The other team are taking their seats when we arrive at the studio, and we can hear the applause and shouts of their supporters as we stand in the wings. Then Julian gives us a nod, and it's time to make our entrance into the gladiatorial arena. I follow Alice as we cross to take our places, and hear a collective intake of breath from the audience, stage-crew and cameramen stopping and staring, whispering into their mouthpieces, and an audible hum of admiration beneath the applause and whoops and cheers. She hitches up her dress slightly as she slides behind our desk, as if sliding into a limousine, and someone in the audience actually wolf-whistles, which from a s.e.xual-political point-of-view I don't really approve of, but which causes a roll of laughter through the studio. Alice laughs and holds our mascot, Eddie the Teddy, in front of her face, and it's just like Mum always says - 'beautiful and knows it. . .'

We settle in our seats, and smile at each other as the excitement dies down.

'Peace?' she says.

'Peace,' I say, and then we peer out into the audience. Rose and Michael Harbinson are there, and Rose gives a proud little wave.

'Nice to see them with their clothes on!' I say, and Alice gives me a reprimanding slap on the wrist. Mum, who's in the second row just behind Rebecca, gives me a little fingers-only wave, and two thumbs up, and I wave back.

358.

'Is that your mum?' asks Alice.

'Uh-huh.'

'She looks nice. I'd like to meet her.'

'I'm sure you will. One day.'

'Who's the man with the Tom Selleck moustache?'

'Uncle Des. Not a real uncle, we just call him that. As a matter of fact, he's marrying Mum.'

'Your mum's getting married again?'

'Uh-huh.'

'That's brilliant news! You didn't tell me that!'

'Well, I was going to, yesterday night, but . . .'

'Yes. Oh. Yes, of course. Listen, Brian, that thing with Neil, it isn't really going anywhere . . .'

'Alice 'It was just a fling, it doesn't mean that you and me . . .' but she doesn't get to finish, because Bamber's making his entrance now. The crowd's applauding and cheering, and Alice takes my hand, and squeezes it tight, and my heart starts to beat faster, and it's time to finish this thing, once and for all.

And of course eighteen minutes later we've lost.

Or as good as, anyway. It's 45 points to 90, but Partridge, the peach-fluff-faced balding child, is clearly some incredible genetically enhanced mutant freak who's been created in a secret laboratory somewhere, because he just keeps firing out correct answers, on every conceivable subject, one after another '. . . Pope Pius XIII, The San Andreas Fault, Herodotus, 2n-l(2n-l) where both n and 2n-l are prime numbers, pota.s.sium nitrate, pota.s.sium chromate, pota.s.sium sulphate . . .' and all this from someone who's meant to be doing Modern History and who looks about six years old. It isn't even fair to call it general knowledge, it's just knowledge, pure concentrated knowledge, and I decide that, at the back of Partridge's head somewhere, there's a small concealed b.u.t.ton, and if you press it his face pops open 359.

revealing banks of diodes and microchips and flashing l.e.d.s. Meanwhile their captain, Norton, from Canterbury reading Cla.s.sics, barely needs to do a thing, just pa.s.s on the correct answers to Bamber in his lovely, low, well-modulated voice, then lean back and stretch and play with his lovely, l.u.s.trous hair and shoot meaningful, see-you-afterwards looks at Alice.

Patrick is starting to panic. There's a damp rim of sweat forming round the neck of his burgundy sweatshirt, and he's starting to get trigger-happy and make mistakes, terrible mistakes, his trembling finger jabbing at the buzzer in a desperate attempt to pull something back.

Buzz.

'George Stephenson?' says Patrick.

'No, I'm sorry, that's minus five points.'

'Brunei?' says Partridge.

'Correct! That's ten points . . .'

Buzz.

'Thomas Paine's The Rights of Man?' pleads Patrick.

'No, sorry, that's minus five points . . .'

'Paine's The Age of Reason,' says Partridge.

'Correct! That's another ten points . . .'

And so it goes on. Alice and I meanwhile are worse than useless. She gets one question wrong, saying Dame Margot Fonteyn when it should be Dame Alicia Markova, and I'm barely opening my mouth at all, just nodding madly at whatever Lucy says during team consultations. In fact, if it wasn't for the amazing Doctor Lucy Chang we'd actually be in minus figures by now, because for everything Patrick gets wrong, she gets one right, just quietly, modestly. 'The study of bees?' Correct - 'I think therefore I am?' - Correct - 'Zadok The Priest by Handel?' - Correct - and at one point, I find myself leaning past Alice and watching Lucy, pushing her glossy black hair behind her ear, modestly looking at the floor as the crowd applauds her, and I think about what Rebecca said; maybe I 36O.

should have asked her out? Why didn't I think of that? Maybe that's the answer. Maybe, if this thing with Alice doesn't work out . . .

But what am I thinking about? We're losing 65 points to 100 now, and the freaky boy Partridge is answering three in a row about the mathematical theories of Evariste Galois or something completely incomprehensible, and I'm just sat here dumbly staring at the back of our mascot's head, and we're losing, losing, losing, and I realise that even with Oregon, Nevada, Arizona and Baja California up my sleeve, the only way we can possibly win is if someone in the audience, Rebecca Epstein say, takes Partridge out with a high-powered sniper's rifle.

And then something amazing happens; a question that I know the answer to.

'Porphyria's Lover, in which the protagonist strangles his beloved with a braid of her hair, is a narrative poem by which Victorian poet?'

And no one buzzes. No one except me. I buzz, then try to open my mouth, which seems to be stuck together with flour-and-water paste, and manage to get the words out.

'Robert Browning?'

'Correct!'

And there's applause, actual applause, led by my Mum I have to say, but it's applause none the less, and we've got a crack at the bonus questions . . .

'. . . which are on plant-cell structure!'

Alice and I groan audibly and slump back in our chairs, redundant. But it doesn't matter, because Doctor Lucy Chang's there, and what Doctor Lucy Chang doesn't know about plant-cell structure isn't worth knowing. She polishes them off without breaking a sweat.

'. . . parenchyma . . . collenchyma. ... is it sclerenchyma?'

Oh yes, it is sclerenchyma, and the crowd are cheering again, because we're back in the game, 90 plays 115 now, and I'm 361.

awake again, because I now know that 1 - no, not I, but we, the team - can win this after all.

'Another starter question, the d.i.c.kensian character Philip Pirrip is . . . ?'

Know it.

Buzz.

'Pip in Great Expectations,' I say, clearly and confidently.

'Very well antic.i.p.ated,' says Bamber, and there's a round of applause from the audience, and a wolf-whistle even, I think from Rebecca, who I can see in the front row beaming away, and I imagine that this is what it might feel like to score a goal. I try not to smile though. I just look serious and confident and my mind is racing because I know what's coming up soon. 'Oregon, um, Arizona, eh, Nevada and Baja - or is it Baya? - California? But keep calm, keep calm, bonus questions first, a potential fifteen points, plus the ten I've just won for us, enough to put us in neck and neck, 115 all, but it all depends on what the bonus questions are about . . .

'And your bonus questions are all about opening and closing lines from the plays of William Shakespeare.'

'Yesss/' I think, but don't say, or show in my face, 'I can do these, I bet I know these.' The opposition harrumph of course, slump down in their chairs because they know they'd have been able to get them right too, and Norton, reading Cla.s.sics, tosses his hair despondently, but tough luck boys, because they're ours now. Alice must be feeling confident too, because she glances at me, nods and smiles, as if to say 'Come on then, Bamber, do your worst, it won't matter, because me and Brian are soul-mates and together we can handle anything you throw at us' and here it comes, the first bonus question . . .

'Which play begins with the lines, "Hence! home you idle creatures, get you home/Is this a holiday?"'

Know it.

'Julius Caesar,' I whisper to Patrick.

362.

'Sure?' says Patrick.

'Absolutely. Did it for O-level.'

'Julius Caesar,' says Patrick, decisively.

'Correct!' says Bamber, and there's a smattering of applause, not much, just enough, before the next question is on its way.

'Which play ends with the words, "Myself will straight abroad; and to the state/This heavy act with heavy heart relate."'

Know it. Oth.e.l.lo.

'Is it Hamlet?' Alice whispers to Patrick.

'No, I think it's Oth.e.l.lo,' I say, kind but firm.

'Lucy?' says Patrick.

'Sorry. No idea.'

'I really am ninety-nine per cent sure it's Hamlet,' says Alice again.

'Brian?'

'I think Hamlet ends with something about bodies being taken out and shots being fired. The "heavy act" here is the death of Desdemona and Oth.e.l.lo, so I'm fairly sure it is Oth.e.l.lo, but if you want to say Hamlet, Patrick, then by all means go with Hamlet.'

And Patrick looks between us, Alice and I, makes his choice, turns back to his microphone, and says 'Is it ... Oth.e.l.lo?'

'It is Oth.e.l.lol' and the crowd goes wild. Patrick reaches down the length of the desk and rubs my forearm madly, and Lucy winks, and Alice looks at me, this glowing look of grat.i.tude and humility and genuine fondness, a look that I've never seen from her before. Her hand reaches underneath the desk between us, rubs my thigh and then finds my hand and squeezes it, rubbing my hot damp palm with her thumb, and now she's squeezing her strappy black shoe in between my two great, flapping fat feet, and rubbing my ankle, and we look at each other for what must only be a second but seems like forever, and the applause goes on and on 363.

and I smile, despite myself, but Bamber's speaking again, saying . . .

'Your final bonus question; Which play ends with the sung lines "But that's all one, our play is done/And we'll strive to please you everyday"?'

Know it.

And still holding hands under the table, as one, in perfect unison, Alice and I whisper, 'Twelfth Night!'

'Twelfth ,V/gM?' says Patrick 'Twelfth Night is correct!' says Bamber, and the crowd applauds and still secretly holding Alice's hand under the desk I peel out at Rebecca in the audience, and she's sat up in her seat, whooping and whistling with her fingers in her mouth and clapping with her hands up above her head. Mum's sat m the row behind, putting two thumbs up, and Des is clapping too, leaning across, saying in her ear, 'How the h.e.l.l docs your son know all this stuff? You must be so proud!' or something like that I imagine, and under the sound of the applause I think I hear Alice say something like 'you're absolutely Amazing', and then Bamber's saying: 'Very well done! That brings you neck and neck, with four minutes lefton the clock, so still plenty of time for both teams. Here we gothen, fingers on the buzzers and your next starter question, for ten points. The state of . . .'

Know it.

And still holding on tightly to Alice's hand under the desk, with my right hand I reach for the buzzer, and buzz, and say, with absolute clarity: 'Oregon, Nevada, Arizona and Baja or is it p.r.o.nounced Baya? - California?'

And ther I sit back in my chair and wait for the applause.

Anditdcesn'tcome.

Nothing.

No applpse, just this terrible silence.

I.

I don't.

364.

I don't understand.

I look to Alice for some explanation, but she's just staring straight at me with this strange, confused half-smile on her face, which initially I take to be awe, frank awe at my brilliance, but which changes in front of my eyes and settles into something much, much worse. I look down the desk, and there it is again, the same look, from Lucy and Patrick, a kind of horrified . . . contempt. I look out into the audience, and see that it's a serried rank of silent black holes, mouths hanging open under mystified frowns, except for Rebecca, who is leant forward in her chair with her head in her hands. There's a growing rumble from the studio audience, and then someone starts to laugh, loud and hysterical, and with a sudden spasm of pain and regret that feels like pitching backwards into s.p.a.ce, I realise what I've done.

I've answered the question correctly before it has been asked.

Bamber Gascoigne is the first to break the silence.

'Well, rather remarkably, that is in fact the correct answer, so. . .' his finger's in one ear, consulting with the control room, and then he's saying '. . . so I think perhaps we'd better . . . stop . . . recording . . . for a moment or two?'

And underneath the desk, Alice lets go of my hand.

365.

Epilogue.

A little Learning is a dang'rous Thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring: There shallow draughts intoxicate the Brain, And drinking largely sobers us again.

Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism I know that something good is going to happen.

And I don't know when, But just saying it could even make it happen.

Kate Bush, 'Cloudbusting', The Hounds of Love 43.THE FINAL QUESTION: At 16O miles long on its East-West axis, the largest of the Greek Islands, with its administrative centre at Heraklion, which Mediterranean island was the home of the first true European civilisation, the Minoans? ANSWER: Crete.

12th August 1986 How-di stranger! (*'Howdy?' Sp.!?) How ya doing? Bet this is a surprise, after all this time! Yes, the postmark on the front is correct - I'm actually abroad for the first time. Somewhere hot too! I even have a tan, of sorts, or will have when the peeling stops. Rather predictably I 'over-did it on the first day' and was in quite a lot of pain for a while, and had to eat standing up, but am better now. (My skin's cleared up too, but you don't need to know that!!!) I've also learnt to snorkel, subject to panic-attacks. Food is great - lots of burnt meat, absolutely no vegetables. Today I ate my first piece of Feta cheese. Hmmm little bit like salty packing material. Do you remember that time we went to Luigi's, and you wore that ball gown?

Anyway.