Black Chalk

I sigh an enormous sigh, leave my computer again and head to the bedroom once more where I stand, hands on hips, staring at my bed. Every night when I try to climb into bed, I find I cannot get under the covers because an assortment of glasses, plates, bowls and various other gimcracks and gewgaws block my way. And so every day ends with the same laborious task. Each night before sleep I move around the apartment carefully replacing all of my physical mnemonics in their correct positions to establish the next day’s successful routine.

Today I rearrange my mnemonics early, taking notes as I go, so that I can type out for you the details of my morning routine. A morning routine that, today, failed to attain completion until gone three in the afternoon. Which means I now have to shift my afternoon routine to the evening and my evening routine close to bedtime. But never mind, I refuse to allow minor setbacks to hinder my recovery. And were it not for my ingenious system of physical mnemonics, nothing whatsoever would have been accomplished today.

All of this thinking about mnemonic ingenuity puts me in a delightful mood. Yes, my thoughts will be sharp once more. I will spend every day in training. Slowly I will regain my strength, the very best of my mind.

Suddenly my mood becomes so fresh, so clear, that something wonderful jumps right into my head, something I have been unable to recall for the last three years – the mnemonic significance of the salad bowl. Ha, no, not any sort of unkind reflection on the size or health of my genitals. Yes, something so obvious.

Dressing. Salad: dressing!

I have five weeks.

IV

IV(i) Jolyon rubbed his bag-strangled hands. Yes, he was feeling crabby. But he was feeling crabby because several second-year students had been posted at Pitt’s front lodge precisely for the purpose of helping freshers carry bags and find rooms. And two of them were currently assisting a boy whose entire bearing suggested he came from a life of perpetual privilege. The boy’s father – Admiral? Lord? Sir? – had commandeered a luggage cart which was now piled high with enough bags for a maharaja. So in fact the second years were lolling behind carrying nothing at all. Instead they were listening politely to the boy’s mother who was telling them about little Toby’s recent summer, half of which had been spent gaining impossibly valuable work experience in the offices of the Foreign Secretary, a personal friend, and the other half in Argentina participating in a polo tournament.

Jolyon meanwhile had been carrying his heavy bags alone all day. A twenty-minute walk to the station, a train journey, a Tube journey, a second train journey, another twenty-minute walk to Pitt. For months his separated parents had argued over which of them would drive him to college. As their shots ricocheted around him, Jolyon detected in the smell of the gunpowder the true nub of the problem, the unspoken question – which one of us deserves more credit for the cleverness of our son? Neither of his parents would submit and no fraction of the credit seemed attributable to Jolyon himself. And then the date for his parents’ divorce hearing had come through. That date was today. Problem solved.

So now, while his parents were no doubt being physically restrained by their lawyers, Jolyon found himself carrying a large and heavy suitcase and, over his shoulder, a sports bag full of as many books and cassettes as he could cram inside. His shoulders ached and his hands and arms now hung at his sides utterly devoid of blood and strength. And the sight of little Toby had confirmed for Jolyon everything he feared this place would be. So yes, he was feeling crabby. More than a little maybe.

But despite his ill mood Jolyon had warmed to the American as soon as he had spoken. Jolyon had taken a year off travelling before college, finding odd jobs as he made his way around the world, always worried the money would run out and he would have to return home to his feuding parents – parents who couldn’t send him any money because they worked as schoolteachers and were both using what little money they had to pay their divorce lawyers. During his travels, Jolyon had liked all the young Americans he’d come across. In Vietnam he had taken up with a group of friends from New Mexico, including the smartest, most beautiful girl he’d ever met. He had planned on sticking with the pack as they headed west to Cambodia, even though he had just come from Cambodia himself. And that’s when the smartest, most beautiful girl had told him about her boyfriend back home. No, more than a boyfriend – she took a deep breath and revealed a ring that she kept in her pocket. Her fiancé.

So Jolyon scuttled away to Thailand instead. He found a job in a beach bar and barely thought about his feuding parents at all, only about the girl, the feel of the sand between their dovetailing fingers when they would walk ankle-deep through the surf.