University Challenge

Chapter one of an abandoned novel

Patrick sat among the tufty grass and rabbit holes at the cliff edge and watched Jeff and Cammy messing about in the sea below. He blew on his tea to cool it, took a sip. A grain or two more sugar than he liked but it was tea, his comfort blanket. The boys were taking it in turns to dive off the rocks; Jeff had tried to entice him down but he’d wanted to take advantage of the space, the silence. It was chilly out on the cliff top, the wind ripping at him like he was a sail, but he didn’t want to go back inside. A decision had to be made and this might be his only chance to think without Cammy around, always talking. It was like trying to concentrate next to a revving motorbike. Now they were older, more mature, he thought maybe they could enjoy each other’s company without any of the conflict that had marked their undergrad days. He should’ve known that Cammy wouldn’t have changed. If anything he’d got worse.

He needed them, Cammy and Jeff. He had to make the decision himself, but he’d never been good at that. Too many options, too many variables. Even in the department, on his own research, he needed a sounding board, a discussion, a brainstorming session. Ideas out loud had shape, form. In his head they were just tangles of string, knots, frayed ends, confusion. He needed his friends, especially now.

Two weeks back Susan, a Chemistry post-doc with whom he’d had an embarrassing, fumbled one-night stand, had knocked on his office door. They hadn’t seen each other since that morning when, as she left his flat, he grabbed desperately for something to say and settled on, ‘see you around.’ He liked her a lot but that had done it. The look she’d given him as she disappeared down the stairs made him cringe even now, shivering on the cliff top, at the way he’d guaranteed no second date. He’d have liked a second date.

Two weeks ago she had knocked. He said, ‘Come in’. He stood too quickly and a stack of exam papers lemminged onto the floor. He cleared a chair for her and offered her tea.

‘Look,’ she pushed her glasses back up her nose. ‘I know you don’t want to speak to me. You think you’ve had your fun and now you can ignore me, but we need to talk.’

‘What? No,’ he’d stuttered. ‘I didn’t just have my fun-’

‘Thanks a lot. So you didn’t even enjoy it?’

‘That’s not what I-’

‘Look, can we go somewhere more neutral?’

So they’d gone to the Kings Arms. He had the feeling he was going to need a drink. He was right.

‘I’m pregnant.’

Patrick was sure his heart had actually stopped beating. Certainly, he’d stopped breathing because Susan had said, ‘For fuck’s sake will you breathe?’

He took a few deep breaths then said, ‘Is it mine?’

‘Well, it could be any one of forty guys but I’ve decided I want all that sweet, sweet research grant money. Of course it’s fucking yours. You’re the only guy I’ve slept with in eighteen months.’

He’d checked out then white noise in his ears and a painfully bright light. When reality chose to rejoin him, she was speaking.

‘… and before you say anything, I’ve decided I’m keeping it. I can’t bear the thought of abortion and I won’t hand it over to someone else to raise. This is my choice. You only have one thing to decide. Do you want to be involved or not?’

He knew what he had to do, he’d known from the moment she told him, but he couldn’t make himself say it, to acknowledge it. That was why he’d come. He needed to run it by Jeff, and, yes, Cammy.

He looked down at the sea. The tide was going out, leaving the swimmers stranded on the shallow seabed. He watched them cross the sand leaving a trail of damp footprints along the Cornwall coast. He poured his tea into the grass and moved towards the house.

Skin prickling, Jeff leaned back against the tiles. It had been years since the three of them had been in the same place. It felt good, like how things were supposed to be. They knew each other so well that even after years they could slip back into friendship within seconds. When he bumped into others from those days, it was always awkward, like they were strangers suffering through déjà vu. Not with these guys, the core of the pub quiz team, the University Challenge team that had kicked Sheffield’s arse and got humiliated by Magdalene. It was just a shame they’d all gone in such different directions. Patrick was ensconced in academia and Cammy’s band, Undertow, were on the verge of stardom. Jeff rubbed more suntan lotion into his already burnt chest, cracked a Carlsberg.

Jeff was a game designer. He’d been working non-stop from graduation, the thrill of doing something he loved overtaking his life. He’d only had one meaningful relationship since uni and that had ended two years earlier. It was simpler to be single. He could rise early, work late, and come on holiday with his mates. He’d needed a holiday. Obsession was the word his boss, Ryan, had used. Tunnelled. He’d burnt out and a late night, drunken impulse made him call Patrick and Cammy. Cammy had just fired the members of his band at the urging of the record company and he jumped at the chance to hide away for a week. Patrick had jumped at the chance, surprising Jeff. He’d expected two or three rounds of arguments about work, deadlines, logistics.

Suddenly, over Jeff’s head, Patrick flew from the balcony screaming, ‘BASTARD’ and landed on his face in the sand. Cammy followed, feet first, trying to run through the air, and landed inches from Patrick.

‘Alright boys?’ Jeff saluted them with his can.

‘Bastard could’ve killed me.’ Patrick spat sand.

‘You know, I think the gimp might actually be getting the message.’

‘Bastard.’

‘Anyone for beer?’ Jeff had dug a hole in the sand, lined it with a plastic bag and filled it with sea water. Two cans bobbed in it.

‘This is the life eh?’ Cammy cracked and downed most of the can.

‘It’s a nice place,’ Patrick sipped his. ‘Do you come here often?’

‘Smooth chat up line,’ Cammy saluted him. Patrick presented his middle finger.

‘We came all the time when we were kids. Mum and Dad still come every year. I haven’t been down here since about second year.’

‘Kidding?’ Cammy looked unbelieving. ‘If I had a place like this I’d never leave.’

‘I can’t imagine it’s that nice in the winter,’ Patrick pointed at the ocean. ‘That would be a lot less inviting for a start.’

‘Fine,’ said Cammy, “but look at it now. Imagine it, three, four months of decent weather, all the surfing, the barbecues, the women. I mean, look over there.’

Two women walked down the old launch ramp onto the beach in front of them. One a classic sun-bleached blonde, bikini, beach body inexpertly covered by a loose see-through sarong. The other red dreadlocks, jeans shorts, short white top clinging to an equally fit body adorned with various Celtic tattoos. The women glanced up and saw them looking. Jeff remained nonchalant. He could have been looking at anything. Patrick looked miserable, the idea of sex merely a reminder of his situation. Cammy was all but drooling.

‘All right, girls?’

‘Yeah’, the blonde volleyed.

‘Where are you from?’ Cammy returned.

‘Around.’

‘Ah, I know it well. Good pubs. What about your friend? Does she speak?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Yeah,’ her friend repeated, looking over the three storey house right on the beach. ‘Do you live here?’

‘It’s his place,’ Cammy thumbed at Jeff. ‘We’re here on holiday, same as yourselves. Maybe you’d like to join us?’

‘I know you,’ said Dreads. ‘You’re in that band. You supported Ben Harper at the O2 in Brixton.’

Cammy’s grin was Cheshire-like. ‘That’s me. Cameron Swift. Cammy. Always glad to meet a fan.’

‘You guys sucked. Your drummer was all over the place. Was he high or something?’

Now Cammy looked sick. ‘Yeah, he was as it goes. I fired him after that. I fired them all.’

‘So are this your new band?’

‘Them? No chance. I’m thinking about going solo. Who needs bandmates? I write all the songs anyway. Unless you want to be in my band? No? How about a drink?’ He was about to send Patrick up for some more beer when they all heard a ‘Hey’.

A surfer jogged onto the beach and ran up to the blonde and, without even speaking, kissed her. Cammy’s face remained rigid but his eyes sagged, defeat clear to Jeff and Partick.

‘Looks like that’s a no, guys,’ said Dreads as they walked off.

‘Bye guys,’ Blonde called back. Dreads waved. Surfer gave them the finger behind the women’s backs.

‘The beach giveth and the beach taketh away,’ said Jeff.

Jeff, skinny, balding but with a shaved head to hide the fact, had originally been Cammy’s friend, the drummer in one of his early bands. He’d been an outsider, moving between various groups of friends, not really part of any. When that band split he’d withdrawn even more into his computer, only emerging for special occasions. No one heard from him for months then he’d appear, all talkative and just like old times, then just as suddenly disappear. Cammy was the only one who could convince him to come out when it suited others. It was a sure sign of a good time if Jeff was there.

No one really knew how Patrick had come to be part of the group. His uncontrollable curly mop and Sartre glasses had been an integral part of the uni pub quiz team, filling in the arty blanks left by the physics (Kate), computing (Jeff) and engineering (Cammy) students. He had an encyclopaedia of useless trivia at his fingertips, especially concerning literature and history. They all knew he’d been holding back on University Challenge, too nervous of the cameras to buzz. Cammy had never really forgiven him.

To Patrick, the other two were so sorted. Cammy had it made. The band were The Next Big Thing. The NME said so. Jeff had the job of his dreams and a place like this to come back to. Patrick was just beginning to get his head above water financially after eight years of being a student and now he was to be a father.

After swimming, they stood in the garden washing sand off their feet with the hose, hanging towels on the washing line.

‘I fancy a barbecue,’ Cammy shook the water off his flip-flops. ‘So who wants to go to the supermarket?’

‘I’ll go,’ Patrick felt like being alone again.

‘We’ll all go,’ Jeff pulled on a T-shirt. ‘If there’s three of us we don’t need the car.’

‘You two can carry everything,’ Cammy leaned back on the picnic bench. ‘I’ll get the fire going.’

‘Well see you actually do,’ Jeff checked his wallet, ‘I’m hungry. I want to get cooking as soon as we’re back.’

‘Yeah, yeah.’

Patrick and Jeff pulled the gate behind them and set off along the beach front. There were two beaches separated by Jeff’s house, up on its spit of land. All the other properties stood back on the far side of the road. B&Bs mostly, no vacancies. Up by the surf shop, the hotel with the only pub in the village, the pub they were banned from after Cammy’s language offended the landlady, by the post office and the farm shop and out onto the country road, hedge-lined, wild flowers on the verges. Patrick breathed deep, the fresh air revitalising him.

‘Enjoying yourself?’ Jeff lit a cigarette but kept downwind of Patrick.

‘Yeah, it’s great here.’

‘So what’s up?’

Another deep breath, much less revitalising. ‘I’m going to be a father.’

‘I take it this wasn’t planned.’

‘No.’

‘She’s keeping it?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Are you gonna be a parent or a statistic?’

‘Blunt and to the point as usual.’

‘You know me, heart of the matter.’

‘That’s the problem. One-night stand gone wrong. I don’t have a relationship with her. I hardly know her.’

‘What are your instincts?’

‘To be a parent.’

‘You’re that either way. Involved or not. Pros and cons?’

‘The usual: losing freedom and income versus duty and responsibility.’

‘It’s never simple is it?’

‘No.’

‘Either way, you’re responsible for this kid. You can pay or you can raise it yourself. If you want to do the latter you have to live with the mother. Decide whether or not you want to do that and the rest follows.’ Inwardly Jeff laughed at himself. Giving advice on relationships? He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d kissed a woman, but he knew what was required of him. When a man tells another man his problems, he wants advice. If he knew what to do, he wouldn’t have brought it up. The rules we live by, thought Jeff. No one ever teaches you, yet when it comes up, you just know. ‘Look, I have no idea what the fuck I’m talking about. But it seems to me that being a part of this child’s life means being part of the mother’s life. You can’t have one without the other.’

‘No, you’re right,’ said Patrick. ‘I have to decide that.’

They reached the supermarket and filled bags with meat and beer. The young woman at the check-out  laughed at them. ‘Don’t you need any vegetables?’

‘It’s okay,’ Jeff handed her his card, ‘the vegetable is waiting back at the house.’

As they walked back, Patrick pushed the focus onto Jeff. ‘So,’ he shifted the weight of the plastic bags, their handles digging into his palms, ‘what are you working on?’

‘I’m working on this game at the moment. It’s a strategy type thing. Post-apocalyptic. You’re part of a group of survivors of some catastrophe and you’ve got to rebuild society, you know? You start from complete anarchy, everyone hiding in the woods, killing each other. You’ve got to get them working together, find the perfect place for a settlement, build it, sort out laws, a hierarchy, all that kind of thing. The aim is that by the time you die, you’ve put humanity back on the road to civilisation.’

‘Sounds good. Immersive.’

‘Yeah, it’s a neat idea. The problem is that no one can agree what a civilisation is. Obviously each time you make a decision there’s a right or a wrong choice, the wrong one leading to more anarchy, your own death, or the extinction of the human race. There’s thousands of these decisions. But we can’t decide what the right path should be. What constitutes society, civilisation, humanity?’

‘I bet when they invented the first games like Pong, their creators never envisioned their successors having to deal with the great philosophical questions.’

‘You’re not wrong. That’s progress, I guess.’

‘So what’s your view?’

‘I’m not a hundred percent sure. I want to make it as open as possible, you know? So you can learn from your mistakes, so it’s not prescriptive. I’m just scared it’ll go down this line where, for example, your society either has to or cannot be built around religion. Some people are putting forward the idea that religion is a primitive stage to get beyond, whereas others want a society that incorporates the ten commandments and has regular worship.’

‘So if you covet your neighbour’s oxen then it’s game over?’

Jeff laughed. ‘Yeah, I made that point. Went down like a tonne of bricks.’

‘So there are algorithms that govern a right choice and a wrong choice? I could do with some of that.’

Cammy had managed to get the barbecue going but Jeff took charge. Cammy got them all drinks, huge Cuba Librés with big chunks of ice. Jeff moved the meat onto a cooler part of the barbecue and joined the other two on the picnic bench overlooking the sea as the sun began to set.

‘Oh, I’ve got a surprise for you guys. This seems like the right time.’ Cammy ran into the house, came back with his laptop. He clicked a couple of times and 6 Music came on. ‘I meant for us all to listen to it this morning but I didn’t wake up in time.’ He skipped around iPlayer, trying to pin-point something. They got a few bars of different songs, some news, weather. ‘Ah, here we go.’

‘What is it?’ said Jeff.

Lauren Laverne’s voice lilted across the garden. ‘That was the new single from Bat For Lashes and this is the new single from Undertow, “University Challenge”.’

‘Good name,’ Jeff passed Cammy the joint. He lay back on the bench, blowing smoke towards the sky. Patrick gazed out to sea. Cammy sat cross-legged on the bench staring at the laptop like it was Lauren Laverne herself and he was giving her his undivided attention.

The song began with soft piano chords, then a crunchy distorted guitar melody, drums slowly fading in, building, in Cammy’s preferred style, to a cliff edge over which the song fell. The lyrics were about friendship, nostalgia, the best days of your life. When it ended he looked up nervously.

‘What do you think?’

‘It’s great,’ Patrick paused for a moment then took the joint.

‘Cracking,’ said Jeff. ‘I like it a lot. When I heard the piano I thought you’d gone all Coldplay, but you pulled it back.’

‘Thank fuck for that.’ Cammy selected something else, something instrumental, laid back.

Patrick sipped his drink, popped an olive into his mouth. ‘So what are we doing tomorrow?’ he said.

‘Let’s worry about that tomorrow,’ said Jeff.

Music rolled out across the garden, over the waves and out to where the last sliver of sun dipped out of sight.