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‘Disaster averted,’ says the man with the hairy wrists. His eyes twinkle as he takes her ticket. She wonders for a moment what he means.
VI
Inside the Marshall Court’s ballroom, kids stand with their parents, hovering beside tables or studying the posted pairings. Most are wearing weekend clothes. A few public-school pupils are in uniform.
Elissa’s first match is against Bhavya Narayan. When they shake hands, Bhavya’s palm is clammy. Still, she seems friendly enough. Her parents, a Hindu couple, beam just as brightly at Elissa as at their own daughter.
Bhavya has a mascot with her – a monkey statuette withfour arms. ‘It’s Hanuman,’ she explains, placing it down. Elissa unzips her rucksack and takes out Monkey. She hopes the family won’t take offence, but everyone’s still smiling.
Soon after, the parents file out and the tournament begins. Bhavya chooses a queen pawn opening. Elissa responds in kind. When the Queen’s Gambit is offered – a sacrificial pawn to C4 in return for better board position – she accepts by taking it. Over the next twenty minutes, a furious battle ensues for the centre. Elissa’s heart thumps throughout, but she’s not tense; at no time does she feel truly threatened, and when Bhavya loses concentration during a fork, Elissa coolly captures her queen. It’s a game-destroying move, and the girl resigns shortly afterwards. When the parents return, Bhavya’s mother hands Elissa a polythene bag filled with home-made banana chips.
‘Phew,’ says Lena Mirzoyan when they’re reunited. ‘I was so nervous outside I think I did a little wee.’
‘Mum!’
‘Sorry.’
But she isn’t sorry, that’s plain to see. Her chest, rapidly rising and falling, is clear evidence of her pride. Reaching out, Elissa touches her hand. It conveys her gratitude more than any words could.
At eleven o’clock she begins her second match. This time her opponent is a fair-haired girl called Amy Rhodes. Amy’s a cool customer. She doesn’t smile like Bhavya did. Neither do her parents, who frown faintly as they examine Elissa. Amy’s arrived without a totem, and she gives Monkey a look that Elissa regards as impertinent. As a result, Elissa takes great pleasure in beating her – not as quickly as she could but slowly, crushingly, taking each piece until only the king remains, naked and vulnerable, in one corner of the board. Afterwards, Amy rises from the table without a word.
Next, Elissa plays Ivy May, a girl whose glasses are the thickness of Coke bottles and who plonks down a Peppa Pig mascot with no trace of embarrassment. The match is a slog, and nearly ends in a draw when Elissa loses her second knight, but somehow she pulls through.
At lunchtime, she finds her mum and they seek out a place to sit. Elissa munches her tuna sandwich, the Yoyo Bears and a satsuma. Flicking through her notebook, she reviews her three matches. She tries not to rebuke herself too harshly for her mistakes, but it’s difficult – lapses in concentration have almost cost her two of the three victories.
Her fourth match begins at two thirty. Beforehand, she borrows her mum’s keys and carries her lunchbox to the car. A moment of solitude, away from the ballroom clamour, will help her reset.
Sitting in the passenger seat, Elissa takes Monkey from her rucksack and examines him. She’s certain his presence hasn’t affected her play, but for the first time something else occurs to her: has he, perhaps, affected the play of the three opponents she’s dispatched?
She thinks about Bhavya’s statuette and Ivy’s Peppa Pig. Those totems didn’t affecther– after a cursory glance she’d dismissed them. But could that be said of her opponents’ encounters with the deadpan knitted mannequin? It’s an interesting thought. Still, she doesn’t intend to win by virtue of a psychological trick.
Her next opponent attends a public school well represented in this competition; so far, its pupils have posted an unblemished record. Tweaking one of Monkey’s ears, Elissa says, ‘I don’t mind if you put her off alittle.’ Then she slips him into her rucksack with the food she hasn’t eaten and scrambles from the car. When she turns towards the Marshall Court Hotel, gathering her stamina for the afternoon session, day abruptly becomes night.
VII
For a moment, it’s too confusing to process. Gone is the grey sky over Bournemouth’s East Cliff. Likewise, the hotel’s whitewashed frontage. There’s a pressure, quite horrid, on Elissa’s eyes and mouth. Her world tilts and she thinks she’s falling, but she doesn’t go down, not entirely. Her heels scrape against the tarmac.
Is this a panic attack? Perhaps something stranger – narcolepsy? Cataplexy? Elissa twists her head and feels, against her ear, the unmistakable curve of a bicep. Simultaneously, she realizes that the pressure on her eyes and mouth comes from fingers pressed against them. She thinks of the public-school girls with their unblemished record, and the cruel tricks kids like to play. Suddenly, her shoes are no longer dragging on the tarmac but scrabbling against it. She makes a fist, brings forward her arm and slams back her elbow. Close to her ear she hears awhuffof expelled breath. There’s an acrid smell in her nose: the bitterness of stale tobacco smoke. The arm around her neck tightens.
Too strong to be any of the girls she’s seen today. And none of them, surely, are heavy smokers.
At last, the reality of what’s happening floods in.
She’s being taken.
Snatched. Spirited away.
Her mind empties and she becomes a wild thing. She twists, kicks, opens her mouth and bites down on her attacker’s hand. Immediately there’s a taste on her tongue even worse than old cigarettes. It’s dark and dirty, an abattoir foulness, and it blasts her panic into the stratosphere. She can’t breathe, can’t scream. Can’t hear anything but thecrazy tide of her blood. Her head fills with silver, as if a firework has detonated inside her skull.
Elissa’s feet bicycle in empty air. A different sound, now, or more like the lack of one: a muting of traffic and seagulls; an absence of wind. Her heels make contact with something beneath her. There’s a hollow banging. All at once she realizes she’s in some kind of container, a metal one – or, possibly, a vehicle.
With a spasming contortion of her spine, she recalls the white van and its creepy sticker: the trilby-wearing skull smoking a cigarette.
CHILLAX.
Elissa gags, tries to control herself. If she pukes, there’s nowhere for it to go. She imagines vomit spurting from her nose, and the idea ofthatis so shocking that her muscles slacken and her head sags. She’s unconscious for no more than a few seconds, because when she recovers hardly anything has changed. The fingers over her eyes shift position and she sees a slim triangle of sky. There’s a squeal and a thunk: the door slamming shut. It ensures some level of privacy for what comes next.
Breathing in her ear again – elevated, but only slightly. ‘Easy now,’ rasps a voice. ‘Easy now.’