My best position of the afternoon is a losing one. I have eleven minutes on the clock, and he has twenty-four. The taxi will take seven minutes if the driver accepts the booking. I try to stop calculating the traffic lights and look at the board.
Mr. Teal has paid for my hotel, my entry fees and the jacket hanging on the back of my chair. There is a photograph of us in the program, with me wearing it. His hand was on my shoulder when it was taken, though that part has been cropped out.
"You can resign," he says kindly.
I push a pawn.
He sighs. Behind him, the audience is thinning. The club championship finished an hour ago; this is a demonstration, something to give the sponsor before the chairs are stacked. My companion, Mrs. Voss, left with his driver because he offered her a ride back to the hotel. She told me not to keep him too long.
Seven minutes earlier I found his assistant in the cloakroom.
Her name is Etta. She books things, collects things, remembers which entrance he likes. There was blood on the paper towel she held against her mouth. When I came in she lowered the towel too quickly and I saw the split.
"You fell?" I asked.
I still hate that I supplied the explanation.
She shook her head.
Through the wall he was telling somebody that he would take me back himself after a private lesson. He had said private lesson before. Once he asked me to play without a clock, then kept putting his hand over mine when I reached for a piece.
Etta held up her phone. She had ordered a taxi and was waiting for a driver to accept.
"Keep him at the board," she said. "I'll come and get you."
Now he studies my pawn, puzzled by my refusal to understand how thoroughly I have lost. He can take it. He can take almost anything. I have built the position out of places to put pieces for one more move.
The scholarship renewal is in an envelope beneath his elbow. He set it there before we began, then asked for a nice game. I have had a good season. He wants to be able to say he made me work for the result.
He takes the pawn.
I wait.
The club secretary starts gathering cups from the empty rows. I hear ceramic knock against ceramic. Every cup removed makes it harder to imagine calling out if Mr. Teal decides we have played enough.
"Quill."
I touch my rook, move it and press the clock. Eight minutes left.
He leans back.
"You're usually more ambitious."
I look at his cuff, at the hand that hit Etta. There is a little red mark beside one knuckle. Before I knew what it was, I might have imagined a rose thorn in the garden of his large house.
"I'm thinking."
"I can see that."
My phone lights up inside my bag. I cannot read it without looking away. We have rules about phones even in a demonstration. I have followed so many rules that their presence makes disobeying feel physically difficult.
He offers a draw.
That startles me more than anything else. He is tired of the game. He wants us both to stand, to thank him, to move into the corridor where Etta is waiting for a stranger to collect her.
"No, thank you."
His face changes. Only slightly, the way a position changes when a piece you thought protected turns out to be loose.
I look into my bag. Etta's message says TWO MINUTES.
While I am looking, he takes back the move he has just made. He does it casually, as though the board belongs to him because he paid for the tablecloth. I see his fingers close around the piece.
"You already moved that."
"We're not being precious, are we?"
I raise my hand. The arbiter is putting his coat on by the doorway.
"Could you come here, please?"
Mr. Teal says my name again. I keep my hand up.
The arbiter asks what happened. Mr. Teal explains that I was distracted and missed a move. I describe the squares. I can do that part accurately. It is a relief to have an exact thing to say.
Etta appears behind the arbiter with a man wearing a taxi badge. He is holding her suitcase. Her lip has begun bleeding again.
"We're ready," she tells me.
I stand. Mr. Teal catches the edge of my jacket, then releases it when the driver steps closer. I leave the jacket on the chair and take the scholarship envelope from the table. It is addressed to me. I had already earned the money inside.
My clock continues running while the arbiter asks whether I mean to abandon the game. I say yes and pick up my bag before he can ask anything else.
In the taxi Etta gives the driver her sister's address. I ask whether there is a sofa. She says there is a floor and she can lend me a blanket. We count the scholarship money together under the little interior light, setting aside the fare before deciding what remains.
