Starter for Ten

by David Nicholls

  That's it, that's where I know him from. I remember watching the episode extra carefully because I'd been filling out my college application, and I'd wanted to know what the standard was like. I remember thinking then that they were a pretty poor team, and this Patrick obviously still carries the emotional scars with him, because he looks at the floor, shamefaced, at the mention of it. “Obviously, it wasn't a flawless performance”— they were knocked out in the first round, if I remember rightly, against soft opponents too—“but we're very hopeful about our chances this year, especially with so much … promising … raw material.”

  The three of us look around the room, at each other, and at the rows of empty desks.

  “Right! Well, without further ado, let's get cracking on the test. It's in written form, forty questions, and covers a diverse range of subjects, similar to those we'll be facing on the program. Last year we were particularly weak in the science area”—he glances at me—“and I want to make sure we're not too arts-orientated this time.…”

  “And it's a four-person team, yeah?” the northerner pipes up.

  “That is correct.”

  “Well, if that's the case, then surely … we are the team.”

  “Well, yes, but we need to make sure we're up to an appropriate standard.”

  But Colin's not letting go. “Why?”

  “Well, because if we're not … we'll lose again.”

  “And?”

  “Well, if we lose again … if we lose again …” And Patrick's mouth is working wordlessly now, opening and closing like a dying mackerel. It's the same face he had on national television last year, trying and failing to answer a perfectly simple question on the East African lakes; the same haunted look, with every single member of the audience knowing the answer, willing it to him: Lake Tanganyika, Tanganyika, you idiot.

  Then he's distracted by a noise at the door—a cluster of grinning female faces briefly pressed against the glass, a muffled burst of laughter, a scuffle, and she's shoved into the room by unseen hands, and just stands there, giggling, trying to regain her composure, looking round the room at the four of us.

  I swear, for a moment I think everyone's going to stand up.

  “Whoops! Sorry, everyone!”

  She's slurring a bit, and seems a little unsteady on her feet. She's not thinking of taking an exam pissed, is she?

  “I'm sorry, am I too late?”

  Patrick runs his hands over his astronaut's hair, licks his lips and says, “Not at all. Glad to have you on board … um … ?”

  “Alice. Alice Harbinson.”

  Alice. Alice. Of course, she's an Alice. What else could she be?

  “Okay, Alice. Please, take a seat.…” And she looks around, smiles at me, and comes over and sits at the desk directly behind mine.

  The first few questions are pretty easy: basic geometry and some stuff about the Plantagenets, just there to soften us up, really, but it's hard to concentrate because Alice is making this snuffling noise over my shoulder. I turn and glance at her, and, sure enough, she's hunched forward over her exam paper red-faced, shaking with suppressed laughter. I go back to the test paper.

  Question 4. What was ancient Istanbul known as, before it was called Constantinople?

  Easy. Byzantium.

  Question 5. Helium, neon, argon and xenon make up four of the so-called “noble gases.” What are the other two?

  No idea. Krypton and hydrogen, maybe? Krypton and hydrogen.

  Question 6. What is the precise composition of the aroma emanating from Alice Harbinson, and why is it so delightful?

  Something expensive, flowery but light. Is it perhaps Chanel No. 5? Mixed with a tiny hint of Pears soap, and Silk Cut, and lager …

  That's enough now. Concentrate.

  Question 6. Where is Mrs. Thatcher's parliamentary seat?

  Easy. I know this one, but there's the noise again. I turn, and look and catch her eye this time, and she pulls a face, mouths “Sorry …” and seals her lips with a little imaginary zip. I smile laconically down one side of my face, as if to say, hey, phew, don't mind me, I'm not taking this seriously either, then go back to the test. Must concentrate. I pop a Tic Tac into my mouth, and press my fingers against my forehead. Concentrate, concentrate.

  Question 7. The color of Alice Harbinson's lips might best be described as … ?

  Not sure, can't see. Something from that Shakespearean sonnet. Dam-ask'd hue or coral or something like that? Maybe I'll have another look. No. Don't. Don't look. Just concentrate. Head down.

  Eight, 9 and 10 are fine, but then there's a long stretch of ridiculously hard maths and physics questions, and I start to flounder a little, skip two or three that I just don't understand but have a stab at the one about mitochondrion.

  “Pssst …”

  Question 15. The energy liberated by the oxidization of the products of cytoplasmic metabolism is converted into adenosine triphosphate …

  “Psssssssst …”

  She's leaning forward over her desk, eyes wide, trying to pass me something in her clenched fist. I check that Patrick's not looking, and then reach behind me, and feel her press the little scrap of paper into my cupped hand. Patrick looks up, and I quickly turn the motion into a stretch, arms up over my head, and when the coast is clear, I unwrap the note. It says, “Your strange, unnatural beauty intrigues me. How soon till I can feel your lips against mine … ?”

  Or, more accurately, “Hey, swot! Help me! Am very STOOPID and also PISSED. Please save me from COMPLETE humiliation. What are the answers to 6, 11, 18 and 22? And 4 is Byzantium, right? Cheers, mate, in anticipation, da thicko behind you xxx. p.s. Split on me to the teacher, and I'll have you afterwards.”

  She's asking me to share my general knowledge with her, and if that's not a come-on, then I don't know what is. Of course, cheating in an exam is a terrible thing, and if it was anyone else I wouldn't get involved, but these are exceptional circumstances so I quickly check the questions, then turn the piece of paper over and write: “No. 6 is Finchley, 11 is Ruskin's Stones of Venice, maybe, 18 is Schrödinger's Cat maybe, and 22 I don't know either; Diaghilev? And, yes, 4 is Byzantium.”

  I read and reread this several times. It's pretty dry, as love letters go, and I want to say something more tantalizing and provocative, without actually just writing “You're lovely,” so I think for a minute, take a deep breath, then put: “By the way, you owe me! Coffee afterwards? Best wishes, the Swot!” … then before I can change my mind, I spin around in my seat and place it on her desk.

  Question 23. Whales of the suborder Mysticeti have a specialized feeding structure called … ?

  Baleen.

  Question 24. Which French verse form, utilized by Corneille and Racine, consists of a line of twelve syllables, with major stresses on the sixth and last syllable?

  The alexandrine.

  Question 25. Increased heart rate, cold sweat and a feeling of elation are usually a symptom of which emotional condition?

  Come on, head down, concentrate, this is The Challenge, remember?

  Question 25. How many vertices has a dodecahedron?

  Well, dodec- is twelve, so that's twelve plane faces, which means twelve times four if you separated it all out, which is forty-eight, but then you have to minus the number of shared corners, which would be, what, twenty-four? Why twenty-four? Because each vertex is the junction of three plane faces? Threes into forty-eight are sixteen. Sixteen vertices? Isn't there a formula for this? What if I were to draw it?

  And I'm trying to draw a deconstructed dodecahedron when the little ball of paper is lobbed over my head and skitters across my desk. I catch it before it rolls off the edge, open it and read, “Okay. But you have to promise not to dance.”

  I smile to myself, and play it cool by not turning round, because after all, that's what I am, a pretty cool guy, and I go back to deconstructing my dodecahedron.

  8

  QUESTION: If incandescence is light emitted by a hot material,
what is the term for light emitted from a relatively cool material?

  ANSWER: Luminescence.

  “I expect you didn't recognize me without my dog collar on!”

  “What? Oh, no. I didn't to begin with,” she says.

  “So … Alice!”

  “That's right.”

  “As in Wonderland?”

  “Uh-huh,” she says, glancing longingly toward the exit.

  We're sitting at a little marble table in Le Paris Match, a café that's straining very hard to be French; all “authentic” wooden chairs and Ricard ashtrays and reproduction Toulouse-Lautrec posters, and croque monsieur on the menu instead of “ham-and-cheese toastie.” It's full of students in black polo necks and 501s leaning forward in intense conversations over their pommes frites, and jabbing the air with their fags, wishing they were Gitanes rather than Silk Cut. I've never been to France, but is it really like this?

  “And is that who you're named after, Alice in Wonderland?”

  “So I'm told.” Pause. “How about you, why did they call you Gary?”

  I think for a moment, and actually try to come up with an interesting and amusing anecdote as to why I'm called Gary, before deciding that it's probably easier to come clean.

  “Actually, my name's Brian.”

  “Of course. Sorry, I meant Brian.”

  “Not sure. I don't think there are any Brians in literature. Or Garys, come to that. Except isn't there a Gary in The Brothers Karamazov? Gary, Keith and …”

  “… and Brian! Brian Karamazov!” she says and laughs, and I laugh too.

  Today's turning out to be quite a big day for me actually, because not only am I sitting here with Alice Harbinson, laughing at my own name, but I'm also enjoying my very first ever cappuccino. Do they drink cappuccinos in France? Anyway, it's okay; a bit like the milky coffees they do in the caff on Southend Pier for 35p, except instead of little, bitter globules of undissolved instant coffee on the top, this has a gray musky scum of cinnamon. My fault; I overdid it a little, thinking it was chocolate powder, so it smells a bit like a hot, milky armpit. But then I expect that cappuccinos are a little bit like sex in that I'll probably enjoy it much more the second time. Though at 85p a throw, I'm not sure if there'll be a second time. Again, a little bit like sex.

  There it is again. Sex and Money. Stop thinking about sex and money. Especially money, it's awful, you're here with this amazing woman, and all you can think about is the price of a cup of coffee. And sex.

  “I'm starving,” she says. “Shall we have some lunch? Some French fries or something?”

  “Absolutely!” I say, and look at the menu. £1.25 for a lousy bowl of chips? “Though I'm actually not that hungry, but you get some.”

  So she waves to the waiter, a whippet-thin guy with a Morrissey quiff, a student by the looks of it, and he comes over and talks over my head, greeting her with a big, friendly “Hiya!”

  “Hello, how are you today?” she says.

  “Oh, fine. Except I'd rather not be here. Double shift!”

  “Oh, God. Poor you!” she says, rubbing his arm in sympathy.

  “How are you, anyway?” he says.

  “Very good, thank you.”

  “You're looking lovely today, if I may say so.”

  “Aw, gee,” says Alice, and puts her hands over her face.

  Zut alors.

  “So what can I get you?” he says, finally remembering what he's here

  for. “Could we just get a bowl of pommes frites, d'you think?” “Absolument!” says the garçon, and more or less sprints off to the

  kitchen to commence the preparation of the precious, gold-plated chips.

  “How do you know him?” I ask when he's gone.

  “Who? The waiter? I don't know him.”

  “Oh.”

  And there's a silence. I sip my coffee, and rub the cinnamon dust out of my nostrils with the back of my hand.

  “So! I wasn't sure if you'd recognize me without my dog collar!”

  “You said that already.”

  “Did I? I do that sometimes, get muddled up about what I've said or haven't said, or I find myself saying things aloud that I'd only meant to say in my head, if you know what I mean.…”

  “I know exactly what you mean,” she says, grabbing my forearm. “I'm always getting muddled up, or just blurting things out.” It's sweet, what she's doing here: trying to establish common ground between us, though I don't believe her for a second. “I swear, half the time, I don't know what I'm doing.…”

  “Me, too. Like the dancing last night …”

  “Ah, yes …” she says, pursing her lips, “… the dancing …”

  “Yes, sorry about that. I was a little bit pissed, truth be told.”

  “Oh, you were fine. You're a good dancer!”

  “Hardly!” I say. “You know, I'm just surprised no one tried to put a pencil between my teeth!”

  She looks at me, puzzled. “Why?”

  “Well … to stop me biting my tongue off ?” Still nothing. “You know, like an … epileptic!”

  But she doesn't say anything, just sips her coffee again. Oh, my God— maybe I've offended her. Maybe she knows an epileptic. Maybe there's epilepsy in her family! Maybe she's an epileptic …

  “Aren't you hot in that donkey jacket?” she asks, and the garçon returns with the exquisite chips, about six of them, arranged artfully in a large eggcup, then loiters around, grinning, pleased with himself, trying to strike up another conversation, so I keep talking.

  “You know, if life's taught me two things so far, the first is don't dance when you're drunk.”

  “And the second?”

  “Don't try and put milk in a soda siphon.”

  She laughs, and recognizing defeat, the garçon retreats. Keep going, keep it up …

  “… I don't know what I was expecting, I just thought I'd get this amazing fizzy, milky drink, but there's a name for fizzy milk …” (pause, sip) “… it's called yogurt!”

  Sometimes I could make myself throw up, really I could.

  So we talk some more and she eats her chips, dipping them into a Pyrex contact lens of ketchup, and it's a bit like an afternoon spent in that café in T. S. Eliot's “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” but with pricier food. “Do I dare to eat a peach? Not at these prices, no …” I find out more about her. She's an only child, like me—something to do with her mum's tubes, she thinks, but isn't sure. She doesn't mind being an only child, it just means she has always been a bit bookish, and she went to boarding school, which is politically not very right-on, she knows, but she loved it anyway, and was head girl. She's very close to her dad, who makes arts documentaries for the BBC and lets her do work experience there in the holidays, and she's met Melvyn Bragg on many, many occasions, and apparently he's really, really funny in real life, and actually quite sexy. She loves her mum too, of course, but they argue a lot, probably because they're so similar, and her mum works part-time for Tree-Tops, a charity that builds tree houses for deprived kids.

  “Wouldn't they be better off living with their parents?” I say.

  “What?”

  “Well, you know, kids living on their own up in the trees—that's got to be dangerous, hasn't it?”

  “No, no, they don't live in the tree houses, it's just a summer holiday activity thing.”

  “Oh, right. I see …”

  “Most of these kids from underprivileged homes have only got one parent, and they've never had a family holiday in their whole lives!” Oh, my God, she's talking about me! “It's fantastic, really. If you're not doing anything next summer you should come along.” I nod enthusiastically, though I'm not entirely sure whether she's suggesting I help out, or actually offering me a holiday.

  Then Alice tells me about her summer break, some of which was spent up in the treetops with the deprived and, no doubt, anxious kids. The rest was divided between their houses in London, Suffolk and the Dordogne, then performing with her school drama g
roup at the Edinburgh Festival.

  “What did you do?”

  “Bertolt Brecht's Good Woman of Setzuan.” Of course, it's clear what she's done here, isn't it? It's a classic opportunity to use the word eponymous.

  “And who played the eponymous … ?”

  “Oh, I did,” she says. Yes, yes, of course you did.

  “And were you?” I ask.

  “What?”

  “Good?”

  “Oh, not really. Though The Scotsman seemed to think so. Do you know the play at all?”

  “Very well,” I lie. “Actually we did Brecht's Caucasian Chalk Circle at our college last term”—pause, sip cappuccino—“I played the chalk.”

  God, I think I am going to throw up.

  But she laughs, and starts talking about the demands of playing Brecht's eponymous Good Woman, and I take the opportunity to get my first proper look at her sober, and without perspiration on my spectacles, and she really is beautiful. Definitely the first truly beautiful woman I've ever seen, other than in Renaissance art or on the telly. At school people used to say Liza Chambers was beautiful, when what they really meant was “horny,” but Alice is the real thing: creamy skin that seems to be entirely without pores, and is lit from within by some organic underskin luminescence. Or do I mean “phosphorescence”? Or “fluorescence”? What's the difference? Look it up later. Anyway, she's either wearing no makeup or, more likely, makeup that's artfully contrived to seem as if it's not there, except around the eyes, possibly, because surely no one has eyelashes like that in real life, do they? And then there are the eyes: brown's not really the word, it's too dull and dun, and I can't think of a better one, but they're bright and healthy, and so wide that you can see the whole of the iris, which is speckled with green. Her mouth is full and strawberry-colored, like Tess Derbyfield, but a happy, well-balanced, fulfilled Tess who's found out that, thank God, she actually is a d'Urber-ville after all. Best of all there's a tiny raised white scar on her lower lip, which I imagine she probably got in some harrowing childhood blackberrying incident. Her hair is honey-colored and slightly curly, and pulled back from her forehead, in a style that I imagine is called “a Pre-Raphaelite.” She looks—what's that word in T. S. Eliot?—Quattrocento. Or is it Yeats? And does it mean fourteenth century or fifteenth century? I'll look that up too when I get back. Note to self: look up “Quattrocento,” “damask,” “dun,” “luminescence,” “phosphorescence” and “fluorescence.”