Surprise Me

‘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—’

‘I think we all know who,’ Olivia says savagely. ‘It’s obvious, from this piece of illiterate trash, that it’s your previous “friend”. I want you and I always will,’ she declaims in a syrupy voice. ‘Let’s find a moment. Just be us. Did she get it from a Hallmark card?’

She’s so mocking, my face flames bright red. At last, with a final wrench, I get my teeth apart, and grab the paper from her hand.

‘Actually, that’s my poem!’ I say, trying to sound bright and nonchalant. ‘It was meant for Dan. Wrong jacket. So. It was … it’s ours. Mine. Not Simon’s. You don’t need to worry about— Or anything. So. Anyway.’

I finally manage to stop babbling and realize that everyone around the table is watching, dumbstruck. The look of horror on Olivia’s face is so priceless I’d laugh, if I didn’t feel so totally embarrassed.

‘Um, so, here you are, Dan,’ I add awkwardly, and give him the paper. ‘You could read it now … or later … It’s quite short,’ I add, in case he’s expecting six verses and metaphors about war, or something.

Dan doesn’t look very thrilled to be handed a love poem, to be fair. He glances at it and clears his throat and shoves it in his pocket without reading it.

‘I didn’t mean …’ Olivia’s hands are clenched harder than I’ve ever seen them. ‘Sylvie, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to insult you.’

‘It’s fine, honestly—’

‘You’re a disgrace to quizzes!’ The voice of the flowery-shirted man makes us all jump. ‘You had that phone under the table all the time!’

‘We did not!’ the purple-polo-shirt man shouts back. ‘That’s fucking slander, that is!’

He pushes a table roughly towards the flowery-shirted man, and all the glasses jostle and chink together.

‘Fight! Fight! Fight!’ calls out Toby cheerfully.

‘Be quiet, Toby!’ snaps Tilda.

‘So!’ Dave is saying desperately into the microphone, over the hubbub. ‘Let’s carry on. And the next question was: Which Briton won an ice-skating gold at the—’

He breaks off as the flowery-shirted guy charges at the purple-polo-shirt team. One of them tackles him, as though they’re playing rugby, and the others start roaring encouragement. All around the pub, people start exclaiming and gasping. The Russian girl even shrieks as though someone’s stuck a knife into her.

‘People!’ Dave is imploring. ‘People, calm down! Please!’

Oh my God, they’re fighting. They’re actually punching each other. I’ve never even seen a pub brawl before.

‘Sylvie,’ says Dan in my ear. ‘Shall we go?’

‘Yes,’ I say at once. ‘Yes.’

As we’re walking home, Dan takes out my love poem. He reads it. He turns the page over as though expecting more. Then he reads it again. Then he puts it away. He looks touched. And a bit flummoxed. OK, maybe slightly more flummoxed than touched.