Chapter 11
‘ W hat about the Captain and the Tenilles?’ Carole suggested, the curls from last night escaping the loose bun she’d pulled her hair back into since Maureen had seen her at breakfast. The foursome had gathered as arranged in the Sundowner Lounge and were now trying to come up with a name for their quiz team. So far, all suggestions had been vetoed as unoriginal or not applicable. The slow nodding around the table suggested Carole had come up with a winner. The final vote rested with Maureen, however, as self-appointed team leader.
‘Very good, Carole,’ Maureen said, thinking there was no need to clarify who the Captain in the name was. ‘“Captain and the Tenilles” it is.’
Everybody looked pleased, especially Carole who smiled and sat up straighter as she smoothed the creases in her simple linen dress. Maureen thought she should smile more often because it lit up her eyes and transformed her from someone you might not notice to someone you’d like to sit down and chat with.
Over by the bar, the Mayan Princess ’s toothy Director of Entertainment was testing her microphone. Maureen leaned over to Carole and whispered, ‘Your woman up there, Christie, has one of those terrible, annoying swingy ponytails.’
Carole looked to see Christie’s ponytail was indeed swinging and whispered back, ‘You’re right. It’s the sort of ponytail that would be super satisfying to snip off.’
They grinned at one another. It was a grin that said two women who didn’t know each other well had found a surprising kindred spirit.
‘To be fair, she’s very enthusiastic,’ Maureen said because she prided herself on being fair.
‘Albeit a tad shouty,’ Carole added.
‘With a look of Mr Ed’s talking horse about her,’ Maureen couldn’t help herself.
‘I remember that! “A horse is a horse—”’‘Of course,’ Maureen finished.
The menfolk looked at the women as they collapsed in giggles and shook their heads.
‘Women are a mysterious lot,’ Davey said to Niall as if he’d had loads of experience on the matter.
Once she’d recovered, Maureen asked around their group whether they should disclose to Christie that they were crew. The general consensus was: what difference would it make? So she donned her captain’s hat, figuratively speaking, and glanced around the Sundowner lounge to see the tables were filling up. She sized up the competition and then drilled her teammates on where their strengths lay, suggesting they envisage the game of Trivial Pursuit with its pieces of pie for the correct answers.
‘I sweep the floor, winning all the blue pie slices for the geography questions,’ Davey said.
Maureen looked to Niall. ‘And yourself?’
‘I’m an orange pie man myself. You know, sports and leisure.’
‘Grand, grand,’ Maureen said, crossing her toes under the table in her sandals, that Carole wasn’t a pink pie girl because entertainment was her forte. She uncrossed them as cramp was swift to settle in.
‘Brown pie. Arts and Literature,’ Carole said.
Maureen could have kissed her. ‘And I’m the queen of entertainment questions. It sounds like we’re a well-rounded team with all our bases covered. So c’mon, Tennilles. Let’s wipe the floor with this lot!’ Maureen said, picking up her pen and paper to write down their answers. They all looked attentively to where Christie was beginning her welcome and general housekeeping spiel. Davey was shaking his hands like he was limbering up for a jog, which was as likely as Maureen suddenly deciding that Daniel Day-Lewis's The Last of the Mohicans wasn’t the best film ever made.
‘Get on with it,’ Maureen muttered for fear Davey would get up and start doing hamstring stretches or the like.
Finally, Christie started with a question that saw them all smile in that ‘I know this one’ way. ‘What year did the Titanic sink on its maiden voyage?’
Only it turned out they didn’t know.
‘History, who is our history buff?’ Maureen glanced around the table, but no one put their hand up. It seemed they had all their bases covered except history. ‘I know it was in the early 1900s. I’m thinking 1920.’
‘I feel it was more like 1910,’ Davey volunteered.
‘Yes, that sounds familiar.’ Niall was nodding, as was Carole.
Maureen went with the majority and jotted down 1910.
The next question was easy. ‘What is the smallest country in the world by land area?’
‘Liechtenstein!’ Davey announced jubilantly.
‘And you call yourself a good Catholic boy.’ Maureen shook her head. ‘It’s the Vatican, you eejit.’
‘Oh yes.’ Davey was chastened as he gazed heavenward and muttered a ‘Sorry about that’.
As the questions were fired, Maureen noticed the woman leaning toward them at the closest table to theirs. She beckoned Niall, Davey and Carole closer for a quick pow-wow. ‘Watch your wan there in the pink pantsuit. She’s flapping ears, so she has.’
By the sixth question, the Captain and Tenilles were slumping, dejected in their seats. The lads were tense with the prospect of defeat, and Niall had told Davey he was as useful as a one-legged man in an arse-kicking competition. Christie’s questions became increasingly cryptic, and none of their team was a fan of the cryptic crossword.
Maureen decided a team pep talk was in order at half-time. Once Davey had finished complaining that the Titanic question was a bit on the nose, given they were on a big ship in the middle of the ocean, she said, ‘Alright, so, Tenilles, listen up. What’s in the past has been and gone. I want you to cast the first round from your minds because we can claw victory back from the jaws of defeat.’ She made claws of her hands to demonstrate. ‘And let’s not lose perspective here. It’s a quiz. It’s supposed to be fun; we’re here to enjoy ourselves. Right?’ She didn’t mean a word of it. She was here to win.
Davey fist-pumped the air. ‘Right!’ Startled heads spun their way and he lowered his arm. ‘Sorry, but you’re very good at this, Maureen. You could have been one of those motivational speakers.’
‘Oh, do you think so?’
‘I do.’
‘I think Davey’s got a point,’ Niall said.
‘I was feeling like throwing the towel in, Maureen, to be honest, but now I’m rearing to go,’ Carole added.
Maureen was pleased and filed away motivational speaker as a new part-time career avenue to explore further once the littlest grandchildren started school and her services weren’t in such hot demand. She might be retired but she far from out to pasture and sure she might enjoy doing the rounds of Dublin spreading her words of wisdom!
Then, remembering she was amid a pep talk, she said, ‘Tenilles, win or lose – but obviously winning would feel loads better – we’re a team, and we’ve got this. No fist pumps, please, Davey. Okay, deep breaths, everybody.’ Maureen thought a spot of the pranayama breathing Roisin swore by might help clear their minds and prepare them for round two. She was about to demonstrate the technique when Christie picked up the mic again.
Twenty-five minutes later, Niall placed a restraining hand on Maureen’s arm. She was all set to march over to Christie and tell her she suspected the winning team, the Quizzards of Oz, of cheating because she’d seen the pink pantsuit lady just about dislocating her neck trying to read the answers of the Smarty Pints team at the table behind hers. ‘Sure, look at her all smug like with her Mayan Princess plastic drink bottle. I’ve got her number. She’s the sort if you were to say you were off to Tenerife, she’d reply she was off to Elevenerife.’
Carole snorted.
‘We’ve to be graceful in defeat,’ Niall was saying. ‘Although I might have a word with Christie myself because the sporting questions were very one-eyed, so they were. It was all baseball, basketball and football. What’s an Irishman supposed to know about any of that? Some hurling questions next time would even the playing field out.’ He released his grip on Maureen’s arm to explain to Carole what hurling was.
Davey looked at Maureen and huffed, ‘I think that question about what sort of a country sounds like it should be cold but actually isn’t was ridiculous. I mean, I had a very temperate holiday in Vancouver, Canada, years back, and you can’t tell me it's not fecking cold in Iceland.’ He drained his pint, thumping it down on the table.
‘We should have known the Titanic went down in 1912.’ Niall moved on from his hurling monologue to Carole.
‘Don’t mention the Titanic when we’re on a fecking boat!’ Davey’s voice rose.
Maureen knew that, as captain, she should calm the fraught atmosphere and give them ten out of ten for effort. If she were Captain Franco, she'd tell them in his hot chocolate voice it wasn’t the winning that mattered but how you played the game, only she couldn’t bring herself to. The winning did matter; the Mayan Princess 's drink bottle would be indispensable for the sunrise yoga session. Then again, as crew, was she allowed to accept free merchandise? It was a question that would have to wait to be answered another day because Davey was rubbing his belly with one hand and glancing at his watch strapped to the other wrist.
‘Well, would you look at that? It’s lunchtime. Shall we mosey up to the buffet?’ he suggested.
Niall and Carole said they’d go with Davey but Maureen said she’d wander out to see how John and Donal were getting on and see if she could drag them off the table tennis table for a spot of lunch.
‘Good luck with that,’ Niall said.
Maureen felt she would need it because Donal was like a man possessed when he got that ping-pong bat in his hand.