Black Chalk

XXVII(iii) I greet him awkwardly but successfully negotiate the exchanging of names. Although please forgive me for having forgotten his name in the unsettling rush of what happened next. My neighbour asks me where I have been for the last three years and I make something up about a sick mother in England. And then my neighbour says to me, Is that where you got married, back in England?

I give him a confused look.

Sorry, he says, just a girlfriend then? It’s just, I never see the two of you together, so I thought to myself, hey, then she must be his wife. My neighbour laughs awkwardly. Sorry, dumb joke, he says.

I have no wife, I say, I’m divorced. No girlfriend either.

My neighbour swallows. Right, right, he says. Of course, just the maid. He slaps his forehead. Hey, maybe you could let me have her number, he says. I guess I’m pretty neat but I could get dirty for a hot maid like that.

He laughs and punches my shoulder playfully. But something about the way I force out a laugh causes him to fall quickly silent.

Are you saying that you’ve seen a woman in my apartment? I ask my neighbour.

The question startles him. Uh, yeah, he says, his yeah like a duh.

I lower my head to think this through as quickly as I can. And then, looking at the smudged words on my sneakers, I say to my neighbour, Do you see her at the same hour each day? Always at noon?

Twelve o’clock? Sure, now you mention it.

I place my hand on my neighbour’s shoulder. He looks down slowly as if there might be a large poisonous spider climbing its way up his body.

I have to go, I say, turning and starting to run.

XXVII(iv) I am quiet with my key and light on tiptoes. Soon I have looked everywhere except for one place.

Something about the sight of the closet makes me feel sick and afraid. What do I keep in this closet?

I beat my fist against its surface. Come out, I say, come out, I know you’re in there. I have a gun, I say, and if you don’t come out I’m going to start shooting.

I wonder if I should get a knife from the kitchen. And then a vague memory washes through me. I own only butter knives.

This is your final warning, I yell.

When was the last time I opened this closet? Perhaps not opening this closet has become part of my routine. But wouldn’t I have left myself something to remind me of this, something that would seem out of place there? Electric cables looped around the brass knob? Something kitchen-related wedged in the crack of the door?

I press my ear to the closet and listen hard. And then I throw open the door in a breathless rush of adrenalin. I let out a guttural roar and raise my fists.

Nothing, the closet is empty. Mostly empty. Then I notice that, lying on the floor, there is a very small, green plastic house.

I turn the little house over and over curiously in my fingers. It takes me a minute or so before I remember Monopoly and then the other board games. I drop the house in the garbage. This is not one of those important memories I need to retain.

XXVII(v) I perform my afternoon routine quickly and then hurry back to my story. I want to read everything I have written so far with great attention to detail, right from the very first word.

And now, as sleep begins its pull on the cords of my eyelids, I have something to report.

XXVII(vi) First let me say that my mind is not what it used to be. And even in the past it was not exactly free from hairline cracks, or the odd crevice or two, so please read the following statement with some degree of caution.

I cannot say with utter certainty that all of the words in this story have been written by me. It seems that some of them may not have been my own.

XVIII

XXVIII(i) Mark’s birthday was a loose affair, a gathering of friends old and new in a Thames-side pub. A bewildering number of friends, thought Chad, and all of them like characters from a book that once would have made him feel callow and small yet eager to climb into a world way above.

When the pub closed they fell out of its doorway straight into the home of one of Mark’s friends whose parents were away for a month, business and pleasure in Cape Town. And the party began anew, its vigour refreshed.

When at last they headed back to Mark’s mother’s house, the new day was at their backs, raising itself over Victorian rooftops. And in the half-light, drunk and in a whirl of other hazes, Chad felt almost like one of Mark’s London friends. As if overnight he had been lightly sketched in by the brush of the city.

XXVIII(ii) When he awoke his head hurt and there was a note next to him on the floor. They had tried unsuccessfully to rouse him. ‘Hair of the dog, the Starling,’ the note concluded.

Oh shoot, Chad groaned. And then he remembered himself, rose, showered and dressed. But none of it made his head feel any better.