Page 35 of Carry Me Home

Always fucking ready.

‘Always.’

‘Liar. You’re never ready for the general knowledge round.’

‘Nobody’s ready for general knowledge. That’s the point.’

She doesn’t straighten back up. She stays leaning into me, our shoulders touching, the side of her arm warm against mine. This is how we used to do this, before Peter, our heads together, whispering answers, arguing in the space between us. We sat like this a hundred times, until we no longer did because Peter took up my position and it was his shoulder she leaned against, his head that dipped next to hers as they whispered their answers, while all I did was watch from the other side of the table and smile.

Then I stopped coming to the quiz. It’s only been since January that I’ve tried again.

The questions start and we fall into an old innate rhythm. Silent communication. Two people who know one another. Nina writes; I lean over her shoulder and murmur answers. She crosses out half of what I suggest; I point at the ones she’s crossed out and raise my eyebrows. She shakes her head. I tap the page. She rolls her eyes and writes it back in.

Her handwriting is atrocious. It’s always been atrocious. I once told her it looked like a spider had fallen into an ink pot and panicked, and she didn’t speak to me for an entire round. It was the quietest twelve minutes of my life.

‘Question seven,’ Ayo announces. ‘Which planet in our solar system has the most moons?’

‘Saturn,’ I say immediately.

‘Are you sure? I thought it was Jupiter.’

‘It was Jupiter. They found more around Saturn last year.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘I read things.’

‘You read veterinary journals and spy novels.’

‘I read widely.’

She writes ‘Saturn’, still looking sceptical, her pen pressing hard against the paper in a way that communicates doubt. Her left hand is resting on the table between us, palm down, fingers tapping the wood in that restless Nina rhythm. Her little finger is approximately one centimetre from my hand. I am aware of this the way I am aware of the location of the exit in every room I enter. Constantly. Uselessly.

The rounds blur – history, science.

The music round is every bit the hate crime advertised. Ayo plays three-second clips through a speaker that sounds like it’s having a small breakdown, and the pub descends into collective suffering.

Nina misses the first clip entirely because she’s decided to speak to Brynn.

I miss the next two because I’m telling her off for talking through the clips. We exchange a look of profound shared despair.

‘That was definitely music,’ she says, after clip four.

‘Definitely. Of some kind.’

‘I’ll write music,’ she says. ‘Best we can do.’

Clip seven is the opening three seconds of ‘Dancing Queen’. I can tell because it’s ‘Dancing Queen’ and I have ears. Nina writes something, crosses it out, writes something else, crosses that out harder.

‘That’s ABBA,’ I say.

‘I know it’s ABBA. I’m trying to remember which ABBA.’

‘Nina. It’s “Dancing Queen”.’

‘They all sound identical under pressure.’

‘“Dancing Queen” is not identical to anything. “Dancing Queen” is singular.’