Black Chalk

I hurry downstairs to my building’s lobby where the lazier leafleters drop delivery menus or wedge cards into the cracks of the mailboxes. I find what I need, return to my apartment and dial the number.

And now everything is arranged. Early tomorrow. The car will pick me up at six in the morning.

XLIV

XLIV(i)

Someone had pushed a note under Chad’s bedroom door, a message from the liaison officer, a summons to an urgent meeting early the next day.

When Chad emerged from his dressing-down, he felt the usual sense of shame. The heat in his cheeks and his forearms itching. The liaison officer had shouted at him for some time, his voice straining like the wail of an old gramophone record. He claimed Chad had let everyone down. Yet the punishment was hardly severe, a housing probation. ‘Another offence and your place in that house will be curtains!’ But nothing would be marked down on Chad’s record. ‘You’re an exceedingly lucky young man – I strongly considered a large fine. Fortunately for you no formal complaints have been brought.’

Lucky for me and lucky for you, thought Chad, as he climbed down the staircase out into front quad.

As the shame subsided, Chad began to detect another sensation, some small sense of warmth. Maybe even inflation. Was this the worst shame could do to him? Today really was another day. And yes, it truly did all seem better in the morning. For the first time in his life those clichéd words made sense to him.

Front quad was glistening with morning dew.

Perhaps it was like exercising a muscle, you had to work that muscle so hard that you damaged its cells. And then, as it repaired itself, the muscle would grow. The muscle would come back larger and stronger, ready for heavier lifting.

XLIV(ii) Dee approached Chad from behind, unannounced but gently, as he rounded a corner of front quad. She took up his arm and held it in hers as if clinging to a mast.

‘Hey, Dee,’ said Chad.

‘How was your date?’

‘You English would probably say something like, slightly disappointing.’

‘Oh dear. That bad?’

‘She didn’t show. No one in the house is speaking to me. And I just spent fifteen minutes being bawled out by Lord Greyskull. Oh, and if I put another foot wrong . . .’

‘Oops. Maybe not ideal to be playing a game of wrong feet then.’

‘I’ll just have to get smart. Hey, maybe you and I should form an alliance.’

Dee laughed. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I’ll consider your offer very carefully, Chad.’

And then a silence fell between them as Dee rested her head on Chad’s shoulder. Her hair smelled of woodland and vanilla and they walked on slowly through the cold stone passage out onto back quad where the vast tree was now pimpled with green buds and the flags were swaying like fishtails. Then, with a squeeze of his arm, Dee said, ‘You know you have absolutely no reason to be embarrassed, Chad.’

‘Really? Because I have this weird little itch that tells me you’re wrong,’ he said. ‘It’s funny though, there’s also a small part of me that doesn’t care any more.’

‘Good,’ Dee said, and she squeezed him again. ‘But all the stuff you said in the Great Hall yesterday – don’t worry, I’m not planning to remind you of everything – but there’s just one thing, Chad, one question I have to ask you.’ She tilted her head to look up at him. ‘Why didn’t you just tell us you grew up on a pig farm?’

‘The others knew,’ said Chad. ‘I guess it must have come up before I met you, Dee.’

‘No,’ said Dee, ‘I asked everyone. And Jolyon knew. But of course Jolyon knew. The others thought you were brought up in New York City.’

‘Dee for detective,’ Chad smiled. And then he paused, he felt the press of the new feeling in his chest. ‘I don’t know, Dee,’ he said, ‘I’m ashamed of a whole bunch of things. I guess that once it has a hold of you it’s like shame has the freedom to roam. If I think it through logically, I can’t think of any good reason I wouldn’t tell my best friends I grew up on a pig farm.’ He paused and tried to work it out again for the thousandth time. ‘The thing is, it’s as if there’s another creature inside here who refuses to explain anything he does. Does that even make any sense?’

Dee pushed her head further into the crook between Chad’s shoulder and neck. ‘Of course it does, Chad,’ she said. She let out her breath with another expansive huff and clinging tighter now to Chad, she said, ‘We’re all ashamed of too many silly little things. I used to be ashamed I didn’t have a father. I knew my mother had died when I was three. But my father? Who knows? Maybe he was dead too, or maybe he was alive but just didn’t want me. Maybe there was something wrong with me that made him leave.