Starter for Ten

by David Nicholls

  38

  QUESTION: Adam Heyer, Frank Gusenberg, Pete Gusenberg, John May, Al Weinshank and James Clark were amongst the victims of which bloody event on North Clark Street, Chicago, in February 1929?

  ANSWER: The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre.

  “Listen, Alice, I've been doing some thinking, about us, and, well, there's this great poem by the Metaphysical poet John Donne, ‘The Triple Foole,' which goes, ‘I am two fooles, I know / For loving, and for saying so / In whining poetry' and I think, well, I 've been a bit like that. What I mean to say is I've been coming on a bit strong, what with dragging you kicking-and-screaming into the photo-booth and that crazy, bad poetry in the Valen-tine's card and everything, and I know how important your independence is, and that's fine by me, it really, really is. I'm in love with you, of course, massively so, but that's not important, that needn't get in the way, because at the end of the day I think we get along really well, that we're good friends, soulmates even. I'd certainly rather spend time with you than anyone in the world, really I would, even though I know I can be a complete prick sometimes. Most of the time, in fact, and, all right, look, I'm not completely stupid, I know you don't love me now, but you might do, mightn't you, one day? I mean you might grow to? It is possible, it does happen, and I've got patience, loads and loads of patience, and I don't mind waiting. So what I'm trying to say is, let's wait and see. Just wait and see what happens. Let's not push things, let's just keep spending time together and have some fun. And wait. And see. Okay?”

  That's what I'm going to say to Alice when I see her, more or less. I'm not sure if I can get away with the John Donne quote, because I'm worried it might come across as a tiny bit pretentious, but I'm going to see how it plays in the moment. I'm going to say all of the above, nothing more, and see how she takes it, but not get into a big, heavy discussion, and then I'm going to pull on my coat, go home and get a good eight hours' sleep. And I'm definitely not going to try and kiss her. Even if she asks me to stay and make love to her or whatever, I'm going to say no, because it's The Challenge in the morning. We've both got to be fresh for The Challenge. Like boxers—no sex before a fight.

  I'm standing outside her door. I knock.

  There's no reply.

  I knock again. Wisdom, Kindness, Courage, Wisdom, Kindness, Courage …

  “Who is it?”

  “It's Brian.”

  “Brian! It's nearly midnight!”

  “I know, sorry, I just wanted to say hi!”

  I hear her get out of bed, the rustle of her pulling on some clothes, and then she peers round the edge of the door, in the Snoopy T-shirt and a black pair of knickers.

  “I'm actually asleep, Bri …” she says, rubbing her eyes.

  “Are you? God, sorry. It's just I've had a bit of an eventful day, and I wanted to talk to someone about it.”

  “Can't it wait till … ?”

  “Not someone. You.”

  She bites her lip, and tugs the front of her T-shirt down with her spare hand.

  “Oh, come on then.” And she opens up the door. I go and sit on the edge of the unmade bed, which is warm to the touch from where she was sleeping.

  “So—how was Valentine's Day?”

  “Oh, fine, fine …”

  “Get anything special?” I ask meaningfully. “In the post this morning? Get anything nice? …” I wish she'd come and sit next to me.

  “Ye-eees, I did, thank you, Brian, and it was a lovely, lovely poem.”

  Why won't she come and sit next to me?

  “You really think so? Phew! Because I was a bit embarrassed about it. It's the first time anyone's actually read anything I've written, so …”

  “No, I thought it was lovely, really. Very … frank. And … raw. Emotionally. Quite derivative of e. e. cummings, I thought, well, not derivative, inspired by, it reminded me of him, I mean. In fact I think there were some lines that I actually recognized …”—hang on, is she accusing me of plagiarism?—“… but, anyway, it was lovely, really. Thank you. I was very … touched.”

  “That is assuming it was from me!” I say lightheartedly. “What poem! I didn't send any poetry!” I'm jabbering, I know I am, but she smiles, and scratches her elbow and makes a tent of her T-shirt by stretching it down and hooking it over her bare knees. And I'm struggling to keep things lighthearted now, because I can't help noticing that on the desk behind her, looming over her shoulder, is a massive bouquet of perfect red roses slumping sideways in a huge, battered aluminum saucepan of water that she's nicked from the communal kitchen. Of course there's no reason why she shouldn't receive Valentine's gifts from other men, I'd be a fool not to realize that she would, I'm not naïve, she's bound to, what with being beautiful and popular and conventionally sexually attractive and everything, but this bouquet is just … vulgar. So vulgar that I'm trying not to draw attention to it, and to focus instead on my small, sincere, little heartfelt handcrafted homemade poem. But there they are, looming over her shoulder, stinking up the place like cheap air freshener, that big fuck-off bunch of perfect fucking red fucking roses.…

  “Lovely roses!” I say.

  “Oh, those!” she says, doing a little double-take over her shoulder, as if they'd somehow crept up behind her, like Birnam bloody Wood …

  “Any idea … who might have sent them?” I say lightly.

  “No idea at all!” she says. It's some posh bastard, obviously. That's a whole term's grant there, slumped in that saucepan of water. And of course she knows who they're from; because what's the point of being that generous if you're going to remain anonymous?

  “Well—was there a card attached or … ?”

  “Is this any of your business, Brian?” she snaps.

  “No. No, I suppose not.”

  “Sorry! Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry …” she says, and gets out of her chair, and puts her arms round me, and gives me a stooped hug. I look down along the length of her back, where the T-shirt has ridden up, and put one hand on the warm bare skin just above her underwear, which incidentally seems to be made of some sort of translucent black mesh or lace or something, and we stay like that for a time, while I stare at the roses lolling in the saucepan.

  “Sorry …” she whispers in my ear. “I'm such a bitch for snapping at you, it's just we had a really long, difficult rehearsal tonight, and I think I might still be in character.…” Then she sits next to me and, laughing, says, “God, did I really just say that? That is without a doubt the most pretentious thing I've ever said in my life.…” And we're both smiling again, and I wonder if I might try for a kiss, but then remember my new mantra. Wisdom, Kindness, Courage.

  “Look, I really ought to be getting back to bed now, Brian. Big day tomorrow and all that …”

  “Of course, I'll go …” and I half-stand, then sit down again. “But can I just say something first … ?”

  “O-kay,” she says warily, sitting down beside me.

  “Don't worry—it's nothing scary. I just wanted to say …” And I take her hand, take a deep breath and say, “Alice … Okay, listen, Alice, I've been doing some thinking, about us, and, well, there's this great poem by the Metaphysical poet John Donne, ‘The Triple Foole,' which goes, ‘I am two fooles, I know / For loving, and for saying so / In whining poetry' and I think, well, I've been a bit like that. What I mean to say is I've been coming on a bit strong, what with dragging you kicking and screaming into the photo-booth and that crazy, bad poetry in the Valentine's card and everything, and I know how much you value your independence, and that's fine by me, it really, really is. I'm in love with you of course, massively so …”

  “Brian …” she says.

  “… but that's not important, that needn't get in the way, because at the end of the day …”

  “Brian …” she says.

  “… Hang on, Alice, just let me finish …”

  “… No, Brian, you have to stop …” she says, standing up and cross- ing to the far side of the room. “This isn't ri
ght …”

  “But it's not what you think it is, Alice …”

  “No, I'm sorry, Brian, I can't take it anymore. Let's get this over with.…” And the strange thing is, she doesn't say this to me, she says it to her wardrobe. “Come on, Neil, this isn't funny anymore …” That's strange, I think, why is she calling her wardrobe Neil? What does

  she call her chest of drawers! I wonder, as she knocks on Neil the Wardrobe's door with the flat of her hand, and the door opens slowly by itself, as if in a conjuring trick.

  There's a man in the wardrobe.

  He's holding his trousers in his hand.

  I don't understand.

  “Brian, this is Neil,” says Alice.

  Neil unfolds out of the wardrobe, gets to his feet.

  “Neil is playing Eilert Lovborg. In Hedda Gabler.”

  “Hello, Neil,” I say.

  “Hello, Brian,” says Neil.

  “We were … rehearsing,” says Alice.

  “Oh,” I say, as if this explained everything.

  And then, I think, I shake his hand.

  The Final Round

  “what do you think of her?” “I don't like to say,” I stammered.

  “Tell me in my ear,” said Miss Havisham, bending down.

  “I think she is very proud,” I replied, in a whisper.

  “Anything else?”

  “…Anything else?”

  “…you shall go soon,” said Miss Havisham, aloud.

  “Play the game out …”

  39

  QUESTION: “Once there were four children named Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy.” So begins the most famous work of a scholar, novelist and Christian apologist. But what is the name of the book?

  ANSWER: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

  The cliché about meeting famous people in the flesh, of course, is that they're often disappointingly a lot smaller than they appear on the screen. But in real life Bamber Gascoigne is actually a lot bigger than I'd imagined: very slim, and smiley, and surprisingly good-looking, like a benevolent character from C. S. Lewis who's about to take you on an amazing adventure, but with sex appeal. The four of us are standing in a line in the TV studios, waiting nervously, and he's working his way down the line, a little like a Royal Variety Performance.

  Alice is avoiding me, and is first in the line, so I can't hear what she's saying to him but presume that she's attempting to seduce him. Then Patrick, who's practically doubled over with humility, and is making a big show of having met him before, this time last year, and is acting as if they're big, big pals, like they've been on holiday together or whatever. Bamber's very charming, smiling a lot, and saying, “Yes, yes of course I remember you!” when he's probably thinking, Who the hell is this idiot?

  Then Lucy, who is incredibly quiet and nice as usual, and then it's my turn. The question is, do I call him Bamber, or Mr. Gascoigne? He approaches, shakes my hand, and I say, “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Gascoigne.”

  “Oh, please, call me Bamber,” he says, grinning broadly, taking my hand in his two hands. “And your name is?”

  “Brian, Brian Jackson,” I mumble.

  “… Reading?”

  “Eng Lit,” I say.

  “Beg your pardon?” he says, and leans in.

  “Eng-lish lit-erature,” I say loudly, overenunciating this time, and I notice Bamber recoiling, almost imperceptibly, and guess that it's because he can smell the alcohol on my breath, and has realized that I'm pretty much pissed out of my head.

  Despite the best efforts of the licensing authorities, the fact remains that no matter how late it is, you can always get a drink if you need it badly enough.

  After I run from Alice's room at Kenwood Manor, I walk the streets for a while, trying to calm down, trying to stop shaking, until I find myself outside the Taste of the Raj, a curry house that doubles as a sort of Indian speakeasy; you can drink pretty much all night, as long as you're always within ten feet of an onion bhaji.

  Tonight, at just gone midnight, the place is empty. “Table for one?” asks the solitary waiter.

  “Yes, please,” and he shows me to a booth at the very back of the restaurant, near the kitchen. I open the menu, and notice that the Taste of the Raj is offering an extra-special, bitterly ironic Valentine's Day Menu for couples out on a romantic date, but decide that even though the menu represents good value for money, I doubt if I'd be able to swallow anything. Besides, I'm not here for the food. I order a pint of lager, two poppadoms, an onion bhaji, and a gin and tonic.

  “No main course, sir?”

  “Maybe later,” I say. And the waiter nods mournfully, as if he understands the sometimes brutal workings of the human heart, and goes to get my booze. I've finished both the pint of lager and the gin and tonic before I even hear the ping of the microwave from the kitchen behind me. The waiter slides the warmed-through onion bhaji in between my elbows on the table, and I offer up the empty glasses.

  “Another pint of lager, and a gin please. No tonic this time,” and the sad-eyed waiter nods wisely, and sighs, and heads off to get my order.

  “And, excuse me?”—I shout after him—“Could you make the gin a double?” Halfheartedly, I pick the crust off the onion bhaji and dip it into the sweet, watery mint yogurt, and when the waiter returns with my drinks, I sip the top inch off the pint and pour in the gin, stir it with the handle of my fork, and think about all the things that I know.

  I know the difference between a pterosaur, a pteranodon, a pterodactyl and a ramphorhynchus. I know the Latin name for most of the common domestic British birds. I know the capital cities of nearly every country in the world, and most of the flags too. I know that Magdalene College is pronounced Maudlin College. I know the complete plays of Shakespeare except Timon of Athens, and the complete novels of Charles Dickens except Barnaby Rudge, and all the Narnia books, and the order in which they were all written, approximate in the case of Shakespeare. I know every lyric of every song Kate Bush has ever recorded, including B sides, as well as the highest chart position of every single she's released. I know all the French irregular verbs, and where the phrase “toe the line” comes from, and what the gall bladder's for, and how oxbow lakes are formed, and all the British monarchs in order, and the wives of Henry VIII and their fates, the difference between igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic rocks, and the dates of the major battles of the War of the Roses, the meanings of the words “albedo,”

  “peripatetic” and “litotes,” and the average number of hairs on a human head, and how to crochet, and the difference between nuclear fission and fusion and how to spell “deoxyribonucleic” and the constellations of the stars and the population of the earth and the mass of the moon and the workings of the human heart. And yet the important and most basic things, like friendship, or getting over Dad dying, or loving someone, or just simply being happy, just being good and decent and dignified and happy, seem to be utterly and completely beyond my comprehension. And it occurs to me that I'm not clever at all, that in fact I am without a doubt the most ignorant, the most profoundly and hopelessly stupid, person in the whole world.

  I start to feel a bit blue, so to cheer myself up I order another pint of lager and another double gin, pour the gin into the lager, stir it with my fork, dip a shard of poppadom into the mango chutney, and the next thing I remember is waking up in my clothes at 6:30 in the morning.

  “Brian! Brian, wake up …”

  “Leave me alone …” I say, and pull the duvet up over my head. “Brian, come on, we're late.…” Someone's shaking me by the shoul der. I push their hand away. “It's still nighttime—go away.”

  “It's 6:30 in the morning, Brian, we're due at the studio at 9:30, and we're not going to make it. Come on, get up …” And Patrick yanks the duvet back. “You've been sleeping in your clothes?”

  “No … !” I say indignantly, but pretty unconvincingly, since I clearly am asleep, and wearing clothes. “I got cold in the night, that's all.…” Patrick yanks t
he duvet off completely. “You've still got your shoes on!”

  “My feet got cold!”

  “Brian—have you been drinking?”

  “No … !”

  “Brian, I thought we had an agreement—an early night and no drink ing before the match.…”

  “I have not been drinking!” I slur, hauling myself upright, hearing the gin and lager and the onion bhaji settling in my stomach. “Brian, I can smell it on your breath! What's your mattress doing on the floor, anyway?”

  “He says it's a futon,” says Josh from the doorway, shivering in his un derpants. Marcus peers, blinking, over his shoulder. “I had to wake your flatmates up to get in,” explains Patrick. “Ooooops. Sorry, Josh, sorry, Marcush …”

  “I don't believe it—you're still drunk!”

  “I'm not drunk! Five minutes—just give me five more minutes!”

  “You've got three minutes. I'll be waiting downstairs in the car,” snarls

  Patrick, and flounces out, followed by Josh and Marcus. I sigh, rub my face with my hands, sit on the edge of the futon.

  I remember Alice.

  I go to my wardrobe, and take out Dad's brown corduroy jacket.

  The journey to Manchester is pretty grim. We're traveling in Alice's 2CV, and she gives me a patronizing little no-hard-feelings smile, which I pretend not to see as I clamber in the back, the crisp packets and shattered cassette cases crunching underfoot. I tug the door shut by means of the length of washing line that passes for a door handle, and the exertion causes me to belch a little, the air hissing through clenched teeth. Dr. Lucy Chang detects this, makes her diagnosis, and gives me the hospital smile that they teach her to use as part of her training. I pull my coat up under my chin like a blanket as we set off, and try to ignore the lurching of the 2CV, which apparently seems to have no suspension at all, and feels like a ride at a carnival.

  Needless to say, good old Patrick has prepared several hundred questions for the journey as a fun, fun warm-up, all meticulously typed on six-by-four index cards, and he insists on bellowing them out very loudly over the noise of the 2CV's lawnmower engine as we judder along the motorway at a steady fifty-five miles per hour. I resolve not to answer any of them, just to teach them all a lesson. The trick about getting through today is to remain dignified. Pride and Dignity, that's the key. That, and not throwing up on myself.