Chapter 9: Loud Pub

The teaser had been up for a day, and I had watched it half a dozen times.

The finale was less than two weeks off, and a camera sat on my apple box with my name printed over it.

I had not answered Dennis, and I had not typed a word under @slowpan's comment.

On Wednesday Isla dragged me to a quiz night in a pub on the harbour.

"It's the only civilised hour of the week," she said.

"You've been in my loft two weeks without seeing a single drunk person."

"I'd noticed."

"It's not healthy."

The pub was loud, low-ceilinged and packed with wet coats.

Her team had a table in the back corner by the fire, and it was already full.

There was a nurse who had known her since school and a man who drove a bin lorry.

A quiet older woman at the end ran the quiz for the pub, and had never lost her own prize.

They all looked at me when I sat down.

"This is Jasper," Isla said. "He's the lodger."

"He's the cameraman," said the bin lorry man.

"He's the lodger who's also the cameraman. Pass him a pint."

I got a pint, a bag of crisps and a place on the bench.

It was so close to hers that our thighs touched.

She didn't move away.

Since the doorway she'd been polite and bright and quick, and she had not once come near me.

Now, in the crush of the corner, her leg lay along mine and stayed there.

The quizmaster rang a bell.

"Round one. Film. Which 1942 picture ends with a plane leaving in the fog?"

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