Am feeling very muddy, so hard to concentrate. Fingers not finding these keys so well. But I must try to be ready, the day of the comeback fight has arrived. The fighter waits in his dressing room. He seems defeated before he has even stepped into the ring. The audience can only hope for some miracle.
LXXI(v) The phone rings.
Jolyon, it’s me. Meet me by the Christmas tree, five minutes.
Click.
LXXI(vi) I feel the stir of my youth for the merest moment, my memory roused by the sight of her. Dee’s hair is dark again. Black and straight and sleek. She is hugging herself in the heat, beside the brief shadow of the tree.
I try not to stumble too much, not to lurch too wildly as I approach. I stop a few feet from her and Dee takes a step back.
So, did you find it? she says. Did you look, Jolyon?
Dee, you can’t even begin to know how sorry I am.
I’ve been to the police, Dee says desperately. I’ve spoken to all the people who work in the park. I’ve stopped strangers in the street and put up reward posters everywhere within ten blocks of your apartment. Nothing, Jolyon, nothing.
What should I say to Dee? That I have been too busy with my own words to look for hers? How many forms of guilt can I juggle at once? I want to reach out and stroke the dark silk of her hair. Don’t worry, Dee, I say. I’m going to find your poems. I’m going to find them, I say.
It’s too late, Jolyon. It’s too late. Dee’s eyes dart down. She is holding an envelope creased in her folded arms. She notices me looking and reaches out slowly, the letter trembling, and hands it to me. Don’t open it until you get back to your apartment, she says. Please, one last promise, Jolyon. I don’t want you to read it in public.
I promise, I say, taking the envelope, my name written on its front in red ink. Please, Dee, just one last chance. Let me try.
She forces a smile. It’s too late. It’s not your fault, Jolyon, but it is too late, Dee says, wrapping her arms around her body. And please don’t follow me. You won’t see me again, she says, looking down at the ground.
Dee, please, no, I say. Dee, what is it?
She turns and she hurries away.
LXXI(vii) The posters taunt me as I stumble home. Stapled to trees, beneath missing cats. Large reward.
I fall into my apartment and steady myself on the kitchen counter. I tear open the letter.
LXXI(viii) Oh, Jolyon, I hope I’m not too harsh to you in the park, I don’t want to be harsh. And please, I don’t want you to feel guilty. Perhaps I have been downplaying how hard I’ve been finding life for the past several years. Your story is so important, I didn’t want to distract you with the petty ins and outs of my own obscure existence.
Don’t blame yourself, Jolyon. I had fourteen years to right myself. And the failure is mine, all mine.
Please would you find it in your heart to hold on to the second page of this letter? And then, if you ever find it, if anyone ever finds it, you can paste it straight into my book. I would like that very much.
It makes me enormously happy to think that you might do one final thing for me.
It’s true, I never really deserved a saviour. I am so very, very sorry.
Dee x
LXXI(ix) While I read the note, I feel the grain of the second sheet of paper against my fingertips. Thicker, heavier, like a piece of old parchment.
Already I know what this is. The words don’t matter. But I let Dee’s note drop to the floor anyway.
The first thing I see, the first mark on the page, is a large and ornate initial decorated with scrollwork and vines. A stamp in red ink. My gift to her.
D (Black Chalk)
(i)
Six boys one day went running through the woods
inventing games while twisting through the leaves
Exhausted found a copse of old burned trees
and settled there to tally up the score
while feeling in their pockets for
the black chalk
(ii)
Aloft six clouds converged in breaking light
and flocks of angels grouped to form a list
debated who on earth was worthiest
But night had fallen when at last on high
they scrawled those names across the sky
in black chalk
(iii)
Six fledgling soldiers told to notch their guns
to keep engraved a note of every kill
were raising up their flag upon a hill
Then finding that the slate was deep within
they trembled as they filled it in
with black chalk
(iv)
And when soon comes the melancholy time
for you to speak of love, do not deceive
No love was earned and what did I achieve?
So draft upon the basalt tomb what was, what might have been
it is my final wish that you should write it in
black chalk
LXXI(x) Oh, Dee, no. Please, Dee, no. No no no.
LXXII Jolyon left Pitt and moved home to his mother’s house in Sussex. For the first month he spent most of his time sitting listlessly in his bedroom. But then he decided to look for a job, something to distract him before guilt sucked him under.
