Page 21 of Meet me at the Seaside Cottages

‘Why?’ says Lish. ‘Where are you headed after this, Stringfellow’s?’

‘You’re right,’ says Owen. ‘Silly me. Just because they advertised a quiz at seven-thirty and chalked-up “QUIZ SEVEN-THIRTY”, imagine me thinking there’s going to be a quiz. What a moron I am.’

Essie and Janey exchange glances, and almost smile at one another. It’s a feeling Essie hasn’t had in quite a while, and Janey ducks her head, so it doesn’t turn into a thing.

The quizmaster, Hector the dentist, is standing up and attempting to get people’s attention – he has Owen’s, raptly – and clearing his throat and tapping the mic. Even though he always does the quiz, he always also manages to behave as if he’s never handled a microphone, a crowd, or written English before.

‘Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and, um, everyone else . . . ’

Hector does his best to be up-to-date but doesn’t always manage it.

‘So, um, hi,’ the strange man Janey recognises is saying to Al, who is grimacing and trying to be polite back. Everyone else is shushing each other and taking their seats.

‘SIT DOWN,’ booms Owen, suddenly, looking up under his beetle brows at the strange man.

‘Um . . . ?’ says Lowell, looking confused.

‘So if you’d all like to sit down, it’s straight into Round One,’continues Hector.

‘I didn’t really come for a qui—’

‘Question one. Which English monarch was believed to have ordered the deaths of the princes in the tower?’

‘Richard III,’ says Owen promptly, snatching the answer sheet from the middle of the table, and wielding his pencil, one of four lining his top pocket.

‘Actually,’ says the strange man mildly. ‘I think historians now believe it was Henry VII . . . ’

Owen turned round his face scornfully.

‘Do they?’ he says. ‘Are you even in this team?’

Milton glances over.‘I think it is Henry VII also,’ he says, politely, then stretched his hand out to shake the man’s. ‘Milton,’ he says.

‘Lowell,’ says the man, and before he knows it, he’s sitting down.

The round finishes and they swap papers with the table behind them and, sure enough, the answer is Henry VII.

Owen goes pink.

‘Well, this is nonsense,’ he says. ‘It’s in aShakespeare play. I challenge this answer!’

‘Evening, Owen,’ says Hector, with a certain world-weariness.

‘Might I buy a round of drinks?’ says Lowell, standing up. He glances at Janey and suddenly his face looks puzzled.‘Sorry . . . have we met?’

The entire table looks at them expectantly.

‘I’ll come and help you with drinks,’ says Janey, unwilling to share a patient’s medical history with half the town. The local knitting circle are at the next table. They are all terrible at the quiz – they keep knitting when they’re meant to be filling in the form – but they love a night out and they all have ears like bats.

‘Janey Munroe,’ she introduces herself once they’re at the bar. ‘I was . . . ’ She can’t remember the child’s name. ‘I was briefly your daughter’s audiologist.’

He inhales deeply. ‘Of course! That’s it. Sorry. Sorry, I didn’t realise . . . out of context, you know. And I’m getting old.’ He shakes his head.

‘That’s okay, but . . . why are you at our quiz night?’

‘I’m really not,’ he says. ‘I’m so sorry. Would you like me to leave? I was just passing and . . . a quiz night kind of happened to me.’

Owen and Hector were by now having quite a noisy dispute about Catherine Parr.

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