The Iceman. Jeff Edwards

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СКАЧАТЬ the men bothered to acknowledge my presence and I remained standing for a time, sipping contentedly as several moves were made.

      As one of the men was in the process of moving his black pawn I gave an involuntary snort and both men turned on me with looks of annoyance on their craggy faces. ‘What?’ asked the player who was making his move.

      ‘Sorry!’ I said. ‘That was rude of me. Go on with your game.’

      ‘You think I did wrong?’ asked the black player with a sneer. ‘You think you could do better?’

      I knew instinctively that the other men in the room had overheard and that they might judge me on how I responded. I took a deep breath. ‘He’ll ‘mate you in three moves,’ I replied.

      ‘Rubbish!’

      ‘She’s right, you know,’ said his opponent. ‘‘Mate in three.’

      The black player turned back to the board and studied the pieces more closely. ‘Damn!’

      The white player made his next move and the black reluctantly conceded. He stood up and looked at me. ‘Sit!’ he ordered. ‘Play!’

      ‘I don’t want to interrupt you. I have to get back to the office.’

      ‘Sit! The office won’t go away. I want to look over your shoulder this time. Then I can tell you when you’re going to be beaten.’

      I knew he was right. I had ruined their game by interrupting and he had every right to be upset with me, so I sat down and began to assemble the pieces. Our dispute was being closely watched by the rest of the men in the room and I found my every move being noted and assessed by a very interested crowd.

      From the opening move I realised how important this game could be to me and I gave it my best effort. When I won, I was rewarded with nods of grudging approval from my opponent.

      The player looking on now took the place of his friend and it was not until I had ‘mated him as well that he grudgingly congratulated me with a half smile.

      Two wins were not enough to make my reputation, but over the following lunch breaks I was able to convince them that my initial success had not been a fluke and my acceptance within the company grew.

      ‘It’s taken me years to earn these men’s respect,’ Jim offered by way of congratulation. ‘They call me “Big Jim” because they’re hard men and I’ve often had to prove it with my fists and here you are after a few months with your sweet smile and sexy looks having them eating out of your hand.’

      ‘Then maybe you should smile at them occasionally and congratulate them on a job well done. Using your fists was always the wrong way to go earning their respect,’ I replied with simple logic.

      ‘That’s the only thing simple men understand. If I wasn’t bigger and harder than all of them then they wouldn’t respect me and I’d never get a full day’s work out of them.’

      ‘Rubbish!’ I scoffed. ‘You’re talking about fear, not respect, and fear won’t make them work any harder.’

      ‘And playing chess with them will?’

      ‘Yes. I’m competing with them on a level field. I might win or I might lose, but whatever happens they know I’ve given my best. That’s where respect comes from.’

      Jim was quiet for a short time and I knew he was coming to the real reason for our conversation. ‘I don’t know how to play chess and I’ve always wanted to learn. Can you teach me?’

      I didn’t know whether he was jealous of the time I was spending with his men, or if he was genuinely interested in learning the game. ‘You can’t use your fists to win a game of chess,’ I said.

      ‘Yes. I know.’

      ‘All right then. What’s in it for me?’ I asked cheekily.

      Jim was surprised by my question. ‘I don’t know. What do you want?’

      Giving him my sweetest smile, I replied, ‘Let’s get down to the lessons first and I’ll see what sort of student you are. I’ll let you know what it’s going to cost you later.’

      When I had left home to come to the city I had taken up residence in a small boarding house catering for single women. The room had been found for me by friends of my mother and she had stipulated that it should be a dwelling where my morals would not be placed in danger.

      This house was run by an elderly Catholic woman who had no time for any animal of the male variety. No men were allowed to step inside the front door and this extended right down to her menagerie of pets.

      To accompany Jim back to his own home was also out of the question, so we chose to remain behind in the office after the day’s work was finished and the workmen had left.

      Over a meal of fish and chips purchased by Jim from the local café, I would clear a space on my desk and we would sit opposite one another to study the board under the glow of my desk lamp.

      It was hard work for Tom at first. I kept him busy trying to teach him the moves each piece could make while trying to antici-pate what my overall strategy might be. Devising both a defence to that strategy and an attack for his own pieces often drove him to distraction, but I refused to make it easy for him and he gradually showed signs of improvement. I respected him for sticking to the difficult task despite his many setbacks and he slowly developed a chess mentality.

      Finally Jim reached a level of proficiency where I believed that he could be competitive and allowed him to finally take my king.

      I can still see the smile on his face as he announced ‘checkmate’ and I tried hard to adopt a defeated expression. He leaned back in his chair with the look of a man who had just completed the marathon and had triumphed. My heart went out to him and I stood up and made my way around the desk before leaning in close and kissing his surprised lips for the first time. ‘To the winner, the spoils,’ I said softly.

      It was amazing how much his game improved over the ensuing days and I can still see the look of anticipation when victory now appeared to be within his grasp. I continued to win but did allow him an occasional victory, rewarding him each time with kisses that became more and more ardent.

      After one memorable victory our emotions boiled over and we made love for the first time on the office desk with the scattered chess pieces strewn around us and he proposed to me a week later in the afterglow of yet another win.

      It was after making love on our honeymoon and our naked bodies were entwined when Jim had asked me if I had been allowing him to win. I had kissed him lightly on the lips before conceding with a smile that I had. ‘But,’ I added, ‘you have come close on many occasions and we have the rest of our lives for you to learn how to do that. I’m going to make sure you do. Chess is a game that can be learned quickly, but it takes many years to become adept at it. I’ve been playing since I was a very small child. You have a lot of catching up to do.’

      He looked at me with a serious expression. ‘This has all been a game to you, hasn’t it?’

      ‘I wanted you from the first day we met, СКАЧАТЬ