I pick up Dee’s book from the table and start to flick through its pages covered in red ink until I pass poem four hundred and ninety-nine. The rest of the pages are blank. Suddenly I realise something. I look up sharply at Chad. So Dee never finished reading my story? I say.
Me neither, Chad says. Well, you stopped going for your walks after you thought you’d lost Dee’s book. And I thought I’d done enough by then, it didn’t matter to me any more. Anyway, we all know how your story ends. Mark jumps and you leave Pitt, Chad says. And we’re all just as much to blame as each other.
He pinches the bridge of his nose and then takes a sip from his mug. Chad doesn’t see me looking up and breathing out hard, offering my silent prayer of thanks.
I slap my hands on my thighs. You know what I feel like right now? I say to Chad. I feel like going for a walk. Let’s blow off the cobwebs. Would you like to take a walk with me?
A walk? Chad says. You mean one of your medicinal strolls? Shouldn’t I stay here and rewrite your life for you? he says.
LXXV(vi) We turn left out of the building toward the park.
Chad’s hands are pushed deep in his pockets. So how much do you know about what happened with my father? Chad asks.
The cancer story, you mean? Your mother told me everything, I think.
Chad sighs. The one thing in the world I wouldn’t do, he says. Unbelievable.
Your mother wants to meet you, Chad, I say. Without your father there, you don’t have to see him. She said she’d come to the city, or anywhere you want. She’s waiting by the phone every day. Five past twelve, she said to call then and she’ll answer, your father won’t ever know.
Still feeding those damn pigs at noon every day, Chad says. I don’t know. She stayed married to him, didn’t she?
Going and seeing your mother doesn’t mean your father’s won, Chad, I say. Anyway, I promised her I’d pass on the message.
Thanks, Jolyon, Chad says.
We fall silent for a moment but I can sense there is something Chad wants to tell me. He pushes back his hair, begins to slow down. Jolyon, there’s something Middle said to me back at Pitt. I never told you, I never mentioned this to any of you. Just before he left Game Soc, he said to me it’s possible we would be told things. Not about Game Soc but something much larger. And he said he didn’t know if it was all just ghost stories but the only sensible way to behave would be to act as if it were true. He said, the longer you stay in the game, the more dangerous things become. I thought about what he said every time I opened one of those letters in green pen.
Our pace has slowed to a standstill. Chad turns and drops down onto a stoop, he sits with his legs wide apart.
Why didn’t you tell us? And why was Middle talking to you? I ask.
He told Emilia as well, Chad says. I suppose he assumed we’d pass on the message. Half an hour later Emilia got hit by a truck and she only remembered the dare we had planned for her. So I had this whole can of worms to myself. Chad stares off to the side. Truthfully? he says. I think perhaps it gave me a secret thrill. It was as if the whole thing were an adventure. But then I grew up. And I’m happy with where I got to, Jolyon. I don’t want any more adventures.
Chad looks small now, hunched down on the steps.
I think Shortest is a sadist, Chad, I say. The only game still going on is the one inside his twisted little mind.
That’s easy for you to say, Jolyon, you won. There’s nothing left for you to be afraid of any more. Anyway, I always thought it was Tallest behind the whole thing. Why Shortest?
Come on, I say, pulling Chad to his feet. This was supposed to be a medicinal stroll, remember? Let’s not talk about the Game any more.
We walk on in silence until we reach the end of the block and cross the road.
Around the grassy knoll? Chad says.
It is gloomy beneath the trees at the entrance to the park. Clouds have gathered overhead, hot clouds, and the air is pushed low.
No, I say, let’s just keep going on Seventh.
So you married an American, Chad laughs.
Worse than that, I say, I’m a bone fide American citizen. Four years now, it came through just before my divorce.
Then you beat me to it, Chad says. I got my British citizenship three years ago. He bites his lip, makes a sucking sound. Man, look at us, he says. You an American, me now a Brit. It’s almost as if we swapped places.
We walk on and begin to talk about old times. The day we first met, my strangled hands. Named after a Third World fucking country. Country and western singer, suede tassels, big hooters. Hooh-durrs, I say, mimicking Chad.
A decade in this country and you still can’t do the accent, he jokes.
I feel a spot of rain hit my nose and a few seconds later the first great gush of the downpour lands all at once as if a large bucketful of water has been thrown from a tall building nearby. We look at each other and then toward the shelter of the trees in the park. We both start running in the direction of a grand old elm. It is not far but when we reach the tree’s cover already we are soaked to the skin. I lean back against the elm tree and we both begin laughing. We laugh together like we used to before some other kind of life came along.
And then Chad puts his arm around my shoulders and looks up at the canopy sheltering us. Man, look at this huge gnarled old thing, he says.
Garlands of dried flowers hang from the trunk. Chad slaps his hand affectionately against the back of my neck and turns away. He begins to trace his finger around the bark, beneath the string of flowers. As Chad moves around the tree, I get down on my haunches and start rubbing my hair, my back fitting smoothly into a hollow in the trunk. I wipe the rainwater from my face. It feels good to be happy and wet. I let my head flop back against the tree and close my eyes.
I’ll help you, Chad, I call out. Whatever it is you have to do for them, if it’s anything at all, then I want to help you. Please, promise you’ll let me help you.
Chad doesn’t answer me. I open my eyes but can’t see him. I stand and I circle around the tree, following the garlands of flowers.
But he is gone. The rain is steady now, a maze of beaded curtains. And Chad is nowhere to be seen.
LXXVI
LXXVI(i) I stare at the clock, waiting for its final digit to change from a four to a five. And then I make the call.
Her gratitude is overwhelming, before I can ask her a question she is full of thank-yous and tears.
When did you see him? I ask.
Just a few days ago, Chad’s mother says.
Where? I ask her. Down here in Manhattan?
No, she says, a Johnny Rockets in a mall near Albany. It was only for a few hours. He said he had some important matters to take care of back down in the city. You haven’t seen him since he got back?
I’m sure I will, I say.
We talk some more. I let her tell me about her son, that she baked him cookies, they were always his favourite, he hasn’t changed one little bit . . . And then I tell her I have to go.