Black Chalk

Emilia, meanwhile, was just about getting by. While random consequences only occasionally found their best target among the other five, Emilia seemed to possess a dearth of such luck. Everything seemed designed to attack her sense of decency, even though most of the consequences were supposed to be humorous. One dare that especially shamed her had been dreamt up by Jack, a creature that had to be scrawled on the walls as graffiti, a creature to which Jack gave the name Cocktopus. Cocktopus had the body of an octopus but each of its eight tentacles took the form of a penis. This consequence required Emilia to be caught on three occasions graffitiing cocktopi in public. One night several girls saw her as she drew her numerous phalli in pink Magic Marker over the washbasins in the toilets nearest the bar. Dee was the only person able to observe and verify on this occasion and she did so through a crack in the door of one of the stalls. Emilia was next seen by male and female students alike when she scratched a large cocktopus into the plaster by the payphone near the junior common room and then by an old lady as she spray-painted her third cocktopus onto the side of a bus shelter. On the final occasion Emilia fled the scene while the old lady shouted out for the police. She ran all the way back to Pitt, gripped by her sense of shame and fear of arrest. And although the other players assured her the police didn’t use sketch artists or issue wanted posters in the case of reported graffiti, for some time Emilia wore a hat and a scarf wrapped all the way up to her nose whenever she left the safe confines of Pitt.

Mark was trying hard to hold on to his sense of calm but something was building inside him. Every week he finished with at least a single consequence, sometimes two or three. The rolls of the dice were against him, the cards in his hand often weak. Frequently the other players would look on as he strove to appear untroubled at the end of another dare. Asking questions at the end of lectures that implied a stunning level of ignorance. Eating his dinner in the refectory with a pair of fine lacquered chopsticks for a week (one night it was soup). Cheering on Pitt’s rugby team dressed in the same kit as the players, star-jumping on the sidelines as if he thought he might be called up in an emergency. (Mark weighed one hundred and forty pounds and possessed the sporting prowess of the average physicist.) Having to be seen in public with a pink G-string peeking over the top of his jeans . . .

But yes, it was fun. And none of them seemed for even a moment to consider that, for the Game to end, they would have to subject one another to greater and greater humiliations. It couldn’t remain light-hearted forever.

Because, ultimately, what would be the point in a game without losers?

XXVI(ii) They were thigh to thigh on the panelled seats, halfway through Hilary term. The bar was crowded and the smoke looped slowly where it bathed in the uplights.

Dee had recently abandoned her coloured cigarettes and instead contributed to the bar-room fug with an antique corncob pipe. Her dark hair was drawn back and tied with old lace, her tobacco scented with cherries. She looked like Olive Oyl stolen away for the night with Popeye’s pipe. ‘Jack is back,’ she said, with a sarcastic sense of drama.

Jack and Mark had only just arrived, followed not far behind by two boys carrying beers and with cigarettes pinched at the corners of their mouths. Jamie and Nick. Smoke was billowing into their faces as they approached and they had to toss their heads this way and that to prevent their eyes from tearing.

‘Jolyon, mate,’ said Jamie. He slapped Jolyon enthusiastically on the back.

‘Did you check it out as I suggested?’ said Jolyon.

‘I did, mate. And you were only right on the button.’

‘What did I tell you?’

‘Seriously, mate,’ said Jamie. He winked and pulled his cigarette far from his mouth, deep in the V of his fingers. ‘I owe you one.’

‘And Mr Nick,’ said Jolyon. He half turned and reached over his shoulder to shake hands with the second boy. ‘I have that book for you, remember? Just come to my room and if I’m not there let yourself in. I usually leave the door unlocked. Third shelf down.’

‘You’re a gentleman, sir,’ said Nick.

‘Listen, mate,’ said Jamie. ‘Little dicky bird tells me there’s some kind of a game being organised and you might be the man to ask. And Nick and me just wanted to say count us in if at all poss.’

‘And which little dicky bird told you this?’ said Jolyon.

‘Steady on,’ said Jamie, sucking hard on his cigarette and whipping it away in his V. ‘Grapevine, mate, nudge nudge. Man has to protect his sources and so on et cetera.’

‘It’s odd, that’s all. You’re the second person to ask me and I have no idea where this came from. But if you ever want to come round for some poker, I’d love to host.’