Surprise Me(26)

Just be us.

Just be the two of us.

Just be



I pause, peering down at my sheet. I’m running out of steam. I always was a bit crap at poetry. How can I end it?

Just be ourselves, I write finally. I draw a love heart and some kisses for good measure. Then I fold the whole thing up into a smallish oblong.

Now to deliver it. I wait until Dan’s looking the other way, then slip it into the pocket of his suit jacket, which is hanging on the back of his chair. He’ll find it later, and he’ll wonder what it is and slowly unfold it, and at first he won’t understand, but then his heart will lift.

Well, maybe it’ll lift.

Well, it would probably have lifted more if I was better at poetry, but so what, it’s the thought that counts, isn’t it?

‘Have a toffee,’ says Toby, offering a bag to me. ‘I made them myself. They’re awesome.’

‘Thanks.’ I smile at him, take a toffee and put it in my mouth. A few moments later I regret it. My teeth are locked together. I can’t chew. I can’t speak. My whole face feels immobilized. What is this stuff?

‘Oh, they’re quite chewy,’ says Toby, noticing me. ‘They’re called “lockjaws”.’

I shoot him a glare, which is supposed to mean: ‘Thanks for the heads-up, not.’

‘Toby!’ says Tilda crossly. ‘You have to warn people about those things. Don’t worry,’ she adds to me. ‘It’ll melt in about ten minutes.’

Ten minutes?

‘All right, people!’ says Dave the quizmaster, tapping his microphone to get everyone’s attention. His cheerful manner has somewhat faded over the course of the evening; in fact, he looks like he’s desperate for it to end. ‘Moving on, the next question was: How many actors have played Doctor Who? And the answer is: thirteen.’

‘No it’s not,’ calls out a fattish guy in a purple polo shirt, promptly. ‘It’s forty-four.’

Dave eyes him warily. ‘It can’t be,’ he says. ‘That’s too many.’

‘Doctor Who doesn’t just feature in the BBC series,’ says the purple-polo-shirt guy pompously.

‘It’s fourteen,’ volunteers a girl at an adjoining table. ‘There was an extra doctor. The War Doctor. John Hurt.’

‘Right,’ says Dave, looking beleaguered. ‘Well, that’s not what I’ve got on my answer sheet …’

‘It’s none of them,’ says Toby loudly. ‘It’s a trick question. “Doctor Who” isn’t the name of the character, the name of the character is “the Doctor”. Boom kanani,’ he adds, looking pleased with himself. ‘Booyah. In your face, everyone who wrote down a number.’

‘That’s a common misunderstanding,’ says the man in the purple polo shirt, giving Toby a baleful look. ‘The answer’s forty-four, as I said. You want the full list?’

‘Did anyone put thirteen?’ Dave perseveres, but no one’s paying attention.

‘Who the hell are you, anyway?’ retorts a man in a flowery shirt, who is quite red in the face. He waves a belligerent hand at the purple-polo-shirt team. ‘This is supposed to be a local friendly quiz, but you come marching in with your matching bloody shirts, picking fights …’

‘Oh, don’t like strangers, do you?’ The purple-polo-shirt guy glowers at him. ‘Well sorry, Adolf.’

‘What did you call me?’ The man in the flowery shirt kicks back his chair and stands up, breathing hard.

‘You heard.’ The purple-polo-shirt guy gets up too and takes a menacing step towards the flowery-shirt man.

‘I can’t bear this,’ says Olivia. ‘I’m going out for a cigarette.’ She reaches for Dan’s jacket and puts it on – then looks at Simon’s, which is almost identical, and back at the one she’s wearing. ‘Wait. Simon, is this your jacket?’

‘You’re wearing Simon’s,’ says Dan easily. ‘We swapped chairs. He prefers a lower back.’

It’s about five seconds before the significance of this hits me. Simon’s jacket? That’s Simon’s jacket? I’ve put a love poem in Simon’s jacket?

‘Have you got a lighter?’ Olivia reaches in the pocket and pulls out my oblong of paper. ‘What’s this?’ she says, unfolding it. As she sees the love heart her whole face blanches.

No. Nooo. I need to explain. I try to wrench my teeth apart to speak, but the stupid bloody toffee is too strong. I can’t manage it. I wave my hands frantically at Olivia, but she’s staring at my poem with a look of utter revulsion.

‘Again, Simon?’ she says at last.

‘What do you mean, again?’ says Simon, who’s watching the purple-polo-shirt guy and flowery-shirt man trade insults.

‘You promised!’ Olivia’s voice is so scorching, I feel quite bowled over. ‘You promised, Simon, never again.’ She brandishes the poem at Simon, and as he reads it, his face blanches, too.

I try to grab at the paper and get their attention but Olivia doesn’t even notice me. Her eyes are blazing and quite scary.

‘I’ve never seen that before!’ Simon is stuttering. ‘Olivia, you must believe me! I have no idea what – who—’