We don’t bother staying for dessert; Archie is practically vibrating with his need to vacate the restaurant and I’m rather keen to get back to the castle and put an end to this date. I’ve tried my hardest, for Alice’s sake, but it’s been a bit of a disaster, with Archie complaining about everything. I’m beginning to agree with Tom that Archie isn’t quite as charming as everybody thinks – and I’m sure the waiter would agree with me.
I start to sober up from the copious amounts of grotty wine during the walk back, which isn’t such a good thing when you’re walking uphill. It’s quite steep and the numbing effects of the wine would be quite welcome right about now.
‘Perhaps we should have got a taxi back,’ Archie says at the midway point of the hill. We were both so eager to leave the restaurant, we didn’t think about the mechanics of getting back to the castle. Archie, having relented and helped me polish off the wine, has left his car behind in the village. Still, we’re almost there. ‘Do you think we’ll make it back for the quiz?’
The service was so slow, we’re now running late. If we’d stayed for dessert, we’d have been wandering home at midnight.
‘I’m sure we will.’ I grab hold of my side. Are you supposed to get a stitch while walking? ‘And Alice knows we’re on our way. I texted her while you were in the loos.’
Archie pulls a face. ‘Don’t remind me about that.’
I press my lips into a hard line, determined not to laugh as I remember the look on Archie’s face as he scurried back from the toilet. He’d grabbed me by the elbow and practically yanked me out of my seat.
‘We’re leaving. Right now. No, don’t you dare leave a tip!’
‘But…’ My hand paused as it rummaged in my handbag for my purse.
‘The waiter.’ Archie thrust a finger towards the gents’. ‘He’s in there. Washing his feet in the sink.’ Archie looked as though he was about to throw up. ‘He’s got his shoes and socks off and he’s got his bare feet in the sink. Can you believe it?’
‘What, both of them?’ I was trying to figure out the mechanics of that, but Archie wasn’t listening, too intent on towing me out of the restaurant.
I never did find out whether it was one foot at a time or a double whammy.
‘Is she going to make them wait for us?’ Archie asks as we puff our way up the hill.
‘I don’t know.’ I shrug. ‘Alice hasn’t replied yet.’ I hope she isn’t still upset about my ill-thought-out jesting. She must know I don’t believe for a second that she took Francelia’s necklace.
‘I hope they do wait,’ Archie says. ‘I’m pretty good at quizzes.’
‘Not to sound smug or anything, but me too.’ I let myself down during the rounders game, but the after-dinner quiz is my chance to redeem myself. I think I have quite a broad general knowledge (thanks to Great Aunt Dorothy’s love of quiz shows) and I’m confident that if any history questions come up I’ll be able to ace them.
‘Maybe we can team up.’ Archie places his arm around my shoulders. It takes every ounce of restraint not to elbow him away. ‘We can create a super team and wipe the floor with the others.’
‘You’re starting to sound like Piers.’
Archie pulls a face, which makes me laugh, even though he’s still touching me. ‘Oh, God. I hope not.’
Archie and I, already knackered from the trek up the hill, leg it down to the parlour once we reach the castle. The room has been set out to accommodate the quiz, with quizmaster Ned taking centre stage by the fireplace.
‘Most of the teams have already been established,’ Ned says as we stagger, panting, into the room. Though I’d managed to shake away Archie’s hand from my shoulder during the dash, it’s found its way back now we’re stationary again. ‘But there are a couple of spaces left. Archie, you pop over there.’ He ushers Archie in the direction of the table by the window. ‘And you can join this team right here, Emily.’ Ned pulls back the only other empty chair for me to sit on, and I’m grateful to be sitting apart from Archie, even if it means sacrificing the super-quiz team.
‘I hope you don’t mind me joining you,’ I say to my new teammates.
‘Of course we don’t.’ Carolyn beams at me. ‘The more the merrier!’
As well as Carolyn, I’ve been teamed with Piers and Tom, and I feel a little flutter of delight. This is a good team, I think, especially with Piers’ competitiveness. Poor Alice, I note, has been teamed with Francelia and a couple of ancient relatives who look ready for hot cocoa and bed rather than a test of their general knowledge, but at least she now has Archie for company.
‘You and Tom did ever so well in the treasure hunt yesterday,’ Carolyn says while we wait for Ned to pass around pens and sheets of paper to each team. ‘You make a good team, and obviously Piers and I do.’ She beams at her fiancé. ‘We can’t lose!’
I hope we don’t – who knows how Piers will react after losing twice in one day?
I look across the room at Alice, trying to get her attention so I can gauge whether or not she’s forgiven me, but she isn’t looking my way. Still, I can tell she’s uneasy about sitting with her nemesis. She looks the most uncomfortable I’ve ever seen her – and I’ve seen her curled up in a corner of the sofa during a bad bout of food poisoning, with a hot water bottle clamped to her stomach that was doing nothing to alleviate the cramps. Teaming up with Francelia, it seems, is far worse than twenty-four hours’ worth of vomming.
‘Are we ready?’ Ned has distributed all the quiz paraphernalia – with Piers taking automatic control of our answer sheet – and has resumed his place in front of the fireplace. ‘Get those pens poised. The first round is food and drink.’
‘Yes!’ Carolyn picks up her glass of gin and tonic and gives it a little shake, jiggling the ice cubes inside. ‘This should be an easy round.’
The round isn’t the walk in the park Carolyn was expecting. She insists that Piers write down her (wrong) answers (and at one point snatches the pen off him and writes it down herself when he refuses), and when she does actually know the right answer, she’s so excited she blurts it out loud, giving the other teams a heads-up. Piers becomes angrier with each question, so that by round four (geography) he’s livid, his face almost purple. He really wants to win this quiz, but his soon-to-be bride isn’t making it an easy task.
‘Let’s take a little break here,’ Uncle Ned says once he’s asked the final geography question, and there’s a stampede towards the drinks trolley. Piers – fearing cheaters – folds up our answer sheet and pops it into the inside pocket of his jacket, completely forgetting that everybody already knows our answers due to Carolyn enthusiastically crying them out.
‘This isn’t as much fun as the Boxing Day quizzes we used to have,’ Alice says, her eyes flicking to Francelia, who’s remained in her seat while Archie fetches a drink for her.
‘Piers seems to think he’s taking part in the Fifteen to One grand final,’ I say. He’s in the corner of the room right now, giving what looks like a ticking off to Carolyn. ‘He isn’t happy, and we haven’t even marked the answer sheets yet.’
Alice nods. ‘He is pretty driven.’
‘Driven? If we lose, watch out for flying tables.’ I feel a warm glow as Alice giggles. ‘Have you forgiven me then?’
Alice tilts her head to one side. ‘Forgiven you? For what?’
My hands are wringing, as though I’m giving them a good scrub with invisible soap. ‘The, um, joke about the necklace?’
Alice tuts and gives a wave of her hand. ‘Don’t worry about it. I was being silly and too sensitive after speaking to Kevin earlier.’
I’m flooded with relief. I may seem a bit narky when it comes to Alice and her matchmaking, but I don’t know what I’d have done without her, especially over the past year.
‘What happened with Kevin?’ I whisper the last part, just in case anyone is listening in. I wouldn’t put it past Francelia to earwig on a private conversation.
Alice sighs and sinks onto the nearest seat. I drag a chair closer to her and sit down. ‘It’s the usual: he’s annoyed with me for keeping him a “dirty little secret” as he put it.’
I want to stick up for my friend, but I can see where Kevin is coming from.
‘Maybe it’s time you told your family about him?’
Alice rests her elbow on the table and drops her head into her hands. ‘I want to, I really do, but…’ She twists so she can see Francelia. ‘You know what she’s like. She’ll ruin it for me. She always does. She’s had it in for me ever since that stupid necklace went missing. It’s like she wants me to be miserable for ever.’ She looks completely dejected for a moment, but then seems to rally, sitting up straighter and taking my hands in hers. ‘Anyway, enough of my moping! How did your date with Archie go?’
‘It was…’ I glance around the room as I try to conjure the correct words. The words that will keep Alice happy without telling outright porkies. I spot Tom chatting with Carolyn by the drinks trolley and can’t help smiling. See! I knew they could be friends again, given the chance!
‘That good, eh?’ Alice gives my hands an excited little squeeze. ‘I knew it!’
‘What?’ The smile vanishes in an instant. I’m about to explain when Ned calls out for everybody to return to their seats.
Ned holds up his question sheet and clears his throat. ‘We’ll go straight into round five: history.’
At least Piers will be happy, I think as I shuffle towards my seat. We should be able to get most, if not all, of these ones correct. We just need to find a way to get Carolyn to zip it.
We do exceptionally well in the history round, but the rest of the categories haven’t been too kind and there’s only one more category to go.
‘Well, this was a waste of an evening.’ Piers screws up our answer sheet and drops it onto the table.
‘Not everybody can be a winner.’ Carolyn picks up the sheet and unfurls it, doing her best to smooth out the creases.
‘We didn’t stand a chance though, did we?’ Piers heaves a huge sigh. ‘I don’t know why we bothered.’
Carolyn lays the crumpled answer sheet out on the table. ‘It’s a bit of fun.’
‘Is it?’ Piers folds his arms across his chest, his mouth pouting. ‘It doesn’t feel fun coming last.’
‘Don’t be such a baby.’ Carolyn grabs the pen and twists in her seat so she’s facing her uncle. I can’t believe these two are getting married. They’re like chalk and cheese – if the chalk liked to party and the cheese had the maturity of a toddler.
‘Everybody ready for the final round?’ Ned asks, and everybody responds with a chorused ‘yes’, apart from Piers, who’s still sulking. ‘The final round is a personal favourite of mine…’ Ned holds up his question sheet and gives it a waggle in the air. ‘British sitcoms.’
I’m suddenly alert, my back straight, ears tuned in to Ned. My eyes meet Tom’s gaze and our mouths stretch wide.
Making a fist, Tom brings it in close to his body. ‘Yes! This is our round, Em.’ He slides the sheet of paper away from Carolyn, whose mouth creates a wide ‘O’ of outrage.
Piers’ mouth flattens out of its pout as he leans across the table towards me and Tom. ‘Know much about sitcoms?’
Tom shrugs. ‘Only everything.’ He winks at me while Piers plucks the pen from his beloved’s fingers. He passes it to Tom, which is a great honour as Piers has commandeered the writing apparatus all evening.
‘Do us proud,’ he says, and I think we do. We don’t win the whole quiz – we were lagging too far behind to catch up – but we do come a respectable second, which even Piers is pleased with.
‘Well done, partner.’ Tom holds up his palm and I slap my hand against it.
‘You too. And well done getting that My Family question right. It was beyond my expertise.’
Tom shrugs and starts to trace the grain of the wood in the tabletop. ‘It was never a favourite of mine, but my ex used to watch it. Anyway, I’d better get going. I need to be up early tomorrow. Lots to do, including setting up the bonfire.’
‘Thanks for that.’ Carolyn reaches across the table and gives Tom’s hand a squeeze. ‘I know it isn’t exactly your job.’
He shrugs. ‘It’s no problem. We aren’t short of firewood, as long as it doesn’t rain tonight.’ He stands up, but I put a hand out to stop him.
‘Do you need a hand? With the firewood?’ Anything to get out of spending more time with Archie, especially now Alice thinks we’re love’s young dream.
‘Sure.’ Tom gives me an odd look. ‘I didn’t know it was your kind of thing.’
‘It isn’t, but I’m feeling helpful.’ I can see Alice approaching out of the corner of my eye. ‘See you tomorrow!’ I need him gone, quickly, before Alice scuppers my plans.
‘Are you going?’ Alice’s shoulders droop. ‘I thought we could have a Durban Special, since we’re all here. For old time’s sake.’
‘Oh, God.’ Tom clutches his stomach, his head shaking as he backs away towards the door. ‘Not for me. Some of us have to get up for work in the morning. I’ll leave you to it. Goodnight.’
‘Goodnight, Mr Wussy Pants,’ Alice says with a smirk.
‘That might have hurt fifteen years ago, but I’m much more sensible now.’
‘Boring, more like,’ Alice says, but she’s grinning. ‘Go on, get off to bed with your hot cocoa.’
I watch as Tom leaves, raising a hand in a quick goodbye as Alice crosses the room towards the drinks trolley. She starts to slosh an array of drinks into the glasses she’s set out on the nearby table, creating a drink of an unpleasant brown colour.
‘What exactly is a Durban Special?’ I ask as she hands one of the glasses to me.
‘It’s a cocktail of whatever booze you can get your mitts on,’ Archie says, grabbing one of the glasses himself. He gives a tentative sniff before pulling a face.
‘It was surprisingly easy to swipe alcohol in here, so we used to get pissed in the woods out the back when we were growing up.’ Alice clinks her glass against mine. ‘Good times.’
I sniff the drink. Revolting and toxic are two words that spring to mind. I can’t drink it.
‘On the count of three,’ Archie says once Carolyn has a glass. ‘One, two, three.’ He, Alice and Carolyn tip the vile concoction down their throats while Piers and I hesitate. He puts his glass down on the table, making my mind up for me. I won’t be boring like him. I may live to regret this, but I pour the drink into my mouth, swallowing quickly before I can change my mind.