The Trivia Man

by Deborah O'Brien

  ‘Fishing’s not a sport,’ Edward said. ‘It’s a pastime. Like trivia.’

  ‘Don’t be pedantic,’ Carole said. ‘Anyway, look at the Amazons. They’re dressed as ballroom dancers.’

  ‘Sshhh, it’s starting,’ Mei Zhen whispered.

  ‘We’re now heading towards the pointy end of the competition,’ the Professor announced from the stage. ‘So I’m dispensing with my usual warm-up. Yes, I know you’ll all be disappointed … All the same, we’re launching straight into the questions.’ And that was what he did.

  In which year did the Wimbledon tennis tournament begin: A. 1877, B. 1897, C. 1907, or D. 1927?

  Maggie shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I’m pretty sure it was 1877,’ said Kevin. ‘It’s the longest-running one in the world.’

  ‘Eighteen seventy-seven sounds far too early,’ said Edward.

  ‘Kevin knows his stuff,’ said Mei Zhen.

  ‘Are you going to listen to someone who comes dressed as a fisherman?’ asked Edward.

  Maggie, who was recorder for the night, wrote down ‘A’.

  ‘Question number two,’ said the Professor. ‘Is Sumo wrestling an Olympic sport?’

  ‘I wouldn’t think so,’ said Ash. ‘It’s as Japanese as AFL is Australian.’

  ‘Do we all agree?’ asked Maggie.

  Everyone nodded.

  Which sport is featured in the film The Natural?

  Edward turned to Maggie. ‘You’re our movie expert.’

  ‘Robert Redford was gorgeous in that film,’ she sighed.

  ‘But what sport did he play?’ Carole asked.

  ‘Baseball.’

  How many forwards are there in a rugby league team?

  Edward started to count on his fingers. ‘Two in the front row and then two props and a hooker. That makes five.’

  ‘There are six,’ said Kevin. ‘You forgot the lock.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Edward said grudgingly.

  In Formula One car racing, which country has had the most World Championship winners?

  ‘Notice the question says “winners”, not “wins”,’ Kevin said. ‘There’s a big distinction.’

  ‘Is it Brazil?’ Carole asked.

  ‘Germany?’ Ash suggested.

  ‘It’s got to be the UK,’ Edward said. ‘Think of all those Brits – Stewart, Mansell, Hunt, Hamilton …’

  ‘And Button too. I think you’re right,’ Kevin said. ‘Write it down, please, Maggie.’

  Edward and Kevin in agreement? How long was that going to last?

  Dawn Fraser won gold medals at three Olympic Games. What were the years?

  ‘Nineteen sixty-four in Tokyo,’ said Maggie.

  ‘Nineteen sixty in Rome,’ added Carole.

  ‘And ’56 in Melbourne,’ said Kevin.

  With which sport are the following terms associated? Cross, hook, uppercut.

  ‘Cricket,’ said Edward.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Kevin. ‘I concede that a hook is a batting stroke. And I’ve heard of an uppercut, but never a cross. That’s only in boxing.’

  ‘So, are we agreed on boxing?’ Maggie asked.

  Edward gave her a dark look. ‘Since when did he become an expert on cricket? Hasn’t he heard of cross-bat shots?’

  ‘Of course I’ve heard of them,’ Kevin said. ‘They’re horizontal shots like hooks and pulls. But the term is cross-bat not cross.’

  ‘Could we come to a decision, please?’ Maggie asked. ‘Cricket or boxing?’

  ‘I think it has to be boxing,’ Ash said.

  ‘You’re the PE teacher,’ Maggie replied, writing Ash’s choice on the answer sheet. From beside her came an exasperated ‘Hmph’.

  At interval, each table stood up in order while Miss Kitty judged the best-dressed team, awarding a dinner voucher to the Amazons.

  ‘But ballroom dancing isn’t a sport,’ Edward grumbled.

  ‘Next week is Literature Night,’ the Professor announced. ‘Come dressed as a character from your favourite book. We have a bottle of champagne and five bonus points to give away.’

  Before the karaoke could start, Maggie and Kevin dashed along the back corridor, down the stairs and out the door.

  ‘I thought they were about to ambush us for the karaoke,’ Maggie said with a breathless laugh.

  They sat in companionable silence on the brick ledge. After a minute or two Maggie spoke. ‘Which character are you going to choose for next week?’

  ‘Jay Gatsby. I like that book.’

  ‘An interesting choice,’ Maggie mused, half-closing her eyes and trying to picture Kevin as the dashing Fitzgerald hero. ‘Actually, with your hair slicked back, you’d probably look a bit like Robert Redford in the film. Do you have a dinner suit?’

  ‘Yes. I had to buy one for my sister’s wedding.’

  ‘Well, I think you’d make a perfect Gatsby. A great Gatsby, in fact.’

  In the moonlight she saw a tiny smile cross his face.

  ‘I think I’ll come as Daisy Buchanan,’ she said. ‘Do you mind?’

  ‘Mind?’

  ‘Gatsby was your idea, Kevin. I don’t want to be a copycat.’

  ‘You wouldn’t be.’

  ‘Good. You know, Kevin, I meant to ask you: did you ever invite that young woman around for dinner?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And did it go well?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Are you planning to see each other again?’

  ‘She’s away in Queensland right now.’

  ‘But when she gets back?’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘Is it true love?’

  ‘I was going to ask you about that, Maggie.’

  ‘Go ahead, then.’

  ‘Well, I find her presence quite unsettling.’

  ‘Her presence?’

  ‘Being in close proximity to her.’

  ‘Unsettling in a nice way?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Then that’s a good thing. It means you’re attracted to her. Do you think she’s attracted to you?’

  ‘She hugs and kisses me.’

  ‘That’s promising,’ Maggie said, suppressing a smile. ‘You wouldn’t want a relationship where one party was interested and the other wasn’t so keen.’

  ‘If she asks me round to her place, should I go?’

  ‘I don’t see why not. You’re both adults.’

  ‘I didn’t mean we would be …’

  ‘No, I realise that. But it’s a natural progression, at some stage, isn’t it?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘Well, join the club. I can’t decide either.’

  WEEK

  EIGHT

  Maggie

  On Monday morning Maggie was having a coffee in the common room when she spotted Carole, with her head down and a tissue held to her face, rushing to the ladies’ room. Was Carole crying? Maggie hesitated for a moment or two. Should she go and check on her friend, or was it better to respect her privacy? Finally, Maggie decided she couldn’t let Carole cry alone in the toilets.

  As she pushed the door open, she found Carole sitting on a bench under a row of lockers where female staff could stow their valuables. She was sobbing loudly.

  ‘What’s happened, Carole?’ Maggie asked, taking a seat beside her.

  ‘It’s Edward.’

  ‘He’s not sick, is he?’

  ‘No, it’s nothing like that,’ Carole sniffled in response. ‘Promise you won’t tell anyone.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Maggie, noting that this was the second confidence she’d been party to in the ladies’ loo.

  ‘He’s been retrenched,’ Carole whispered even though all the cubicle doors were open and there was nobody else in the room.

  ‘Retrenched?’

  ‘Yes, in the latest round of government cutbacks.’

  ‘That’s awful, Carole. He must be devastated.’

  ‘He heard a rumour a fortnight ago. He was t
oo upset to go to trivia that night. Now it’s official.’

  ‘No wonder he’s been so grumpy,’ Maggie said aloud, before she could stop herself.

  ‘You don’t have to live with him, Maggie.’

  ‘It’s understandable though, Carole, in the circumstances.’

  ‘I don’t know what he’s going to do with himself. He’s only fifty. He’s always defined himself by that job.’

  ‘Surely he’ll find something else. He must have a lot of contacts.’

  ‘I certainly hope so. In the meantime he’s decided to maintain a stiff upper lip and pretend it never happened.’

  ‘Do you mean keep it secret?’

  ‘He’s telling all our friends he’s taking long service leave.’

  It was Maggie’s second lesson with 7 Yellow. Five minutes before the end of recess, Phillip arrived for class, clutching his tablet device.

  ‘Salve, Philippe,’ she said when she spotted him at the door of her classroom.

  ‘Salve, magistra.’

  ‘Did you have any problems with the homework?’ Maggie had given them a worksheet in which they had to match common Latin expressions with their English meanings.

  ‘It was easy.’

  ‘Good. How’s Music going?’

  ‘They’ve formed a Year 7 choir. Everyone has to be in it. We’re going to be in the school concert.’

  ‘That sounds like fun,’ Maggie said encouragingly.

  ‘But I hate singing. So I mime instead.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Maggie responded, trying not to smile.

  ‘That’s what I thought. So I told the music teacher my time could be better spent doing maths.’

  ‘Comments like that are best kept to yourself, Phillip.’

  ‘But it’s true. Anyway, isn’t maths more important than music?’

  ‘Not to a music teacher. What did your teacher say?’

  ‘That the choir is compulsory and I have no choice.’

  ‘She’s right.’

  ‘But I’m going to be a lawyer, not a singer.’

  ‘A lawyer, eh?’ Although he possessed the voice and manner of a potential barrister, Maggie wondered whether Phillip would survive in the legal profession. He was a person who said what he meant and meant what he said.

  ‘Yes. That’s why I’ve decided Latin might be useful after all. There were a lot of legal expressions on that worksheet.’

  ‘And I bet you’ve learnt them all by heart.’ It was said in jest, but suddenly he was reciting them in alphabetical order: alibi, bona fide, caveat emptor … When he reached prima facie, Maggie said, ‘Yes, I know the rest, Phillip. Remember, I was the one who wrote the worksheet in the first place.’

  All Monday afternoon Maggie pondered her imminent evening with Josh. She was sorry she’d made the offer about her place, a venue fraught with problems, not least because of the memories it held within its walls, just waiting to be reactivated. She wanted this to be a fresh start. A new chapter in her life. Third time lucky, third time’s a charm – weren’t they the age-old sayings?

  During last period she texted Josh:

  Dinner in the hotel restaurant after the seminar? I’ll book for 8 pm. See you there. M.

  She was teaching a grammar lesson when her phone pinged in response.

  Fine. See you at 8. Are we going to Harksfield afterwards?

  While the students struggled with the subjunctive mood, she contemplated her answer. Finally she typed:

  Let’s wait and see.

  Having chosen her outfit and accessories the night before, Maggie was able to have her shower, blow-dry her hair and still be ready early. She decided to surprise Josh by meeting him after his lecture, rather than going directly to the restaurant. When she looked outside, the sky was an eerie colour that suggested a storm was brewing. Probably wiser to take the car than catch a bus. Beside her, Rufus was already trembling with fear. He hated storms. She phoned a friend from book club and asked if she could mind Rufus for the night. In the background Maggie could hear her friend’s children begging to keep Rufus for a couple of days. ‘It would be like a holiday for him,’ the little boy was saying. So Maggie packed up Rufus’s bed, toys, brush, bowls and two days’ worth of food and secured him in the back seat.

  After she dropped him off and made him promise to be good, she drove into the city, parked in the hotel car park and took the lift to the foyer. Across the other side of the vast space she could see Josh signing the last few books. She took a seat in a circle of chairs near the reception desk and observed him through the fronds of a potted palm positioned beside her. Even from a distance she could make out the dazzling smile and boyish mannerisms. By seven-fifteen there was no-one left in the queue. The twenty-something girl who had spoken to Maggie at the earlier seminar was placing a carton on the table, ready to pack up the books. Dressed in a Dr Josh T-shirt and black leggings, she looked as lithe as a model.

  Maggie was about to rise from her seat and make her way over to the signing table when the girl in the T-shirt bent over and placed her arm on Josh’s shoulder. It wasn’t so much the gesture itself as the manner in which she did it – languorously, as if she’d draped her arm around him many times before. Then Josh turned his face towards the girl and the two of them kissed.

  A sound escaped from Maggie’s mouth – a plaintive ‘No!’ But not a soul heard her amid the bustle of guests checking in at reception and the background music emanating from discreetly placed speakers. She shut her eyes tightly and opened them again. Josh and the girl were laughing. He had hold of her hand, bringing it to his lips, oblivious to the middle-aged woman watching everything from behind a potted palm. It was fortunate that she was still sitting down because her legs had turned to jelly.

  After a while Maggie stood up and checked they weren’t looking in her direction – though how could they be? They were too absorbed in each other’s company. Then she slunk towards the lifts, pressed the ‘down’ button and waited. At any moment she was expecting Josh and the girl to appear, arm in arm. When the lift doors opened, she dashed in, and was about to press ‘Car park’ when something stopped her.

  Why was she running away? It had been her modus operandi ever since that long-ago night when she’d hidden in the toilet while Josh’s mother had expounded on Maggie’s irrelevance, and his mother-in-law had dubbed her a misfit. Like a little mouse, she’d accepted their opinion as if it were Gospel. Then, some twenty years later, when she’d thought Josh was about to propose but he’d had other ideas, she’d hightailed it back to the city, abandoning the textured-brick house that she’d turned into a home, as well as the dress shop she’d built into the finest fashion boutique in the region. She’d always made things easy for him. There’d never been a fuss or a confrontation. Well, not this time. This time the mouse was about to roar. Or at least growl.

  She pressed ‘10’ and watched with relief as the doors closed. She wasn’t ready to growl yet. Maybe a glass of champagne might give her courage. In the mirror attached to the back wall of the lift she could see an ashen-faced woman in a black dress, covering a body that some might call Renoiresque, but others would consider plump. At level ten she went straight to the entrance of the restaurant and waited for the maitre d’ to take her to the table she had booked in the name of Taylor. Then she ordered a bottle of their most expensive champagne. She had almost emptied her crystal flute when Josh arrived, his greyish hair tousled like Robert Redford’s in The Way We Were. Maggie had no doubt as to who had done the tousling.

  ‘Sorry I’m late, Mags,’ he said, pressing his lips against her cheek. The same lips which had just kissed Miss Twenty-Something. ‘There was a big crowd in the foyer tonight. Would you believe the queue still stretched around the room at seven-thirty? I only just finished the signing session a few minutes ago.’

  Liar, liar, pants on fire, she thought, but out loud she said, ‘I don’t suppose you can say “no” to your fans.’

  ‘Not really. They’re my bread and butter.�
�

  ‘Well, you do have mouths to feed at home.’

  ‘Let’s not talk about that. Now, what are you going to have?’ he asked, perusing the menu.

  Might as well order the most expensive items. After all, Dr Josh would be paying for it.

  ‘I thought I’d have the truffle roulade, followed by the seafood platter with whole lobster.’

  ‘You must be hungry, Mags.’

  ‘Ravenous,’ she lied.

  ‘Well, I think I’ll have the crispy skin salmon. Now, what would you like to drink?’

  ‘While I was waiting for you, I took the liberty of ordering a bottle of French champagne.’ She pointed to a silver ice bucket containing an impressively labelled bottle and watched as Josh searched the wine list for the price.

  ‘Good choice,’ he said huskily.

  ‘I thought so. By the way, how’s Kylie?’

  ‘Can’t we talk about something else?’

  ‘I just thought I’d ask, seeing as she’s your spouse.’

  He gave her an irritable look and was about to respond when the waiter arrived to take their order. Afterwards he said, ‘So, are we going to Harksfield after dinner, or should I book a room here?’

  Trust Josh not to indulge in conversational foreplay.

  ‘Neither,’ she said with a smile.

  ‘Have you booked a little boutique hotel nearby?’ he asked. ‘As a special surprise?’

  ‘There’s a big surprise waiting for you, Josh,’ she said.

  ‘You always knew how to tantalise, Mags.’

  ‘We aim to please.’

  The waiter refilled her champagne glass.

  ‘So how are the kids?’ she asked. ‘I guess little Sienna must be crawling these days. And being a toddler, Aidan would be full of energy.’

  ‘I’m here to relax, Maggie. Not talk about the children.’

  ‘But you’re the expert on families, Josh, and you don’t seem to show much interest in yours.’

  ‘Did you have a bad day at school today, Mags? You seem upset.’