Chess

He learns to play chess that summer. His brother says, ‘it’s gay’. His dad is not interested. He likes it. It’s something that is his own. It belongs to him and whoever he wants to share with.

It begins with a sleepover at Jason’s, his best friend. Paul the older brother is the chess player in that house. Jason is asleep and Paul shows him how to play. He picks up the moves and the rules quickly. He learns that the king is the most important piece on the board. Finding ways to threaten Paul’s king and keep his own safe gives him a ‘brain buzz’. Paul laughs at that. He sometimes wonders if Paul lets him win, or if he really is as good as he is told.

On his first day at secondary he walks with Jason from the bus park to the main entrance. They meet a group of Paul’s friends. Jason is quick. He runs away and can’t be caught. He is not so lucky. They pick him up and drag him into the school pond. The caretaker, muttering ‘not another one’, takes him to the PE block where he changes into the kit he had brought for a later lesson. Another boy sits there. The same had happened to him. He is called James. Over the next few months they get to know each other. At lunchtime they sit at the far end of the playing field and he gradually introduces James to the game. He has a pocket set that he got for his last birthday. The only time he cries is when a group of older boys surround him one lunchtime. They empty his school bag on the ground, taking the ‘gay’ chess set and scattering its contents.

He doesn’t play chess for some time after that.

His mother does shifts at the Golden Wonder crisp factory. On the endless conveyor belt from which she takes the packets and boxes them. Her friend Mary works beside her. She has a son his age. Gary goes to a different school in the next town. The mothers want them to be friends. It’s arranged. He will camp with Gary in the back garden. He feels awkward at first. Lying in their sleeping bags. By the light of their torches they look at some football magazines. They talk about programmes on tv. Then music. Elton John. ‘Gay’, said Gary. Freddie Mercury. ‘Another gay’, he said. They both laugh. 

It took a few months for him to trust Gary and begin to talk about chess. He showed him how to play. For the next few years they are inseparable. He has found a best friend. They both join the same football team. They complete their Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme together. They go on family holidays. He hides his jealousy when Gary says he has ‘got himself a girlfriend’, but that doesn’t last long. They go to the same university. He studies Spanish and wants to be a teacher. Gary takes geography. 

They separate one Friday. They had been to a late night concert in the student union. Both drinking. In the crush on the dance floor he hugs Gary. He was happy. On the way back to his flat they have an arm round each other. His lips brush Gary’s. It is all over very quickly. He is pushed to the ground. Kicks to the ribs. ‘Fucking faggot’. He walks back to the flat. Alone. Crying.

This was a falling out from which there is no coming back. He seldom sees Gary after this, except when crossing the street to avoid each other. His parents talk about Gary and he comes up with various excuses. They soon stop asking.

A life time later Gary leaves him a message to ‘get in touch’. But that’s far in the future and he has still to decide what to do. In the present, when he stops hurting, he will carry on looking. He would find another, he always does.

He often wonders if Paul had not taught him to play chess, would life have been different.