Chess chastised

I’m perched at a table in a café. The location is unimportant – you can imagine the scene. You’ve probably been there. It’s one of those buildings with a mezzanine floor, half hanging off the wall, fulfilling its peculiar destiny of providing a few extra tables, and luckily for me, a perfect vantage point from which to observe the busyness beneath. As I climbed up the stairs, eyeing up a small table with two chairs near the edge of the mezzanine, I had seen two men playing chess. I’m immediately reminded of Central Park on a warm summer’s evening, where old men play giant chess making the most of the cool air and the fading evening light. It’s not that warm here yet, I’m still wearing socks in bed, (though poor circulation runs in my family).

Once I’m seated in the chair, bike helmet ensconced in my lap, I look down towards the hub of movement and laughter and see smoke floating upwards to meet my face. I study the chess players… slowly they begin to hold a quiet fascination for me. They have what appears to be a cloth board filling most of the table and real wooden pieces. They look serious, a wooden timing clock frames the edge of the table precariously resting on its edge. The guy with his back to me is holding a small wooden piece in his hands, twisting it around in concentration. They move quickly, hitting the gold buttons on the timer without moving their gaze from the game. They don’t speak, it seems, but there’s an obvious rapport – a respect perhaps – between them. One man, facing me, is old, about 70 I’d say, though these days it’s getting harder to tell. He’s completely bald and wears gold Raybans with brown tinted lenses. He wouldn’t look out of place on a used car lot in the East End. His partner is younger (I can’t tell exactly as I can’t see his face from where I’m sitting), black and well-dressed in a blue shirt and dark grey suit jacket. I wonder how they met and if they have anything in common apart from the movement of carved wood on the chequered board.
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I return to my newspaper and read about nothingness and debt and stabbings and blandness and ranting and the foreign secretary and trade and a lowcost airline going bust and I realise I’m afraid of the game ending in case they leave. I feel safe whilst they are playing out their Friday evening in the café. As for me, there’s no game in front of me, obscuring my vision, taking my attention, just cheap paper and coloured ink.