forming a smile. ‘Right now, Emilia, straight away,’ he said. He dropped the bottle of aspirin into its correct place in the mug and bounced back over to his bed.

  XVII Let me clear one thing up. It has not been my intention to trick you, that is absolutely not the purpose of my story.

  But I have just spent some time looking over everything I have written and it seems I might not have properly introduced myself. This failure was merely an oversight. Or perhaps it was my subconscious intention only to illustrate the distance I have travelled from my youth, another continent. So now a proper introduction. Hello, my name is Jolyon Johnson. And I am very happy to make your acquaintance.

  And I have also realised there remains something else I have failed to explain. This story should serve not only as a warning, my confession. I am writing this story because I need to understand the real Chad, the one he kept hidden. Because if I can understand the real Chad, then maybe I can defeat him.

  XVIII(i) Jolyon told them the ta
le but he allowed Jack to embroider its telling with colourful detail. The ploughers and Sock Soc. Impersonations of Game Soc that cast them as the witches from Macbeth.

  ‘Count me in then,’ said Mark, his eyes drifting with the hash smoke in the room. He was still lying on the floor but to indicate enormous enthusiasm he had hoisted himself modestly onto his elbows.

  ‘Just like that,’ said Emilia, ‘you’re in, Mark? No questions?’

  ‘It’s an interesting idea,’ said Mark. ‘There aren’t many interesting ideas going round.’

  ‘And just think of all those opportunities to humiliate Jack,’ said Chad.

  Emilia scowled. ‘How can I possibly humiliate Jack any more than he already humiliates himself every day? With his own words.’

  ‘No, that’s fair enough,’ said Jack, ‘although it shows why the psychology student wouldn’t stand a chance going up against . . . History Boy.’ Jack mimed tearing open his shirt.

  ‘Maybe he’s right, Emilia,’ said Jolyon, shooting her a provocative look. ‘What if Jack can’t be beaten?’

  ‘Of course Jack can be beaten,’ Emilia scoffed. ‘Humour’s his shield. All you have to do is work out what it’s shielding him from and he’s . . . history.’ She winced. ‘Pun intended. Very sorry.’

  ‘See,’ said Mark, ‘the sweet-seeming psychology student’s already one step ahead of the rest of us.’ Mark let his elbows slide until his head was back on the cushion. ‘Now that’s interesting,’ he said.

  ‘Ten thousand pounds, Emilia,’ said Jolyon, whistling. ‘And wouldn’t it be fun? It would probably bring us all closer together. We need to stick together, remember.’

  Emilia shifted uncomfortably in the armchair. ‘Well, it wouldn’t be about the money for me,’ she said.

  ‘No?’ said Jack. ‘But think of all those pretty shoes you could buy, Emilia.’

  ‘Just shut it, Jack.’

  ‘Come on, Emilia.’ said Jolyon. Chad recognised the edge in his tone, Jolyon’s don’t disappoint me voice. ‘Just say yes, at least for now.’ But Jolyon always seemed unaware of the weight in his words. Chad supposed he wouldn’t be half as persuasive if his methods were only a trick. ‘For all of us, Em.’

  Emilia glanced down at her feet and then looked around at her friends. ‘Fine then,’ she said. ‘I suppose I’m in. But I would like to know more about this strange little Game Soc before we go any further.’

  Mark, his eyes closed, took a last puff of the joint and waved it in the air. ‘That’s almost the most interesting part of all,’ he said, as Jolyon plucked the offering from his fingers.

  ‘Well, I don’t know who Game Soc are,’ said Jack, ‘but I know who they certainly aren’t. They’re not those closeted homosexuals of Sock Soc.’

  ‘God, that’s so homophobic, Jack,’ said Emilia.

  ‘What’s homophobic about that?’ said Jack, playing his outrage forcefully. ‘Is it homophobic simply to recognise another man for what he is, a closet gay? To look at him and see in his eyes that he hides his true self from an uncaring society? Don’t you first need to understand who a person really is before you can begin to sympathise with him? Is it really homophobic to notice when a man is suppressing his true hungers and desires? His dreams, his yearnings. His all-consuming love of long, hard man-cock?’

  Jolyon coughed on his smoke, it rushed out of his nose and his eyes filled with tears.

  ‘See,’ said Emilia, ‘you find homosexuality amusing, Jack. You joke about it constantly but there’s nothing intrinsically funnier about gay sex than straight sex. It’s all just trains and tunnels. Humour’s your defence mechanism against anything that scares you. And it clearly does scare you. Fear, Jack, that’s what a phobia is.’

  ‘Listen,’ said Jack, ‘there’s no question of fear. I for one happen to love the gays. Plus, I think we could all get along a whole lot better. Why can’t we cooperate to reach our goals? I mean, take women for example. We want to fuck them and the gays love talking to them. Neither of us has any interest in the other act. So surely we could come to some kind of mutually beneficial arrangement.’

  ‘I think they’re spies,’ said Mark, sitting up suddenly. ‘Oh, sorry, Jack, not gay men. Game Soc. Which is not to say my thread’s infinitely more interesting than your little stand-up comedy routine.’ Mark and Jack exchanged looks like duellists appreciating the sport of the contest before Mark continued. ‘It’s well known that this university was for a long time, and probably still is, a recruiting ground for the British secret services. And by the way, I hear that your history tutor, Jack, is one of their talent scouts.’ Jack nodded as he mouthed the words it’s true to the room. ‘Maybe Game Soc are on the lookout for young people with intelligence and initiative. And then this game, whatever we come up with, becomes our recruitment process.’

  ‘But if they’re British intelligence, why would they bother listening to me, an American?’ said Chad. ‘They rejected everyone else who went near them in about one second flat.’

  ‘What, so you think Britain doesn’t spy on America?’ said Mark. ‘And no doubt America spies on us. And much better, I bet. Maybe they see you as a potential double agent.’ Mark finished his drink in one enthusiastic gulp. ‘Look, we’re all friends in this room. But that doesn’t mean I expect us to tell the truth about ourselves all the time. And I’m sure it’s the same with Britain and America’s so-called special relationship. Anyway, who else might want to throw ten thousand pounds at us?’

  ‘But we haven’t even seen the money,’ said Emilia. ‘It might be a hoax, someone’s idea of a student prank.’

  ‘I know who has enough money to afford it,’ said Jolyon. ‘That secret society Toby was telling us about the other day. What are they called?’

  ‘The Saracens,’ said Jack. And then answering Emilia’s enquiring look, he added, ‘A posh rich-boys-only club. Remember those passport photos you sent in along with the room questionnaires and forms a few months ago? Apparently the Saracens somehow get hold of the pictures of all the female freshers and sift through deciding which ones to invite along to one of their champagne-and-coke sex parties.’

  ‘Elizabeth told me that at the warden’s drinks,’ said Mark. ‘She said she received an invite to a mysterious champagne party just a week ago.’

  Jack studied Emilia’s reaction. ‘Don’t worry, Emilia,’ he said, ‘I expect your invitation just got lost in the post.’

  Emilia raised her foot but Jack was ready. The desk chair had wheels and this time he scooted clear of the danger.

  ‘Like I’d want to be leered over by a bunch of boys with dicky bows and Coutts accounts,’ said Emilia. ‘Stupid wankers.’

  Emilia swore rarely and there was a short silence as if an amen had been spoken.

  ‘But the trouble with it being the Saracens,’ said Mark, ‘is they don’t sound like they have the imagination to spend their money on anything better than booze, coke, chasing girls and paying for repairs after they trash the restaurants they meet in.’

  ‘And Game Soc’s three didn’t look much like they’re into debauchery,’ said Jolyon.

  ‘Well, it doesn’t have to be the Saracens,’ said Chad. ‘Aren’t there plenty of other rich people here?’ he said. ‘And thousands of clubs. Or how about a psychological experiment – don’t they often use students in those things?’

  They all looked to Emilia. Although they had been at university for only a short time, already they deferred to each other on issues that might one day lie in their area of expertise.

  ‘It wouldn’t be considered ethical nowadays,’ said Emilia. ‘Not like back in the days of Milgram or the Stanford experiment.’ She swatted the air between herself and Jack who was reaching over to offer her a joint. ‘Get that thing away from me, Jack,’ she said.

  Jack shrugged. ‘You might as well give in now, Em. Because you know we’ll corrupt you one day. The bookies aren’t even offering odds. You absolutely know we will.’

  XVIII(ii) ‘The most importa
nt thing to do first,’ said Jolyon, ‘is decide who else we invite to play. We need six. Right now we’re only five.’ He waved his piece of paper, a list of over twenty names and every one crossed out. ‘I can’t think of a single person,’ he said.

  ‘Why can’t we plan the consequences first?’ said Jack.

  ‘Because this game is going to be fair and democratic. We won’t decide anything else until there are six of us. Every player has to be present and we vote on everything.’

  ‘Oh, so we’re a democracy?’ said Jack. ‘And you just decided that on your own, did you, Jolyon?’ He shook his latest cigar-like creation to better distribute the resin. He twisted its end and threw it to Mark who was holding the lighter.

  ‘Jack, tell me, who came up with this whole thing?’

  ‘I’m just saying,’ said Jack. ‘It’s a joke, OK?’

  Mark toked hard on the joint and puffed his cheeks as he held the smoke deep. After each exhalation he tried calling out a different name, another candidate for the last spot.

  But none of them were right. Too rich or too full of themselves. Too pretentious, too smug. Jolyon’s lips tightened with every rejection. ‘Well, I can’t think of anyone else,’ he said.

  Emilia looked around the room. ‘We definitely need one more woman,’ she said. ‘Whoever the last spot goes to, she has to be female.’

  ‘Agreed,’ said Jolyon. ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Then how about Cassie?’ said Emilia. ‘She lives next door to me.’

  ‘Who the fuck is Cassie?’ said Jack.

  ‘Oh, you know who she is,’ said Mark. ‘Cassandra Addison. It’s just that you know her better as Dee.’

  ‘Oh, fuck me, not Dee,’ said Jack. ‘My first day here I arrived the same time she did and I nearly told my dad to drive me straight home. I got out of the car and she walked past carrying a stuffed rabbit. And I don’t mean a toy, I mean a once-living once-carrot-munching wascally wabbit. And she was wearing some tatty old second-hand wedding dress. It looked like it must have been fifty years old.’