Black Chalk by Albert Alla Page A

coach. He’s making me change my grip.’
    â€˜Your grip was fine,’ I said. ‘What’s he showing you? The Vs?’ I parted my thumbs and index fingers into a V and held out both hands with the Vs aligned.
    â€˜Yeah.’
    â€˜They always want people to do that, but Atherton holds his bat the way you do, and didn’t that serve him well? And you scored runs last season. He should just accept your way works.’
    â€˜He reckons it’s better against the swinging ball.’
    â€˜Pff, don’t worry about that. If the ball’s swinging, you need to be able to play late and straight. And that’s the key for all batting, swing, spin, all of it. If you can do that already, don’t go changing your grip.’
    He nodded and looked down.
    â€˜How’s your bowling coming along?’ I asked him.
    â€˜Good.’
    â€˜Is he changing anything there?’
    â€˜He’s making me work on my left arm. Use it more.’
    â€˜That’s good,’ I said. ‘I’m sure he’s a good coach.’ I paused. ‘And how’s school?’
    â€˜Fine.’
    â€˜Just fine?’
    â€˜Well… Yeah, I guess.’
    â€˜Okay. What are the other kids saying?’
    â€˜They… Nothing. Everyone’s just, you know?’
    â€˜Yeah,’ I said, because yeah was what I had to say. ‘And home?’
    â€˜Fine,’ he said, and he looked up, searching my face. ‘Mum’s being annoying.’ He gazed at me for a second before he started to speak very quickly: ‘Dad says it’s because she’s stressed, but she annoys him too. I know, I heard them fight.’ He stopped and studied me again.
    â€˜What about?’ I asked.
    â€˜You. Dad says Mum is spending too much time talking to everyone, and Mum says she has to, for you she says, but Dad thinks she should let the police do their job, and Mum says she doesn’t want them to get it wrong.’ He paused. ‘And Dad’s not happy,’ he finished, looking satisfied.
    I nodded for a few moments while I pictured the scene. Then, as I started to grimace, I changed the topic:
    â€˜Mum says Dad’s taking care of you. What’s he cooking? Eggs and beans on toast?’
    James smiled.
    ***
    My relationship with Anna ended strangely. I broke it off because it had come to that. Even though I still wanted to be with her, I had to bow to the inevitable.
    It was a summer romance, strung through parties and gatherings, at first when we were drunk and high, strings weaving away from the public eye, with stolen moments in smaller outings, and then with just us two, alone and together. I approached her full of confidence. A month earlier, I’d had sex for the first time, at a friend of a friend’s party in Oxford, and ever since, I’d eyed every woman with a newfound understanding: years of Playboy , pictures downloaded over dial-up, it suddenly made so much sense. When Anna started talking to me, my thoughts went beyond the mirage of my cock in her pussy. I wanted to put my nose in her navel, to count how many fingers I could put around her thigh.
    She was coming out of an eight-month relationship with a nineteen-year-old boy – an aspiring plumber who was at a technical college on the outskirts of Oxford. After each of our first two booze-fuelled make-out sessions, I tried calling her, emailing her, all in vain. By the time of the party on Old Road, when thirty of us invaded the park that straddled the top of the hill, I’d had enough. Jeffrey agreed – she was acting like a spoiled brat. To avoid her, I shifted from one group to another until long after the sun had set, and we were all drifting into drunkenness.
    â€˜So,’ she said, standing above me, ‘how are you today?’ She pushed my bag aside and sat next to me. Her arm accidentally touched my thigh, and I asked myself why I hadn’t sought her out earlier. It