by Albert Alla
Black Chalk
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Garnet Publishing Limited
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Copyright © Albert Alla, 2013
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by
any electronic or mechanical means, including information
storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing
from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote
brief passages in a review.
First Edition
ISBN: 9781859643587
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Typeset by Samantha Barden
Jacket design by Garnet Publishing
Cover images Silhouette of man © Harsanyi Andras and Diffuse sexy woman silhouette, hands © Daniel M. Nagy, courtesy of Shutterstock.com
Printed and bound in Lebanon by International Press: [email protected]
One
I guess this is the story everyone’s been waiting for. The badges who expected me to bow and confess. The friends who kept quiet and hoped I’d let something out. The twenty-year-old I met in the Mediterranean, who heard my name, stroked his chin, and demanded my story as if it belonged to him. And most of all, the inspector who probed and probed, until all he had left was a challenge.
I’ve never wanted cameras brandished in my face or tape recorders thrust at my throat. And I’ve done as much as I could to avoid it. Not only did I leave the country, but I’ve also been calling myself Nathan, for Nate Dillingham evoked too much blood.
Now eight years on, I’m back in Oxford. I’m sitting in an attic room that contains all the things I owned before I went off. A room my mother put together to help me dispel my doubts. There’s even a poster of The Verve above my bed. And, of course, she’s done what she set out to do: after years on the road, this red-brick house off the Banbury Road feels like home. She’s thrust me back into the world I fled, as convinced today as she was then that stability is what I need.
My laptop is set up on the one item which wasn’t mine, a creaky walnut desk which, if I remember right, was in the guest room of our Hornsbury home. The blue of my old chair has faded, but my back still rests comfortably on its cushions. There’s a photo board to my right full of old family pictures. A childhood pruned of all my school friends.
In one picture, I stand between my father and my brother. We are in our cricket whites, standing in front of the pavilion. My sixteen-year-old frame hasn’t had time to fill out yet. My torso leans away as if I’m trying to escape through the edge of the picture. I wear an awkward smile: my thick lips show a fraction of my teeth, while my eyes look seriously at the camera. In comparison, my little brother seems natural, holding a sullen pose on one arched leg, while my father stands straight and content, a cricket bat balancing between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand. Seeing this picture reminds me of who took it: Jeffrey, on the day he clung on to a one-handed diving catch at gully, which he talked about for weeks afterwards. The same Jeffrey who should be pruned from my life. I shouldn’t have to think about him and the others in this roundabout way. This is exactly why I’m sitting on this chair staring at a black cursor flashing against a white background.
I’ve made myself two cups of tea since I started this, and my legs are consorting with my mouth, itching for a third. I won’t do it, not until I’ve started writing. From photographic reels to blurs and blanks, I should begin with the destruction itself.
***
The 10th of February 2000 was a rare bright day in a generally overcast winter. The sort of day that made me think that school was almost over. Along with the rest of my class, I was ambling along, convinced that there was always more time ahead, and that if all else failed, I could use the weeks leading up to the exams to cram everything I’d been taught over the last two years. I already had an offer and I felt confident I could get the marks. In eight months, if everything went well, I would start Physics and Philosophy eight miles away, in Oxford.
The first lesson of the day, history, was held in the red bricks of the main building. When it ended, Jeffrey and I headed for our physics class, along an outdoor archway that stopped halfway down the hill, its arches supported by columns, and the columns adorned with eroded crests. As our school’s only shot at the grandiose, it featured heavily on all its propaganda, and in much of the coverage that followed that day. Beth, whose lipstick matched the scarf around her neck, walked with us up to the point where the archway leaves the building – it was a detour in the cold for her, but she’d taken it every Thursday since the New Year. Ever since she’d dragged Jeffrey and a bottle of whisky into a night of platonic debauchery.
When she left us, I noticed his backpack for the first time. It was new: its body was bright red, its base was leather tainted burgundy. The same colours as that thing she wore around her head. I pointed at it and laughed. He smiled but he sounded sad:
‘Tuesday, we spent the whole night in bed.’
‘Alone, just the two of you?’
‘I don’t know what’s going on. Didn’t even kiss or anything.’
‘Did you try?’
‘She was like, she didn’t want to. I even gave her a massage.’
We went quiet, for we’d arrived at the Kemp Annexe, a 1960s addition overlooking the sports ground.
For many months after that day, my conversation with Jeffrey was a safe memory. My thoughts would start with him looking longingly at Beth, and if I felt strong enough, I’d stop them at Jeffrey’s new bag. In those happy instances, I would be left with a smile. But there were plenty of others when I felt weak, when the redness of his bag collapsed in a gallop, and I started thinking of the way Mr Johnson looked at us.
We were late and he stared at us. The last row was empty, the chairs still on the table as he insisted we keep them. He already had both hands in his pockets, his arms framing his pot belly, as he tsk-tsked and shook his head. We took our seats. Jeffrey nudged me under the table, and I struggled to keep a straight face.
‘Mr Dillingham, Mr Baker, welcome!’ Mr Johnson was still shaking his head. ‘I’m honoured that you managed to join us. But let’s give you your due: you’re not as late as Mr Knight and Mr Williams. I’ll give them another thirty seconds.’ He looked down and clicked his tongue in time with the second hand of his watch, before he raised his eyes to the class, a satisfied expression on his face. ‘Can’t say we didn’t wait for them. Let’s get going.’
We opened our books on page 212 – it had a picture of a teenager in bright green short shorts, a basketball inches from his fingers, black dashes arching between his hands and the basket – and started a problem set. Mr Johnson believed in teaching passively, asking us to try problems much like the ones we would encounter in our exams. While we sat and worked, he was at his desk marking copies, and when he had no copies to mark, he gazed through the window at the sports ground. There’s a form of respect in acknowledging that he was a little lazy, that he wanted to use his teaching time to do his evening work. But his methods were successful. Some, like Eric, had changed schools so that they could take physics at Hornsbury School.
A few minutes into the class, Jeffrey tapped me on the hand and pointed at Jayvanti who was sitting one table in front of us. Arching my neck, I couldn’t see very much. But then Jeffrey whispered her name, she turned around, and for a few seconds, while they trad
ed answers, all I could see were four undone buttons and a braid tickling the top of her brown breasts. When she turned to face the front, Jeffrey nudged me under the table and we stifled a snigger. Then he wrote on my notebook:
‘Is it true Eric fancies her?’
‘Who wouldn’t?’ I wrote.
He put his pencil down and started whispering:
‘Can you imagine? Him with a girl!’ He nudged me again. ‘Oh, come on, tell me. I’m sure he told you!’
At that moment, Mr Johnson noticed students chatting and cleared his throat. He asked whether everyone had finished. When no one answered, he considered us all one at a time, as if his next decision required deep thoughts, until his eyes settled on Anna.
‘Miss Walker, will you come to the board and show the rest of us how to solve the third problem?’
She was still sitting on the other side of the room from me, where she’d moved to after we split up. And just as she had done for the last month and a half, she looked at everyone but me while she made her way up the centre aisle.
As she stood up, a rattling sound came from the vestibule, the sound of thick metal sliding, links clanging against each other softened by a door or two. Anna turned her head towards the door and when no one said anything, she went up to the blackboard and started talking about the problem: acceleration and velocity in a frictionless world. Just as she started to differentiate a binomial, the door opened.
Eric walked in – a chain in his hand, a large blue sports bag slung over his shoulder – and shut the door, his back to us.
‘Mr Knight, you are late! But it doesn’t matter. It’s your future. Take a seat’ – Mr Johnson pointed – ‘and listen to Miss Walker tackle this problem.’
Eric paid no attention to Mr Johnson. Instead, he turned his attention towards the door, and we watched him, bemused, as he uncoiled his chain and looped it between the door handle and the frame of a nearby shelf, looping once, looping twice, as he bolted it with a padlock and checked the whole mechanism with a firm tug.
‘Mr Knight?’ Mr Johnson said. ‘Eric, what are you doing? Eric!’
Eric advanced towards a window opposite the door, the one with a green exit sign above it, checked it was locked, and turned towards us. He looked prophetic: his face starved, his usually floppy black hair stretched above his skull, and his ever-intense eyes now bloodshot, wide open, taking in everyone. Even Mr Johnson went quiet as we waited.
Perhaps I am imagining this, but I have a vague memory of Eric’s eyes boring into my face during that silence. And if I’m not inventing this, he lowered his chin once in my direction. Still, I can’t be sure this happened, for all I have are those two faint images, a close-up on his eyes, a slow nod.
Some things, I remember as if they happened last week. Eric reaching into his bag and grabbing two objects. And for an instant, my eyes seeing nothing but the barrels’ glistening metal, and the matte texture of the grip through the gaps between his fingers. Placing one in each hand, his voice: ‘This won’t last long.’ He said it as if his future had already taken place, as if his design came from more than himself. ‘And,’ he added, ‘don’t worry, that includes me too.’
Writing this, I find myself squirming, making up reasons to leave my desk. It seems I’ve been telling myself the pain was gone, when I really meant the memories had grown more distant. I have to push past the image of Eric standing armed in front of us while we watched and waited. It lasted but a moment, and then the stillness shattered.
At first, it was Anna screaming and then desks flipping and falling onto the floor, chairs and bags flapping along. There was a rush of bodies towards the door which did not give, and two deep voices trying to break through the cacophony. The girls sitting at the table behind me stayed put and whispered to one another, as if they were discussing the best way to leave an awful play. But their whispers were hoarse: they were stifled shouts, a restraint on madness. And two voices kept on trying to break through. Mr Johnson, in the same voice he always used, proclaiming that we were not in America, that this was ridiculous. And another voice asking for calm. It wasn’t Eric – he was observing from his corner of the room, waiting for us, it seemed.
It was Tom Davies standing up and moving towards Eric. When he was two metres away, Eric took aim. Tom stopped and raised his arms, his lips still forming soothing sounds – sounds which I wish I could recall. But sadly, they have left nothing but conflicting echoes. And yet, as I picture him now, I reconstruct his likeness and see him speak, and I hear him too, saying words that I conjure up from the traces he left behind.
Tom turned and addressed us, those who were listening. ‘Quiet, quiet,’ I hear him say, ‘we can work something out. There’s no need to do anything silly. We just need to talk it out.’
Tom was splendid, his voice coaxing us into hope, his gentle movements and his statements still carrying the authority he deserved. He loomed large in my mind then, an everyday example risking centre stage when it might mean death. He was facing the front wall, Eric to his left, the door to his right, and the rest of us strewn across the classroom.
‘Eric, there’s no need to do this. Think about it. Please.’ He tried to engage Eric’s eyes.
‘Sit down, Tom,’ Eric said, still aiming at Tom’s chest. ‘Don’t get in the way.’
Perhaps Tom thought Eric was listening, or perhaps he thought he’d appear less threatening sitting down. Whatever the reason, he obeyed him, taking down a chair from the last row and starting to talk again, his tones low and soothing: ‘Think of everyone here, think of your friends. You’ve spent two years here with us. And think of our families, think of—’
‘Shut up,’ Eric said with quiet strength. ‘If you say another word, I’ll shoot you.’
Tom looked stunned only for an instant. He recovered and looked at us, two rows from him, and started coordinating a sally with small movements of his head. I believe Eric saw it all but decided to ignore it. Instead he addressed Laura, and, almost kindly, asked her to put her phone away.
‘Thank you,’ he told her and turned to the three students working on the chain. His voice remained even, each sentence pronounced with the same rehearsed emphasis. ‘It won’t budge, and the vestibule’s locked too. Go back to your desks. I don’t want to get in between you and your deaths. If you want to write something, or if you want to pray, I can wait one minute.’
One minute. All of my blood seemed to have drained to my feet. I looked across at Anna and saw her looking at me. Her right hand was clutching the backrest of a chair, and her left was clawing at her right forearm. Her eyes were moist, and I wanted to bridge the distance. One minute. There never was that minute. Had Tom and Mr Johnson held off a little longer, the few who considered writing – I remember Edward Moss and Jayvanti Patel in front of me grabbing their pens – would have had time to set something down.
Instead Tom leaped, and there was the first of many hollow cracks, and there was no more splendour, no more calls for calm. And there was a jolt starting in my chest and spreading down my limbs, and I was fast as a blur. And Eric looked around, arms raised, or perhaps he was shooting from the hip, and there was no more pretence. And we were ducking, crawling, crying, and most of all shouting. And we tried the windows but the windows could only open so as to let in the smallest of draughts, except for the one window which opened all the way, but that was where Eric stood.
I tasted metal. I had blood in my mouth, but I wasn’t wounded. The thought crossed my mind that I might not feel a gunshot, that I would die too quickly to feel the bullet butcher my flesh, but that, in death, I could carry over something so trivial as the taste of blood in my mouth – the last input my brain would have been able to decipher. But I wasn’t dead: I just had blood in my mouth.
Anna was crouching next to me, holding my hand, struggling with the onset of a panic attack. For a brief moment, as I squeezed her hand, a sudden sadness weighed on my shoulders. And it was gone with a grunt, one loud grunt at first, and then fo
ur more in decrescendo. Jeffrey was on the floor in pain. And Anna was crushing my hand, her breathing reduced to a rasping sound, air scraping into her lungs, her breasts jerking up and down ever faster. In the few seconds I spent stroking her arm and whispering so she would calm down, I was aware of a body I had loved, now fighting itself. I knew I ought to feel something, perhaps apprehension or dread. Ideally it would have been love and forgiveness but I would have taken simple lust. It didn’t have to be beautiful. But I wanted it to be strong. Nothing came.
Jeffrey was no longer grunting. Eric wasn’t by the window anymore, and pretty Jayvanti’s curvy body straddled a fallen chair on the floor. I surveyed the scene. It was meticulous, yes: neat and precise. Even the chaos made sense. Don’t listen to me, there was no honour in the chaos. One, two, three, crack. I’d survived. One, two, crack, crack, three, crack. Even now, I can’t do the moment justice. Even now, I can’t tell it right: the images are there, however smudged, but the words don’t follow.
***
They were all still, except for Anna whom I could hear breathing, and Grace whose leg I could see twitching. How long had it been since Eric had come into the classroom? It felt like it had happened a long time ago and that it hadn’t happened yet. But the classroom was quiet, except for the three of us breathing and bleeding. Grace made no sound, as quiet in agony as she had been in life. And I crawled back to Anna’s side, who was silent now. I lay there wondering what to do about the bullet in my stomach.
If a part of me remembers the pain, another sees me disassociated, above the room, floating amongst ideas and images. My hands were covering my stomach, my back resting against two school bags and part of an overturned table, my knees as close to my midriff as I could bring them, blood slowly seeping out. Help was coming, I knew. Help: the word came to life. I imagined a swarm of doctors resuscitating our limp bodies, lifting us onto comfortable stretchers, airlifting us to a new hospital, removing and discarding the traces of the day from our bodies, and discharging us a day later after a long night’s sleep. I needed sleep. And then school would declare a week-long recovery, which I would spend reading and watching cricket.