It was hard to read. Or hard to take in, anyway. I had to blink at it.
It was a game. A grand jeu. But … not. It was utterly sparse, utterly austere. Hardly anything on the page, only the one principal mark. Like a single slash across a canvas. Red.
He swallowed. ‘I’m just playing with it, really,’ he said, after a pause. ‘I want to know how much space I can leave. Can one move be a game? Can you compose a grand jeu without maths or music or words?’
I said, keeping my voice very flat, ‘Well, clearly you know the answer to that.’
He frowned, trying to work out whether I meant yes or no. But I didn’t help him out.
‘Writing one game to submit for the Gold Medal isn’t enough for you,’ I said, in that same expressionless voice. ‘You have to write an extra one. To show me how easy it all is. Right?’
‘I won’t submit this.’
‘Why are you writing it, then?’
He shook his head. ‘For fun. Don’t be stupid. You know how it is, you get an idea and … anyway, what’s wrong with that? I’ve finished the Tempest, more or less. That’s the one I’m going to submit.’
‘You’ve finished it? For God’s sake, Carfax.’ I stood up. All that time he’d been watching me sweat over my Reflections. He must have been giggling merrily away to himself.
‘What’s the matter? It’s no skin off your nose, is it?’
I pushed his notebook at him. I didn’t mean to hit him but he jerked away and put his hand over his eye. I should have apologised, but I didn’t. ‘You make me sick,’ I said, and left him to it.
Sixth day, tenth week
He didn’t mention it again, and neither did I, and we’ve been mostly polite to each other since Tuesday. But over the last few days I couldn’t stop thinking about it. So yesterday night I asked him if I could borrow his notebook. He said yes, but I could see from the way he hesitated first that he didn’t quite trust me. So I said, ‘I won’t take it out of your sight. Just let me have a look, OK?’
Later he brought it to my room. He lay on my bed and read a textbook while I studied the game. I don’t know, ‘studied’ isn’t the right word, really. I contemplated it. It’s like one of those religious icons: utterly simple in some ways, but you can stare and stare.
It’s so good. It’s gone beyond our competent, clever games. It’s something else. It’s as if everyone is writing symphonies and suddenly he’s played a single note – one note that holds other notes inside it, like one strike of a standing bell. Echoes and resonances but astoundingly simple, a challenge to the whole question of what makes a grand jeu – and yet it’s skilful, it isn’t empty because he can’t cope with complexity, it’s technically dazzling, it’s whole … One well-chosen move that alludes to the whole of perception and culture and humanity … I don’t know whether I admire him or resent him. Well, both. But I don’t know which one is winning.
Red. I suppose, in a way, he’s engaging with semiology on the most fundamental level. No one can ever know that ‘red’ is universal, that what I mean by it is the same as what you see. We take it on trust – that’s what language does – but we can never know … Which is obvious when you’re talking about a colour, but in the context of the grand jeu it becomes a metaphor for communication, understanding, pain, love, worship – our attempt to express something, anything, and hope that it’s common to all of us. His game is about redness, but there’s nothing red on the page. It’s all there in black and white. That contradiction: language means absence. The grand jeu is about God, but it means God isn’t there, because otherwise there’d be no need for it … Red. One single move. It’s crazy, but it’s perfect. It makes me angry that it’s so weirdly powerful. It ought to be facile, easily dismissable, some undergraduatish joke. (Essay question: What is courage? Answer: This is.) But somehow he’s got power into it. So much space, one move sitting in the middle of silence, and it sticks in your head. Like the Magister Musicae talking about the margins of music, about how sometimes the most interesting things happen in the rests or the gaps between notes.
After a while I pushed my chair back and linked my hands behind my head, staring at the ceiling. Carfax watched me. Finally he put his book down on his chest and said, ‘It’s only an idea.’
I took a deep breath. ‘It’s brilliant.’
He snorted. Then he sat up. ‘Seriously? Do you mean that?’
‘I said so, didn’t I?’ I leant back until I could see his face. ‘Oh, come on. You must have some idea how good it is.’
‘I wasn’t sure.’
‘I’ve never seen anything like it. I bet the Magister Ludi hasn’t, either. Wonder what they’d make of it.’
‘I was only playing around.’
‘Oh, shut up.’ I let the front legs of my chair thud back on to the floor. ‘You’re a de Courcy, I should’ve known that you’d turn out to be a genius. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.’
He was silent for a moment. At last he said, ‘Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome.’
I couldn’t think of anything else to say. I shut the book and passed it to him. He took it, started to say something, thought better of it, and left.
How do I feel? Am I jealous? Yes. Of course. Part of me wants to burn it. Or write something better. Find a way to beat him, once and for all. Show him he’s human.
But also … at least it’s him.
First day, tenth week
Two weeks to go. Reflections is nearly done. This morning I caught myself wondering if I might actually manage to finish it before the day it has to be submitted. And it’s good. I’m moderately pleased with it. Although, after seeing the Red game, some of the shine has gone off it, to be honest.
Fifth day, tenth week
We had a late one last night. Carfax was helping me with the last (last!) bit of tangled thinking in Reflections. Now it’s as smooth as a mirror. As I was packing up my books – the clock had just struck two, I think – he said, ‘Thank you, Martin.’
‘What for? You’ve been helping me.’
‘I mean …’ He gestured, a wide ouverture-like movement. ‘Not only tonight. All of it. I know I can be a bit … It means a lot. I never thought I could be so happy here.’
‘Don’t be soppy.’
‘I’m not.’ He laughed. ‘All right, I am.’
Things have been going round in my head. The Red game, Carfax, Reflections, the Gold Medal … But today in the Quietus it all stopped. Suddenly I was full of happiness. As if the real me was somewhere above, weightless, hanging in the shaft of light like the dust-motes.
Third day, twelfth week
Done. Early.
Seventh day, twelfth week
Last night we stayed up late, talking. Sometimes it’s like the ideas catch fire, and he gets up and paces, as if the room’s filling up with smoke and heat. But yesterday it was easy, relaxed, the opposite of that. I’ve never felt so comfortable before, like it didn’t matter if I said something stupid. Carfax was lying on his bed, his hands behind his head, smiling at the ceiling, while I leant furtively out of the window to smoke the last cigarette from the packet that Emile gave me when he apologised for losing his temper, a couple of weeks ago. Somehow the conversation got on to the Red game. He said, ‘You know I got the idea from you?’