Black Chalk

He started to describe something he had recently finished reading. Jolyon made everything that interested him sound so wonderful. Chad said he’d love to read the book as well, so Jolyon went to his shelves, took out the book and handed it to Chad. And then he said, ‘Please keep it if you like it.’ Jolyon looked at his watch. ‘Five minutes exactly,’ he said. With a pair of tongs he fished two tea bags from the pot then covered it with a padded tea cosy embroidered with bright bluebells and leaves. Then he started the toast. ‘He was an alcoholic,’ said Jolyon. ‘All of the best American writers were.’

Chad looked at the book and felt ashamed that he had not heard of Raymond Carver. He read the back cover. It described Carver as one of the greats of American literature and here was an Englishman lending the book to him. Chad flicked through the pages, reading the names of the stories at the top of the pages, titles that were simple yet rich.

Jolyon was sitting by the kettle, staring at his watch. ‘Nine minutes and twenty-seven seconds,’ he announced, and then working fast he removed the eggs from the kettle with the soup ladle. He put the eggs in a cereal bowl and took them over to a cupboard door while he started to call out names. ‘Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Steinbeck.’ He opened the door, behind it was a mirror over a small washbowl. ‘Hemingway, obviously. Hemingway was king of the writer drunks.’ He put the eggs beneath the cold faucet and let the water run over them. ‘Cheever and Carver. Truman Capote.’

Jolyon lifted the eggs from the water. He rolled them in the washbowl to loosen the shells and peeled each one quickly and skilfully, first removing a strip of shell from the middle of each egg as if whipping a belt from a pair of pants, then easing off their fragile hemispheres of shell. ‘You go back a bit further and you’ve got Poe and Melville.’

As Jolyon finished the peeling, the toaster went chunk. He took two small plates from beside the washbowl. The plates were old and the glaze was cracked in places, he held them up for Chad to see as if displaying a brace of pheasants. ‘From my grandmother’s tea set,’ he said. ‘She died just a year ago. I called her Grandma Fred until the day she died because that was the name of her dog when I was younger.’ The plates were patterned with autumn leaves. Jolyon placed one slice of toast on each then crowned the toast with the eggs.

‘You know the best thing about eggs?’ said Jolyon. ‘And it’s not the fertility thing,’ he added. ‘An eggshell is like a chrysalis. But what’s inside could be anything when it comes out, there’s so much potential.’ He held one of the plates at the level of his nose and stared lovingly. ‘Think of everything an egg can do,’ he said, ‘the countless possibilities.’ He turned the plate around and around on his fingertips.

‘And you forgot to mention, they taste good,’ said Chad, but Jolyon seemed not to hear and Chad felt embarrassed.

Also beneath the coffee table were stored a number of teacups and saucers. Jolyon took two of each and placed them on the lace-draped table. The cups had pink rims, the saucers pink borders, and both were patterned with roses and cornflowers. The cups rattled faintly on their saucers as Jolyon lowered them slowly to the table.

‘OK, so perhaps with eggs it’s the fertility thing just a little as well,’ said Jolyon. ‘You know, I always want to eat eggs the morning after sex. I really crave them. Do you think there’s something deeply disturbing about that?’

‘You mean Freudian disturbing?’ said Chad.

‘Maybe,’ said Jolyon.

‘Probably,’ said Chad. They both laughed the same laugh, a small puff of air from the nose.

Jolyon climbed onto his bed to reach his window. On the ledge outside was a jug that matched the teacups. He brought the jug to the coffee table, removed a piece of foil from the top and poured milk into the teacups. Then he poured tea. The spout of the pot extended from a hole in the tea cosy.

‘If I were a condemned man,’ said Jolyon, ‘I’d definitely choose eggs for my last supper.’

Jolyon put the breakfast in front of Chad. The egg was white and pure on the perfect golden toast. He handed Chad a fork and put a small wooden dish of pyramid-shaped salt crystals on the coffee table between them. Then Jolyon went at his own egg with a fork, mashing it and spreading it over the slice of toast. The yolk was a bright orange, halfway between liquid and set. ‘Now this is important,’ said Jolyon. ‘And I’m never going to tell this to anyone but you.’ Jolyon gave Chad his conspiratorial look. And then he said, ‘It’s the twenty-seven seconds that’s the secret.’ He finished by crumbling salt across the smeared egg and raised the prize up. ‘English bruschetta,’ he announced, and took a large bite.