Having achieved legitimacy by being challenged to a game of chess by my father, I then set out to beat him. For at least 2 years we played reasonably frequently, I read chess books and played against the greatest chess minds of my generation (well, against the school brainiacs, at least). But I could not beat him. I tried the Queen’s gambit accepted, Queen’s gambit declined, even the Queen’s gambit politely ignored, but to no avail. My Ruy Lopez was no more effective than my Four Knights – the bastard beat me again and again.
You’d think a kindly father would let his son win every once in a while, but no. Not only did he whip my arse every time, he usually gave the game only a fraction of his attention. While Dad watched the races on TV, I stared at the board in front of me, trying to figure out how to get the upper hand. He’d make his move then go out to the garden to graft a new hybrid azalea. When, some time later, I called out what my move had been in response, he’d reply from the greenhouse, "No, you don’t want to do that; it’s check-mate in three if you do." I didn’t care – checkmate had started to sound like sweet relief to me.
But my game improved with every thrashing I received. Eventually, by the time I was 15, we were closely matched (but he still had a better endgame than mine). He would now sometimes concede a draw, or a stalemate, but I could not land the crucial blow. I was on the verge of a breakthrough when he finally conceded defeat, by dying. It was the 18th of September, 1979, and it was the end of my innocence.
Of course it wasn’t completely unexpected. He had been unwell for a long time, his heart and arteries trying to resist the effects of a lifetime of smoking and drinking. He’d gone to hospital to have a bypass operation, and died before regaining consciousness. The post-mortem found that his veins were filled not with blood so much as beef dripping — they thought it miraculous he’d lasted as long as he did. He was 57.
[ to be continued ]
