‘Who with?’
‘Who with what?’
‘Captain Plum. . . in the Library. . . with a bloody spanner. I mean who did you go to the disco with?’
‘Everybody.’
‘Oh I’m glad everybody was there – everybody who?’
‘Everybody from here. Give over, Mum. We’re on our holidays.’
‘Don’t you talk to me like that, Gillian. There’s not too many thirteen-year-olds who’d be allowed out to this time of the morning.’
‘I came home early, for God’s sake. Everybody’s away on somewhere else. I feel such a baby.’ Gillian put on a childish voice. ‘“I have to go home. My mammy says.”’
Isobel gave a sigh and said,
‘You were okay the day you were born but it’s been downhill ever since.’ Gillian pulled the sheet up over her head. ‘I’ll come with you next night.’
‘No way.’
‘D’you think I’d cramp your style?’ The girl didn’t answer. ‘Did it ever occur to you that you might be cramping my style?’ Gillian shrugged beneath her sheet. ‘What are you on about?’
‘Gillian – just promise me one thing–never marry a physics teacher.’ Isobel began to make small sniffing noises. Her daughter hesitated, wondering if this was tears. Isobel said, ‘You’ve been smoking again.’
‘Honest no.’
‘I can smell it, Gillian.’
‘Piss off, Mum.’
‘That kind of language may make your father laugh – but not me.’
‘Everybody else smokes. It just gets in your clothes from the bar.’
‘Gillian?’
‘What?’
‘Look at me and tell me you haven’t been smoking.’
With a sigh of irritation the girl turned in her bed to face the room. ‘Jesus – Mum.’ Gillian was aghast, laughing. She sat up, her elbow on her pillow. ‘What a face! You’re puce – positively puce.’
‘That is not the issue at the moment. We’re talking death by smoking – not skin cancer.’ Isobel’s voice had dropped, her daughter’s rose with incredulity.
‘Everyday this week you’ve been moaning on and on and on at me not to get too much sun . . .’
‘One time I got really badly burnt . . .’
‘But you’ve been wearing factor a zillion.’
‘Not today I wasn’t. I want a tan too.’
‘You’ve really overdone it.’
‘Just a tad, dear. Just a tad.’
‘Is it sore?’
‘Hot.’ Her chin began to shiver.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Yeah,’ said Isobel. She slid down in the bed and pulled the sheet up to her neck. ‘A bit feverish. But I’ll be okay in the morning.’
‘Turn out the light?’
‘Yeah – I’ll look better that way.’
It had been five years since Isobel had shared a bedroom and now, even after a week, she was not used to it – sounds of breathing, of springs twanging at each turn, the slither of sheets being pulled up or kicked away. Later her daughter’s heavy breathing or snoring would keep her awake. All she could do then was lie and stare at the bedroom wall in the light from the digital clock. At home she could have gone down and made hot milk or something. When neither of them could sleep, both were aware of it. The sound of steady breathing was absent, twisting and turning became more frequent the longer they did not sleep, there was a sound of yawning.
‘Mum?’
‘What?’
‘Are you asleep?’
‘Yes – I’m absolutely sound.’
‘You know that hotel at the far end of the beach?’
‘The maroon one?’
‘Naw – next to it – The Corvo or something.’
‘Mm-mm.’
‘They have chess in there.’
‘I suppose it makes a change from playing pool.’
‘There’s a guy plays twelve people at once. He’s great.’
‘How many hands has he got?’
‘I was going really well too. Until he took one of my rooks. I was just so stupid not to see it coming.’
‘I didn’t know you could play.’
‘I can’t wait to get back at him. He just shrugged and took the rook. I couldn’t believe I’d made a move like that.’
‘I presume this was before the disco.’
‘Thursday night – I’m going back. It’ll be my last chance before we go home.’
Isobel eased herself off the bed and went to the bathroom to cool her face again. A square of light fell on the wall opposite the bathroom. ‘I can’t go to the beach tomorrow – looking like this.’ Isobel turned out the light and groped her way to her bed. She lay down and started blowing on her skin.
‘I wish I’d some calamine.’
‘I’ve got some.’
‘I don’t believe it. You angel.’ Gillian got out of bed and went to the bathroom. ‘Why didn’t you bloody tell me sooner?’ Isobel switched on the bedside light. Her daughter came from the bathroom with cotton wool and a bottle of pink calamine lotion.
‘Thanks,’ said Isobel, holding out her hands.
‘It’s okay. I’ll do it for you. Close your eyes.’ Isobel lay back on the pillow and heard the thick liquid glug as Gillian upended the bottle onto the cotton wool pad.
‘This is not like you, Gillian – to have foresight.’ She felt the coolness on her forehead and her eyelids and her cheeks. ‘Oh that’s lovely.’
‘Dad bought it for me last year in Majorca. I just never took it out of my wash-bag.’
‘Oh – well despite that – it’s working. It’s so soothing.’
Gillian changed the cotton wool pad for a fresh one and began again.
‘I’d like to work in a beauty parlour or somewhere.’
‘I don’t think you have the intellectual mettle for it.’
‘It’s so relaxing.’
‘It’s me that’s supposed to relax – not the therapist.’ But Isobel ummed and sighed as the treatment continued.
‘What did you do tonight?’ asked her daughter.
‘I hung out with some people in the bar. We chilled out together.’
Gillian snorted and did her mother’s arms and the scarlet tip of each shoulder. Isobel started to laugh silently.
‘What? Mum, what is it?’
‘A terrible rhyme. A little pal o’ mine soothed me with calamine.’
‘That’s the pits. It’s awful.’
Isobel felt the bottle being pushed into her hands.
‘You can do your boobies yourself,’ said Gillian.
Isobel and her daughter sat on the patio of the Hotel Condor, waiting. In the flashing darkness there was a disco on for the very young ones.
‘You look a mess.’ Isobel had to shout above the noise. ‘It’s no wonder people think you’re a boy.’ The girl’s hair was cut short and she wore a white T-shirt hanging out over her khaki shorts. Her chest was still very flat. Between records the sound of crickets was incessant.
‘And stop that with your nails.’ Gillian was gnawing, not her nails, but the skin around her nails. ‘Gill – i – an.’ The girl took her hand away from her mouth and said,
‘What does a cricket look like?’
‘It’s a beetle kind of thing. I’ve never seen one.’
‘They sound like a herd of telephones.’ Gillian stood and went towards the nearest one. Immediately she approached the source of the sound, it stopped.
‘They hear you coming.’ She went towards another one in a flower-bed at the top of the steps and the same thing happened. The first one started up again. Gillian whirled round.
‘Sneak – ee. Show yourself.’ She gave up and came down the steps. ‘He’s late. It said ten o’clock.’
‘Are you sure it’s the right night?’
‘Och Mum –’
‘Check the notice.’
‘The place is set up.’
Inside in the lounge a group of card tables covered with gree
n baize had been formed into a square in the centre of the room. Other families sat about, drinking or playing cards, their children running in and out to the flashing coloured lights and music of the patio. They all seemed to be Spanish or French – not British, not English-speaking. Isobel stood up and walked into the hotel lobby where the notice board was.
Her daughter followed her. There was a photograph of the chess player beside printed information about him in three languages.
‘He looks like a bit of all right.’
‘Mum.’
‘He’s very intense.’
‘He’s very late,’ said Gillian. The information said he was a Grandmaster and the Catalan champion. He would challenge twelve opponents simultaneously two evenings a week. Tuesdays and Thursdays.
They made their way into the lounge where the tables were set up. Gillian pulled a face and sat down in the deep leather armchair, folding her legs up beneath her.
‘All the grace of an ironing board,’ said Isobel.
The music they were playing at the disco was old-fashioned stuff – the Beatles, Nina Simone – ‘My Baby Just Cares for Me’, Glen Miller’s version of ‘Begin the Beguine’. It became louder each time one of the children ran out through the patio doors. When the automatic doors slid shut, it became distant again.
‘Where did you learn to play chess?’
‘Dad.’
‘Oh – I thought maybe they’d taught it in school.’ A waiter passed and she ordered a glass of white wine and a Coke for Gillian. ‘When, might I ask?’
‘I dunno. Over in his place. Days when there was nothing to do. Days when it was raining.’
‘I’m surprised he was sober enough . . .’
‘Don’t say that.’
‘It’s true but.’
‘He’s better – a lot better.’
‘No matter how hard he tried he could never teach me. I know the moves all right but the overall thing. . . It’s the horse that does the L-shape . . .’
‘The knight, Mum.’
‘I hadn’t the patience for it. We had rows, even about that.’
‘When you talk about Dad why d’you always use a voice like that?’
‘Like what?’
‘You know – “We had rows, even about that.”’
‘I suppose it’s a defence mechanism. When you’re left like me, defence is the only method of attack.’
Gillian swung her feet onto the marble floor and stood up.
‘Where is he?’ She went over to the doorway and looked into the lobby. The waiter arrived and set the drinks on the low table. Isobel called her daughter. When Gillian came back she sipped her Coke standing.
‘Your sunburn has cooled down a bit,’ she said.
‘So it should – after forty-eight hours.’
‘It’ll peel – when we get back home.’
Isobel crossed her legs and her sandal hung from her foot.
‘Mum – for God’s sake.’
‘What have I done now?’ Her daughter nodded to the sandalled foot moving in time to the disco music.
‘Only old people do that.’
There was a flurry in the hallway and some boys came running with small wooden boxes. They ran up to the square of card tables and set them on the baize. One of the boys had a roll of plastic green-and-white chequered boards which he laid out like place mats, one beside each box. People’s heads turned, waiting for the Grandmaster. He came, talking and gesticulating, in the midst of a crowd.
‘About bloody time,’ said Gillian. She got up and walked to the tables. The lid of each box had a small gouge shaped like a fingernail to help slide it open. Gillian struggled with hers and when it eventually came the plastic chess pieces spilled out all over the table. Isobel pretended to raise her eyebrows and Gillian blushed.
A member of the hotel staff moved one card table aside so that the Grandmaster could get into the middle. The challengers took their seats and began setting up the boards with the white pieces to the inside. The Grandmaster stood in the middle, his hands loosely clasped behind his back. He recognised some of the players from previous nights and smiled at them. His opponents varied greatly in age. One man, smoking a Gauloise, looked like he was in his eighties. Younger family-men joked over their shoulders to their wives and children, their Spanish voices louder than usual with prematch nerves. Two boys, about ten years of age, had agreed to play as one.
Isobel came to the tables and stood behind her daughter as she set up the pieces.
‘He has nice eyes,’ she said. ‘His eyes make you like him immediately.’
‘Mum, don’t loom. Sit down somewhere.’ Gillian elbowed her haunch but her mother paid no attention – she was staring at the Grandmaster.
He was in his late forties but boyish-looking and very thin. His beard was beginning to grey. He wore a shirt with a Mondrian-like pattern and Levi’s held up by a belt with a slightly too ornate buckle. A showman of sorts, an artist, thought Isobel as she smiled and caught his eye.
‘This is my daughter in whom I am well pleased.’
‘Oh Mum please – please don’t,’ said Gillian.
But although he didn’t understand, the Grandmaster returned Isobel’s smile and inclined his head in a kind of salute to Gillian. He checked around to see that all the boards were set up and then went to the first challenger and shook hands. He gave a little smile then made his first move. He did this with all twelve challengers.
Isobel sat down at a little distance to watch. Gillian waited until the Grandmaster came around again to reply with her move. Isobel could not take her eyes off him. His concentration was immense. It would have taken an earthquake to make him look up. When he moved one of his pieces there was an uncertain hovering of his fingers over the pawn or the queen or whatever, a hesitation – then a definite snatching movement, as if to say – how could I have hesitated for so long? There cannot be any other move.
He wore an expensive watch and two gold rings on the same finger – a thin one and a fat one. Sometimes when his hands rested on the table his shoulders were high, almost above his head, his face staring down in concentration at the board. When he captured a man there was a plastic ‘tink’ as his piece dislodged the one it was taking. Almost a violence – a return to what the game represented – a formalised battle. This happened especially when it came to an exchange with the old man who smoked the Gauloises.
Any time he made a move to put his opponent in check he did not say the word check but tapped the black king with a quick movement.
Isobel got herself a glass of white wine. She was getting bored with the chess with its absence of words. The only thing of interest was the Grandmaster.
It amazed her that it was all inside his head, the drama. There was nothing to see. Little or no outward sign. Sometimes his head moved almost imperceptibly, miming the course of an exchange. ‘I take you, you take me back.’ He was like an anchorite, a holy man. She felt that if he wanted to he could lower his heart-beat despite the noise of the disco, the bustle of the hotel. She drained her wine glass and ordered another.
There was a ripple of applause as the two boys playing as one were checkmated. They knocked down their king and giggled. The Grandmaster smiled and ruffled their heads. They came running to their parents who made much of them. Isobel smiled and made a gesture of silent applause, indicating the boys. The mother leaned forward and said something in Spanish. Isobel shook her head.
‘English,’ she said. ‘I mean Scottish – I just speak English.’
‘My English not good,’ said the woman. ‘A little.’ Having said this both women sat forward in their chairs. Then gradually, having nothing more to say, they leaned back and turned again to watch the game. The next time Isobel caught her eye the Spanish woman pointed towards the square of tables.
‘¿Your child?’
‘Yes.’ Isobel nodded vigorously. Gillian had blinkered herself by pressing both hands to the sides of her head and was staring down at the board betw
een her elbows.
‘That is my daughter.’ As she said it she blushed and smiled.
‘¿Daughter?’ They seemed surprised. ‘¿Did you teach her?’ The Spanish woman mimed the moving of chessmen.
‘No-in school. She learned in school.’ Again they remained poised on the edge of their seats but the communication seemed too difficult and gradually they both sagged back to their original positions.
Over the next hour or so several more opponents resigned or were checkmated and the Grandmaster stopped to explain where they had gone wrong or how he had outmanoeuvred them. After the remorselessness of his play he became a teacher – leaning down confidentially, pointing out the sins, advising for the future.
Isobel got up to stretch her legs and walked out onto the patio. It was still warm. There were only about half a dozen children left at the disco, chasing one another rather than dancing. Their parents sat drinking with their backs to the pool, keeping an eye. This crowd was English – words she recognised floated towards her when the music stopped. She gave them a wide berth, walking round the paths on the terracing. The DJ must have run out of records because he began to play the same ones again. The Nina Simone, the Glen Miller.
By the time she went back into the lounge there were only two challengers left. Her daughter and the old man who smoked the Gauloises. The defeated players and their families were gathered round to watch the final stages. The crowd had swelled to fifty or sixty with guests coming back into the hotel at bedtime. Isobel edged her way to a position where she could see her daughter’s face.
The Grandmaster made his move against the old man, whose response was to pull another cigarette from the packet lying by his hand on the table. He could see what was unfolding. He tugged a match free from the booklet and lit up. He coughed and his face went bright red. He was shaking his head in disbelief that he should have walked into such a trap. He cursed and surrendered by turning over his king.
Gillian waited for the Grandmaster to turn and face her before making her move. She looked up at him defiantly. He registered no surprise but took a long time before he made his reply. As far as Isobel could see they had equal numbers of pieces left but she could not tell who had the advantage. She watched the spectators’ faces, trying to gauge who was winning and, more importantly, when the game would be over. She yawned and looked at her watch.
Walking the Dog Page 2