Black Chalk

It’s OK, Dee says, touching me gently. No one’s taking anything away from you, Jolyon. I just want you to cut down a little. Can you do that? For me? Will you promise?

I feel my nose, the lightest of touches and yet still my head swims. OK, I say, I promise, Dee. Less of everything.

Less whisky and pills, she says. The same walking and writing, meeting in the park, poetry reading.

Yes, the same routine, I say. Meeting in the park, poetry reading. I half turn to look for it beside me at the corner of the blanket.

So have you committed tonight’s poem to memory? Dee asks me.

Where is it?

It’s OK, Jolyon, you don’t have to read to me every night.

Where is it?

Jolyon? Jolyon, is something wrong? Jolyon, tell me what’s wrong?

LVI

LVI(i) Jolyon woke in the night, tap tap tap on his window. Half asleep, impossible. There could be no tapping on his window, no trees, four floors up. Tap tap tap. Still half asleep he thought of Dracula movies and jumped up out of bed. He pulled the curtain, nothing. He opened his window and leaned out. There was nothing to see in the darkness, except for his neighbour’s window open, a faint light from within. And then he remembered, his new neighbour.

He went back to bed, held the pillow over his head and fell asleep again.

And then with a start he was awoken once more. For a second he thought that the world was ending, a great roaring of the earth being torn apart. And then the panic subsided as he realised that the sound was music, loud and distorted, and coming from the wall beside his bed. He held his hand there. The source of the din was only inches away, he felt it pump into his fingers. And then it stopped.

An hour later the tapping. An hour later the roaring. An hour later the tapping . . .

LVI(ii) Dee played a low card. Jolyon knew she had higher. Two against one.

Chad won with another low card, the six of clubs. And when Jolyon had to play next, he knew they would screw him again.

They did. Jolyon picked up the dice, five dice, and dropped them into the cup. Hard to roll low with five dice and he didn’t. He rolled very high.

Dee and Chad looked pleased with their work.

Tallest looked less satisfied than Jolyon would have thought. When the five dice fell showing a total of twenty-one, Tallest removed his glasses to his jacket pocket and looked at Jolyon, squinting and blinking. Perhaps it was pity, or maybe Tallest was tired, just like Jolyon after his sleepless night. Maybe Tallest had been enjoying late nights drinking with other men who looked like accountants, or soirées with girls in nice floral dresses.

Jolyon yawned and held his head in his hands. Dee started to clear away the dice and the cards. ‘How can you trust someone like that?’ he said.

‘What I trust,’ said Dee, ‘is my own eyes.’

‘Chad sent you here,’ said Jolyon. ‘He sent you here to see whatever you thought you saw and he’s playing you, Dee, don’t you get that?’

‘Chad did the right thing,’ said Dee. ‘Unlike you, Jolyon. I saw you with my own eyes, and . . .’ As Dee tried to finish her sentence, Chad put an arm around her shoulders. He squeezed and out came her tears.

Chad didn’t look at Dee as he made gentle shushing sounds. He soothed Dee but he stared at Jolyon.

Dee cried some more and then sniffed. ‘I hope you don’t quit too soon, Jolyon,’ she said. ‘I really think you should suffer for this.’

LVI(iii) No, he wouldn’t quit. How could he quit? What had he done? He held Emilia when she was hurt. Only held her.

He was innocent. And now he was wronged. He would not quit. It would be a dreadful injustice were he to quit, it would be a terrible, terrible wrong.

LVI(iv) The next day, after another sleepless night, Jolyon had to carry out his first consequence. It was the last remnant of Jack in the Game and so it bore Jack’s fingerprints, the schoolboy smut, the seedy performance.

Jolyon had spent the morning being shadowed by Mark who, despite his late-night escalation, looked well rested. When later he met Chad, Dee and Shortest in the bar, Jolyon’s few hours of law lectures spent alongside Mark felt like relief, the three lightest hours this day had to offer.

Chad handed the magazine to Jolyon. Chad had come prepared.

Good old Chad.

There were certain practicalities regarding this consequence. Dee and Chad had agreed that Jolyon couldn’t be expected to perform, so to speak, under pressure. And who knew how long it would take. So no, he need not actually do it, he need only pretend. The magazine was both prop and shield, it was enormously sensitive of them.

They chose the toilets nearest to the bar. Shortest took the first stall and locked the door. Chad took the second stall and locked it. Jolyon took the furthest stall and left the door unlocked.