Checkmate

by Malorie Blackman

  'You're not going to help me prepare the rest of my lunch?'

  'I haven't got time, Nana.'

  'Fair enough. After you've brought up my wine, I'll phone for a taxi to take you to wherever it is you want to

  go.'

  I nodded. And then it hit me. This would be the last

  time I saw Nana. The last time I spoke to her. The last

  time . . .

  NO! Don't think like that. Don't even think. I was going to do something worthwhile. My whole life had been leading up to this day and I wasn't going to shrink away like a coward now. Like Uncle Jude said, I was going to make a difference.

  A sudden, strange, sad fatigue swirled round me like a gossamer shroud. I stood up abruptly.

  Shake it off, Callie Rose. Get it together.

  'Are you all right, love?' Nana Jasmine frowned.

  I nodded. 'Just got one or two things on my mind, that's all.'

  'Well, help me bring up the bottles from the cellar and then I'll leave you in peace,' smiled Nana. 'Give me a hug first.'

  I was about to argue – why did I need to hug her before bringing up a few wine bottles? But then I remembered . . . How could I have forgotten? Nana Jasmine stood up and put her arms around me. For once, my arms didn't dangle at my sides like overcooked spaghetti. I hugged her back, breathing her in.

  Saying goodbye.

  Leaving my bag on the floor, I let Nana lead the way across the kitchen and down the stairs to the cellar. My bag would be safe enough with both of us in the cellar together. The cellar door was already unbolted. Nana Jasmine pulled on the handle with both hands, her lips a thin line with the effort it cost her to move the heavy door. I placed my hands beside Nana Jasmine's and opened the door with her. It didn't creak or groan. The door, like the rest of Nana Jasmine's household was too well oiled to make any kind of vulgar protest. To squeak would've been 'bad grammar'. And Nana Jasmine wasn't into that. The door itself was solid oak, nearly three metres tall. Snaking, almost sneaking across the door from the wrought-iron hinges, was black iron scrollwork. Nana Jasmine stood to one side so that I would walk past her.

  'So where are these bottles?' I asked.

  'The Château D'Azonama 'ninety-five is at the other end of the cellar,' said Nana. 'Four . . . no, five bottles should be enough. Let's go and get them.'

  I headed down the narrow aisle between rack upon rack of vintage wine on either side of me. The racks were lined up like elemental soldiers, with the wine bottles lying prone. But as I approached the far end of the cellar, I got the shock of my life. Someone came out from behind one of the tall racks of wine. I recognized her even before she turned to face me. I stopped abruptly. What the hell was she doing here? I'd sworn never to even stay in the same room as her again and I meant it. I spun round, ready to make for the door – only to stop abruptly for the second time.

  Nana Jasmine was pushing the cellar door shut.

  'Nana . . . ?'

  'I'm sorry, love, but I can't let you do any more of Jude's dirty work,' said Nana Jasmine as the door continued to close. 'I love you, Callie Rose McGregor. Don't ever forget that.'

  And in the next instant the cellar door was closed. I sprinted for the door, practically diving for the door handle just as the bolts were being slid home from the outside. The sound of the bolts was more final, more resounding than the peal of funeral bells.

  I was too late. Panic rose up, searing and unstoppable like erupting lava.

  'NANA JASMINE, OPEN THIS DOOR!' I pushed down the large metal handle, then pushed at the door, but I was wasting my time.

  'LET ME OUT!' I screamed.

  Beyond the door, I could hear nothing but silence. Not even footsteps walking away from me. The door was too thick, too solid. I spun round to glare at the woman I hated most in all the world.

  My mum.

  This whole thing was a set-up. A ridiculous scheme to stop me from following Uncle Jude's orders.

  Uncle Jude's orders . . .

  A groan ripped through my body as something worse occurred to me. Here I was, locked in Nana Jasmine's cellar with a woman I despised – and my carrier bag and its contents were out there, on the other side of the door.

  Out there with Nana Jasmine.

  Jude versus Jasmine

  two. Jasmine

  I walked along the top-floor hotel corridor, trying hard to ignore the nauseating feel of my heart ricocheting against my ribs. My daughter Sephy and granddaughter Callie Rose were stuck in my cellar – an hour, several kilometres and all my hopes and dreams away. I stopped to look up and down the two-star corridor of this three-star hotel. The carpet was a mid-grey with dusty-pink swirls spaced along it at regular intervals. The walls were the same pink, adorned with indifferent paintings by long forgotten artists. I stopped in front of the best painting within eye view, and that wasn't saying much. It was a swirl of complementary colours from one slice of a DIY-store colour pie chart. Raspberry pinks collided with majestic burgundies which slammed into deep plum purples. I gave it the few seconds of attention it merited and started walking again. Each door along the corridor was light brown and distressed to make the veneer appear to be real wood. And the whole place smelled of cheap furniture polish. I could see the not-so-thin layer of dust on the skirting boards below and on the light fittings above. No doubt the hotel cleaning staff walked around with an aerosol can of cheap pine furniture polish, spraying it into the air at regular intervals to give the illusion that something more back-breaking and time-consuming had taken place. Allowing myself a small smile, I shook my head. I was doing it again, noticing those things which anyone with half a life would not.

  Anyone with any kind of life . . .

  I bowed my head. Time to stop my delaying tactics. I was busy doing nothing by noticing everything, to put off what was coming. I was afraid – I'd be lying if I said otherwise. I take that back. I was more than afraid. Nauseous with gnawing fear was closer to it actually. Not that I was going to back out now. That couldn't happen. Too much was at stake – Sephy and, more importantly, Callie Rose. How were they doing, locked in my cellar together? Well, they were going to be there for a while. A touch melodramatic perhaps, but needs must.

  I carried on towards room thirty-one. That is what she'd said, wasn't it? Room thirty-one?

  Come on, Jasmine. Don't start doubting yourself before you even reach the first hurdle . . .

  The room was right at the end of the corridor, next to the fire escape. This was it. This was really it. I was about to enter a room I knew I'd never leave. A coil of anticipation twisted deep within me. I was filled with a strange and not altogether unpleasant cocktail of emotions. What should I be feeling? I wasn't sure. One last neurotic look down the corridor, a deep breath, and my hand stilled on its way to knocking on the door. The face of Callie's dad, Callum McGregor, crept unexpectedly into my mind. I remembered a time, a lifetime ago, when my daughter Sephy had been beaten up at school. Callum came round to our house to see Sephy and I gave orders that he wasn't to be let in. I remember he stood outside our gate, day after day, until Sephy went back to school, just looking up at the house. And I stood behind my curtains, watching him, wishing he'd go away. How I wish now that I'd let him in.

  Oh, how I wish . . .

  But it's futile to think of such things.

  A recent friend of mine I met in hospital buys paperbacks and tears out each page as he finishes reading it, so that when he next opens the book it'll always be on the right page. Seems to me, my life is a lot like that. And no matter how much I might want to revisit a past page, a previous chapter, to reread it, to rewrite it, I can't. It's dead and gone. And now my book has so few pages ahead and a yawning gap behind. So many things I would do differently. So many things I would say. So many things I wouldn't say. And so many of them revolve around my daughter, Sephy. And Callum.

  Callum McGregor.

  Callum, who as a boy always had a ready smile – and the saddest grey eyes. Eyes old before their time.
Eyes that had seen too much, too young. Each day that passed saw his relationship with my daughter grow stronger, closer, deeper, as my own connection with her waned. But then in those days the only relationship I cared about was the one between me and the nearest bottle of Chardonnay.

  Strange to wonder what would've happened if Meggie, Callum's mum, hadn't come to work for me as Minerva's and then Sephy's nanny. Meggie and I were such good friends. I thought back to our true friendship, which had nothing to do with me being Meggie's Cross employer and her being a nought. But I was the one who'd snapped our friendship in two. I was the one who had fired her without a backwards glance or a second thought. I was the one who thought that her son and my daughter would separate and think no more about it, despite the fact that they had grown up together and were almost like twins in their thoughts and actions. My selfish shallowness back then makes me wince, even now.

  Odd that I should think of Callum at this moment. But perhaps not so odd, considering what I was about to do. Another deep breath and I knocked on the oaken door, three sharp taps, before I could think any more.

  'Just a minute,' a man's gruff voice called out.

  From inside, footsteps approached. I opened my coat, my finger on the switch in the pocket of the awful windcheater I wore. The olive-green windcheater clashed horribly with my silver-grey trouser suit and long black coat, but no one of consequence was going to see my eclectic ensemble. The door opened. A nought man with a rough-hewn expression framing hostile brown eyes stood in the doorway. I didn't need to ask his name for confirmation. He looked so much like a leaner, meaner version of his brother, it was scary.

  'Hello. May I come in?'

  'Who're you?' he asked, instantly wary.

  'Nemesis,' I said, trying to step past him.

  He moved in front of me to bar my way. 'Jude, let me in,' I said patiently.

  'Who the hell are you?' he asked again. My use of his name had obviously rattled him because his hand began to move inside his jacket.

  But I revealed the inside of my windcheater first and his hand froze in front of his stomach. I knew he'd see it my way.

  I smiled. 'Back up please.'

  Jude stepped back. I stepped in, still facing him as I back-kicked the door shut behind me. I took in the room at a peripheral glance. It was L-shaped, a bathroom to my right with a wardrobe opposite the bathroom door and a small window adorned with lack-lustre green, paisley-patterned curtains on the opposite wall. A tall cabinet with a TV visible inside was situated against the wall just up from the wardrobe. I assumed the bed was opposite the TV cabinet, but I couldn't tell from my position at the door.

  'Take three steps backwards please. NO! Don't turn round. Don't insult my intelligence. Just walk backwards. Please.'

  Jude did as I asked. I saw now that I was right. The bed was opposite the TV and in front of a second window there was a small circular wooden table with two chairs on either side of it. It was a typical hotel room, no doubt the clone of every other room on this floor.

  'Take off your jacket please,' I asked, adding, 'Slowly. Very slowly.'

  Jude did as he was told. He had two holsters crisscrossing his body, each holding a gun beneath his arms.

  'Use just your thumb and middle finger to take out each gun in turn by the stock only and throw them on the bed,' I said. 'Please.'

  Jude just stood there.

  'Don't make me repeat myself,' I said patiently.

  I stroked the switch under my thumb hoping he'd get the point. He did. Doing as I'd requested, he removed first one gun, then the other, tossing them into the middle of the bed. Never taking my eyes off Jude, I shrugged my left arm out of my coat by hitching my shoulder up and down. The thumb of my right hand didn't move from the switch in the windcheater pocket. With my left arm free, I moved my left hand over to the switch as I shrugged my right arm out of my coat. It was awkward but do-able. I let the coat slide down my right arm until I could grab the collar with my hand. I then threw my coat on the bed over the guns. I don't like guns.

  'Who the hell are you?' he asked again. 'What is this about?'

  Even with the guns safely covered up on the bed, I didn't allow myself to relax. I knew better. I studied the specimen before me. The years hadn't been kind to him. Deep, permanent lines furrowed his brow and cut a groove on either side of his mouth. His lips were turned down and if they once knew how to smile, that knowledge had been forgotten or discarded a long, long time ago. And his brown eyes – they were cold and soulless, like a doll's eyes. No, like a shark's eyes. He was tall and broad shouldered, with manicured nails gilding rough hands. His designer suit was worn self-consciously over a builder's physique.

  'Sit down please.' I indicated one of the two narrow armchairs by the window.

  Jude sat down slowly, his eyes never leaving mine. He reminded me of a cornered tiger waiting for its moment to pounce. My finger touched ever so lightly on the switch in the windcheater pocket. The nasty stuff it was attached to was placed in little home-made pockets all over the inside of the garment. Apart from a slight puffy bulkiness, no one could guess at what I was wearing. But I'd revealed all to Jude and he hadn't taken his eyes off me and my 'designer' jacket since. With my finger still touching the switch, I didn't feel quite so twitchy. I didn't doubt that Jude was fast – but we both knew that I'd be faster.

  I sat down on the bed so that I was directly facing my adversary.

  'Are you going to answer my question now?' asked Jude, trying and failing to keep the malevolence out of his voice. What a thoroughly nasty piece of work. 'Who are you?'

  'My name is Jasmine Dharma Ninah Adeyebe-Hadley, but you may call me Mrs Hadley.'

  Jude's eyes narrowed immediately. He might not have recognized my face – and there was no reason why he should after all these years – but he certainly knew my name.

  'What d'you want?' he asked.

  I smiled broadly, enjoying my dramatic moment. 'You.'

  three. Rose is 7V4

  Daddy, are you watching me? Can you see me? I wish you were here to help me. Daddy, what did I do?

  Mummy's going to get real stressy over this one. I still don't understand why Mrs Hoyle sent me out of the class to stand in the corridor.

  What did I do?

  And I've only been in her class for two days. She didn't have to send me out. D'you think Mrs Hoyle will tell Mum? I was so looking forward to moving up to the junior school, but not if it means I get sent out of the class for no reason. I want to cry but I'm not going to. Mummy says that crying is a waste of good water. I wish I could go back into the classroom. It's so boring standing out here. And there's not even anything to look at on the walls because it's the start of term. No drawings. No paintings. No pictures. No words. No nothing.

  It's not fair.

  What did I do, Daddy?

  four. Sephy

  Mrs Hoyle pounced on me the moment I set foot in the playground. One look at her pinched-in, sour-trout expression bearing down on me and my heart plummeted. She strode across the playground to where I stood chatting to Joshua and Rupal, parents who had children in the same class as my Rose.

  'Miss Hadley, I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but I had to send Callie Rose out of my classroom today.'

  'Oh yes?' I said with studied calm. 'And why did you have to do that?'

  My face began to burn, partly from embarrassment but mostly from angry disbelief. Why did Mrs Hoyle feel it necessary to tell me this in front of every other parent in the playground? I could guess. Mrs Hoyle didn't approve of me and my 'mixed race' child.

  God, how I hated that phrase! When I had first met the teacher at the end of the previous term, Mrs Hoyle had given me a startled look and a really limp handshake. Maybe she had expected Callie Rose's mother to be a Nought, not a Cross. There were mostly Crosses in Callie Rose's class, and some Noughts, but my Callie Rose was unique. At that end-of-term meeting, some of the parents who had children starting at the junior school had also given me more th
an one look. I had to keep telling myself that everyone who did a double take was not my enemy. But memories had made me wary of glances, askance or otherwise.

  Mrs Hoyle's bloodless lips narrowed still further. 'Your daughter swore at me.'

  Now I wasn't going to have that. No way would Rose swear at her or anyone else for that matter.

  'Rose doesn't know any swear words, so how could she have sworn at you?'

  'Forgive me, Miss Hadley,' Mrs Hoyle said, her tone super-supercilious. 'But all parents think their children can do no wrong. I assure you, your daughter did indeed swear at me.'

  I counted to ten, then ten again before I could trust myself to speak. If she used that imperious tone when calling me 'Miss Hadley' one more time . . .

  'I'll have a word with Rose and find out exactly what happened,' I replied at last.

  'I'm not lying, Miss Hadley.'

  'I never said otherwise, Mrs Hoyle,' I said. 'But I'm sure all this is just a misunderstanding.'

  'Hhmm! Well, I trust it won't happen again,' said Mrs Hoyle.

  Get out of my face, you old hag, I thought. And a lot more besides. But I smiled, careful to keep almost all of what I was feeling out of my eyes. And I turned away first, just in time to see Rose come out into the playground. She started running towards me, only to stop abruptly when she saw her teacher standing with me. And, even from where I was standing, I saw the light go out of her. She walked towards me, her eyes down, her shoulders drooped. One tear dripped to the ground, rapidly followed by another and another as she made her slow way towards me.

  And Mrs Hoyle had done that. Not content with spoiling Rose's first week in the junior school, she'd deliberately sought to humiliate me in front of all the other parents. I wasn't going to forget that in a hurry.

  'If you'll excuse me, Mrs Hoyle, my daughter needs me.'

  I didn't wait for her to reply. I made my way over to my daughter.

  'Rose, stop crying. Don't let your teacher or anyone else ever see you cry. D'you hear me?' I said softly.