The Black Side
Category C: Highly Commended (2025) Monash Short Story Writing Competition
Author: Sarah Jane Wilson
“Your turn,” Fred said to Piotr.
Betty watched the two elderly men play chess and scrolled on her phone. Fred sat awkwardly on Piotr’s bed and Piotr in his large, expensive, electronic armchair with the chessboard balanced on his lap. The armchair held Piotr’s thin body like an external skeleton; without it, Betty’s father would be in bed.
Piotr clasped his hands together, interlacing the fingers and pressed his thumb pads together. He always did this at the chessboard, when he was contemplating a strategy. He sipped his drink, moved a black pawn and coughed away from the chessboard.
“Your play,” he said, falling back into his chair.
The doorbell rang.
“That must be Abby and Chris.” Betty opened the door with her arms wide and her daughter Abby gave her a reluctant hug.
“How was school?”
The girl walked down the hallway to her grandfather’s room.
Betty watched her and asked her husband, “get anything out of her? Do you know why she doesn’t want to go to school?”
“Nope. Won’t tell me a thing,” said Chris.
“She’s eight going on eighteen,” sighed Betty, “How are things at home?”
“Okay. How’s your dad today?” he muttered into her ear.
She nodded, her eyes full of tears and said, “Dad’s still here.”
“Checkmate,” Piotr finally said to his friend Fred, sighing and curling up in his armchair. He slipped on the oxygen mask and promptly fell asleep even as Betty and Fred stood up to leave.
“Your Dad has still got it,” said Fred. “Just can’t beat him. Even now.”
Betty shrugged. The win had no joy. It was just another day her father breathed. She walked Fred to the front door and they hugged.
“It’s really good you can live with him and look after him like this.”
“I have lots of help, Dad has a nurse come every day.”
“I’ll come again on Friday,” Fred said. They shared a look. Would her father still be living by then? Would they want him to be?
“Maybe you will win next time?” They both grinned through tears.
Betty shut the door, Abby and Chris were clattering dishes and preparing dinner in the kitchen. The hiss of Piotr’s ventilator filled the house. A few months ago, the ventilator was a loud intrusion in her father’s home. But now, the regular sound was a comfort because it drowned out the Piotr’s coughing and irregular breathing.
Betty watched her father sleep as she carefully picked up the chess board. It was the same white and brown magnetic set they had used when she had learned chess over forty years ago. Several pieces were chipped and the felt on the bottoms of the pieces were peeling from so many games. The cold metal board folded into a chequered case. The chequered side was used to play on and the inside of the case was lined with felt divots that held the chess pieces. It was a struggle for Piotr to play now: each game occurred over several hours, between naps and sips of water. Betty folded and closed the case with the tiny metallic clasps that kept the box shut. She put away the chessboard case, next to Piotr’s books about chess and the odd medal or chess trophy. She had framed some of the articles that were on his wall: “Australian Chess Great Piotr Antol moves into Master semi-finals”.
Betty remembered multiple nights bent over the chessboard, her father’s old Polish music and gazing at the pieces through his cigarette smoke.
One time, when Betty was a teen, she’d sighed over the chequered landscape, during their nightly game.
“What’s wrong?” Piotr said.
Betty examined the board and then moved her bishop over a few squares towards his side of the board, ignoring Piotr’s queen. They both examined the move.
Betty said, “I’m being bullied on the bus.”
“Ah,” Piotr slid his glasses back up his nose and moved his queen further, threatening a pawn. He knew it was better to let her speak rather than ask for more detail. Music swirled with the cigarette smoke, filling the space between them.
“It’s Penny Rickter. She and Katie and Melia follow me off the bus and she says….” Betty swallowed the swearwords “....bad things. And her friends laugh.”
Betty’s eyes filled with tears, she moved her king.
Piotr was three moves away from checkmate but moved another black pawn to give her more time.
“Katie French? Isn’t she your friend?”
“That was primary school Dad.”
He brought his hands back together. Thinking. A Polish jazz singer crooned about her lost lover. Betty knew she’d lost the game but didn’t care. What will he suggest I do?
Finally, he moved his bishop up a few diagonal squares. “Katie isn’t the queen,” he said, “Penny Rickter is”. He took her pawn and continued, “sometimes, when the queen threatens you, you do not need to approach the queen to remove the threat.” Piotr pointed at the board. “Your knight can move here, to A4 to take the bishop. And like that, the queen will retreat to protect the bishop.”
Betty considered and thought about Penny on the bus.
“Knight to A4,” she said.
Piotr nodded. She had understood.
“Knight to A4,” he repeated.
The next day, Betty had walked over to Katie’s house, pushed past Katie’s mother and stamped upstairs to Katie’s room.
Katie was curling her hair in front of the mirror and her eyes widened in panic when she saw Betty’s face.
“You have to tell Penny not to bully me any more.”
Katie reddened. “Oh that’s just a bit of fun.”
“Not to me it isn’t.”
Katie stood, ridiculous, her hair half curled and her hair half straight.
“If Penny doesn’t stop, I’m going to give your mum those photos of you and Karen Heywood drunk at camp.”
The girls could hear Katie’s mother vacuuming downstairs.
“You wouldn’t,” said Katie, “and I couldn’t even get Penny to stop, even if I wanted to.”
“I will do it, you know I will,” Betty said. “You’ll find a way to stop her,” she added over her shoulder as she left the room and marched downstairs.
On Monday Betty stepped onto the bus and after fifteen minutes, her heartbeat filling her ears, lurched off the bus. She moved quickly down the street, looking at shop window reflections to see if anyone was following her, but she was alone. Penny and the girls never taunted her again. The queen had retreated.
Betty liked chess but mostly played it to chat with her father.
“How can you think about chess all day and then play with me at night?” she asked.
“Because I like playing with you.”
Piotr wished his wife was more passionate about chess. She’d left when Betty was smaller. The international chess circuit was the last lonely straw that broke both of them. She’d left and he didn’t blame her, but he learned the lesson. He had to talk more with Betty. Piotr enjoyed talking with his daughter, but somehow it was just easier to ask about her day or talk about school with the chessboard between them. He’d filled Betty’s childhood memories with cards, scrabble and table tennis table but their favourite was chess.
The whisper of the ventilator shook Betty back to the present. When Piotr was finally awake Betty had spread his newspaper across his bed. “Dad, did you hear this, there’s a new game. Chess boxing. Have you heard of this?”
He set aside the ventilator mask. ‘No.’
“You do a round of boxing and then a round of chess.”
Piotr laughed and then coughed. He took some laboured breaths before speaking, “how to win?”
“The winner is the first one to knock out the other one in boxing or take the king.” The ventilator wheezed.
“Huh! Sounds Russian.”
Betty picked up her phone and searched. “You’re right. Invented by a Russian guy!” She laughed. “What do you think dad? Would you have done well in this?”
“Only.” He gasped, “if I could run around the ring.” He took another pause, “for the boxing round.”
The laughing sounded like rasping. But it was worth it.
The conversation had exhausted Piotr and he immediately slept, mouth open as Betty’s cheeks were stained with silent tears.
Two days later he was sleeping and exhaled and then never inhaled. And then he was gone. Betty had held his hand as long as she could. The skin felt thin and dry like tissue paper. She stayed, awkwardly holding his hand, knowing it was the last time.
In the following days the house was busy with people, tears, paperwork and phone calls. Betty had never felt so tired or so alone as Chris made her yet another cup of tea. It was cruel that Betty could smell the tobacco-minty scent of her father everywhere without him there. Betty was surprised that she missed the younger version of her father before he became sick. As she cleaned the house and spoke to his friends, her childhood reverberated on the walls, leaping out and leaving a lump in her throat. Although her mother had died nearly a decade ago, she felt her death fill her chest all over again.
As Betty finished packing a box of clothing, Abby ran out to her with the chessboard.
“Mummy! Grandpa left his chessboard. Look, it can go upside down!”
Abby turned it upside down and Betty could see the inverted black and white pieces held by their magnets on the board. She turned it the right way up, frowning, these pieces were not in their starting positions.
“Who is going to finish this game that grandpa and I started?” Abby said.
Betty smiled and tears shot down her cheeks.
“I will, my love.”
They sat on the floor, cross legged, the chessboard with the half-finished game between them.
Betty took her father’s side. The black side.
“Grandpa has been playing with you.”
Abby nodded but her eyes were already scanning the board. She picked up her pawn and took a black pawn.
“That’s a good move Abby.”
“I know. Grandpa said that if your pieces are in the middle four squares of the board, you control the game.”
Betty’s lip trembled as her father’s words had tumbled out of her daughter. She smiled and picked up her black knight and moved it.
Abby clasped her hands, thinking carefully, her thumbs touched each other like a steeple and then moved her bishop to take the black knight.
“Your turn,” she said.