Dee snorted and something in the room softened. ‘Don’t make the mistake of thinking that medieval fashion is passé, Jackie-oh.’
‘Oh no,’ said Jack, ‘that’s a mistake I’ve made once too fucking often.’
‘Come on, Jack,’ said Emilia, ‘this is serious,’ she said, but she couldn’t keep a half-smile from appearing at the corner of her mouth.
‘I vote veto,’ said Jack. ‘I’m sorry, Jolyon, Chad. In theory I’m completely with you. A hundred per cent. But in practice I have to go this way right now.’ Jack swallowed and his eyes darted to Jolyon but Jolyon was looking elsewhere.
‘Three votes in favour of the veto, two against,’ said Emilia. ‘Dee, it’s all down to you, I’m afraid.’
Dee removed her hat and smoothed her hair. She seemed not to have to think very hard before giving her answer. ‘I’m against the veto,’ she said.
‘Fuck that,’ Mark shouted. ‘Why? What the fuck, Dee?’
‘I don’t have to explain myself,’ said Dee. She put the hat back on her head and then cocked it forward and slightly askew.
Emilia gave Dee a confused glance and then looked consolingly at Mark. ‘I’m so sorry, Mark,’ she said.
‘But I didn’t lose the vote,’ said Mark.
‘You didn’t win it, mate,’ said Jack.
‘But I didn’t lose the vote. I didn’t lose the fucking vote. So fine. I’m out of this horror show and you can keep your stupid childish little game. And I get back my deposit. Because the vote was inconclusive.’
Jolyon and Chad had visibly been making an effort to remain detached from the conversation. But before Chad could think of what he wanted to say, Jolyon was shouting. ‘No you don’t, Mark, no way. That’s not in the rules. A player performs all consequences drawn before leaving the Game or the Game keeps that player’s deposit and adds it to the prize fund. We were always explicitly clear about that.’
‘Fuck you, Jolyon.’ Mark’s anger flared again but its energy was sapped. He had to stir himself for the fight this time.
‘Oh, not this again,’ said Jolyon. ‘It’s becoming tiresome, Mark. Fuck me? OK, fine. That’s me fucked then. And now we’ll have another vote if you like. I say no deposit, so that’s one. Dee?’ Dee shook her head. ‘Chad?’ Chad did the same.
‘Fuck the three of you,’ said Mark. ‘But you, Jolyon, you listen to me. I’m getting my deposit back and I’m holding you personally liable. You, Jolyon, you. This doesn’t end until you place that money in my hand. Personally. You don’t sleep, you don’t get to read quietly in the refectory on your own, you don’t get to walk down the street without . . . without something . . . You’ll see. You just wait. Until this injustice . . . Until then.’
Snap. And it was Jolyon’s teeth now. He was untethered, the last cable severed. Throat and gut and spleen, words were not sounds any more, were no longer vowels or consonants. Words were feelings and the feelings were good. His words were soaring, Jolyon was flying.
And then Mark was on him, his flesh but even more his bones. Knucklebones, kneebones. And then a crush as other bodies piled above him, above them both. Jolyon felt a panic, the lack of a breath, two breaths, three.
Then at last the relief of fresh air, the hard suck and swallow of life returning. And Mark receding. Jack and Chad receding. Mark shouting again. ‘I’m telling everyone, I’m telling everyone about your stupid game.’
Suddenly Middle jumped to his feet. ‘No,’ he cried out, ‘no you can’t.’
‘Everyone,’ Mark shouted back at him.
And Middle moved toward him but not with any sense of threat. Placing a hand on Mark’s shoulder, he glanced at the door and then spoke in a low voice as if afraid that someone might be listening. ‘Please,’ said Middle, ‘you don’t want to do that, Mark. Please.’
And everyone in the room became quiet as they were surrounded by the gently echoing sincerity of that final word.
Jack and Chad were not holding him tightly now and Mark’s body slackened. He looked confused and uncertain.
Chad opened the door. Three bodies departed. The door closed.
XXXIX
XXXIX I am overcome with joy.
This happens to be true. I’m not saying this solely to please my visitor.
Yes yes yes. I agree to all rules, guidelines, frameworks . . .
And I mean this as well, absolutely I do. But my feelings of joy at seeing that my visitor had left me a note were soon transformed into a sense of breathless panic. Because, you see, I don’t remember the pool table or being thrown out. I don’t remember my drunken declarations of love. And therefore I have no idea whose name I called out. And if I reveal this to my visitor now, if I admit to forgetting her a second time . . .
Yet neither name seems any more likely than the other.
Emilia, Dee.
Dee, Emilia.
I loved them both. If things had only turned out differently . . .
And so now there is something important I must do with my story, something I need to tell you about. Henceforth, when I type in italics, these passages will be strictly for your eyes only. For you and only you, my reader. Which means there now exist two versions of my story. Not that I will be writing an entirely different account. Both versions will be the same file copied and recopied to keep them identical. The only difference will be the italicised passages, these italicised passages, which my visitor simply must not read.
This italicised version will lay hidden, buried like pirate gold, nestling inside a folder inside a folder inside a folder . . . the last in a series of Russian dolls, folders with names like Utilities, Dialogues, Cookies, Mnemonics and Preferences. I have created blind alleys and false leads like the wrong turns in a maze. At certain dead ends I have thrown in older versions of this story, or articles I worked on years ago for the paper. There is no way that my visitor can find the hidden treasure of this second version.
Because I want to be honest with you, my intended reader. I want to be honest with the world. But my visitor will expect me to start using her name, hence my panic. And I don’t want to lose her again. I don’t want to lose her for good.
*
I pace around my apartment in a state of high anxiety. Emilia or Dee? Dee or Emilia? I lie on my bed, sit at my table, stand by my window. Nothing comes to me. I pull on my sneakers.
*
I start to walk aimlessly, my mind whirling pointlessly without anything physical that might nudge me toward remembering her. Emilia or Dee? Dee or Emilia? My system has failed me. Or maybe I have failed my system. I loiter in a drugstore staring at its shelves of cigarettes. I go into a liquor store to pore over its bottles of whisky. And then I stand outside a women’s clothes store blinking at the window display, its crowd of draped mannequins. But nothing comes back to me.
Evening has arrived when I find myself in the park.
And that’s when it happens.
*
I hear a voice calling out, Hey! Hey, you! The voice is getting louder. Looking up, I see a young man staring angrily at me, striding closer and closer. When he is in front of me, he pushes my shoulder and yells, I said, asshole, you owe me twenty bucks.