Black Chalk

by Yates, Christopher J.

  Was it in here? That’s all I need to know, I say, moving in circles now, trampling photographs, memories. Maybe I took it with me when I went out walking, I say.

  What do you mean took it with you? Dee cries. You mean it could be anywhere in New York?

  No, I don’t know. I’m not saying I took it. I don’t know. I don’t . . . My nose is throbbing, the floor is a mess, my life scattered, misplaced. I fall back against the wall and slip down to the floor holding my hands to my face.

  And then I hear Dee standing above me, her voice raining down on my shame. Unless you find my poems, Jolyon, you will never, ever see me again. Never. If I see you in the park by the Christmas tree at six one night then I’ll know you’ve found them. Otherwise, don’t bother, you won’t see me. How could I forgive you, Jolyon? Why did I ever forgive you?

  I look up at Dee expecting to see anger on her face, thinking that I must meet her gaze. I deserve her rage, my punishment. But she doesn’t look angry, she looks immensely sad, Dee looks as if I have broken her.

  She turns her head away from me and crosses her arms as if to ward off a chill. Her feet begin to pick out a path among the mess of my ransacked apartment, the shapeliness of her calves receding as I close my eyes.

  And then I hear the door slam. I feel its shiver in the wall. My nose is definitely broken.

  LVIII(i) Jolyon was caught in a pincer movement, the Game on one side and Mark on the other. But Hilary term was ending and Mark, at least, was returning home. He came to see Jolyon to deliver a parting line. ‘Make sure to get some sleep then, Jolyon. Phase four begins next term.’

  But still Jolyon couldn’t sleep. He was staying on at Pitt, the Game would continue to be played throughout the six-week break. A vote had been taken on the matter, two votes in favour . . . Jolyon hadn’t even bothered to acknowledge the procedure.

  And so they played on. Chad and Dee continued to conspire and Jolyon continued to lose. But with most of the student population absent for six weeks, his opponents had to find their humiliations for Jolyon in the broader life of the city. At working-class pubs, cheap eateries, supermarkets . . . anywhere students were despised in the city. Day after day it was a mixture of the banal and excruciating. Public nudity, a one-man demonstration against immigration, street performance – unicycle, mime, Shakespeare – and a consequence to which they gave the name ‘Nuptials Interruptus’. Jolyon had to sit in on the wedding of two strangers and rise to proclaim just cause as to why the bride and groom should not be joined in holy matrimony. He was in love with the bride, he said, they were engaged in a torrid affair. He was chased from the church, threats being yelled as he fled. There was exhibitionism, heckling, rap, pretension, cross-dressing, auditioning, money-burning, experimental dance, snobbery, solicitation . . .

  He lay in bed at night reliving the looks in strangers’ eyes. He could recall their faces with greater clarity than their words, their abuse. And so for the first time in Jolyon’s life, strangers were becoming something to fear, his days beginning to warp and crack, being shaped by the opinions of people he knew nothing about.

  LVIII(ii) A week before Trinity term was due to begin, Jolyon made an appointment to see the college doctor, an affable gentleman wearing a regimental tie.

  The doctor weighed up the creature before him and started to jot merrily on his prescription pad. Yes, it was very brave of Jolyon to come. And one could actually do things about insomnia and depression these days, old chap, medicine had made remarkable leaps and bounds. The doctor handed Jolyon a prescription for three types of pharmaceutical. No need to fret any longer. Jolyon should be sure to return if he required anything more. Anything at all, old chap. He made Jolyon promise. And Jolyon promised he would.

  LVIII(iii) He pulled his scarf up to his nose as he left Pitt. It was a college scarf, the one they had bought for Chad to wear in the early days of the Game. But there would be more to Jolyon’s day than the simple wearing of a scarf.

  He took a bus and met the others outside. Tallest was there, several feet away from Chad and Dee, who handed Jolyon his ticket. Jolyon’s seat was two rows in front of the others, they didn’t want to be associated with him once everything began.

  In they went and Jolyon took his seat wearing the red-and-white scarf, which stuck out sharply surrounded by so much yellow and blue. Yellow-blue scarves, yellow-blue shirts, yellow-blue banners.

  When the football match started, so did the singing and screaming. United, United, United. Fucking blind. Fucking cheat. Fucking nail ’im.

  They had given Jolyon ten minutes to stand up and chant his first song, a familiar football tune but with a new set of lyrics. The opposition goalkeeper, Philippe Gherab, had been purchased from Le Havre. Chad and Dee had done their research.

  Seven minutes into the match, when Gherab miskicked a back pass so that it hooked out of touch and the home crowd jeered, Jolyon got to his feet and started to sing, ‘Vous êtes merde et vous savez que vous êtes, vous êtes merde et vous savez que vous êtes . . .’

  The crowd around him fell into a bristling silence. And then a voice shouted, ‘Who the fuck are you?’ and then hundreds of voices were chanting, ‘Who are ya? Who are ya? Who are ya?’

  Jolyon, the nausea sloshing in his stomach, began to protest. ‘Because he’s French, their keeper is French. It’s you’re shit and you know you are. But in French.’

  Some voices were abusing him, other voices were shouting, ‘Sit down, sit the fuck down.’ And then everyone was shouting it, ‘Siddown, siddown, siddown!’

  He sat down. The eyes, the eyes. Jolyon stared out at the game as if he couldn’t sense the feeling of the crowd, the weight of their hatred.

  He had until the twenty-minute mark to complete his next challenge, which was based around the fact that the United captain had the same name as a romantic poet.

  And so in the nineteenth minute, Jolyon rose again. He felt faint as if he were caught in a cloud of gas. And then he began his second song, the tune taken from Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, his voice quavering over the rippling of the crowd. ‘We’ve got John Keats / And the best seats / He plays football potently / Like the ode / Composed to a bird / Keats is striking poetry.’

  A stunned silence was followed by a torrent of vicious abuse. The crowd’s agitation was rising, their blood pulsing. ‘Look, he has the same name as a romantic poet,’ Jolyon pleaded. ‘And the ode to the bird is Ode to a Nightingale. And there’s a double meaning to striking poetry . . .’

  And that’s when it happened, the opposition scored, the United fans threw their hands catastrophically to their heads. Part three now had to be performed. ‘Goal!’ Jolyon cheered. ‘Goooooal!’

  Something struck him from behind, Jolyon felt an explosion of sparks behind his eyes. And next the sound of shattering as the bottle broke against the back of his head. He stumbled down onto one knee, palms hitting the backs of the men in front who were pushed forward with a jolt. Recovering, they turned and stood and one of them threw a punch. Jolyon felt the blow at the side of his head, the heat in his ear. And then there were more blows from behind. Fists and feet. Jolyon pulled himself into a ball on the ground, tried to protect his head with his hands. And now someone was stamping, a boot crushing his fingers, then more boots stamping his ankles, his knees.

  Just as he thought he would pass out, the rain of blows began to slow and Jolyon was pulled to his feet. More punches were thrown but the worst was over. Someone was shouting at his assailants, ‘Enough. Stop. That’s enough now.’

  It was Tallest dragging him to the aisle. And then Chad was there, Jolyon’s arms across two sets of shoulders. Up into darkness, down steps and cold corridors, out into the broken-glass light. They lowered him onto a bench.

  Chad looked like he was about to be sick. ‘Jolyon, oh God, I’m . . . It wasn’t supposed to go like that.’

  Jolyon felt his teeth grinding something hard and gritty like a small rock in his mouth. And then, prodding it with his tongue, Jolyon realis
ed the small rock was a tooth. He spat it out into his hand along with his blood and phlegm. He stared at the tooth for some time, prodded it, turned the tooth over and over in his palm.

  The others were making sounds, asking questions, but he didn’t hear them.

  ‘I know what this is,’ thought Jolyon, ‘the moment of tooth!’ And he started to laugh. He cleaned the tooth against his thigh and dropped it in his pocket. And then he looked up at them, three horrified faces, and started to laugh even harder. ‘Now you get it, right?’ said Jolyon, noticing that he could see through only one eye. ‘There’s no way you can beat me,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing you can do.’ The blood was bubbling from his nose as he snorted with laughter. ‘Nothing at all.’

  LVIII(iv) Chad pleaded with Jolyon but Jolyon stared into the distance as if unable to hear, his fingers feeling like they had been crushed in a car door.

  ‘Please, Jolyon. And not so I can win,’ said Chad. ‘but so we can stop. If you refuse to give in, it has to get worse. What other choice do we have?’

  Jolyon looked up with his good eye. ‘Well, youcould quit,’ he said.

  ‘You do understand I can’t do that, Jolyon,’ Chad scoffed. ‘Which means anything more that happens to you is as good as self-inflicted. Logically, you’re pretty much doing this to yourself. Come on, this isn’t the time to make your big stand in life. You’ve already had your way with Emilia and Dee, so I get it, you’re the big man. You won, Jolyon, OK? But you have to let me have just onething. Because if you don’t . . . Jolyon, what just happened was terrible and I’m sorry, I swear I mean that. But from now on, no apologies, we’re not responsible. Please, for everyone’s sake. There’s nothing more you need to prove.’

  Dee crouched down and laid her hands on his knees. ‘Please, Jolyon. Listen to Chad,’ she said, tears gathering in her eyes.

  Jolyon stood up and decided he could limp well enough. Tallest tried to take his arm but Jolyon pushed him away. ‘Why don’t you all get back to the game?’ he said, looking across at the stadium. ‘I was really enjoying it but things took a turn for the worse. And I think I should leave now.’ He started to limp away but then turned, looking thoughtful, and added, ‘Oh, Dee, you know I just realised something.’ Dee wiped her eyes and Jolyon gave her a grim smile. ‘You’re the only one who can stop this,’ he said. ‘It’s really all up to you now, Dee.’ He put his hand in his pocket as he turned again and left.

  LVIII(v) In front of the mirror in his room, Jolyon decided he wouldn’t go to the dentist. The tooth was one of the lower molars and you could barely notice its absence, not unless he opened his mouth very wide.

  He placed the tooth inside the mug with his pills and his toothbrush, the fork and the photos. And then Jolyon drew his curtains, lay down on his bed and closed his eyes. Tomorrow was the first day of Trinity, Chad’s final term.

  LIX(i) I lost Dee today. Chad arrives tomorrow. A fine symmetry.

  LIX(ii) And where was routine when I needed it? Dee’s book, the most important thing of all and I failed to find a place for it in my life. And now routine has abandoned me.

  Did I take it on my walk? I don’t remember.

  Where did I walk today? I don’t remember.

  If I took the book out with me then it is lost. It must still be inside this apartment, it must be. It has to be.

  Feebly I cast around my apartment as if the same old looking in the same old places might not have the selfsame result. But all I find is the destruction of my daily bread. Mnemonics scattered, life overturned. The only things I fish out from the stew are a whisky bottle and pills, prompted to find them by an itching beneath my skin. And laughably, amid all the wreckage, my evening routine ice-cube tray has held on to my pills as if cupped in a mother’s outstretched palm. Four pink pills, three yellow, three blue. I swallow them with swigs of whisky straight from the bottle. I have only my cravings to remind me how to live now.

  This apartment, this miserable machine of my life, its laughable ticky-tacky parts discarded and strewn.

  Curtains closed, blinds lowered. The hermit returns. Long live the hermit.

  LX(i) Third term began with an act of generosity. They pushed a note under Jolyon’s door to inform him a vote had been taken, the Game was in hiatus, they would skip a round. And perhaps the extra time would give him a chance to reconsider his position.

  Jolyon screwed up the piece of paper, returned to his bed and with a sudden gasp began to cry. Warm tears of relief flowed down his bruised cheeks, over his swollen lips.

  And so, temporarily, the battle could be fought on only one front. A new term and Mark had promised a new phase. But the start of Trinity term didn’t lead to the abandonment of his sleep-deprivation tactics, although there was no longer much sleep to deprive. The doctor’s pills could send Jolyon only into fogs, sleeplike hazes but not sleep itself, and the tappings and roarings became mere annoyances. Soon Jolyon began to regard them only as distance markers in the slow race for the night to be over.

  In the daytime Jolyon sometimes thought about stoicism, facing hardship like a man, like Santiago in The Old Man and the Sea. And because manliness was a notion that appealed to him, he clung to the thought of not surrendering until he didn’t know whether his refusal to surrender was genuine determination or merely a literary reference.

  On the fourth day of term, Jolyon returned to the college doctor. Yes, there were indeed further options, old chap. Simply a case of finding the right combination apropos the particular patient – he began to scribble excitedly on his prescription pad – and they could bump up the doses, of course. Not to worry, the ship would right itself in time. No need to wave the white flag quite yet, old chap.

  LX(ii) The first act of phase four was played out the next day. When Jolyon went to the bathrooms at the bottom of staircase six in the morning, there were two sheets taped to the wall. The Pitt Pendulum, as usual, but also a photocopied page from Jolyon’s diary. It was a copy of an entry he had made two weeks after arriving at Pitt. Mark, helpfully, had provided a title.

  Excerpts from the secret diary of Jolyon Johnson no. 1

  Met a guy called Dorian today. Clearly an Etonian. He tries to convince himself and everyone else he’s clever, as opposed to well trained, by learning answers to a quiz machine in the Churchill. Like a parrot. And with a parrot’s capacity for understanding the information being blandly recited. I think they actually teach them charm at Eton and some of them wear it well. But on others it sits uneasily. Dorian is in the second camp.

  Jolyon tore the sheet from the wall and checked the next bathroom where he found the same taped-up piece of paper. He went to the bathrooms on staircases seven and eight. And then he realised it was futile and hurried back to his room.

  He wondered how he might avoid ever seeing Dorian again and pinched the bridge of his nose, there was such a knot of pain there. He tried to think about who else he had written about negatively in his diary. The pain flared as names flashed through Jolyon’s head. He curled onto his bed and pushed his forehead up against the coolness of the wall.

  LX(iii) Jolyon stopped attending lectures the next day and started to leave his room only in the middle of the night. In the library at three in the morning, he would photocopy the cases and articles he had to read and then hurry back to his bed. And when he visited the bathroom at four in the morning, Jolyon found that, every day, another page had appeared.

  Excerpts from the secret diary of Jolyon Johnson no. 2

  Two of the most ludicrous characters at Pitt go by the names Jamie and Nick. Jamie is the son of a renowned Cambridge scholar but acts like one of the street urchins from Oliver Twist. His accent changes wildly according to the company he keeps. Conversing with any of us, he starts dropping and morphing his consonants, saying things like ‘it’s a bit fin on the ground, mate’ or ‘what do you fuckin fink?’ He’s good-looking, insecure and utterly insincere.

  Nick, the sidekick, doesn’t hide his accent so carefully but he does conce
al his name. On the room board he’s N. Risley. But on a tip-off from Jamie, I peeped at a letter in his pigeonhole. It was addressed to ‘The Hon. Nicholas Tower Wriothesley’. Apparently, Wriothesley is pronounced Risley, and he’s officially ‘the honourable’ because he’s the son of a baron. Meanwhile, the honourable Nick has had a string of girlfriends at least sixty or seventy points higher than him on the scale of attractiveness. Maybe they use Jamie as bait. Or perhaps everyone’s now heard tell of the £250 million family fortune the honourable Nick stands to inherit. The girlfriends never last more than a week. But I’m sure he treats them all honourably.

  And what was Jolyon to do but hide? He thought about making a statement, pasting his own sheets to the walls, explaining that any diary was a place of secret thoughts. That his own diary was simply a way of purging these thoughts. He considered appealing to everyone’s secret self, don’t we all have dark thoughts from time to time? The only thing that matters is how we behave, how we acton those thoughts.

  But Jolyon did nothing, only hid in his fog of pills and doubled the dose. As he lay on his bed he became very good at picturing everyone at Pitt. In his mind he could hear their accents and mimic their verbal habits, he could imagine their physical tics as they spoke. Jolyon was able to create puppets of everyone he knew inside his head. And he spent hours pulling their strings, acting out their hatred in intricate detail.

  Sometimes he held the tooth clenched tight in his palm. And although he constantly fantasised about breaking down Mark’s door, taking back his diary, attacking Mark, punishing Mark, Jolyon knew that his body had no more strength to give.

  The truth was that suffering in silence was no longer only a romantic notion. Suffering in silence was now Jolyon’s only remaining choice.

  LXI(i) My hangover and the pain in my nose wake me at five in the morning, eight hours before I have agreed to meet Chad at JFK. I fall out of bed and stumble around looking for something to tell me what to do. But the sprawling mess of my apartment is like a thousand instructions yelling themselves at once.