Black Chalk

‘Come on, Jolyon. Don’t be an arse about this.’

Jolyon’s body snapped back. ‘Why pin this on me?’ he said. ‘Why do I have to play sheriff? Ask them if you can just walk away and break any promises you made.’ Jolyon was pointing at Chad and Jack but they weren’t looking, their eyes elsewhere, lips clamped tight. ‘Ask Emilia, ask Dee. And don’t call me an arse.’

‘OK, fine, Jolyon.’ Mark was rubbing his face. ‘Shit, but I really liked Dorian,’ he said. ‘I met him on my first day here and he came over when he saw I was on my own and introduced me to a whole bunch of people. I really fucking liked him.’

‘Why the use of past tense, Mark?’ said Chad, putting his hand on Mark’s shoulder. ‘You can still like Dorian. Just because he now despises every last human fibre of you doesn’t mean you have to hate him in return.’

‘Fuck off, Chad,’ said Mark.

Chad laughed. Jack laughed too, it was his favourite type of joke. But Chad laughed harder than Jolyon had ever seen him laugh before.

XXXVI(iii) In Jolyon’s room that night they smoked joints and ate salted pistachios. As they threw the half-shells into a metal wastebasket in the middle of the room, they recounted the tale of the quiz machine to Emilia and Dee.

Jack told the tale. He was the best storyteller by far with his tweaks and his colourful untruths and his timing. No one objected to Jack’s fish-eyed accounts of various incidents, even when those incidents were fresh and different in their own minds. They even nodded along harder with the best of the lies, each of them sounding a much better person when Jack told the tale.

Chad, sprawled in the armchair, was considering Dee’s latest outfit. She was wearing an extended pair of bicycle shorts, or cropped leggings perhaps. Whatever they were they were black and tight and they came to an end an inch beneath Dee’s knees. Over these she wore a yellow tutu poufed and patterned with black polka dots. She was sitting on the floor, her back against Jolyon’s bed, with her knees steepled and legs disappearing into a large pair of construction worker’s boots coloured oxblood, their toes nicely scuffed.

It had taken Dee’s unique eye to match to her lower half a strikingly red military jacket. The jacket was weighed down heavily with gold. Gold chevrons and braids and epaulettes. Gold buttons unfastened and the open jacket revealing glimpses of a Sex Pistols T-shirt. Her breasts made the shirt stretch wide at its middle, taut like the plastic wrap over a joint of beef.

Chad felt guilty for making the association with a piece of meat. Dee was obviously no piece of meat. Dee was funny, wild, smart as anything. But still, her breasts looked spectacular. Better than Emilia’s even.

But Dee lived in a different world to Chad and he had no chance with Dee. Had she ever been normal, once upon a time? Normal as he was normal? Perhaps one day she had flicked a switch, consciously decided to change. Maybe the transformation took place while moving from one foster family to the next. A long journey, a car window and beyond the beads and runlets of rain the bleak hills of another failed life. Grey scene behind, fresh start ahead.

Now Mitzy on the other hand, Mitzy with whom Chad lived in the house of Americans, she did at least come from the same world as him. And yes, Mitzy had recently been showing signs of interest. Despite Chad’s inexperience he wasn’t dumb enough to miss every sign. And the more he ignored her the harder she tried, as if he had stumbled by chance on the perfect tactic. Maybe Mitzy wasn’t so bad. Pretty cute to be honest. And who else did he know?

Chad tuned in again to Jack. His story was nearing its end and now even Mark was laughing along. ‘I wasn’t worried so much that Dorian might punch me,’ he said. ‘I thought he was going to burst into tears because he couldn’t take losing, it would have been terrible.’

‘And he takes it all so seriously,’ said Jack. ‘His little notes and his strategies. I felt like saying to him, Door, you do know they can train a fucking pigeon to recognise the correct button in return for a little scrap of seed. Anyone could be good at this game if they wanted to. But they don’t. You understand? Nobody cares.’

Jolyon was lying on his bed smoking down most of a joint that had not made its way far around the room. Feebly he puffed out the smoke in little florets and let his spare arm dangle down to the bed skirt. While he lay there, Jolyon’s fingers moved rapidly back and forth as if performing a series of intricate sleights of hand.

‘Jolyon,’ said Mark, ‘come on, let’s have some of that joint before you finish the whole thing.’

Jolyon said nothing. The fingers paused and then flurried again.

‘Joe?’ Mark clapped his hands. ‘Hey, come on, Joe.’

Jolyon sat up, the action twitchy and sudden as if he were waking from a nightmare. ‘What did you call me?’ he said.

‘I just asked you for some of that smoke before it’s done.’

‘I said, what the fuck did you call me?’