‘I’m pretty sure that she put it down to you being shocked to the core and grief-stricken. She’ll have heard much stranger things,’ said Pete.
‘Thank you,’ said Laurie. ‘Thank you for making me feel less of a madwoman than I have for the past seven months.’
But Laurie wasn’t the only one with unanswered questions; Pete’s were butting against the inside of his head like angry bees.
‘My wife shouldn’t have been anywhere near where she was when she died. We spoke on the phone and she told me she was on the M1 coming back from Leeds, but she was miles away from there. I kept wondering if I’d misheard what she said, but I know I didn’t. And I didn’t know she was pregnant until after she died. I can’t remember if the doctor told me first or I found the pregnancy test in her handbag, it’s all muddled up.’
‘I’m so sorry you had to learn that way, Pete,’ said Laurie, seeing the shine of tears in his eyes before he turned his attention to his drink.
‘No one mentioned that one of the stages of grief that we had to go through was insanity, did they? I think I bought a jigsaw puzzle from the same shop that you did,’ he said and drained his glass.
‘I’ll get us a refill,’ said Laurie, deciding that he might need a minute alone to recover.
‘Thank you. I won’t say no.’
Pete twisted in his seat to look at how full the pub was now because it was certainly much noisier than when they had walked in. His eyes snagged on Laurie at the bar and he tried not to think that he was appraising her, even though he was. She looked slender as a reed sandwiched in between the young group of muscle men and the portly duo of pensioners sitting on stools. Slim blue jeans, cropped above the ankle, the type that women wore to look smart rather than fit like a second skin. Pink pumps, the same colour as her shirt which wasn’t tucked in and she unconsciously tugged it down as if to make sure it hadn’t ridden up. But it was her hair that fascinated him mostly, the colour of silver and gold melted together. He figured it was natural, she didn’t strike him as the sort of woman who would bleach her hair to within an inch of its life. He wondered what it would look like, released from the plait. He mentally replaced her with a picture of Tara at the bar, her long caramel and blonde-streaked hair loose, a statement. Her jeans would have been cinched in at the waist, tight, cut off at the perfect length to parade the ridiculous heels that she strutted around on as if she’d been born in them. Her shirt would have been unbuttoned just enough to give a tantalising glimpse of the boobs she’d bought herself for her twenty-fifth birthday. She would have been smiling in the sure and certain knowledge that eyes everywhere were raking up and down her, loving that they were.
No sooner had Laurie sat down than a man’s voice came over a PA system.
‘One-two, one-two. The quiz will be starting in a minute. And will consist of twenty questions. Please put all mobile phones away. Anyone seen using one or going to the toilet in order to look up answers will be immediately disqualified.’
Pete pulled a face. ‘How will they be able to tell if someone looks something up in there?’ he asked.
‘CCTV?’ Laurie answered.
‘Or PPTV,’ Pete replied, then wondered if that was a bit rude, but Laurie laughed.
‘Shall we have a go? It’s ages since I did a pub quiz,’ he said.
Laurie didn’t have anything to rush home for. ‘Why not,’ she replied. ‘What do we call ourselves?’ The quiz sheet called for a group name.
‘Er . . . Double something . . . Mixed Doubles, that work?’ said Pete, thinking quickly. It was better than a boring ‘Pete and Laurie’. He scribbled it down, having taken charge of the pencil.
‘Question one,’ said the quizmaster and the pub fell into silence. ‘In what film did George Lazenby play James Bond? Question two . . .’
‘Hang on, slow down, bloody hell,’ someone from around the corner shouted.
It was a question they both knew. After that, they became more and more obscure. Both Laurie and Pete reckoned they might have less than half of them right. At the end, they swapped their papers with the people at the next table.
‘Answer to question one. George Lazenby was in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service,’ said the quizmaster. Cheers and groans filled the air.
‘Answer to question two: on the periodic table La is the symbol for Lanthanum.’
‘Blimey, we have two right,’ said Pete. ‘I’m impressed.’ He felt a little guilty putting a cross next to the answer he was marking on The Four Horsemen of the Acropolis’s sheet – Llandudnium.
‘I have no idea where I remembered that from,’ said Laurie. ‘I hated chemistry at school.’
In the end they had twelve answers right, one more than the Four Horsemen. As soon as all the sheets were collected, people were permitted to go to the toilet.
‘We need to stay for the results,’ said Pete, getting up to go to the bar. ‘Same again? Nightcap? We might have won.’ He pulled a hopeful face and Laurie chortled.
‘Okay then, thank you.’
There was a mad rush at the bar now and to the toilet, so much so that there was a queue outside the gents.
Laurie relaxed against the back rest and tried to remember the last time she had gone out socially with Alex. He’d been so ridiculously busy the last few months. They’d been out with Naomi and Jefferson and his parents but as far as going out for a quiet date-night drink together – just the two of them – she couldn’t recall. Not that this was a date. She shuddered, thinking about the prospect of dating again one day. This drink with Pete was safe. Only a drink.
Pete had arrived back at the table just in time for the results to be announced.
‘Very poor scoring this week, very poor,’ said the quizmaster. ‘In fifth place with twelve was Mixed Doubles, but they get nowt for that.’
Pete and Laurie looked in amazement at each other.
‘What a result,’ said Pete, placing his hand over his heart. ‘I feel quite proud.’
‘In fourth place with thirteen, Penelope Pitstop and Dick Dastardly, you get nowt either except a do better next time. In third place with fourteen: Last of the Summer Homebrew, you get a voucher for four pints. In second place with fifteen: Les and Sonia, you get a bottle of Prosecco and a box of chocolates; and the winners with sixteen . . .’ People started to make drum-roll noises by tapping the table. ‘. . . The Three Amigos.’ No one heard what they’d won because the cheer was so loud. The quizmaster called for order. ‘Can a representative from the Three Amigos come up to try and answer the snowball question, the kitty of which currently stands at one hundred and sixty pounds,’ he announced, which resulted in a loud chorus of oohs.
‘I can’t believe we came so close to winning the four pints,’ said Pete, who appeared so genuinely crestfallen that Laurie let loose a hoot of laughter.
They sat without saying a single word for a few minutes, soaking in the convivial atmosphere, feeling inconspicuous and normal. Two people out of many, in a pub. No one here knew their history or anything about the muddle their heads were in.
‘Thank you for this,’ Laurie said then, suddenly overcome by a drench of appreciation.