Black Chalk

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.’