Starter for Ten

by David Nicholls

  Rebecca wrinkles her nose at this, and I realize I'm on pretty sticky ground here, semantically speaking, so I decide to take a different tack, and go on the offensive.

  “So what are you studying then, that's so useful ?” I say.

  “Law. Second year.”

  “Law! … Right, well, I suppose law is pretty useful.”

  “Well, let's hope so.”

  Law makes sense. If I was in a court of law I definitely wouldn't want to argue with Rebecca Epstein. She'd slap you around the face with her Glasgow accent, she'd bark things at you like “Define your terms!” and “Your argument is specious!” In fact I don't want to argue with her now, so I just stop talking and we walk silently through the small adjoining City Museum, with its glass cases of fossils and Roman coins and antique farming implements. I suppose this is my first taste of the lively intellectual cut-and-thrust of academic life. There are those arguments in tutorials with Erin, of course, but they're like Chinese burns; it's just a matter of how much you can take. With Rebecca, it feels like I've been stabbed in the eye. Still, it is only my third week, I'm sure I'll get better at it, and I know deep down that I am capable of coming up with an eloquent and incisive reply, even if it won't be for another three to four days. In the meantime I decide to see if I can change the subject.

  “So what d'you want to do afterwards, then?” I say.

  “Dunno. We could go for a drink if you fancy it …”

  “No, I mean, after uni, when you qualify …”

  “When I qualify? Dunno. Something that actually makes a difference to people's lives. Not sure if I want to do that whole barrister thing, but I'm interested in immigration law. The Citizens' Advice Bureau do good work. Maybe I'll move over into politics or journalism or something, help shift those Tory bastards. How 'bout you?”

  “Oh, maybe teaching or academia. Maybe writing in some way or other.”

  “What do you write?”

  “Oh, nothing yet.” I decide to try something out, and add, “Just a little poetry.”

  “Well, there you go. You're a poet and I wasn't aware of it.” She looks at her watch. “Right, I'd better be getting back.”

  “Where d'you live?”

  “Kenwood Manor, where that lousy party was.”

  “Ah, the same as my friend Alice?”

  “Beautiful-blond-Alice?”

  “Is she beautiful? I hadn't noticed.” I'm testing out a kind of wry, post-feminist humor here, but Rebecca just tuts and scowls and asks, “So how d'you know her, then?”

  “Oh, we're on the University Challenge team together …” I say, shrugging casually. Rebecca's cackle bounces off the museum's stone walls.

  “You're joking!”

  “What's funny about that?”

  “Nothing, nothing at all. I'm so sorry, I had no idea I was talking to a TV personality, that's all. So what are you trying to prove, then?”

  “What d'you mean?”

  “Well, going on something like that must mean you've got something to prove.”

  “I haven't got anything to prove! It's just a bit of fun. And, anyway, we haven't qualified for the TV tournament yet. We've got the selection heats next week.”

  “Tournament, eh? Makes it sound quite macho. Like you've got to wear protective clothing or something. What position d'you play? Center-forward? Goal defense … ?”

  “Actually, I'm the first reserve.”

  “Ah, so you're not technically on the team then.”

  “No. No, I suppose not.”

  “Well, if you want me to break anyone's buzzer finger for you, just give me the word.…” We're standing on the steps of the gallery now, and it's started to turn dark since we've been inside. “Nice talking to you … I'm sorry, I've forgotten your name again.”

  “Brian. Brian Jackson. Shall I walk you home?”

  “I know the way, I live there, remember? See you around then, Jackson,” and she heads down the steps, then stops and turns. “And Jackson? Of course you should study whatever subject you want. The written appreciation and understanding of literature, or any kind of artistic endeavor, is absolutely central to a decent society. Why d'you think books are the first things that the Fascists burn? You should learn to stick up for yourself more,” and she turns, and trots down the steps and off into the evening.

  11

  QUESTION: What word, German in origin, describes pleasure obtained from the misfortunes of others?

  ANSWER: Schadenfreude.

  Today I finally got my first lucky break. Big Colin Pagett has contracted hepatitis.

  I find out in the middle of a lecture on Coleridge and Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads. Dr. Oliver's been talking for some time now, and I've been trying to concentrate, really I have, but to my mind a lyrical ballad is something like Kate Bush singing “The Man with the Child in His Eyes,” and that's my central problem with the Romantics; they're just not romantic enough. You imagine it's going to be a lot of love poetry that you can plagiarize in Valentine's cards, but generally speaking it's all about lakes and urns and leech collectors.

  From what I can glean from Dr. Oliver, the primary concerns of the Romantic Mind were (1) Nature, (2) Man's relationship with Nature, (3) Truth and (4) Beauty, whereas I tend to respond best to poetry that explores the themes: (a) God, you're really nice, (b) I fancy you, please go out with me, (c) going out with you is really, really great and (d) why won't you go out with me anymore? It's the sensitive and profound handling of these themes that makes the poetry of Shakespeare and Donne the most affecting and lyrical in the English canon. I'm contemplating entitling my next illuminating essay “Toward a Definition of ‘Romance,’ a Comparative Study of the ‘Lyrical’ in Coleridge and Donne” or something, when, appropriately enough, I see Alice Harbinson's face appear at the door to the lecture hall.

  Everyone looks up, as well they might, but she seems to be jabbing her finger at me, and mouthing something. I point at myself and she nods urgently, then ducks down and scribbles something on a notepad and presses it up to the glass.

  “Brian, I Need You—Urgently,” it says.

  For sex? I wonder. Presumably not, but, still, I clearly have no option but to go, so as discreetly as I can, I pick up my books and files, crouch down and head toward the door. Dr. Oliver, in fact the whole lecture hall, look across at me.

  “Sorry—doctor's appointment,” I say, and place my hand on my chest, as if to emphasize that I could drop dead at any moment. Dr. Oliver doesn't seem to mind much either way, and goes back to the lyrical ballads, and I sneak out to find Alice in the corridor, red-faced, sweaty, breathless and lovely.

  “Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry …” she gasps.

  “That's fine really, what's up?”

  “We need you! For the qualifying round this afternoon.”

  “Really? But Patrick told me not to bother—”

  “Colin can't make it—he's got hepatitis.”

  “You're joking!” Of course, I don't punch the air or anything, because I quite like Colin and I am genuinely concerned for him, really I am, so I look anxious and say, “Is he okay?”

  “Absolutely. It's not the serious one, it's hepatitis A or something. He's bright yellow apparently, but he's going to be fine, completely fine. But it means you're on the team! Now!” and we do a little excited victory shuffle, nothing indecent or anything, then run over to the Student Union.

  There are moments when mankind's achievements seem to stretch our very conception of what is humanly possible—the sculptures of Bernini or Michelangelo for instance, Shakespeare's tragedies or Beethoven's string quartets. And this afternoon in the empty student bar, for some reason that defies rational explanation, fate, or luck, the unseen hand of God, or a state of grace, I seem to know just about everything.

  “If adenine is paired with thymine, then cytosine is paired with … ?”

  Know it. “Guanine.”

  “What is the full name of the organization that awards Oscars?”

/>   Know it. “Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.”

  “Correct. Reed, bush, swamp and chiff-chaff are all varieties of the family Sylviidae and are better known as … ?”

  Know it. “Warblers?”

  “Correct. Which Canadian folk singer's real name is Roberta Joan Anderson?”

  Know it. “Joni Mitchell.”

  “Correct.”

  The University Challenge people have sent down a researcher called Julian, who's a nice, softly spoken young man, mid-twenties, in a V-neck sweater and tie; Bamber Gascoigne's stunt double basically. It's a straightforward quiz format—forty questions in fifteen minutes, no starters, conferring allowed—to see if we're up to appearing on the televised championship. And we are. Oh, we so obviously are. In fact, I don't mind saying we're on fire.

  “Which twelfth-century figure, queen consort of both France and England, was the inspiration for many of the poems of Bernard de Ventadour, the troubadour poet?”

  “Eleanor of Aquitaine,” I say.

  “Hold on, hold on—can we go through the captain please?” hisses Patrick, indignantly. “Now, Brian, how do you know that?”

  I actually know it because Katharine Hepburn plays her in that dodgy film that's always on Sunday-afternoon telly, but I don't tell him that, I just nod sagely and say, wide-eyed, “I just … know,” as if the sheer, awesome world-conquering power of my general knowledge is an enigma, even to me. Skeptically, Patrick looks to Lucy Chang for confirmation, but she just shrugs, so he says, “Eleanor of Aquitaine?”

  “Correct,” says Julian.

  I feel a hand squeeze my arm, and glance to my right, where Alice is smiling at me, eyes wide open in frank awe. That's my ninth correct answer in a row, and I feel like Jesse Owens must have felt at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. The others aren't getting a look-in, not even Lucy Chang, and all of a sudden it seems as if Colin Pagett's hepatitis is the best thing that could have possibly happened, for everyone except Colin Pagett, that is, because it really does seem as if I know everything about everything.

  “Which parallel of latitude was chosen at the 1945 Potsdam conference as the approximate demarcation of North and South Korea?”

  I don't know this one, actually, but it's okay, because we've got Lucy.

  “The thirty-eighth parallel?”

  “Correct.”

  And so it goes on: Andalusia—correct, 1254—correct, calcium carbonate—correct, Ford Madox Ford—correct. Of course, if any of this was actually happening on telly, it would have a nation transfixed, forkful of pie frozen halfway between plate and mouth in breathless awe. But it's not, it's just happening in an empty student bar that reeks of fags and lager, at three in the afternoon on a damp November Tuesday, and no one's watching, not even the cleaners, one of whom has started to hoover the bar carpets.

  “Um, is there any chance we could … ?” mumbles Julian.

  Patrick leaps to his feet and shrieks indignantly. “Excuse me! WE'RE TRYING TO DO A QUIZ AND IT'S AGAINST THE CLOCK!”

  “It's got to be done sometime!” says the cleaner, still hoovering.

  “THIS MAN …” declaims Patrick, pointing his finger at Julian, like an Old Testament prophet, “… HAS BEEN SENT FROM THE MANCHESTER OFFICES OF UNIVERSITY CHALLENGE !” and for some reason, this seems to clinch it, because the cleaner turns the Hoover off, mumbles and returns to emptying the ashtrays.

  Back to the quiz. I wonder if perhaps the spell's been broken, and if we can retain our championship form, but I needn't have worried because the next question is about the Anglo-Saxon ship burial uncovered in Suffolk in 1939, which provided valuable insights into ancient burial rituals.

  Know it.

  “Sutton Hoo,” I say.

  “Correct.”

  “The Rorschach test,” I say.

  “Correct.”

  “Epithelium …” Lucy says.

  “Correct.”

  “Uganda?” Patrick says.

  “No, I think it's Zaire …” I say, and Patrick scowls at me like Caligula for daring to question his authority, then turns back to Julian and says, firmly, “Uganda.”

  “Incorrect. It's actually Zaire,” says Julian, giving me a little consolatory smile. I think I see a little involuntary twitch in the corner of Patrick's eye, but I'm way too mature to gloat about it, because, after all, Patrick, it's not about petty individual point scoring, it's all about teamwork, you fathead …

  “The house sparrow,” I say.

  “Correct.”

  “A is congruent to b modulo m?” whispers Lucy.

  “Correct.”

  “The Corn Laws,” shouts Patrick.

  “Correct.”

  “The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy,” I suggest.

  “Correct.”

  “Buster Keaton?” offers Alice.

  “No, I think it's Harold Lloyd,” I say, kind but firm.

  “Okay, Harold Lloyd?” says Alice.

  “Correct. Which aeronautical engineer died in 1937, several years before his most famous design came to dominate the skies during the Battle

  of … ?” “R. J. Mitchell,” I say.

  “What?” says Patrick.

  “R. J. Mitchell, designer of the Spitfire.” I remember the name from the blurb on the box of the classic one-twelfth-scale Airfix kit, and I know I'm right, it's R. J. Mitchell, definitely, I'm sure of it. But Patrick's looking at me now, and frowning as if he's willing me, aching for me, to be wrong. “It's R. J. Mitchell—trust me.”

  “R. J. Mitchell?” he says reluctantly.

  “Correct,” says Julian, who can't help but smile now. Patrick looks at me with eyes narrowed, but Lucy leans around him and gives me the thumbs-up sign, and Alice, well, Alice slides her hand behind me and places it at the small of my back, just where my granddad shirt has come untucked from my jeans.

  “Okay, your final question: isolated in seventeen thirty-five by Swedish chemist Georg Brandt, which ferromagnetic metal of Group VIII of the periodic table is used in the production of heat-resistant and magnetic alloys?” In all fairness, my periodic table is a little rusty, and I haven't got a clue with this one, but it's okay because, again, Lucy Chang knows.

  “Cobalt,” she says.

  “Correct.” It's over, and we slump forward and pat each other on the back, and Alice gives me a hug and I realize from the damp patch on my back that I'm sweating like a racehorse.

  But Julian is clearing his throat and saying, “Well, your final score was thirty-nine out of a possible forty, a really superb score, so I'm very pleased to tell you that you're definitely through to this year's University Challenge competition!”

  And the crowd, if there had been one, would have gone wild.

  Outside the Student Union building we all shake hands with nice young Julian, wish him well on his trip back to Manchester, see you again on February 15, best regards to Bamber, ha-ha, then we all stand around in the late afternoon sunlight, not sure what to do next.

  “So—how about a celebratory pint, then!” I say, keen to prolong the glory.

  “What? At four in the afternoon?” says Patrick, indignantly, as if I'd just invited everyone back to mine for heroin and an orgy.

  “Can't, sorry, test tomorrow,” says Lucy.

  “I'd better not, either,” says Alice, and there's a little hiatus while we all wonder if she's going to come up with an excuse.

  She doesn't bother, so I say, “Okay, well I'm heading your way too, I'll walk with you.” We head off, and I try to come up with a plausible explanation for why I'm walking in completely the wrong direction.

  “Hey, well done, you!” she says, as we walk through the park that leads to her halls of residence. “You were amazing.”

  “Oh, well, thanks. You too.”

  “Oh, rubbish. I'm dead weight on that team. I only qualified in the first place because you gave me the answers.”

  “Well, that's not true,” I say, even though it is.

  “So how did you know all
that stuff ?”

  “Misspent youth!” I say, but she doesn't get it, so I say, “I suppose I just have a capacity for remembering useless knowledge, that's all.”

  “D'you think there's such a thing? As useless knowledge?”

  “Well. Sometimes I wish that I hadn't learned how to crochet,” I say, and Alice laughs. Obviously she thinks I'm joking, which is maybe for the best. “And lyrics to pop songs, I sometimes think that I could do without knowing so many pop lyrics …”

  “‘Give me spots on my apples but leave me the birds and the bees …’?”

  Know it.

  “‘Big Yellow Taxi,’ by Joni Mitchell,” I say.

  “‘From Ibiza to the Norfolk Broads …’”

  Know it.

  “‘Life on Mars,’ Bowie,” I say.

  “Okay, here we go, something new. ‘She's got cheekbones like geometry and eyes like sin / and she's sexually enlightened by Cosmopolitan …’”

  Of course, I know the answer to this, but I do an engaging little pantomime of not-knowing, then say, “‘Perfect Skin,’ Lloyd Cole and the Commotions?”

  “God, you're gooooood,” she says and then, bizarrely, takes my arm, and we walk on through the park as the sun goes down.

  “Okay, my turn. Do your worst …”

  So I think for a moment, and take a deep breath and say,

  “‘I saw two shooting stars last night / I wished on them but they were only satellites / It's wrong to wish on space hardware / I wish, I wish, I wish you'd care.’”

  And I seem to have gotten away with it, in the sense that she doesn't projectile puke on me right there and then. And, yes, I know I should be ashamed of myself, and I am, really I am. She seems to take it fairly innocently, though, and thinks for a moment then says “Billy Bragg—‘A New England.’”

  “Spot on,” I say.

  “It's beautiful, isn't it?”

  “I think so,” and we walk on through the tree-lined avenue, and the sodium lights blink on as we pass them, like the illuminated dance floor in the “Billie Jean” video. It occurs to me that what we most resemble at this moment is the black-and-white photograph on the cover of a TV-advertised exclusive four-disc Ronco compilation album entitled The Greatest Love Songs Ever. Ahead of us is a large pile of newly fallen leaves, all russet and ocher and gold, and I steer her toward it, saying, “Hey, let's kick through some leaves!”