“Who’s the moron now then, you spastic?”
“Frigging geek.”
Jackson was kicking out also, not at him, Michael realised belatedly, but at his schoolbag. It skidded away from him across the tarmac. Michael lunged after it, wondering at his own stupidity. Pullen threw himself on top of him, pinning him flat. An image rose in his mind: a can of Terminator insect spray with its famous cockroach logo. The cockroach was on its back, legs flailing as the poison dissolved its insides. Michael’s grandmother always kept a can of Terminator under her sink just in case. Grandma Lisa was generally fearless but she had a horror of large insects.
Michael forced himself forward, dragging himself across the tarmac with the full weight of Pullen on top of him. His knees whimpered with every movement but he knew if he didn’t throw Pullen off there would be worse to come. He tugged his right hand free and removed his glasses, tucking them inside his shirt. Somewhere far above him Pullen was making the chimp noise again. Then suddenly the weight was lifted. Michael gasped as his lungs reinflated. He realised someone must have got Pullen off him. As to who his rescuer might be he had no idea.
“What’s going on?”
A man’s voice, one he vaguely recognised but could not place. Michael squinted upwards, trying to establish if he was still in danger. Someone was gripping Pullen by the elbow and Michael realised with a shock that it was the man Lennox sometimes had staying with him, the man he had introduced to Michael as his nephew. Michael tried to recall his name but it wouldn’t come, and he wondered if in fact he had ever known it. The nephew was old, forty years old at least, his greying hair pulled into a straggly ponytail. He had a scar across one cheek, a hard white seam that followed the arc of his right eye socket like a line of stitching. He was wearing jeans and old trainers, like Michael, and a leather biker jacket that hung awkwardly on his narrow shoulders. Once, when Michael had gone to the bathroom in Lennox’s flat, he had caught sight of the nephew sprawled on the divan bed in Lennox’s spare room. His shoes were off, and there was a ragged hole in one of his socks. He had seen Michael and said hello, but that was all.
Jackson was tugging on Pullen’s other arm. Pullen hung suspended between the two of them like a lump of meat.
“Get off him, you pervert, or I’m calling the cops.” Jackson’s face had turned a fierce shade of red. His acne stood out like rivets.
“That works for me, I’m sure they’d have some interesting questions. Shame they’ve got better things to do really, isn’t it?” He let go of Pullen’s arm and gave him a shove. Pullen flew backwards into Jackson, who staggered under the impact and almost fell. “Sod off before I lose my temper.”
“Sod off yourself,” Jackson said. “There’s a mighty queer smell around here.” He turned abruptly and marched off down the road. Pullen slouched along after him, rubbing his arm.
“Are you hurt?” asked Lennox’s nephew. He touched Michael lightly on the shoulder. His grey eyes were the colour of rain.
“I’m OK,” Michael said. He bent down to retrieve his bag. He felt inside, checking his books, his computer chess set and his mobile phone. All seemed undamaged.
“I’d better be going,” he said. He replaced his glasses. “Thanks for helping me.”
“I was hoping you’d come back to the flat. Lennox asked me to meet you today – that’s why I’m here. He has something he wanted to give you. It won’t take long.”
Michael hesitated. He had never been alone with the nephew but if Lennox had sent him then it must be all right. Going to Lennox’s flat would also put off the moment when he had to go home. His mother would be fine but he dreaded having to explain things to his father. His mother didn’t care about chess, or at least she cared about it only insofar as it affected Michael. Luis Gomez pretended to be an expert. His questions were painfully embarrassing. He would be upset at Michael’s defeat without having the least idea of how to assess its importance. He would try to buck Michael up. The thought of this was more awful somehow than the thought of his father angry, which never happened anyway.
It had been Luis Gomez who found Lennox in the first place, who arranged for Michael to be enrolled at the school where he taught. It was Luis Gomez who paid for the extra lessons. Michael could not bear the thought of his stricken face.
“Will Lennox be there?” Michael asked.
“No,” said the nephew. “He’s still at the hospital.”
“OK,” Michael said. The man made him nervous but he was always uneasy with strangers. “But I can’t stay long.”
They stood at the bus stop and waited. There was a bus from outside the school that would take them right to Lennox’s door. Michael had travelled on it often, though never with Lennox. Lennox was always waiting for him at the flat when he arrived.
“I lost,” Michael said. In his head the words resounded like death knells. Let loose in the open air they seemed slightly less terrible.
“I know,” said Lennox’s nephew. “I could tell by your face.”
“Do you play?” Michael said. It was a relief to talk about it, he found, which was also surprising.
“I used to. Just a bit,” the nephew said, then laughed. Michael wondered what was funny and decided it was probably him.
* * *
Lennox lived in Kidbrooke, in one of the council blocks. The bin store stank of piss and the lift was often out of order, but the flats themselves were all right and Michael supposed Lennox had been lucky to get one. From Lennox’s living room you could see all the way to Greenwich and the river beyond.
Lennox’s nephew’s name was Colin Wilkes.
“I’m not really his nephew,” he said. “Lennox made that up so he didn’t keep having to explain things. Lennox hates talking about his private life. You must have noticed.”
“Who are you, then?”
Wilkes shrugged. “I’ve known Lennox since I was your age. We might as well be related.” He dug around in one of the kitchen cupboards and brought out a frying pan. “I’m going to do some eggs. Would you like some?”
Michael nodded. The mention of food made him salivate. It felt odd to be in the flat without Lennox, though Lennox never talked much even when he was there. Usually he would sit reading the paper while Michael worked on a chess problem. When he was done with the news he would bring Michael a cup of tea and a plate of Tuc biscuits with cheese. The problems he set were sometimes difficult, sometimes not. Occasionally they would be impenetrable, the lines of logic knotted together like the tag ends of embroidery silk at the bottom of Grandma Lisa’s sewing basket. The proper word for such a problem was abstruse, Lennox said. When he encountered an abstruse problem Michael felt a tense, tingling excitement in the pit of his stomach, as if he were a paratrooper about to leap out over enemy territory. Lennox said that what counted was not the number of problems he solved but his manner of approaching them.
“The answer is already within you,” Lennox insisted. “It is simply a matter of locating it.”
Never once did he tell Michael how good he was. It was as if he took his gift entirely for granted.
The table Michael sat at to do his chess problems was topped with blue Formica. A piece of the Formica had been snapped off, leaving an oatmeal-coloured space shaped like the map of Argentina. Argentina was where his grandparents came from.