Chess pieces

He played chess like a politician in the midst of a crisis.  Drunk out of his skull and imitating two out of three of those bloody brass monkeys.  (Were they brass, originally?  The ones in my childhood had been, but God alone knows who they came from.  Or where they went.)

It was me that spoke evil.

But then it was me that gave him the problem.  He blew it up into a crisis.

I’d suggested the chess to create a breathing space.  Was a time I’d have used words like ‘strategy’. Was a time he’d’ve played me for all I’m worth (and, yes, I do know my worth).

Tonight all I needed was ‘checkmate.’

***

‘Zugzwang’

A guttural growl, which I first took for the Basset hound beneath his chair.  Realising it was him I checked again the pieces on the board.

He was correct.

I waited, poised for him to make the final move: not one in the book of course, but customarily an overturning of the table, an upsetting of the board, sweeping of the table, so that kings and queens; knights, bishops and rooks were scattered, black and white, across the red-tiled floor.

He surprised me.

Picked up the bottle he’d most recently emptied, (three more lay on the floor, rolling and dribbling as he was wont to do, after the fifth) and, squinting, read its label.

‘Two thousand and nine.  The last year Hooglangley Wines made anything decent.  And this the last bottle.  Three years drought has been the death of them.  But might have been the saving of mine.’

Focusing on my no doubt disbelieving face, he explained, ‘The cellar is now empty.  I’ve done what I promised myself I’d do.

I've drunk it dry.’