‘Oh my goodness. How do you know this stuff?’ Posy asked in amazement.
Noah shrugged. ‘I just have one of those memories. Every single thing I read or hear stays in my brain. Quite useful when I’m doing a crossword.’
It was also very useful when doing The Midnight Bell pub quiz. There was no question that fazed Noah. No answer that managed to elude him. Whether it was classic British sitcoms, political dissidents or the infamous cheese round, Noah came through for Team Tote Bag again and again and again.
When the last question had been answered (‘Beaufort. It’s a French Alpine cheese, quite similar to Gruyère, very good in a fondue.’) and the quiz sheets collected, the Happy Ever After gang turned to Noah with matching expressions of awe.
‘You’re like the god of pub quizzes,’ Posy sighed dreamily in a way that would have had Sebastian challenging Noah to a duel if he hadn’t been in San Francisco doing techy entrepreneurial things. ‘This is what you’re doing on your Thursday evenings from now on until the end of time.’
‘We don’t know that all of my answers are correct,’ Noah said modestly and he bashfully smiled into his pint glass, which even Nina was forced to admit to herself made him look cute. Mattie and Verity seemed to think so because they both made silent ‘ah’s in appreciation. ‘The political dissidents round was very hard. All those foreign names! You don’t really expect to find a political dissidents round in a pub quiz.’
‘Ever since Clive was on Fifteen To One, he’s had delusions,’ Nina explained. She dropped her voice to a whisper because it was still a sensitive subject. ‘He fumbled a really easy question about ABBA winning the Eurovision Song Contest and ever since then, he’s had a point to prove.’
‘1974 with “Waterloo”,’ Noah said immediately, then slapped his forehead. ‘Sorry, I’m in full quiz mode now.’
Nina was keen to rise to the challenge. ‘OK, name all of the Strictly Come Dancing winners in chronological order.’
Noah thought about it for a second, green eyes almost crossing with the effort. ‘Right, um, Natasha Kaplinsky, Jill Halfpenny, Darren Gough …’
Sam muttered something about how they shouldn’t treat Noah like a freakshow, but Noah wasn’t a freakshow. He was Wikipedia in human form. Google made flesh. Ask Jeeves but not a butler. So, it wasn’t much of a surprise when Clive came over to them with their answer sheet and made them promise on their collective mothers’ lives that they hadn’t sneaked a rogue mobile phone past him.
‘You got one hundred and seven out of a hundred,’ Clive admitted at last. ‘Had to give you some extra points for additional information supplied.’ He shook his head in disbelief then stared at Noah with a slightly bitter expression. ‘You should think about going on Mastermind. You’d clean up.’
‘Oh, I was just having a good night,’ Noah muttered.
Noah was very respectful of other people’s feelings. Not once had he made any of his teammates feel bad about their own general-knowledge shortcomings. Nina mentally scrolled through her list of exes to see if any of them would have behaved in a similar fashion. Not that a single one of them would have been able to correctly answer a question about political dissidents or cheeses of the world and if they had, they wouldn’t have been very gracious about it either.
And if they had single-handedly led their team to victory as Noah had, none of them would have ducked their heads and insisted that everyone had contributed as Clive announced Team Tote Bag as the winners, to stunned disbelief then a smattering of applause.
‘We couldn’t have done it without you,’ Nina told Noah, having to raise her voice over a commotion in the corner where The Battering RAMs were not taking the news of their defeat quietly. ‘Honestly, we usually manage second from last. This is all down to you.’
‘It is,’ Posy agreed fervently, waving the envelope with their winnings in it. ‘And now we’re rich! Rich beyond the dreams of avarice!’
They’d won the princely sum of ninety-eight pounds and seventy-six pence, some of which they immediately spent on more alcohol and cheesy chips. Nina liked to think they were good winners, calm and composed, unlike The Battering RAMs.
Big Trevor stormed over to demand a recount, then he pored over their quiz sheet to query each answer and finally demanded that Clive disqualify them for bringing in a ringer.
Clive was having none of it. ‘The quizmaster’s decision is final and abiding,’ he insisted and Nina could take it no more.
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