Surprise Me(23)

‘Shall we not do the quiz?’ I say to Tilda, only half joking. ‘Shall we just be spectators?’

‘Welcome, everyone, welcome!’ A middle-aged guy with a moustache mounts the tiny platform and speaks into the microphone. ‘I’m Dave and I’m your quizmaster tonight. I’ve never done this before, I’ve stepped in because Nigel’s ill, so go easy on me …’ He gives an awkward half-laugh, then clears his throat. ‘So, let’s play fair, let’s have some fun … please switch off your phones …’ He looks around severely. ‘No googling. No texting a friend. Verboten.’

‘Toby!’ Tilda gives him a nudge. ‘Off!’

Toby blinks at her and puts his phone away. He’s trimmed his hipster beard, I notice. Excellent. Now he just needs to get rid of his million grotty leather bracelets.

‘Hey, that’s Iguazú National Park,’ he says suddenly, pointing at one of the grainy pictures. ‘I’ve been there.’

‘Ssh!’ says Olivia, looking livid. ‘Be discreet! Don’t yell it out for the whole room to hear!’

At the next table, I hear someone saying, ‘Put “Iguazú National Park”,’ and Olivia practically explodes in rage.

‘You see?’ she says to Toby. ‘They heard! If you know an answer, write it down!’ She jabs furiously at the paper. ‘Write it!’

‘I’m getting some crisps,’ says Toby, without acknowledging Olivia at all. As he gets up, I shoot Tilda a collusive grin, but she doesn’t return it.

‘That boy,’ she says. She presses her hands against her cheeks, hard, then blows out. ‘What am I going to do with him? You won’t guess his latest. Never.’

‘What’s he done now?’

‘Empty pizza boxes. He’s been keeping them in the airing cupboard, can you believe? The airing cupboard! With our clean sheets!’ Tilda’s face is so pink and indignant, I want to laugh, but somehow I keep a straight face.

‘That’s not good,’ I say.

‘You’re right!’ she says hotly. ‘It’s not! I started to smell herbs every time I opened the airing cupboard. Like oregano. I thought: Well, it must be our new fabric conditioner. But today it started to smell rancid and quite vile, so I investigated further and what did I find?’

‘Pizza boxes?’ I venture.

‘Exactly! Pizza boxes.’ She fixes a reproachful gaze on Toby, who sits down and dumps three packets of crisps on the table. ‘He was disposing of them in the airing cupboard because he couldn’t be bothered to go downstairs.’

‘I was not disposing of them,’ Toby responds laconically. ‘Mum, I’ve explained this to you. It was a holding system. I was going to take them to recycling.’

‘No you weren’t!’

‘Of course I was.’ He gives her a rancorous glare. ‘I just hadn’t taken them yet.’

‘Well, even if it was a holding system, you can’t have a holding system for pizza boxes in an airing cupboard!’ Tilda’s voice pitches upwards in outrage. ‘An airing cupboard!’

‘So, on with the Space and Time round.’ Dave’s chirpy tones boom through the microphone. ‘And the first question is: Who was the third man on the moon? I repeat: Who was the third man on the moon.’

There’s a rustling and muttering throughout the room. ‘Anyone?’ says Olivia, looking round the table.

‘The third man on the moon?’ I pull a face at Tilda.

‘Not Neil Armstrong.’ Tilda counts briskly off on her fingers. ‘Not Buzz Aldrin.’

We all look at each other blankly. Around the room, I can hear about twenty people whispering to each other, ‘Not Neil Armstrong …’

‘We know it wasn’t them!’ snaps Olivia. ‘Who was it? Toby, you’re into maths and science. Do you know?’

‘The moon landings were faked, so the question’s invalid,’ says Toby without missing a beat, and Tilda emits an exasperated squeak.

‘They were not faked. Ignore him, Olivia.’

‘You can live in denial if you like.’ Toby shrugs. ‘Live in your bubble. Believe the lies.’

‘Why do you think they were faked?’ I ask curiously and Tilda shakes her head at me.

‘Don’t get him started,’ she says. ‘He’s got a conspiracy theory about everything. Lip balm, Paul McCartney …’

‘Lip balm?’ I stare at her.

‘Lip balm causes your lips to crack,’ says Toby dispassionately. ‘It’s addictive. It’s designed to make you buy more. You use lip balm, Sylvie? Big Pharma’s using you like a puppet.’ He shrugs again, and I gaze back, feeling a bit unnerved. I always have lip balm in my bag.

‘And Paul McCartney?’ I can’t help asking.

‘Died in 1966,’ Toby says succinctly. ‘Replaced by a lookalike. There are clues in Beatles songs everywhere if you know where to look for them.’

‘You see?’ Tilda appeals to me. ‘You see what I have to live with? Pizza boxes, conspiracy theories, everything in the house rewired …’

‘It wasn’t rewired,’ says Toby patiently, ‘it was rerouted.’

‘Question two!’ says Dave into the microphone. ‘Harrison Ford played Han Solo in Star Wars. But what character did he play in the 1985 film Witness?’