By Post

Management kept Arthur’s chessboard on the small table by the window.

His moves came on postcards. Beneath the first he had written that the pear tree had flowered. Beneath the next, that the frost had got at it.

We moved his pieces on Fridays, after the post came.

One card said the pears were swelling on the sheltered side. Another said he had borrowed a ladder.

This Friday, Ruth stopped beside the table.

“You can finish it,” she said.

We made room for her. She showed us two moves with the queen.

“And then?”

“That’s it.”

We put the queen back.

Arthur’s last card was beside the board. He had drawn a small pear below his move. There was a hole in one side.

We tried a move with the bishop.

“He can take that,” Ruth said.

“Yes.”

She looked at the board again, then went to her desk.

We wrote the bishop’s move on a fresh card.

Under it, we asked whether the ladder had reached.