Black Chalk

It had taken Chad some time to adjust to their ways. While Chad felt ashamed of being a farm boy, his new friends all seemed proud of their lack of breeding, everyone trumpeting their poor upbringing or the inadequacies of their high schools. Pitt College felt like America turned back to front and maybe also on its head. But gradually Chad had come to understand his friends, they had all made it to Pitt because of intelligence. They had, every one of them, proved themselves the cleverest at their schools. But intellectually they began here as equals, not one of them could yet be identified as top of the heap.

What they did have was background and so lack of privilege or money became the medals of honour they polished in public each day. They were the brightest of the blooms that had sprung from the harshest soils, like a long-distance runner from Kenya who had trained in the dust with no shoes. A natural. Each of them yearned for the great status that disadvantage could bestow, because in truth they all felt scared, fearful they had slipped through the net and they really didn’t belong there at all.

Even Emilia played this game. She tried to sound weary of the boys, their public breast-beating, their peacock displays. They might as well have hung their disadvantages out from their jeans and compared lengths. She was like a schoolgirl disparaging schoolboys fighting dustily in the playground but then dating the one to emerge with the best of the scalps and the scars.

‘Look,’ said Jack, ‘Mark’s dad might just work in a small bookshop but he does own the bookshop. And his mum is a lecturer at LSE. And if you’re a teacher like Fauntleroy’s parents, you have at least been to university. My dad started on the counters, sixteen, straight out of school. No one from my family has even been to university.’

‘You’re just a bunch of soft southerners,’ said Emilia. ‘And you all lose, by the way, not that any of it matters.’

‘Just being from Yorkshire doesn’t automatically entitle you to win,’ said Jack. ‘But come on then. Let’s hear it, blondie.’

Emilia lifted one of her legs and propelled the sole of her boot into Jack’s shin.

Jack cried out in pain. ‘Jesus, that fuckingwell hurt,’ he said.

‘That’s right,’ said Emilia, ‘and next time you call me blondie I’ll punch you in the face.’

‘All right, all right,’ said Jack, raising his palms in surrender. ‘Go on then, tell us your tales of northern fucking woe.’

‘My dad was a miner,’ said Emilia.

‘Oh Christ but that’s perfect,’ said Jack.

‘What do you mean?’ said Emilia, readying her foot.

‘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.