Black Chalk (15 page)

I'd seen it during Mrs Hitchcliffe's first visit. Her history books under one arm, honeyed sympathy all over her face, I'd made it through three-quarters of a lesson, nodding to everything she said, listening to nothing, until she shut her books and asked me whether everything was alright.

‘What do you think?' I barked, and she gave me another of her compassionate smiles, the sort I'd never seen in class – there, true to her inner despot, she'd tolerated no dissent. We stopped the lesson for I clearly needed time. But what I really needed was Mrs Hitchcliffe as she'd been, for her to tell me to shut up and listen, to let me off with a warning this time, to punish me the next. When she left, she conferred with my mother, and together, without asking me a thing, they decided they'd start the lessons again when I felt better. Even my brother, who normally took a perverse pleasure in saying no to me, talked to me, played with me whenever I asked him to.

In my head at least, life went as I wanted it to go. I trekked up glaciers, I sailed around Cape Horn, I drove to Siberia. I lived a life of adventure, wild and getting wilder, because I knew that when my imagination ran out, my reason would take over, and once again, I'd find myself stuck.

The first person to call me was Harry Williams, the same Harry I'd consistently tried to sideline over the years, but who'd still weaselled his way into all of my friendship groups. The same Harry who'd reported a fictive conversation on television. And yet, when my mother called me towards the phone to talk to my ‘friend' Harry, I had to remind myself that I didn't like him, so that my voice wouldn't sound too eager.

‘How's it being a celebrity?'

‘What are you talking about?'

‘Well, you're a big man now. Going on TV and all, getting your fifteen minutes of fame.'

I could feel Harry's familiar struggle with a joke. I'd often seen him interrupt group conversations a beat and a half late, starting with a sharp opening only to flounder with all eyes on him.

‘I've been on TV longer than fifteen minutes already.'

‘Exactly,' he said, his tone tightening, ‘you're not only a celebrity, you're a hero. It's all over the newspapers. Soon you'll be solving the Middle East crisis.'

I took a deep breath, harnessing my anger.

‘Handing bread to Africans?' I said.

‘Yes!'

‘Why are you telling me all this, Harry?'

‘Because everyone's saying it.'

‘Who?'

‘Everyone at school. Everyone.'

‘So, you're just repeating what everyone else is saying. And, do you have anything of your own to tell me? Or are you only good at repeating what others said?'

He mumbled an answer and I hung up. I went back downstairs, set the phone in its base, and stood by the French windows, looking at the garden. There, where no one could see me, I smiled, proud of what I'd told him, happy that someone had been angry with me.

Later I would have ready answers for such comments. Most of the times, I'd laugh along: ‘Fun, I went for a joyride last night but I must have flown too close to Krypton. I'm feeling knackered today.' Sometimes, I gave my meaner self more leeway: ‘It takes a special talent. And now that I know it, I can tell you that I haven't met too many people with it. Well, maybe one. No, actually, zero.' Only once did I bark back. It was Beth's brother, and I called him a twat.

But most importantly, I learned to ignore the malice they disguised. I laughed, I retorted, and I forgot.
Veni
,
vidi
,
vici
. Nate-style.

That day, just like every day before it, my mother came and asked me how my work was going. For the first time, I told her the truth.

‘It's not. I'm not doing any work.'

I was lying on my bed, my chin hanging down over the edge, my eyes staring at three threads coming undone from the carpet. She sat down on my desk chair and swivelled to face me.

‘Yes, I've noticed. I went to see the Master of Balliol today. He said they'd accept you on your predicted scores alone. Which were fine. All you need is to pass your A-levels.'

I nudged my nail under one of the loose threads and pulled until she left the room. I couldn't speak to my mother: she was part of the world I needed to flee.

***

Rereading over what I've written, I realise it sounds like I was spending weeks alone. That wasn't the case. My life went beyond books and my brother. Once a week, my mother took me to hospital, where they monitored my progress and gave me instructions I ignored religiously.

And on most Friday nights, I met up with Beth and a few others, the ones I had left, to watch a movie and get drunk. Since I'd seen her at hospital, Beth had adopted a new style – bright red lipsticks to go with a red hat and red boots. One night on a bus, when we were both sitting drunk, we turned towards each other. It started with a peck, and then, for a minute, her tongue thrust deep against mine. We stopped just as abruptly as we started, and we never mentioned the moment again.

It's not that I was secluded, but that, however hard I tried, I always needed more. Alcohol, books, movies, they distracted me for a while, but in the end they only ever gave my thoughts further to fall. Some days, I looked around my room, saw everything I'd seen the day before, and I blamed myself, ramping up the insults, hoping it would spur me on. On others, I told myself that it was my mother's fault: if only she could understand how I felt, I'd be able to get my frustration out and move on. And on some others still, I lashed out at society. It was an easy target: I had friends who couldn't connect, journalists who hadn't listened, a policeman who'd stared down at me through his large square glasses. And when I needed more, I could focus on a broader culture that glorified something – I didn't know what – that made me sick.

In late March, my mother asked me to come and help her do the shopping. At first reluctant, I finally agreed when she said we'd be going all the way to Witney. She had to pick up a dress there. Whenever we went shopping, my mother divided up her list, kept two-thirds for herself, including all the fresh produce, and sent me around the aisles to get the rest.

While looking for washing powder, I saw the back of Jeffrey's mother's head. She was pushing a trolley towards the toiletries aisle, while one of her daughters, ponytail flailing, was holding an arabesque with one foot on the trolley's chassis and the other stretched far behind her. With a sudden pang of guilt, I doubled back and hid behind a canned olives stand, spying down two aisles until I felt sure the way was clear. I wouldn't know what to say if they asked me about Jeffrey. They deserved more than I could tell them. As I continued with my list, or with what I could decipher from my mother's scribbles, I almost bumped into them twice, but, both times, I heard the girl singing before it was too late.

‘Nate, are you done?' my mother called. I turned around to see her pushing a full trolley my way. ‘Let me see,' she said, grabbing my list. ‘Good, good. Almost perfect. Can you go and get the aqua colour version of this, please? I'll be at the till.'

I came back with the right product in hand just as Jeffrey's sister was slotting in behind my mother, her gaze skipping over the rows of gum, chocolate, and gossip magazines. Pushing past her, apologising, I saw a faint flicker of recognition.

‘Darling,' Mrs Baker said to her daughter absentmindedly before her voice caught and trailed on the ‘ing'. My mother turned around.

‘Amanda.'

‘Liz.'

Something had to have happened between them, I thought, for them to speak so carefully. Mrs Baker smiled awkwardly at me, and all of a sudden I wanted to be anywhere but where I was. Her smile breaking down into a grimace, she addressed me:

‘How are you, Nate?'

‘Fine. I'm fine.'

‘That's good.'

She stood behind us as silence weighed in. And then she talked to her daughter:

‘We've forgotten the bread. Come.'

‘Do you want me to hold our spot in the queue?' her daughter said.

‘No, come and help me choose some nice bread for Dad.'

I watched them walk away: Mrs Baker steadily pushing the trolley, her daughter skipping every third step. When we left the supermarket, they still hadn't come back.

As we drove home, I thought of Amanda Baker's expression. She'd been so kind to me over the years – she always had a box of Coco Pops in a cupboard just in case I came over. If I couldn't face her, if I couldn't spend time with my mother, then it was clear, I had to leave. Another continent, another country, another language – some faraway corner of the world, where it took fifty deaths before an event made the news, some mountain inhabited by goat herders and a hermit in a cave, a long beach parading as an island. Turning up the music, I tapped my fingers along to its beat, and recalled Jeffrey's sister, the freedom with which she'd moved. Compared to her, I'd lost something. But I wouldn't despair. I could get it back.

Over the next month, until my eighteenth birthday, I made and unmade plans. Using my mother's computer, I found a website advertising for fruit pickers in Dorset from May to October. The money wasn't good but they offered cheap accommodation, cheap food. Five months up pear trees meant a year living on the cheap in India, or better, in Thailand. But money wasn't necessarily an issue: on my eighteenth birthday, I'd finally come into my grandfather's money, the three thousand pounds he'd left me. Not much, but enough to leave England and find my feet in a different country. I remembered a friend of my father who'd come over for dinner seven months earlier, and who'd talked about the money his son was making teaching English in Korea.

‘Four hundred pounds a week and his flat's paid for,' he'd said. For half of my bank account, I could go to Korea and look for a job – a year there and I'd be rich. But the only thing I knew of Korea was a movie I'd watched once: men chopping each other's fingers off in the name of some arcane game. I didn't want to be in perpetual exile. I needed a place where I could fit in. In my imagination, I was spending my days working an easy job, my evenings surrounded by friends, my nights in the arms of a pretty girl, and I was buying everyone drinks. Korea wasn't that place.

As my eighteenth birthday neared, I grew restless. It was that night or never: sneak out one evening, or remain forever a Hornsbury boy. What I needed to do was to move, to see places. A week before my birthday, while I was at the local library, I browsed through their career stand. I ignored all the jobs that required a degree – they were what I'd expected I'd end up doing, but my situation had changed. Now I needed to find myself something, anything. Amidst all the leaflets, I found two that could take me overseas. One for the armed forces, but I put it down straightaway. I'd done guns, and I wasn't going to do them again. And another for merchant ships: toiling away at sea, visiting the next port. Picking fruits, working on a ship, teaching English, there were things I could do.

I kept on thinking until the morning of my birthday, when, packing my bags, hiding them in a cupboard, I told myself that I'd leave that night and work out the next step on the fly. What mattered most was that my mother didn't know I was leaving until I'd left.

***

After I put away my bag, when I was alone in the house, someone rang the bell. I didn't recognise him when I opened the door, but then I saw the big square glasses, the same glasses he'd scrutinised me through as if every one of my words were a lie, I saw the jeans and jumper he was wearing to trick me, and I wished I'd left the latch on the door.

‘Hello, Nate. Can I come in?'

‘My mother's not here.' I stayed in his path.

‘According to my files, you're eighteen today. She doesn't have to be here.'

‘I thought you already had my statement,' I said, a burly edge to my words. I wanted to shut the door in his face, and watch him amble back to his car, blood dripping from his nose.

‘I'm not here to take your statement, Nate. I just want to talk to you.' He waited for my response, but I stayed silent, blocking his path. ‘Your case is closed. Whatever you tell me now, I promise, I won't reopen it.'

I studied him, his plea so different to the questions he'd asked me in hospital, and I believed him.

‘We can speak here.' I waved at the porch.

He nodded and took a step back.

‘Would you mind coming out? I can't see you with the light.'

I closed the door behind me, and leaned back on one of the stone pillars.

‘My case is closed?' I said.

‘Don't you know it?' he asked. ‘You're a national hero.' I winced. ‘You don't like that word?' he said.

Fighting a grimace, I shook my head.

‘You know what, Nate. All the people you'll meet, they'll know you as the one who tried to save the others. It doesn't matter that you failed. You're the only one who tried, and when something's as big as that, well, we'll latch on to any bit of goodness, you see?'

I avoided his gaze.

‘Of course, you don't,' he continued, growing agitated. ‘But me, I was there. I saw that classroom when there were still dead bodies in it. Dead bodies!' His words drew me, and I couldn't avoid looking at him anymore. ‘Your friends, dead, dying, I saw them all. I went to speak to all the mothers. And I interviewed everyone. I spoke to them, I listened to their stories, I tried to make sense of it. Me, Nate, I know you're not a hero. I've seen your type before: you try to flee but inside you're all guilt. With me, you don't have to pretend.'

He looked at me expectantly. I could feel it deep down my throat – he had me in his grasp.

‘What do you want?' I asked in a small voice.

‘I want your story, the whole of it. Not your mother standing between us, whispering in your ear. Of course, I know what she did, how she leaked all that information! But now, it's just the two of us, Nate, man to man. Remember, I stood in that classroom, I had blood on my shoes. And I know that you didn't tell me everything. I need to know what you know. Not for my job. For myself.' He pulled at his jumper and I understood him: he'd come to me a civilian.