Not so Pointless

A dose of Frasier doesn’t do its job. No laughs out loud.

I turn the telly off and make my now familiar commute through the hallway to the kitchen. Only two stops I say, on Zoom calls, the ‘joke’ becoming as tiresome as the meetings. Is it normal to long to catch a train, the Tube even, if it means catching something else? My laptop, perched on the breakfast bar, provides a meagre taste of chambers, as much at home now as any other appliance.

I reach for it, but walk away, turn the kettle on instead; it’s working overtime as much as me these days. How British. Stoicism stirred hourly. Think positivity; think tea.

I pull a bag of Yorkshire’s finest from the tin by the Aga and drop it into a mug, more rings inside it than an ageing oak. Decaf: Google’s remedy for assuaging anxiety. Okay, so it’s medical credentials are questionable, but when you visit the doctor as seldom as you do the dentist…and boy must the medical brigade be busy. Bloody heroes. The tear tap threatens to turn on again, a little leaky lately.

I am an extraordinarily witty, brilliant and clever man, George Bernard Shaw’s blue quote fading around the mug’s outer as much as my inner…Get a grip, man.

One may lay claim to two of the three. Witty? Hardly. Any brilliance is vanishing as much as the lettering wrapped in my warming palm. Transient comfort, I set the mug down upon its cork coaster companion on my makeshift desk of a table, and fetch my laptop.

Clever isn’t being alone at a time like this. No children’s noises will come from my end on the nine-thirty call. No partner will fetch something from the cupboards behind me. My marble-heavy surroundings are at least testament to a successful career.

Switch. It. On. You’re among the lucky ones, the FT Weekender reported job losses the length of a telephone number. You’ll return soon enough; corona can’t curtail criminality indefinitely, add to it more likely, more white collar than blue.

Suck it up…you’ll get used to performing in front of a camera if the courtroom’s computerised. View these meetings as dress rehearsals, without the dress. I don’t miss that damn wig. You don’t have to put it on today, nor turn on the camera. Have a ‘bad hair’ day. Better they question your vanity than sanity.

I join the call and switch on my video: modesty won’t wash with Gordon. Colleagues appear on screen like I’m playing Solitaire. One by one until there are too many and we’re squashed smaller. Boxed in. Incarcerated.

Gordon provides a partner update on a likely return date. Same as last week: no time soon. He stresses how our wellbeing is the priority; I’m sick with hearing it. We begin reviewing our caseloads in the now normal way.

Zoom amplifies my baldness, my greying hair retreating to the crown. An occupational hazard, courtesy of the Crown, I’m convinced. Science says otherwise. I flatten the curling corners of my shirt collars in-between my forefingers and thumbs, Savile Row’s finest cotton combination of pin-stripe navy, white collars and cuffs, in need of a professional steam, dispensing with a tie as far as I’m prepared to ‘dress down’ in lockdown. Will I ever tie the nuptial knot again? This damn daily mist lurks behind my eyes. I pull up my socks, and polish the toes of my shoes against my trousered calves. Some habits die harder than others.

‘Derek, you’re up,’ Gordon says.

A minute in, I’m inevitably interrupted by someone’s partner, this time asking them to help Bertie with his conservation project. Give me strength. How hard can it be? Press the damn button. There’s a one-word clue on the screen, too. Bertie? Alison’s or Nicky’s? Ali’s camera goes blank: guilty as charged. I should issue a rebuke, a reminder to go on mute, but I let it go. Good Lord, I’m losing my steel as well as my...

‘Derek? Del!’

‘I think he’s–’

‘We can’t hear–’

‘Must be his wi-fi.’

‘Derek, you’re frozen.’

I’m not.

I say nothing.

Stay still.

‘Message him, Em.’

Surreptitiously I manoeuvre my cursor.

‘Get him to dial back in. Let’s move on.’

Deftly, I click…

End Meeting.

*

Elevenses: Well, it’s just turned ten, but it’s important to take frequent breaks. So says Gordon. And with no Em to bring me tea, someone’s got to make it.

No one noticed, did they? Wi-fi can be iffy this far out of town. Em would have emailed if they had.

I run a dishcloth over the breakfast bar, cupping my hand at the ledge, collecting crumbs.

They offer no comfort.

No conservation projects litter this surface, or any other. No conversation, anywhere, with anyone.

More time propping up the bar than studying the Bar and I’d have more to show than a bespoke kitchen. Have other people’s crumbs to collect. Faces to talk to. Not through a screen.

I’ll cancel tonight, what was the point? It was a good idea at the time, everyone’s doing a quiz. But yet another Zoom? Which excuse haven’t I used for a while? I should really write them down. Do my friends keep track? Judge me every time I prioritise work? How many colds can one have in a year? Suspected Covid?

Through my French doors, beyond the garden, the couple opposite have gone early with their once-a-day exercise, scoffing croissants, coffee cups in hand, their three adolescent girls ten yards behind doing the same.

The grass needs a trim as much as me. I’ll walk a lap later. I must know every inch of it now. I’ve counted every fish. I’d like to think I won’t take such space for granted again. But I will. The girls have formed a chain around dad, hugging him. Lucky beggar. I grab my cuppa, more emails to wade through than there are minutes before lunch.

*

A BLT grabbed on the go, a sandwich instruction to Em, lunch was an inconvenience just a month ago. Revered now, time to step away, if only a few feet, to a plentifully-stocked fridge. I pull out a Waitrose beef lasagne, pop the lid and put it in the microwave.

Unlocking my phone there’s early banter from the boys. I’ll be no fun, they’ll understand, work comes first. I fill the kettle as I type. The microwave pings, I reach for an oven glove and place the steaming lasagne on the counter. I poke it with a fork and return to my mobile. And an ‘urgent’ email, another late finish on the cards.

*

Dev, Jez, Roger and Simmo open beers, pour wine and fix their views, bantering, cocooned in a strip across the top of my screen. Superman baddies imprisoned in space springs to mind. Covid our kryptonite.

We see one another less each year, trips to the pub replaced by trips to the park, for them anyway, cricket clubs frequented more than night clubs, the gentlemen’s game to thank for us becoming firm friends: me, Jez and Simmo shared a house in our second year off the bat of that first summer in the field, and at the clubhouse bar.

The chat’s turned to which of the kids’ schools have closed, the new date for the next Bond film, and any ‘juicy’ case they know I can’t discuss. Is that what defines me to them? My work. Jezza’s rabbiting on about some new model of car he’s bought; what defines him to me. I know as much about cars as I do about kids, but I imagine that whether it’s German or Japanese, automatic or manual, petrol or hybrid, it’ll have cost him little more than about two months’ pay.

‘C’mon, who’s our first Bamber?’ he cries, grinning from his sitting room sofa, a widescreen TV behind him.

I remind him I typed my dissertation on his word processor, a ’screen’ no bigger than my thumb, computers a luxury circa 1997.

Rog volunteers to do his round first: Current affairs.

Interruptions follow every question. None of us have ever been afraid to impart a view or two, but the nature of them has changed, inching to the right for most. Not Rog, as red as his beloved United. I guess all of us have got more to lose, just some more than others.

‘Round one to Jez then,’ Rog says, prompting a fist pump from Jezza. Were I a betting man, I’d have put a pound on him, current affairs a cinch for a FTSE 100 comms director. He pats down his hair; it’ll only keep heading the other way, take it from one who knows. Going bald chips away at your ego; just as well for him his is bigger than most.

‘Whose round is it next?’ he asks.

If only. Tea my ‘go to’ drink.

‘You go,’ Simmo says. ‘You’re wearing the proverbial yellow jersey.’

‘For once I like your thinking.’

One sport question in and Jez reminds Simmo which of them has the best time for a 10k and the highest batting average. Dev tells them neither beat him on the uni squash court; he’ll do well to squeeze on to one nowadays.

I enjoy a smidgeon of satisfaction at scoring seven to Simmo’s six, but he’s two points ahead and in the lead.

‘Time we changed that,’ Rog says.

‘Right then,’ Simmo says. ‘Time to get my round out the way and really test the grey matter. Literature.’

Cue a few groans. A favourite of mine, I will struggle to name the last book I read; case files and court papers dominating my shelves these days.

‘Know your audience, Simmo,’ Dev says, chuckling, half his face illuminated by a green-shaded desk lamp. He’s not had to turn his kitchen into an office. That study of his shows he’s done the best of all of us. Fair play, I always say. Sri Lankan pauper to star stock picker, his bank balance most likely outstrips the country’s GDP. Just as well, a brood of seven to see through public school.

We’ve got to name the author and novel behind the quotes, Simmo explains. He’s got to work out how to show them on the screen first.

‘Any techie types know how I do that?’

‘The clue’s in the words, Share Screen,’ Jez tells him, adding ‘old boy’ for good measure, sharing a grin almost as wide as his television.

‘Which one?’

‘Desktop, dummy!’

But he’s using his laptop, I don’t say.

Simmo leans in, wide-eyed, his expression blank.

‘The screen you’re in,’ Jez says. ‘Just a guess.’

Cue snorts of derision, and I suspect lots of mental note-taking. I’m okay, I’ve questions and answers written down. Printed, no less.

‘Rome was built faster than this,’ Jez shouts, triggering sniggering from Dev and Rog.

My abiding university memory of Simmo was his Electron card. The Betamax of cards, usable just about nowhere.

I lie.

Sleeping with Paula what sticks, I’ve never quite forgiven him for it. One of only two girlfriends in three years at Balliol, one afternoon she said I studied too hard and pissed off with the Best of Deacon Blue CD I’d bought her, and The Smiths Meat is Murder poster she’d got me, rolled under one arm. To be fair, she was the only vegetarian in our relationship. I’ve something to tell you, Simmo said some months later. I told him I knew, punched him on the shoulder not the mouth, and said life’s too short to hold grudges. Then held one ever since.

Jez is trying to coerce us into a chorus of ‘Why are we waiting?’

Simmo’s ‘desktop’ shunts everyone’s faces into a grid in the corner in the nick of time.

‘Can you see it now?’ he asks, a mix of desperation and exasperation.

A chorus of ‘Yeses’ brighten his face.

He majors on classic literature, thankfully.

I struggle on only one question. Which twentieth century author wrote In Front of Your Nose, a collection of essays, journalism and letters. Eventually, I plump for Kingsley Amis.

Orwell. Of course. Ten questions on literature, he had to be the answer to one. Still, by my calculations, I’m seven points ahead of Simmo, one behind Dev, Jezza’s early pace stalling, and Rog doing about as well as United in the league.

My hubris doesn’t count on a picture round. Ten celebrities in face masks, nine of whom I wouldn’t recognise without them, and can’t imagine Dev does. I question him about his PowerPoint skills; there’s no way he’s put this deck together. He laughs heartily and says he’s a man of many talents. And a man with any number of staff to do tasks as he asks. I suspect he’s grateful for Jezza’s earlier tutorial by sarcasm on how to share the screen.

We hurtle through the answers and I’m delighted to discover my understanding of the people I know the closest is right; they recognise about as many ‘famous’ faces as me, Rog top scoring with three, and one of those was some footballer.

Know your audience, Devindra, I resist saying. Jez doesn’t. Dev chuckles, his least exuberant yet.

So to the final round. I’ve cheated a little, quiz writing some way down my ‘To do’ list, my weekends yet to understand there’s a ‘new normal’. Turning last night to the Pointless board game I got last birthday from my sister, I grabbed a handful of cards, and chose categories popular with everyone.

I explain the rules and caveat that answers must appear on the cards. Evidence a hard thing to argue against. They’ll try.

Questions on American politics, the periodic table, sitcoms and international cricket come and go, creating a heightened sense of competition to find the lowest-scoring answer, but as yet, pointless answers prove elusive.

Time for the final question of the final round.

‘If your answer’s not on the card, you lose ten points,’ I say, unplanned.

Barracking ensues.

‘Spice things up a bit,’ I hit back. And enable a Del boy triumph perhaps.

‘It’s on TV.’ I pause. ‘Name any character from the 1988 cast of Neighbours.’

You’d think I’d asked them to do the thing they despise most.

‘It was the thing to watch growing up,’ I remind them.

Dev, I concede, was more likely to have his nose in a maths book, but I remind the rest it was compulsory viewing. If we didn’t want to be left out of the Common Room chat the next day that is.

Protests abate, heads bow to scribble, the various stages of male pattern baldness on display.

‘That’s time, gentlemen.’

I start with Dev to see if the Aussie export landed on Sri Lankan shores. He confidently names the high-scoring Charlene, accepted without a family name when he confirms he’s never seen an episode but, of course, knows Kylie. Rog says Paul Robinson…correct, scores 40, Simmo plumps for Helen Daniels…correct, scores 15, and Jez offers up Madge Ramsay, which scores…

Ah.

What to do?

‘It’s not there!’ Simmo shouts triumphantly. ‘Minus ten big ones.’

‘Hold your horses,’ Jez says. ‘It has to be. Del boy?’

‘Welllll…Madge is.’

‘See!’

‘Now,’ I say. ‘Remember what I said at the start.’

‘Spit it out our learned friend,’ Rog says.

‘Madge would have scored you the lowest points.’

‘There’s a but coming,’ Simmo delights in saying.

‘Oh, shut ya face,’ Jez snaps.

‘But.’

‘But nothing!’

‘It says here, Madge Bishop, not Ramsay.’

‘Nul points!’ Simmo shouts.

Dev snorts.

‘Can’t argue with the card,’ Rog says.

‘I’m Googling it,’ Jez says.

‘No Googling!’ Simmo’s getting louder. ‘Them’s the rules.’

‘Sod the rules. There’s honour at stake.’

‘I did say the answer had to be on the card.’

‘Not written down,’ Jez protests. ‘Not binding. Not admissible.’

I call for quiet amid the increasing din.

‘It’s Ramsay! Google says so.’ Jez isn’t giving up.

Google. An algorithm capable of disseminating data in nanoseconds.

Me. First-class honours. The best bar scores, BAR NONE. Bring it on, something about an argument, a contretemps, a challenge to one’s authority and thinking. Trouble is, the worldwide bloody web doesn’t discriminate for intellect. A cyber space for any fool to fill with whatever shite they like.

‘Keep arguing among yourselves.’

More verbal jousting breaks out. Foul play the general gist. Schadenfreude, too, buying me some time.

But in the absence of evidence, time to research, a definitive answer…

‘I refer the honourable gentleman to the answer I gave a moment ago. If it’s not–’

‘Nonsense! They lived on RAMSAY street.’

‘I guess the clue’s not in this particular title then, Jezza,’ Simmo says.

Dev shrieks, setting off Rog and Simmo, Even Jez.

And me.

Someone’s sharing their screen…Jez…YouTube…the opening credits…and theme tune…to…Neighbours…Everybody needs good neighbours…

Everybody’s singing. If Dev knew the words, he can’t join in, shrieking every few seconds, as if his body’s reminding him to breathe.

I slap my hand against the table. And again. And snort. Where did that come from?

My knuckles fail to blot my eyes.

‘Call yourself a lawyer!’ Jez shouts. ‘Facts, man. Show me the evidence.’

I’m desperate to defend myself, but my diaphragm’s somewhere around my ribcage, the ache delightful. My eyes gleam on screen. I dab my hands against them to slow the flow.

Roger’s wheezing, on and on and on. Like a car battery that won’t start. That cartoon dog, in the flying machine, with the twenty-a-day-habit laugh.

What must we look like? Who cares?

‘Who won this damn thing?’ Jez asks.

I tell them their scores for that round, not penalising him, and we tally up our totals.

Jez insists we type them in the Chat box.

‘You know, the one that says Chat, Simmo,’ he adds. ‘Simultaneously, mind. After three. One…two…three.’

Damn it! Beaten by a point. By Simmo. A new grudge to hold.

‘I guess what I lack in technical nous I make up for in being a brainy bastard,’ he says.

‘How do you get through the day?’ Jez says.

Dev shrieks.

That laugh. It’s infectious. My belly won’t stomach another giggling fit.

‘Fair play, Simmo,’ Rog says, raising his hands in applause.

We join in.

Simmo stands and bows exuberantly.

‘Same again next week?’ I ask.

Too excitedly?

‘Yeses!’ all round.

Simmo waves.

‘Laters, losers.’

We say goodnights and goodbyes, waving. Their faces disappear, I’m left alone. But I’m not. Not really. This smile will keep me company for a while.