The Betrayals

by Bridget Collins

  ‘What’s the matter? It’s no skin off your nose, is it?’

  I pushed his notebook at him. I didn’t mean to hit him but he jerked away and put his hand over his eye. I should have apologised, but I didn’t. ‘You make me sick,’ I said, and left him to it.

  Sixth day, tenth week

  He didn’t mention it again, and neither did I, and we’ve been mostly polite to each other since Tuesday. But over the last few days I couldn’t stop thinking about it. So yesterday night I asked him if I could borrow his notebook. He said yes, but I could see from the way he hesitated first that he didn’t quite trust me. So I said, ‘I won’t take it out of your sight. Just let me have a look, OK?’

  Later he brought it to my room. He lay on my bed and read a textbook while I studied the game. I don’t know, ‘studied’ isn’t the right word, really. I contemplated it. It’s like one of those religious icons: utterly simple in some ways, but you can stare and stare.

  It’s so good. It’s gone beyond our competent, clever games. It’s something else. It’s as if everyone is writing symphonies and suddenly he’s played a single note – one note that holds other notes inside it, like one strike of a standing bell. Echoes and resonances but astoundingly simple, a challenge to the whole question of what makes a grand jeu – and yet it’s skilful, it isn’t empty because he can’t cope with complexity, it’s technically dazzling, it’s whole … One well-chosen move that alludes to the whole of perception and culture and humanity … I don’t know whether I admire him or resent him. Well, both. But I don’t know which one is winning.

  Red. I suppose, in a way, he’s engaging with semiology on the most fundamental level. No one can ever know that ‘red’ is universal, that what I mean by it is the same as what you see. We take it on trust – that’s what language does – but we can never know … Which is obvious when you’re talking about a colour, but in the context of the grand jeu it becomes a metaphor for communication, understanding, pain, love, worship – our attempt to express something, anything, and hope that it’s common to all of us. His game is about redness, but there’s nothing red on the page. It’s all there in black and white. That contradiction: language means absence. The grand jeu is about God, but it means God isn’t there, because otherwise there’d be no need for it … Red. One single move. It’s crazy, but it’s perfect. It makes me angry that it’s so weirdly powerful. It ought to be facile, easily dismissable, some undergraduatish joke. (Essay question: What is courage? Answer: This is.) But somehow he’s got power into it. So much space, one move sitting in the middle of silence, and it sticks in your head. Like the Magister Musicae talking about the margins of music, about how sometimes the most interesting things happen in the rests or the gaps between notes.

  After a while I pushed my chair back and linked my hands behind my head, staring at the ceiling. Carfax watched me. Finally he put his book down on his chest and said, ‘It’s only an idea.’

  I took a deep breath. ‘It’s brilliant.’

  He snorted. Then he sat up. ‘Seriously? Do you mean that?’

  ‘I said so, didn’t I?’ I leant back until I could see his face. ‘Oh, come on. You must have some idea how good it is.’

  ‘I wasn’t sure.’

  ‘I’ve never seen anything like it. I bet the Magister Ludi hasn’t, either. Wonder what they’d make of it.’

  ‘I was only playing around.’

  ‘Oh, shut up.’ I let the front legs of my chair thud back on to the floor. ‘You’re a de Courcy, I should’ve known that you’d turn out to be a genius. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.’

  He was silent for a moment. At last he said, ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  I couldn’t think of anything else to say. I shut the book and passed it to him. He took it, started to say something, thought better of it, and left.

  How do I feel? Am I jealous? Yes. Of course. Part of me wants to burn it. Or write something better. Find a way to beat him, once and for all. Show him he’s human.

  But also … at least it’s him.

  First day, tenth week

  Two weeks to go. Reflections is nearly done. This morning I caught myself wondering if I might actually manage to finish it before the day it has to be submitted. And it’s good. I’m moderately pleased with it. Although, after seeing the Red game, some of the shine has gone off it, to be honest.

  Fifth day, tenth week

  We had a late one last night. Carfax was helping me with the last (last!) bit of tangled thinking in Reflections. Now it’s as smooth as a mirror. As I was packing up my books – the clock had just struck two, I think – he said, ‘Thank you, Martin.’

  ‘What for? You’ve been helping me.’

  ‘I mean …’ He gestured, a wide ouverture-like movement. ‘Not only tonight. All of it. I know I can be a bit … It means a lot. I never thought I could be so happy here.’

  ‘Don’t be soppy.’

  ‘I’m not.’ He laughed. ‘All right, I am.’

  Things have been going round in my head. The Red game, Carfax, Reflections, the Gold Medal … But today in the Quietus it all stopped. Suddenly I was full of happiness. As if the real me was somewhere above, weightless, hanging in the shaft of light like the dust-motes.

  Third day, twelfth week

  Done. Early.

  Seventh day, twelfth week

  Last night we stayed up late, talking. Sometimes it’s like the ideas catch fire, and he gets up and paces, as if the room’s filling up with smoke and heat. But yesterday it was easy, relaxed, the opposite of that. I’ve never felt so comfortable before, like it didn’t matter if I said something stupid. Carfax was lying on his bed, his hands behind his head, smiling at the ceiling, while I leant furtively out of the window to smoke the last cigarette from the packet that Emile gave me when he apologised for losing his temper, a couple of weeks ago. Somehow the conversation got on to the Red game. He said, ‘You know I got the idea from you?’

  ‘No. Did you?’

  ‘I was watching you once in Factorum. It was while we were working on our joint game, last term. When you still hated me.’

  ‘I didn’t—’

  ‘You made this … picture. It was just a panel of red paint. It surprised me. It wasn’t like you.’

  It was weirdly flattering, to think that he thought he knew what was like me. ‘Oh?’

  He shrugged and slid a glance at me under his eyelashes.

  ‘So I was your inspiration,’ I said.

  ‘Well, not exactly you.’

  ‘You should dedicate it to me. “To Léo Martin, without whose scintillating intellect and visceral act of imagination …”’

  He got up. I didn’t realise what he was doing until he was at his desk. He leant over the folder and wrote For Léo across the front.

  I sort of laughed. He looked at me.

  I licked my lips. For some reason my mouth had gone dry. ‘I wasn’t serious,’ I said, ‘it’s your game, I didn’t—’

  He passed it to me. I took it.

  At last I said, ‘Thanks. That’s … Thanks.’

  This morning, when I got up, Carfax wasn’t at breakfast. Everyone else was there, clutching their games, waiting for the clock to strike. I asked if anyone had seen him, but no one had. I squashed a roll into my mouth and sprinted up to the scholars’ corridor, nearly choking myself. When I knocked at his door I wasn’t sure if he’d answered, so I pushed it open and peered in.

  He was on the floor, sitting against the bed with his knees drawn up to his chest. He was paper-white, and when he looked up he hardly seemed to register that I was there.

  ‘What’s the matter? Are you ill?’ He shook his head, but I crouched beside him. He gave off a sweaty, metallic scent. ‘Come on, I’ll take you to the infirmary.’

  ‘No! I’m fine.’ He knocked my hand away. ‘I – need to rest. Dodgy stomach. It’ll go off.’

  ‘Are you sure? Do you want some water?’

  ‘Yes, I’m
sure.’ He exhaled through his teeth. ‘Something I ate. Leave me alone.’

  I stood up, feeling clumsy and helpless. ‘What about your game? It’s nearly time.’

  ‘I’ll come down in a little while.’

  ‘Do you want me to hand it in for you?’

  He shut his eyes. ‘All right. Now go away, will you?’ He gave a stiff, dry cough as if he was about to start retching.

  ‘I’ll see you later,’ I said, but he only nodded and pointed at the folder on his desk. I took it, paused on the threshold and looked back, but he’d already crawled into bed, facing away from the door.

  I didn’t hand the Tempest in for him. I handed in the Red game, instead.

  Chapter 27

  28: the Magister Ludi

  The games are in. Now the first- and third-years have their exams. There’s a nervous hush in the corridors, raised voices in the library when scholars are after the same scarce volumes. The tension is familiar – it’s the same every year, seasonal as the snow or spring thaw – but this year there is a discordant note. Something extra, or something missing. She isn’t sure whether it’s her own unease, or an atmosphere that drifts through the whole of Montverre like a gas. She sits with a pile of marking at the desk in the Biblioteca Ludi, unable to concentrate.

  Yesterday it was the first-years’ Theory paper, and she called out Charpentier’s name when she took the register. By mistake, or was it? Perhaps she wanted to hear it echo, to see the scholars avoid one another’s eyes, before she coughed and said, ‘No, of course … Connolly?’ And then, walking back and forth while they sweated and scrawled, she had to stop and clench her fists to prevent herself snatching the nearest paper and ripping it up. How dare they sit there so calmly, when Charpentier was gone? They’d bullied him, and now they all looked merely sheepish, as if he’d had some embarrassing disease, as if it was the right thing for him to have run away. They might as well have said it out loud: his sort don’t belong here.

  If he has run away. Her stomach flips when she remembers the Magister Scholarium saying, at the beginning of a Council session, ‘Gentlemen, it appears that Mr Charpentier absconded when the police came. Obviously, if any of you know of his whereabouts, it is your duty to let me know. Most regrettable.’

  There was a pause, and the Magister Motuum shuffled his papers. It’s unlike him to make any superfluous movement; it was only later that she wondered if he was trying to cause a distraction, and even later when she remembered his glance in her direction. Did he – does he think that she has helped Charpentier evade the police? She wishes she had. Or did it mean something else? When she last saw Charpentier, he was blank-eyed and unkempt, barely clinging on. What if, she thinks, what if he didn’t run away? What if he went out into the forest with a rope?

  But she is being neurotic. No doubt he simply left to go home without telling anyone. She is tired, that’s all. Term will be over soon, and things will be back to normal. She’s counting the days until the scholars leave: three days till the end of exams, another week of marking and discussion, and then, a few days after their final marks are posted, they’ll be streaming down the mountain like ants, while the baggage-laden bus trundles up and down along the same road, puffing acrid fumes. After that the school will be quiet, until the dignitaries begin to arrive for the Midsummer Game.

  But what she’s looking forward to most is Martin leaving. He came to apologise once, and she turned him away with icy courtesy – but even though since then she has never been within a few metres of him, she can feel his proximity: as if the very stones of Montverre have nerves, and every step he takes sends an electric thrum through the corridors. Last night she lay awake, longing to go to his room, her clenched fists squeezing moisture out of the warm air; but she’s strong enough to resist, to know that no good could come of it. It won’t be long now until he goes, washed out on the tide of scholars. Will she ever see him again? No doubt he has a post lined up for him, some overpaid Ministry where he can continue the Party’s studied, deliberate destruction of society … She doesn’t care, as long as it’s far away. Once he is gone she’ll be able to forget these last few weeks. She’ll be able to think about something other than him.

  She breathes in, anticipating the long summer days, the heat and lethargy … Every August Aunt Frances sends a package of novels for her birthday, and she reads them shamelessly, like a child gorging on sweets. Most of the Magisters will be elsewhere, on holiday or visiting other schools, so she’ll be almost alone, left to her own devices. There will be hours that stretch, empty and inviting. As much time as she wants: to spend with the Auburn Mistress, drunk on melody, or in the library, or meditating in the Great Hall. She will be able to sleep whenever she pleases, or stay up all night, flat on her back on the roof of the Square Tower while the Perseids rain down. But – even in her imagination – there is something unsatisfactory about the prospect, a new absence that rubs at her like a hole in her stocking. She blames Martin for this restlessness, the sense that there is a bigger, more vivid world beyond Montverre. She’s already struggling against her desire for him, but to make it worse it’s all mixed up with a fierce yearning for excitement, pleasure, the last of her youth. Curse him. He carried it on his clothes and breath, like a virus. Once he’s gone, she’ll be able to recover, coddling herself gently into innocence again. But what if it’s incurable?

  She bends her head over the third-years’ Practical Criticism papers, trying to decipher Andersen’s left-handed scrawl. At least the Tempest is almost finished. She’s almost sure that no one will see past her careful edits to a game written by a second-year – even a genius of a second-year – and that they will admire her careful mastery, the balance of storm and (as it were) teacup. It will be good enough, because it has to be. And no one could accuse her of not trying: she’s forced herself to the work, like an ancient priestess preparing an annual rite. No, not like, that’s what she is – as if Midsummer itself depends on her game, and without it the world will stop on its axis, singeing under the heat of a stationary sun.

  The clock strikes. Suddenly she realises she’s late for the final Council of the year, when the Gold Medal is decided. At least it won’t be as painful as a normal Council, as there won’t be anything else on the agenda. Every year since she’s been here, the Gold Medal has hung on one vote; it’s traditional for every Magister to fight for his preferred candidate, but as soon as the final decision has been taken they swap glances and smiles, as if the whole thing has been merely a game. She has often thought that Martin would revel in it. As Magister Ludi, she introduces the top three games to the rest of the Magisters, refreshing their memories. ‘Like a judge’s summing-up,’ the Magister Scholarium said to her in her first year, ‘don’t underestimate the power you have.’ Before she has always begun clearly, guiding the others towards an understanding of which game she is advocating; but this year – is it Martin’s influence, somehow? – she is determined not to give them that advantage. She has prepared a cool, detached, logical analysis, which hides its judgements like broken glass in water: she knows how they’ll vote, so she’ll sway them subtly with a double-bluff. She’ll use ‘audacious’ instead of ‘original’, ‘elaborate’ instead of ‘complex’, and they’ll assume she’s trying to hide her distaste and vote in favour. She wonders how she took so long to understand how to get her own way.

  She grabs her notes from the desk drawer and hurries to the Capitulum.

  Or maybe it’s easier than previous years because she doesn’t care as much. That’s the trick. Out of Andersen and Bernard, she favours Andersen; but it won’t be the worst injustice in the world if Bernard wins … The word injustice conjures up an empty desk, Charpentier trudging out into the forest. Suddenly she’s filled with incredulity at the Magisters’ earnest faces, at herself standing in front of them with her notes. Charpentier’s body may be swinging from a tree, and they’re assessing the weight of a transition here and the arc of a movement there, as if being human was about mark
s on a page. She takes a breath, forcing herself to concentrate. She can see that the Magisters are nonplussed. When she has finished – at last – they shuffle and turn pages, reluctant to speak first. Then the Magister Cartae heaves a sigh and says, ‘Well, the choice seems clear. I propose that the Gold Medal goes to Andersen.’

  ‘I agree,’ the Magister Historiae says. A ripple of nods goes around the table. In the silence, they all look from side to side, uneasy at the lack of contention: then, as one man, they look at her.

  ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I suppose … perhaps that’s for the best, after all.’ The hint of regret in her voice is enough, she thinks, to prevent the Magister Cartae changing his mind.

  ‘Well, then, gentlemen,’ the Magister Scholarium says. ‘It seems that we have reached a unanimous decision.’ He scratches his head. ‘Er … Thank you.’

  No one moves; she’s the first to get up. But once she’s on her feet, it’s as though she’s snapped the threads that were holding them all in place. They stand up raggedly, passing remarks about the weather and the exams. She overhears the Magister Corporeum murmur, ‘I don’t believe it. Last year that took hours …’

  She is collecting her papers when the Magister Cartae says, ‘May I have a quick word, Magister?’ and waves at her.

  She clenches her jaw; she was so close to getting away. ‘Yes?’

  ‘I invigilated one of your exams this week, and I couldn’t help noticing that some of the questions were … inappropriate. I took the liberty of warning the scholars, but perhaps, in future …’ Next to him, the Magister Historiae coughs into his fist.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘You quoted Lawrence O’Reilly, I believe. Cardinal Lawrence O’Reilly.’

  ‘There is absolutely no reason why a quotation from a Christian should be inappropriate. The grand jeu evolved from the liturgy. It can coexist with older forms of worship, you know. It isn’t in conflict.’