Free Black Chalk by Christopher J. Yates Page B

again.
    ‘We’re not keeping you up, are we, Mark?’ said Emilia.
    ‘No,’ said Mark. ‘Honestly, this is the time of day when I most come alive.’ He repositioned the pillow beneath his head and became motionless again.
    Chad tried to think of a recent injustice to share with the room but nothing came immediately to mind. And then he did think of something Pitt’s liaison officer had said about preferential access to the computing suite, the computers there having been purchased with donated American dollars. But Jolyon spoke before he had time to weigh up the tale’s worth. ‘OK, Jack. I bet you a tenner Wiseman shows less interest in my teacher dad than your Royal Mail executive father. Assuming you don’t lie and say postman as usual.’
    ‘Come on,’ said Jack, ‘you have to allow me postman. Just to see him sprint away like he’s bumped into a pigeon-toed leper.’
    ‘God, you should hear yourselves,’ said Emilia. ‘Little boys turning this into some kind of game. My dad’s not this, my dad’s not that, but your dad’s definitely the other.’
    It had taken Chad some time to adjust to their ways. While Chad felt ashamed of being a farm boy, his new friends all seemed proud of their lack of breeding, everyone trumpeting their poor upbringing or the inadequacies of their high schools. Pitt College felt like America turned back to front and maybe also on its head. But gradually Chad had come to understand his friends, they had all made it to Pitt because of intelligence. They had, every one of them, proved themselves the cleverest at their schools. But intellectually they began here as equals, not one of them could yet be identified as top of the heap.
    What they did have was background and so lack of privilege or money became the medals of honour they polished in public each day. They were the brightest of the blooms that had sprung from the harshest soils, like a long-distance runner from Kenya who had trained in the dust with no shoes. A natural. Each of them yearned for the great status that disadvantage could bestow, because in truth they all felt scared, fearful they had slipped through the net and they really didn’t belong there at all.
    Even Emilia played this game. She tried to sound weary of the boys, their public breast-beating, their peacock displays. They might as well have hung their disadvantages out from their jeans and compared lengths. She was like a schoolgirl disparaging schoolboys fighting dustily in the playground but then dating the one to emerge with the best of the scalps and the scars.
    ‘Look,’ said Jack, ‘Mark’s dad might just work in a small bookshop but he does own the bookshop. And his mum is a lecturer at LSE. And if you’re a teacher like Fauntleroy’s parents, you have at least been to university. My dad started on the counters, sixteen, straight out of school. No one from my family has even been to university.’
    ‘You’re just a bunch of soft southerners,’ said Emilia. ‘And you all lose, by the way, not that any of it matters.’
    ‘Just being from Yorkshire doesn’t automatically entitle you to win,’ said Jack. ‘But come on then. Let’s hear it, blondie.’
    Emilia lifted one of her legs and propelled the sole of her boot into Jack’s shin.
    Jack cried out in pain. ‘Jesus, that fuckingwell hurt,’ he said.
    ‘That’s right,’ said Emilia, ‘and next time you call me blondie I’ll punch you in the face.’
    ‘All right, all right,’ said Jack, raising his palms in surrender. ‘Go on then, tell us your tales of northern fucking woe.’
    ‘My dad was a miner,’ said Emilia.
    ‘Oh Christ but that’s perfect,’ said Jack.
    ‘What do you mean?’ said Emilia, readying her foot.
    ‘Nothing, nothing,’ said Jack, waving furiously at Emilia’s boots. ‘Really, nothing bad. We’ll explain later. We are going to tell them later on, aren’t we, Jolyon?’
    ‘Absolutely,’ said Jolyon. He folded his piece of paper in half and