Leaving

The quiz was Ollie’s idea.

Ollie from Evenlode had been at Ellicott since September, on the return exchange, in the navy blazer which he had been told he did not need to wear and wore every day out of what Kit called spite and Ollie called heritage, and he had spent a great deal of the year in Mr Ferrante’s history class, which he said was the best class he had ever been in and which Mr Ferrante said was very nearly adequate, and he had spent the rest of it at Eight Bars, in the booth by the pool table, on Fridays, watching the regulars of the Fourth Ward talk about the Realm.

“They don’t know anything,” he said, on Tuesday, to the King, at the bar. “About their own country. I’ve been listening for nine months. Mr Delgado thinks the Charter was signed in Philadelphia.”

“Where was it signed?”

Ollie looked at him with deep pity.

“You know,” he said. “You’re on the money.” He put his elbows on the bar. “Friday. Our last night. A quiz. The English form against the Fourth Ward. About the Realm.” He grinned. “Loser buys.”

---

Mrs Merriweather agreed at once, because a quiz on a Friday was good for the till, and because, she said, it was time somebody taught Mr Delgado where the Charter was signed. The Fourth Ward agreed at once, because it had been listening to the English form for nine months as well, and had views, and had been waiting for a chance to express them that did not involve the cricket, which they had been told about at length by Kit Barraclough every Friday since October and had never once understood.

So at eight o’clock on Friday the eleventh of June, with Eight Bars full to the door, Ollie stood on Marcus’s pallet by the window with a sheet of paper and a microphone that Marcus had borrowed from the jazz club on the river, and the English form sat in the two booths by the pool table, eleven of them, in their navy blazers, for the last time, and the Fourth Ward sat at the bar and in the other booths, about forty, and the King stood behind the bar with a pen and a stack of beer mats to keep the score, because, Ollie said, he was the only person in the room who had no side.

“I’ve got a side,” said Frederick.

“You’re the King of both of us,” said Ollie. “You’re not allowed one.” He looked at the paper. “Round one. Geography.”

---

The English form won round one by six points.

They won it because Ollie had set it, and Ollie had spent nine months listening to what the Fourth Ward did not know, and had written the questions accordingly. The Fourth Ward did not know how many polities the Realm had. The Fourth Ward did not know which river the capital was on, which was the river that ran past the end of Garfield Street and that Mr Delgado had delivered post beside for thirty-eight years, and when Ollie read out the answer, Mr Delgado put his head in his hands and said I knew that, and the English form cheered.

They won round two, history, by eleven. The Charter had been adopted in Philadelphia, on the twenty-first of June 1783, which Mr Delgado claimed as a point, and signed in Boston, at the Old State House, on the fourth of July, which was the question, and Mr Delgado, when he heard this, stood up at the bar and said, with great dignity, that he had been half right, which was more than the Fourth Ward usually managed, and Mrs Merriweather said sit down, Hector, and he sat down.

The Fourth Ward won round three, which was sport, by fourteen, because the English form did not know anything about the Realm’s football, which was not the same as their football, and did not know anything about its baseball, which they had played once on a village green in Gloucestershire and lost by eleven runs, which Will Ellis reminded everybody of, and the Fourth Ward did not let them forget.

Round four was the King.

---

“Round four,” said Ollie, on the pallet, with the microphone. “His Majesty.”

The bar went quiet.

“These are all about him,” said Ollie, and pointed at the bar, where the King stood with his beer mats. “He’s not allowed to answer. He’s not allowed to help. He’s not allowed to make a face.” He looked at the paper. “Question one. How many pints has His Majesty pulled at Eight Bars since the fifth of September?”

There was a silence. Then a great deal of muttering in the booths. The English form put their heads together. The Fourth Ward put their heads together. Kit Barraclough said how would anybody know that, and Mr Delgado said Kimura knows, and everybody looked at Kimura, on her stool, at the end of the bar.

Kimura did not turn round.

“I’m not on a team,” she said.

“Question two,” said Ollie. “On the first night, His Majesty changed a keg. Which handle did he touch?”

“The red one,” said the whole of Eight Bars, both teams, at the same moment, and laughed.

“Correct,” said Ollie. “A point each.” He looked at the paper. “Question three. What mark did Mr Abernathy give His Majesty’s first pint?”

The bar looked at the stool, the third from the window, where Mr Abernathy was sitting with his stick hooked over the edge of the bar and his red pen in his hand and a half of bitter in front of him on a mat. Mr Abernathy did not look up. He uncapped the red pen, and pulled a beer mat towards him, and wrote on it, and pushed it to the end of the bar, where it was passed, hand to hand, along the counter, through nine people, to the pallet by the window, and Ollie picked it up and read it.

“C plus,” he said. “See me.” He looked at Mr Abernathy. “Is that the answer or is that what you think of the question?”

Mr Abernathy did not look up.

“Both,” he said.

---

The English form won by four points.

It came down, in the end, to the last question of round four, which was What is the name of the trombonist at Eight Bars, and what does he play on Fridays?, and the Fourth Ward, who had been listening to Marcus every Friday since September, wrote down Marcus, jazz, and the English form, who had also been listening to Marcus every Friday since September, wrote down Marcus Merriweather, jazz, actually quite well, and Ollie, who was quizmaster and English and had written the question, gave the English a bonus point for the actually quite well, and the Fourth Ward objected so loudly that Mrs Merriweather had to ring the bell.

“It’s a fact,” said Ollie, on the pallet. “It’s a fact, Mr Delgado. It’s not a matter of opinion. He plays actually quite well. Everybody knows it.” He looked at Marcus, who was sitting in the booth by the window with the trombone case on his knees, and had gone the colour of the Ellicott pennants. “You can’t penalise us for being accurate.”

“Bias,” said Mr Delgado. “The quizmaster’s English.”

“The scorekeeper’s King,” said Ollie. “Ask him.”

Everybody looked at the bar.

Frederick looked at the beer mats. He had kept the score on eleven of them, in pencil, in two columns, ENGLISH and FOURTH WARD, the way Gaz had kept it on the blackboard at the New Inn in November, and he added it up, and it was, with the bonus point, the English by four, and without it, the English by three.

“The English win,” he said.

The Fourth Ward groaned.

“By three,” he said. “The bonus point doesn’t count.” He looked at Ollie. “Not because it’s not true. It is true. He does play actually quite well.” He looked at Marcus. “But it wasn’t the question.”

Ollie considered this, on the pallet, with the microphone.

“That’s very fair,” he said, and then, into the microphone, to the whole of Eight Bars: “The Fourth Ward buys.”

---

They had brought the bedsheet.

He had not known they had kept it. It had been in the stands of the gym at Ellicott at graduation in June 2031, held up by the English form, who had flown in on the Thursday for it, and it had said HANOVER IS RUBISH, with one B, in red paint, because Kit Barraclough had painted it and had run out of room, and Frederick had seen it from the floor of the gym in his gown and had nearly not been able to walk across the stage.

They had kept it for a year. Hattie Ellis had kept it, folded, at the bottom of her trunk, through two terms at Ellicott and the spring play, in which she had been Viola, and had been, Mr Ferrante said, terrifyingly good. At half past ten on Friday the eleventh of June she took it out of a carrier bag in the booth by the pool table and shook it out, and it was exactly as it had been, a white bedsheet from Windrush House, with red paint on it, HANOVER IS RUBISH.

“For the wall,” said Hattie.

Mrs Merriweather looked at it.

She looked at the wall behind the bar, which had, by the eleventh of June, forty-seven photographs on it in black frames, and a coin, and a cricket ball in a glass box, and the Agong pouring tea, and the King in three hundred and eighty feathers, and no space at all, anywhere, from the optics to the cellar door.

“There’s no room,” she said.

“There’s the ceiling,” said Hattie.

So at a quarter to eleven, standing on the bar, which nobody was allowed to stand on and which Mrs Merriweather allowed, Kit Barraclough and Will Ellis and Ollie from Evenlode pinned the bedsheet that said HANOVER IS RUBISH to the black wooden ceiling of Eight Bars with drawing pins, the whole length of it, above the bar, from the bitter tap to the till, so that it hung there over the King’s head like a banner over a road, and when they had got down, Mrs Merriweather took a photograph of it, with the King underneath it, behind the bar, looking up, and that was the forty-eighth.

“It’s spelled wrong,” said Frederick.

“It’s spelled the way it was spelled,” said Hattie. “That’s the point.”

---

Theo said goodbye to Freya Lomax at eleven.

They had ended in June the year before, kindly, at Coln, and had been friends since, kindly, all year, at Ellicott and at Eight Bars, where Freya had come on Fridays and sat in the booth with the English form and watched Theo drop glasses with an expression that Frederick had come to recognise as affection that had decided to be something else and had nearly managed it. She came to the end of the bar at eleven, by the hatch, where Theo was, in the Cranwell apron, and they stood there.

“You’re going to be a doctor,” said Freya.

“In November.”

“You’re going to be a good one.”

“I don’t know.”

“I do,” said Freya. “You saw Mr Abernathy’s handwriting go wrong from twelve feet. I was there. I saw you see it.” She paused. “I’ll write.”

“I’ll write back.”

“You won’t,” said Freya. “You’ll be learning the kidneys again.” And she leaned over the bar and kissed him on the cheek, quickly, and went back to the booth, and Theo stood by the hatch with a cloth in his hand and did not move for a while, and Kimura, on her stool on the other side of the hatch, without turning round, passed him a glass of something that Frederick had got wrong at ten, and he drank it.

---

Mr Abernathy wrote one more beer mat.

He wrote it at a quarter to one, at closing, when Mrs Merriweather had rung the brass bell three times and the English form were standing at the door in their blazers, eleven of them, for the last time, and the Fourth Ward were standing round them, and there was a great deal of shaking of hands, and Mr Delgado had been told by Ollie where the Charter was signed for the fourth time and had said, for the fourth time, I knew that.

Mr Abernathy did not get up. He uncapped the red pen, and pulled a beer mat towards him, and wrote on it, slowly, the letters going straight along the line, and pushed it to the end of the bar.

It went hand to hand along the counter, through the Fourth Ward, to the door, to the English form, and Will Ellis, who was nearest, picked it up, and read it, and showed it to the others, and they all looked at it, eleven of them, in the doorway of Eight Bars, and then at the old man on the stool by the window, who did not look up.

It said: Coln Abbey School, upper sixth, exchange year 2031 to 2032. A minus. Minus for the blazers.

---

At six in the morning on Saturday, the Thirty-Two came.

It was chartered. Mrs Merriweather had arranged it with the depot, and the depot had arranged it with the driver, and the driver was Peter Hartigan, who had volunteered, because, he said, his son had been on a coach to London a year ago with sixty people in it and he had heard about it for twelve months and wanted to see what the fuss was. The Thirty-Two came round the corner of Garfield and Ninth at six exactly, articulated, red and cream, as it had come round that corner for six years, and stopped outside Eight Bars, and the doors folded open.

“Airport,” said Peter Hartigan, from the cab, looking straight ahead. “Exact fare.”

The English form got on. They got on with their trunks and their blazers and their bags, eleven of them, and Peter Hartigan looked at every one of them as they came up the steps, very carefully, as though checking each one for forgery, and said that’ll do, and they went down the bus and sat in the seats by the windows, on both sides, and looked out at Eight Bars, and at the King on the pavement, and at Theo, beside him, in the Cranwell apron, which he had put on at half past five to come downstairs, out of habit.

The doors closed.

The Thirty-Two pulled away from the kerb, very slowly, the way Peter drove it in the mornings, and went down Garfield Street towards Ninth, and at the corner, as it turned, every window on both sides of it went down at once, and eleven English sixth-formers in navy blazers leaned out of them, and shouted, all together, at the tops of their voices, so that the woman from the laundromat came out onto her step with a cigarette in her hand to see:

“HANOVER! YOU’RE RUBBISH!”

And then, from the cab, through the open door at the front, in a flat Milwaukee voice that called every stop on the Thirty-Two and had never in six years called anything else:

“Two Bs.”