‘Didn’t he predict the end of the world?’ she offers, and Duke’s eyes light up.

‘Predictions, then?’ he asks her, and Evie shrugs again.

‘I guess.’

Duke writes it down with the disclaimer: ‘If it’s wrong, that’s on you.’

‘The velocipede was a ninth-century prototype of what?’ presses Jerry.

Evie is determined to prove her worth now. His suggestion that she could cost them a point makes blood boil under the surface of her skin. She knows stuff! Just because he’s terrible at consulting her doesn’t mean she can’t pull her pub quiz weight.

‘I mean, that has to be bicycle, doesn’t it?’ she says, talking quickly, joining the mental dots of the etymology of the word. ‘Velocipede,’ she considers again, and he looks at her, boring holes into her skull as a way to motivate her to think faster. Not that he’s coming up with suggestions of his own. ‘Velo. Isn’t that French for bike?’

‘I think so?’ he says. ‘Sounds sensible enough.’

‘Bike, then. Put down bike.’

She watches him write down the answer.

‘And hey,’ she adds, leaning in to hiss at him. ‘If it’s wrong, that’s on both of us.’

He raises his eyebrows in a way Evie can’t make sense of.

12

Duke

As the quiz goes on, it bugs Duke that he’s noticed Evie smells like incense and patchouli.

‘What?’ she snaps, as Jerry pauses his questions to get another beer.

Duke pulls a face. ‘Nothing,’ he says. ‘God. You’re so … defensive.’

‘Just anxious not to make a fool of myself, actually,’ she shoots back. ‘Here … let me write. You’re starting to slow down.’ She takes the pen from his hand and leans in, ready for the next question.

George Michael, she’s written, ‘Careless Whisper’. He hadn’t known the answer to that one anyway, so it’s just as well she’s taken over.

‘Who said the lyrics, When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me?’ Jerry asks now he’s back, and Duke knows Jerry is getting drunker because he’s slurring his words whilst also talking, somehow, faster.

They both whisper, at exactly the same time: ‘The Beatles, “Let It Be”.’

Duke watches Evie write it down, her loopy handwriting showing up his schoolboy-like scrawl.

‘I’ve got this feeling in my bones, it goes electric, wavy, when I turn it on,’ says Jerry. Evie looks up at Duke, obviously unsure.

‘Justin Timberlake,’ Duke says. ‘“Can’t Stop the Feeling”.’

‘You like pop?’ she asks, after she’s written it down.

‘Don’t say it like that,’ he replies, ‘all judgey. Everyone likes pop. That’s why it’s called pop, as in popular.’