by Jill Mansell
‘And now, the final question of the first round.’ Up on the dais, the question master tapped a knife against his glass to regain everyone’s attention. ‘Ready? This is one for all you book lovers out there.’
Lola’s heart promptly broke into a gallop. Now she was the center of attention. Adrenaline buzzed through her veins and her knees began to judder. Across the table, only slightly patronizingly, Isabel said, ‘Come on, Lola, you can do it!’
‘Right, ladies and gentlemen, your question is this.’ As the question master paused for further dramatic effect, Lola concentrated on looking serious, focused, and super-intelligent. ‘What word appears one thousand eight hundred and fifty-five times in the Bible?’
Oh, for bloody crying out loud.
‘Lola?’ demanded Tony when she shook her head and sat back. ‘Come along now, what is it?’
‘How am I supposed to know the answer to that?’
He looked at her as if she were an imbecile. ‘Because it’s a literature question and books are your specialty.’
‘It’s the Bible!’ Stung by the unfairness of it all, Lola cried, ‘Even if I had read the Bible, I promise you I wouldn’t have counted how many times each word appeared!’
‘Quick!’ shouted Jerry.
‘Um, OK… “and.”’ Lola blurted the word out in a panic, aware that across the table Isabel was writing something on the back of one of the programs.
AND, Tony scrawled on the answer card.
‘Time’s up,’ called the question master. ‘Raise your cards please. Ah, I see lots of you got it right this time. Well done, all of you who knew that the correct answer is Lord.’
‘Oh, bad luck, Lola.’ Isabel smiled sympathetically.
The others didn’t say anything. They didn’t need to. Then Jerry, peering at the program by Isabel’s elbow, exclaimed, ‘You wrote it down! You knew Lord was the right answer.’
‘Shh, it doesn’t matter. Questions about books are Lola’s field of expertise. I didn’t want her to feel I was muscling in.’
Intrigued, Sally said, ‘But how did you know it was Lord?’
‘Same way as everyone else who got it right, I expect.’ Isabel dimpled prettily—dammit, she even had dimples. ‘It’s a Trivial Pursuit question. Once you’ve been asked it, it’s not the kind of answer you forget.’
Chapter 30
The four-course meal, each course served between rounds of questions, was sublime. The glittering ballroom with its mirrored walls, opulent décor and hundreds of tethered gold and white helium balloons was beautiful in every way. By concentrating on the good parts and reminding herself that she never had to see the ultra-competitive contingent again, Lola chatted to Elly and Sally and began to enjoy the evening. It was, after all, a far cry from warm beer and burst eardrums at the White Hart.
By the beginning of the fifth and final round they were joint leaders along with the Deadly Dunns, a team from another management consultancy. The rivalry was intense now; there might be laughter on the surface but, deep down, reputations were at stake.
Sally got them off to a flying start by knowing the whereabouts in the body of the islets of Langerhans, which Lola privately felt should be found not in the pancreas but somewhere off the west coast of Scotland in the vicinity of Barra, Eriskay, and Skye.
The questions continued and their table’s points continued to mount up. Bob knew something ridiculously obscure about the composer Dmitri Shostakovich and earned himself a round of applause. Jerry the Egyptologist preened, having correctly answered a question about the identity of the tekenu. Elly dithered a bit but finally guessed correctly that David Hockney had attended Bradford Grammar.
Lola began to wonder if she was actually the least intelligent person in the entire room. Even people who didn’t look remotely clever were getting things right whilst she was still struggling to break her duck.
Isabel let out a shriek of delight and smothered Doug in kisses when he correctly answered that David Campese was the player who’d scored the most tries in test rugby.
Lola helped herself to more wine. One booky-type question, that was all she asked, a question that nobody else knew the answer to. And when she answered it correctly, everyone would break into wild applause and Dougie would give her one of his heart-melting smiles…
Finally it was the penultimate question of the quiz. Doug’s table and the Deadly Dunns were still neck and neck. It’s only a game, Lola told herself, it’s only a game. But she felt sick anyway; it felt more important than that.
‘Right, here we go,’ said the question master. ‘James Loveless, George Loveless, John Standfield, Thomas Standfield, James Brine, and James Hammett are the names of…?’
Lola, busy knocking back wine, froze in mid-glug. She knew who they were. Bloody hell, she actually knew an answer!
Everyone else looked blank. Sally whispered, ‘Is it the Arctic Monkeys?’
‘Soldiers who won the VC?’ guessed Bob.
History was Tony’s specialist subject. He was shaking his head, gazing in turn at the others in search of enlightenment.
‘Are they footballers?’ hazarded Jerry the Egyptologist.
Tony looked at Isabel, then at Doug, before glancing briefly in Lola’s direction. Hastily swallowing her mouthful of wine and keen not to let anyone at nearby tables overhear, she mouthed the answer at him.
Tony frowned and mouthed back, ‘What?’
Tingling with excitement, Lola mouthed the words again, more slowly this time. ‘The Tolpuddle martyrs.’
Tony turned away as if he hadn’t seen her. Reaching for the answer card he scrawled a few words and, leaning across to Isabel, whispered in her ear.
Lola watched open-mouthed as she cried, ‘Oh Tony, you’re brilliant.’
‘Everyone raise your cards,’ called the question master. ‘And the correct answer… is… the Tolpuddle martyrs!’
‘Yayyyy!’ Everyone else on the table let out a huge cheer. Bob and Jerry clapped Tony on the back and Lola waited for him to announce that, in fact, she, Lola, was the one who’d known the answer.
But he didn’t. He just sat there looking smug and lapping up all the congratulations. Lola gazed around wildly; had none of them seen what had happened? Not even Doug?
‘Damn, the Deadly Dunns got it too,’ said Doug. ‘We’re still level. It’s right down to the wire.’
Bloody Tony, what a cheater! Lola was so busy being outraged and glaring at him that she barely listened to the final question.
‘… famous writer died in eighteen eighty. Her nom de plume was George Eliot. But what was her real name?’
This was it. Lola sat up as if she’d been electrocuted. Ha, and it was a trick question! Everyone else was going to think the answer was Mary Ann Evans. More importantly, the Deadly Dunns were going to think that. But the clue was in the way the question had been phrased, and seven months before her death at the age of sixty-one, Mary Ann Evans had married a toyboy by the name of John Cross. So the question being asked was, in fact, what was her real name when she died…
‘Well?’ said Bob. ‘Do you know it?’
‘Of course I know it.’ Lola signaled for the answer card and a pen. With a flourish she wrote Mary Ann Cross. Oh yes, was that a flicker of respect in Doug’s eye? About time too! She was about to win his team the competition!
‘Raise your cards, ladies and gentlemen.’
Trembling with excitement, Lola held it above her head.
‘Hmm.’ Doug was looking at the other raised cards.
Oh Dougie, have faith in me, would I let you down?
‘And the correct… answer… is…’ the question master strung it out X Factor style, ‘… Mary… Ann… Evans!’
‘For fuck’s sake,’ groaned Bob.
‘No,’ Lola heard herself blu
rt the word out, shock prickling at the base of her skull. Shaking her head in disbelief, she said, ‘That’s wrong!’
Jerry’s tone was bitter. ‘You’re wrong.’
‘YEEEAAAHHH!’ Realizing they’d won the competition, the Deadly Dunns were cheering their heads off.
‘But I’m not wrong. Mary Ann Evans married a man called John Cross… she did…’ The words died in Lola’s throat as she realized it no longer mattered; the game was over and she’d lost it—irony of ironies—by trying to be too clever.
Bam, went the cork as it flew out of the Deadly Dunns’ triumphantly shaken bottle of champagne. Everyone else in the room was applauding them. They rose to their feet and bowed, before breaking into a boisterous chorus of ‘We Are the Champions.’
Bob shook his head in disgust.
Tony said, ‘Shit, they’re never going to let us forget this.’
Lola was bursting for the loo. If she left the table now, they’d all talk about how rubbish she was. Oh well, who cared? If she didn’t leave the table now she’d really give them something to talk about.
The ladies’ loo was blessedly cool, a calm ivory marble haven from the babbling crowds in the ballroom. Having touched up her make-up and enjoyed five minutes of peace and quiet, Lola was just putting away her lipstick when the door swung open and Doug said, ‘There you are.’ His miss-nothing gaze checked out her face. ‘Are you OK?’
‘Fine.’ As one of the loos was flushed behind her, Lola said, ‘You aren’t allowed in here.’
‘Come outside then.’ He held the door open and ushered her past him. In the corridor he said, ‘I thought you might have been upset.’
‘You mean crying?’ Lola was glad the whites of her eyes were still clear and white. ‘I wouldn’t give your friends the satisfaction. And I’m not upset, I’m just sorry I let you down.’
Doug shook his head. ‘Hey, it doesn’t matter. It was only meant to be a bit of fun. I had no idea Tony was going to take the whole thing so seriously. They’re not my friends either,’ he added. ‘Tony works for me. Jerry and Bob are friends of his. Tony was the one who persuaded me that coming here tonight would be good PR. He can be a bit of an arse. Well, quite a lot of an arse. Tony takes his quizzes very seriously.’
‘He’s a cheating arse,’ said Lola; it was no good, she couldn’t not tell him. ‘I gave him the Tolpuddle martyrs answer. I did,’ she insisted when Doug look amused. ‘That was me! He just couldn’t bear to admit it.’
‘OK. Well, I’m glad you’re all right. And I’m sorry about Tony.’
Touched by his concern—that had to be an encouraging sign, surely—Lola smiled and said, ‘Thanks. Not your fault.’
Doug hesitated. ‘I was going to ask you, how’s it going with your father?’
Yay, another encouraging sign! ‘Pretty good. I’m trying to fix him up with my mum but she’s digging her heels in. I won’t give up though. When you know two people would be perfect together, if one of them could just forgive the other for some silly mistake they made years ago, you have to persevere. Otherwise it would just be a terrible waste,’ Lola said innocently. ‘Don’t you think?’
Dougie gave her that look she knew so well. ‘Maybe your mother really isn’t interested.’
‘Ah, but that’s the thing. Deep down, I think she still is.’ Lola gazed at him, longing to touch his face. ‘Remember that weekend we went to Brighton and you took loads of photos of me on the beach?’
Doug paused, clearly wondering if there was any point in trying to say no. He shrugged. ‘Vaguely.’
Vaguely, right. Which meant he was definitely lying. He’d been eighteen, she’d been seventeen and they’d made love at midnight on a lilo on the beach. How could any red-blooded male fail to remember a weekend like that?
‘I’d love to see those photos again.’
His mouth twitched. ‘You don’t give up, do you?’
Lola smiled back, realizing that he wasn’t going to tell her whether or not he still had them. That was the trouble with trying to outsmart someone smarter than yourself. On the other hand, reminding him of the existence of the photos might prompt him to dig them out and the sight of her cavorting in the sea in her pink bikini might in turn remind him of how happy they’d been, and how happy they could be again.
‘Well,’ Dougie cleared his throat. ‘I suppose we’d—’
‘Yes, better get back.’ She dived in, saying the words before he could say them himself. ‘Don’t want people starting to wonder where we’ve got to. Just one thing first.’ Her heart beating faster, Lola rested a hand on his arm. ‘Seeing as it’s New Year’s Eve and I probably won’t get the chance later, can I wish you a…’ move towards him ‘… Happy…’ slide your free arm around his neck ‘… New…’ half close your eyes, half open your mouth…
‘Year,’ said Doug, planting a brisk kiss on her cheek before stepping back.
Damn, foiled again. So near yet so far. This was a man with way too much self-control.
***
What a job. What was he doing here, freezing his nuts off outside a club, listening to everyone on the inside counting down to midnight?
Next to Gabe, Jez muttered, ‘Hey, man, Happy New Year.’
‘Yeah, you too.’ Gabe huddled further inside his fleece, his breath puffing out in front of him, his hands so cold he could barely grip the camera.
‘It’s midnight. They’re all in there, going crazy.’ Shivering, Jez jerked his head. ‘Fancy a cup of tea in that café up the road?’
Gabe nodded; this had to be the best time to get one.
Ten minutes later they made their way back to the club.
‘Bloody hell,’ cried one of the other paps, ‘you missed it! That EastEnders guy ran out; all he was wearing was his cowboy boots.’
‘You’re having us on.’ Jez paled.
‘Naked as a baby, I swear to God. And he did a handstand. Not a pretty sight.’ Chuckling, the pap showed them the shots on his camera. ‘That’s my work done for the night. Picked the wrong time to leave, you lads. Look out for these pictures in the News of the World.’ He left, crowing with delight.
Jez said with feeling, ‘I bloody hate this bloody job.’
‘Me too.’ But the annoying thing was, it had its addictive side. Balanced against the cold and the tedium and the endless hanging around was the knowledge that the next big picture might be only a click away. It was like shark fishing: one minute you were bored out of your mind, the next you were firing on all cylinders because at any second anything could happen… like this stretch limo heading down the street towards them now, slowing down. Getting his camera ready, Gabe experienced the now-familiar rush of adrenaline as a blacked-out window slid down. He moved into position alongside Jez. Because this could be anyone—Jack Nicholson dressed as a nun, Mick Jagger with Lily Allen, Simon Cowell with—
‘What the fuck?’ yelled Jez as half a dozen yellow plastic bazookas fired torrents of ice-cold water at them. Shaking his dripping hair out of his eyes, almost dropping his camera, Gabe cursed and watched the limo accelerate away. The occupants were roaring with laughter, delighted with their prank, and no one even knew who they were.
‘Happy New Year, losers,’ one of them bellowed through the window.
Gabe was soaked to the skin. Four interminable hours and he hadn’t managed so much as a single decent photo. This was possibly the very worst New Year’s Eve of his life.
Chapter 31
‘I’m not sure this is such a good idea,’ said Lola. ‘Remind me again why we’re here?’
Because I’ve got the most enormous crush on your father and I’m longing to show off in front of him, knock him dead with my dazzling footwork and spinny twirls!
Sally didn’t actually say this out loud. Turning to Lola she explained, ‘Because it’s fun and it’s som
ething you’ve never done before. I mean, look at this place! Did you ever see anything so pretty?’
Lola followed the expansive sweep of her arm, dutifully taking in the flaming torches and architectural lighting illuminating the courtyard’s classical façades. ‘I’m going to fall over and break my ankles.’
‘You won’t. I’ll show you how to do it properly. Besides, falling over’s all part of the fun.’ Personally Sally felt her choice of Somerset House ice rink, off the Strand, had been inspired. ‘And it’s only here for a couple more weeks—ooh look, there’s Nick!’
Luckily the sub-zero temperatures meant that her cheeks were already pink. In her white fake-fur hat and matching vest, worn over a red cashmere sweater and black jeans, Sally was ready to impress the hell out of Lola’s dad. When Lola had idly wondered what father-daughter things she and Nick could do together on their road to getting to know each other, it had taken Sally… ooh, all of two seconds to think of something that could include her as well.
Even if it meant having to sacrifice Lola’s ankles to do it.
OK, that was just a joke; it wouldn’t really happen anyway. Oh God, look at Nick, he was so gorgeous, she could just—
‘Over here,’ Lola called out, windmilling both arms to attract his attention.
‘Hey, you two.’ Joining them, he gave Lola a hug and a kiss.
She beamed, clearly delighted to see him again. ‘Look at you, so brown.’
Nick, just back from ten days in St Kitts, in turn greeted Sally with a kiss on the cheek that made her quiver like a terrier on a leash. Even his polite kisses were thrilling.
Nick grinned. ‘So you’re going to be teaching us all the moves tonight?’
Was that an unintentional double entendre or was he saying it like that on purpose?
‘Absolutely. You’re both going to love this.’ Her eyes shining—just in case he was flirting with her—Sally said, ‘By the time I finish with you two tonight, you’ll be whizzing round like pros.’