LVI(v) The news spread quickly around Pitt.
Over the next few days, Jolyon was shouted at outside lecture halls, jeered from the bar, spat on several times, called a racist many hundreds of times, a pig, fascist, wanker, porn junkie, misogynist, porno pimp, ‘Tug’, sex fiend, Nazi, paedophile and, by Nadia Joshi, chairperson of the Asian Students’ Association, a crypto-Klan Paki basher.
Mark suspended his tailing of Jolyon for a short time, not wanting to be associated with such a vilified character, the taint of ‘racist’ perhaps the very worst to be marked with at Pitt. He walked into Jolyon’s room to tell him as much and also to express his admiration for Chad and Dee. He suggested it would soon be necessary for him to step up his own game, although he also continued to employ his sleep-deprivation tactics. Jolyon, wide awake at two o’clock one night, had discovered that the window tapping was achieved by use of a drawing pin pushed into the end of a bamboo cane.
As his notoriety swelled, Jolyon spent more and more time alone in his room, waiting for the tap tap tap and the music like a splintering earth. He lay on his bed feeling the weight of Pitt’s hatred for him being piled on his chest like vast slabs.
Jolyon had never taken any pleasure from that fact that he was universally adored at Pitt. He had felt only the vague impression that, yes, he was mostly liked and being liked was probably better than not being liked. But the sense of being hated was a sickness infecting every cell of his body. Love was something that had vanished without leaving its mark on Jolyon. But being hated was a feeling he would never shake. A feeling that gathered and calcified. And formed its thick mass at his heart.
LVII
LVII Dee is curled up on my sofa, no more tears for now.
I am opening cupboards I have opened two or three times already. The cupboards are empty, their contents strewn across the floor.
It’s not here, Jolyon, it’s not here.
It has to be, I say, picking up a rug, throwing it into a corner.
It’s not here. It’s not here!
Dee, you’ve been coming to my apartment, do you remember –
Don’t you dare! Don’t even dare try to blame me, Jolyon.
No no no, Dee, no blame. Your memory’s so much better, maybe I left it in the same spot every day. My hands fly all around me, pointing and waving, finally gripping the back of my skull.
You’ve lost it, Dee shouts, quickly sitting up, her sandals loud on my floorboards. The only thing I cared about, Jolyon. Gone.
Was it in here? That’s all I need to know, I say, moving in circles now, trampling photographs, memories. Maybe I took it with me when I went out walking, I say.
What do you mean took it with you? Dee cries. You mean it could be anywhere in New York?
No, I don’t know. I’m not saying I took it. I don’t know. I don’t . . . My nose is throbbing, the floor is a mess, my life scattered, misplaced. I fall back against the wall and slip down to the floor holding my hands to my face.
And then I hear Dee standing above me, her voice raining down on my shame. Unless you find my poems, Jolyon, you will never, ever see me again. Never. If I see you in the park by the Christmas tree at six one night then I’ll know you’ve found them. Otherwise, don’t bother, you won’t see me. How could I forgive you, Jolyon? Why did I ever forgive you?
I look up at Dee expecting to see anger on her face, thinking that I must meet her gaze. I deserve her rage, my punishment. But she doesn’t look angry, she looks immensely sad, Dee looks as if I have broken her.
She turns her head away from me and crosses her arms as if to ward off a chill. Her feet begin to pick out a path among the mess of my ransacked apartment, the shapeliness of her calves receding as I close my eyes.
And then I hear the door slam. I feel its shiver in the wall. My nose is definitely broken.
LVIII
LVIII(i) Jolyon was caught in a pincer movement, the Game on one side and Mark on the other. But Hilary term was ending and Mark, at least, was returning home. He came to see Jolyon to deliver a parting line. ‘Make sure to get some sleep then, Jolyon. Phase four begins next term.’
But still Jolyon couldn’t sleep. He was staying on at Pitt, the Game would continue to be played throughout the six-week break. A vote had been taken on the matter, two votes in favour . . . Jolyon hadn’t even bothered to acknowledge the procedure.
And so they played on. Chad and Dee continued to conspire and Jolyon continued to lose. But with most of the student population absent for six weeks, his opponents had to find their humiliations for Jolyon in the broader life of the city. At working-class pubs, cheap eateries, supermarkets . . . anywhere students were despised in the city. Day after day it was a mixture of the banal and excruciating. Public nudity, a one-man demonstration against immigration, street performance – unicycle, mime, Shakespeare – and a consequence to which they gave the name ‘Nuptials Interruptus’. Jolyon had to sit in on the wedding of two strangers and rise to proclaim just cause as to why the bride and groom should not be joined in holy matrimony. He was in love with the bride, he said, they were engaged in a torrid affair. He was chased from the church, threats being yelled as he fled. There was exhibitionism, heckling, rap, pretension, cross-dressing, auditioning, money-burning, experimental dance, snobbery, solicitation . . .
He lay in bed at night reliving the looks in strangers’ eyes. He could recall their faces with greater clarity than their words, their abuse. And so for the first time in Jolyon’s life, strangers were becoming something to fear, his days beginning to warp and crack, being shaped by the opinions of people he knew nothing about.
LVIII(ii) A week before Trinity term was due to begin, Jolyon made an appointment to see the college doctor, an affable gentleman wearing a regimental tie.
The doctor weighed up the creature before him and started to jot merrily on his prescription pad. Yes, it was very brave of Jolyon to come. And one could actually do things about insomnia and depression these days, old chap, medicine had made remarkable leaps and bounds. The doctor handed Jolyon a prescription for three types of pharmaceutical. No need to fret any longer. Jolyon should be sure to return if he required anything more. Anything at all, old chap. He made Jolyon promise. And Jolyon promised he would.
LVIII(iii) He pulled his scarf up to his nose as he left Pitt. It was a college scarf, the one they had bought for Chad to wear in the early days of the Game. But there would be more to Jolyon’s day than the simple wearing of a scarf.
He took a bus and met the others outside. Tallest was there, several feet away from Chad and Dee, who handed Jolyon his ticket. Jolyon’s seat was two rows in front of the others, they didn’t want to be associated with him once everything began.
In they went and Jolyon took his seat wearing the red-and-white scarf, which stuck out sharply surrounded by so much yellow and blue. Yellow-blue scarves, yellow-blue shirts, yellow-blue banners.
When the football match started, so did the singing and screaming. United, United, United. Fucking blind. Fucking cheat. Fucking nail ’im.
They had given Jolyon ten minutes to stand up and chant his first song, a familiar football tune but with a new set of lyrics. The opposition goalkeeper, Philippe Gherab, had been purchased from Le Havre. Chad and Dee had done their research.