Black Chalk

‘Superb,’ said Jamie. He sucked and whipped and blew. And then he patted Jolyon on the shoulder. ‘Must dash,’ he said, indicating a blonde girl with a motion of his head.

Jolyon waited for Jamie and Nick to filter away through the crowd, watching them depart over his shoulder. And then he turned quickly to the table. ‘What the fuck’s going on?’ he said. ‘And Jamie wasn’t the second person to ask me, he was the fourth fucking person.’

Around the table there were shrugs and lips turned in and brows furrowed and the itch of discomfort. And also there was fear, or something not far from fear.

‘No idea,’ said Jack, who then felt it a grave mistake to have spoken first.

Jolyon prodded his finger at Jack. ‘Secrecy is the whole fucking point. Anyone here doesn’t understand that, they should walk away now. Jamie and earlier Rory and yesterday two second-year rugger-buggers who I’ve never even laid eyes on before. And when I find out who the fuck –’

‘Don’t blame me,’ said Jack. ‘Why are you pointing at me? I didn’t do anything.’

‘And the Pitt Pendulum a few days ago ran that ridiculous bullshit in Rumourist about us all being a sect and me being some kind of Jim Jones figure.’

‘That was just supposed to be a joke, Jolyon,’ said Emilia.

Jolyon ran his hands through his hair and locked his fingers on top of his head. His body rocked back and forth with disappointment.

Chad leaned forward and looked at each of them in turn. ‘The Game is closed to outsiders,’ he said. ‘Maybe we didn’t discuss this forcefully enough but we’re all agreed, right? The Game becomes public knowledge and there is no game.’

Everyone but Jolyon nodded in agreement. Jolyon had slumped back in his seat and his face was turned to the ceiling.

Chad stood up and clapped his friend on the back. ‘I’m going to the bar,’ he said. ‘You ready for another drink, Jolyon?’

‘All right,’ said Jolyon, sucking his lips to his teeth. ‘But it’s not your round. It’s fucking Jack’s fucking round.’

‘I’m getting these,’ said Chad.

XXVI(iii) Gradually the sense of deceit in the midst of them subsided. Jolyon’s cloud dissipated and he drifted back into the conversation when it moved on to politics. He told them about the famous politician who’d had a Nazi swastika tattoo quietly removed a few years earlier. It was one of those well-known secrets, Jolyon told them, although nobody else at the table seemed to have heard the rumour before. Jolyon said he had a friend who worked at one of the tabloids. The friend had told him the newspapers were sitting on the story, hoping the politician would make a run for leadership. And if so, all would be revealed.

Then Jack told a story about a boy at his school who had tattooed himself while locked up in borstal. He had wanted the tattoo to honour his girlfriend Nadia and had done it himself with a pin, a pot of ink and a mirror. The mirror had been the root of the later problem. Now on his forearm, inside a big red heart, there was inked not the name Nadia but Aidan.

They laughed and drank and Dee said she didn’t believe a word of it, Jackie-oh, but it was a good enough story in any case.

Emilia stretched her arms and yawned.

‘Oh no, it’s infectious,’ said Jack. ‘You’ve caught his disease, Markolepsy,’ he said pointing. ‘This is serious, Emilia, you’re turning into a Markoleptic.’

Emilia tried hard not to smile. ‘No, I’m just bored,’ she said. ‘Oh, only a little,’ she added, ‘nothing to do with any of you. I just feel a bit trapped here.’

‘Then let’s finish these and go to my room,’ said Jolyon.

‘It’s not the bar,’ said Emilia. ‘We don’t do anything any more, just the stupid game all the time.’

Chad was about to protest but then Mark blinked hard and rapped his knuckles on the side of his head. ‘I’ve just had a brilliant idea,’ he said. ‘You want a change of scene, Emilia? Then you all have to come down to London Friday night for my birthday. I don’t know why I was planning on spending it in this place. We can stay the whole weekend at my mother’s house. I can’t believe I only just thought of it. Look, my sister’s living with my dad for a bit, small family falling-out, so her bedroom’s free. And then there’s the study, which you can take, Dee. You’ll love my mother’s study, it’s full of old books by dead people. And I’ll find sleeping bags for you two.’ Mark pointed at Jack and Chad. ‘There’s plenty of room in my bedroom.’

‘Then what about Emilia and Jolyon?’ said Jack.

‘I just told you,’ said Mark, speaking slowly in a monotone as if to the village idiot. ‘My . . . sister’s . . . away.’ It sounded to Chad like the slow toll of church bells at a funeral. ‘Her . . . bedroom’s . . . free.’ Mark picked up the pace again. ‘So Em and Jolyon can take her bed.’

Chad’s head began to swarm and he felt the space between the six of them fog over, the sense of displacement thicker than the bar-room smoke.