‘De Moivre,’ he said. ‘Heard of him?’
‘Didn’t he write something to do with complex numbers?’
‘De Moivre’s Law is a hypothetical model which can be used to predict how long people are going to live. For calculating annuities and so on. De Moivre was commonly held to have predicted the date of his own death.’
‘Maths as magic,’ I said. ‘Nice.’
He smiled. It must be the first time he’d ever smiled at me as if he agreed, and not as if he was smirking at my stupidity. It was surprising how it nearly made me forget to despise him. ‘Exactly,’ he said. ‘Since you want to work on something risibly difficult … How about death?’
‘Death?’ I repeated, like an idiot.
‘There’s a lot of material. I mean, it’s huge. Enormous. I think we’d be mad—’ He caught himself and looked away, tensing, as he waited for me to make the inevitable comment about his family. There was a second’s pause, and then he went on in a kind of rush. ‘We’d be mad to do it. But … there’s a musical precedent. The Danse Macabre – Saint-Saëns, Liszt.’
‘Shakespeare, Dante,’ I said. ‘“I had not thought death had undone so many …”’
He grinned. ‘The structure of the Requiem Mass, the tension between an individual and infinity – asymptotes …’
‘Yes! The rituals of mortality, decomposition and belief in the eternal.’
‘The impossibility of comprehending the magnitude of our own demise – our own insignificance.’ He was teasing me, but he was excited, too, I think.
‘The undiscovered country – the deepest mystery of existence itself!’ It tipped me over the edge, and I started to giggle like a little kid. And suddenly he joined in, in a sort of high-pitched splutter, his shoulders shaking. I’d never heard him laugh like that. I didn’t know he could laugh. I thought anything more than a contemptuous snort would make him rupture something. ‘All right,’ I said, when I could speak again. ‘You’re on.’
‘If we fail—’
‘We fail?’ I said, in my best Lady Macbeth voice. As soon as I said it I was sure he’d raise an eyebrow and say something snobbish about the theatre, but to my surprise it made him catch at another gulp of laughter. Then that set us both off again. It was – I’ve only thought of this now, but it’s true – it was as if he’d never laughed before, and didn’t know how to deal with it. Or like someone who’s been holding back tears, until finally something snaps … But the strangest part of it was the way he got hold of himself – in a split second, from hysterical to sober, swallowing it all down. One moment he was giggling, like me, and I swear he meant it; but the next he was on his feet, his face set, almost angry. I drew back – maybe I’d touched his sleeve or something, I can’t remember, but nothing important, nothing that might have made him react like that, surely – and said, ‘What? What’s the matter?’
‘That’s settled, then,’ he said, without meeting my eyes. ‘The theme for our game is – death.’
‘We who are about to die, etc.,’ I said. ‘Yes.’
He still wouldn’t look at me. I suppose he was furious at himself for getting chummy with someone so thoroughly beneath him. He’d let me glimpse something real about him, and he couldn’t stand it … I felt all the dislike flood back. As if I’d thought one bout of fou rire could make him into a decent human being.
‘You’d better go,’ he said. ‘I’ve got work to do.’
I said, ‘I thought this was work. I’m certainly not here to enjoy myself.’
He shot me a glance. I glared back at him, daring him to say something snide about my Lady Macbeth impression. He didn’t. Not aloud, anyway.
I scraped up my notes. ‘You’re right. We both have better things to do.’ One of his pages was on top and I dropped it on the floor. ‘Work up the de Moivre theme for tomorrow. I’ll have a look at some of the text.’
He blinked. You have to give him credit for realising that he couldn’t take exception to my tone, given how he’d spoken to me. ‘All right,’ he said.
‘Good.’
There was a sort of tense pause while we tried to work out who was backing down. (For the record, it was him.) Then I left and slammed the door on him.
It’s dinner time. I’d better go.
Beginning of fifth week, Serotine Term
Where was I? Oh yes. We were making progress. Still are, actually.
Yesterday evening we worked straight through from meditation to past midnight. Halfway through dinner I caught sight of Felix and wondered why he was looking at me oddly; later I realised that it was because Carfax and I were sitting together, thrashing out one of the bits of counterpoint. It’s true that I’d never choose to sit with him normally, but it didn’t make sense to break off our conversation. We’re at that stage where everything is fermenting so fast you have to keep siphoning off the top, or it’ll all overflow and be lost. I didn’t realise what a joint game would be like; even though it’s Carfax, it’s exciting – more exciting, I think, than writing a grand jeu on my own. Less lonely. And there are those moments when something uncanny happens, something else steps into the space between us, and we’re both left marvelling at a move neither of us would ever play. I love the way the game is held together by the music – Carfax’s music, I have to admit he’s a much better musician than I am – and the way that gives us more freedom, not less. I can let him look after the structure, and add my own harmonies and ideas … It’s funny, his style is classical and clean, so I don’t understand why he makes me feel more exuberant, more daring. Maybe I’m trying to outdo him. I love it when I add a move to something he thinks is already finished, and pass it back to him, thinking: take that. Especially when he pretends to bang his head on the desk or gives me a filthy look.
It’s bloody hard, though. He was right, we’re mad to be trying it. I keep waking up in the middle of the night, imagining the Magisters’ Remarks: This subject is an audacious and indeed distressing choice for second-year scholars, since what might otherwise have appeared confidence is necessarily exposed as the grossest (and most unfounded) arrogance … Or maybe, even if we stick with the themes, we should take out the Christian stuff? It works, and Magister Holt wouldn’t mark us down for that, but it might be frowned on by some of the others … Argh. It’s driving me off my onion. My only consolation is that if they slate it, at least Carfax will get the same mark.
Felix keeps asking what we’re working on. He was quite persistent this morning, and I don’t know why it gave me such satisfaction to tell him it was none of his business. It might have been something to do with the way he sank down next to me at breakfast, as if he was my best friend. (Best friend! Ugh, it’s like schoolgirls.) I stood up to leave quite soon after that, as I had to go to the library to look up a bit of Webster, and he gave me a very funny look. ‘You and Carfax,’ he said. ‘Are you …?’
‘What?’
‘You still hate him, right?’