Black Chalk

I slam my diary shut and jump to my feet. I can’t work like this. I go to the intercom.

What is it? I shout.

Help me, please help me. A woman’s voice.

My anger vanishes. The chill wind of panic blows through me. What’s wrong? I say.

Quickly, please, he’s going to . . . And then a scream.

I’m coming, I say. Just hold on.

I feel frantic. I look at my bare feet, think about shoes, wipe my hands at the hips of my pants.

I run out the front door. A neighbour stands at the entrance to his apartment along the corridor fumbling for keys, patting his pockets. I think about asking for help.

No time to explain. My bare feet slap against the stone as I run down the stairs two and three at a time.

I am running too fast, I might break my neck at this speed.

I slow down. And then I slow down some more.

Halfway down and I stop. I lean against the balustrade, clenching my fists to the rail.

And then something terrible happens . . . I’m so sorry, if only I were all the way fixed, if only my recovery were complete, if I felt stronger then perhaps I could . . . I turn and walk back up the stairs, neighbour still fumbling for keys, swearing now as he pats every pocket again.

I close my door and fall to the floor, breathing heavily. And then a minute later I get to my feet and rush to find the ice-cube tray. I snatch up my evening dose of pills and swallow them desperately. The guilt is awful, the guilt makes me

and now somebody somewhere is tapping and tapping and tapping and

think that the world doesn’t want me to tap tap tap that sound like a bad memory makes me feel so sick and Jesus will you please just let me finish this chap

or knocking perhaps

maybe someone is knocking on my

XVII

XXVII(i) It has been at least a week since I last wrote anything. Ten days perhaps.

It starts with a headache. I wake up with a start as if woken by a great roaring, as if the earth is splintering outside my window. And then I feel the pain in my head, such a sore head that I don’t move from my bed for a day. (Note to self: The pills are part of your routine. The pills are there to take away the pain. More pills, less pain.)

I lie there trying to recall a peculiar dream. Was it the dream that woke me? Not the six of us this time. I am with a woman, somewhere crowded, words tumbling uncontrollably out of my mouth. Emilia or Dee? The woman in my dream seems to be sometimes one and then the other, or at other moments instead of a dream it feels like a memory of sleepwalking – trudging along in a trance to a bar, talking about the Game and drinking whisky, shot after shot. The whole thing starts to take on the feeling of a hologram, fuzzy at its edges and yet somehow real as if I could reach out and touch my memories. I feel sick, lying there in my bed, as if I have been drinking heavily. But I was drinking only in the dream, wasn’t I? And how can a dream cause this physical pain in my head?

Even the next day the pain is still there, lessened but present, and I can’t write. Is the headache a symptom of my writer’s block, or is it the cause? Or has this listless state been induced by a fear of writing the rest of my story?

I could delay the inevitable, put off the decline. My story could linger wistfully on our trip together to London for Mark’s birthday. But what would such a chapter tell you? That we had a wonderful time and everyone was happy. We revelled in our youth and the discovery of a new group of people we thought truly unique.

No, the words will not flow. This is a hitch in my recovery and yet I do my best to fight back. I force myself to answer the call of my sneakers each day. And I travel further than on my earliest walks. I wander as far as Times Square. Bold and brash, dumb and beautiful. I move through Chinatown, fresh with the arcs of live fish and tubs brimful with alien fungi. I make it across to DUMBO via the Manhattan Bridge, walking high above the grey hide of the East River. I stroll Wall Street with its towers leaning in above my head like the trees that line French avenues. I move through the old ironwork and new glass of SoHo. I do the two bays, Kips and Turtle. I round Ground Zero.

And then something happens, a shock to the system. And as you can see, I begin to write again.

This is what happened –

XXVII(ii) I pull on my WALK NOON sneakers at 11.59, leave my apartment and shuffle out onto the street. I have Central Park in mind, an ambitious distance, but I need to shake off this listlessness. And then I notice my breakfasting neighbour coming out of his own front door across the street from me. He looks over at me and waves, just as he does when we see each other on our fire escapes. But neither of us has any breakfast and he pauses hesitantly. (Record this moment, the fighter makes a breakthrough in his training.) I take a deep breath and hold up a finger. My neighbour smiles. A taxi rolls by and I cross the street.