Black Chalk

About the Book

How well do you know your best friends?

How far would you go to protect them?

How far would you go to break them?

It was only ever meant to be a game. A game of consequences, of silly forfeits, childish dares. A game to be played by six best friends in their first year at Oxford University.

But then the game changed: the stakes grew higher and the dares more personal, more humiliating, finally evolving into a vicious struggle with unpredictable and tragic results.

Now, fourteen years later, the remaining players must meet again for the final round.

About the Author

Christopher J. Yates studied law at Wadham College, Oxford from 1990-93 and initially pursued a career in law before he began working in puzzles, representing the UK at the World Puzzle Championships. Since then he has worked as a freelance journalist, sub-editor and puzzles editor/compiler. In 2007 he moved to New York City with his wife, and currently lives in the East Village.

For Margi

Because without you

nothing

Never trust the artist.

Trust the tale.

– D. H. Lawrence

I

I(I) HE PHONES early. England greets the world five hours ahead of us and I answer before my day has gained its groove.

Before long I have agreed to everything he says.

Don’t worry, he says. I promise you, it’ll be fun.

It’ll be fun. Pause. Click.

Yes, that’s what we said about the Game all those years ago. It’ll be so much fun!

I hold the phone to my chest for some time after the call has ended. And then, crossing the room, I open my curtains for the first time in three years. Because now he has found me, tracked me down, and there remains no good reason to stay hidden any longer. For three cloistral years the quantity of time I have spent inside this apartment has averaged twenty-three hours and fifty-nine minutes each day. I am a hermit, as pale as my bones, as hairy as sackcloth. But now I intend to grow stronger. I must ready myself for the impending visit of the ancient friend.

Because the timing of the call was of course no coincidence. In five weeks’ time, fourteen years to the day since last we saw each other, this hermit turns thirty-four. And let me state from the outset that, whether I win or lose, I hope this story will serve as my warning to the world. A cautionary tale. My confession.

I stand by my window staring out at the city. Everything is storm-light, the bruised palette of the sky. Manhattan, mid-April. Down below on Seventh wheels rush and slosh water to the sides of the road.

I push my forehead to the glass. If I am going to win, then before he arrives I must undergo a transformation. I will embark upon the journey of the recovering warrior, just like in the boxing movies. Months of hard work before the comeback fight, the washout trying manfully to resurrect his career. And from the hermit’s chrysalis there will emerge a proud fighter. Except the strength I will need for the coming battle is all mental. I begin to wonder what might be the psychological training equivalent to sprinting up museum steps, pounding sides of beef with bare fists, quaffing raw eggs. I begin to hum inspirational music, I wave my fists feebly in the air.

Perhaps I could start out with a gentle stroll.

Yes, I’m going to do it, the hermit is going to go outside. And he may be some time.

I(ii) But I am sorry to report that I did not make it outside. The glasses stopped me, all six of them. Please believe me, I had absolutely no choice in the matter.

It surprises me every morning how much there is to remember, the fuss we must wade through before life becomes life. The eating and the drinking and the cleansing. The cleansing especially. Every day I question whether such cleansing has a purpose – for a hermit especially. But I have learned to trust my routines. When I lose trust in routines, bad things can happen.

I pick up a water glass and routine saves me again. Saves me from languishing in thoughts of the Game. Nudges me back to the present.

II

II(i) It had taken an act of immense bravery for Chad to befriend Jolyon.

Chad and the other Americans in the year-long programme had arrived in England a week before the British freshmen. At Pitt they called them freshers but at least the words were similar. Chad would have drilled into him far greater lexical oddities than this while studying at Oxford. (The cleaners they called scouts, the bills they called battels, the tests called collections . . .)

And during that first lonely week, as was his habit, Chad failed to make friends with his countrymen, a habit that made him feel awkward and defective. There were six of them and they had been garrisoned together in a narrow terrace house a few streets below the river, a fifteen-minute walk from Pitt College.