Ian Sansom - The Bad Book Affair

Fish and Chip Biblical Quiz Nights were one of Francie McGinn’s rather more niche ideas. Churches subscribed online to a complete Biblical Quiz Night package and were then able to use the material either as an evangelism tool, or as an alternative to traditional Bible study groups, or as a means of congregation team-building, like white-water rafting or paintballing. The Reverend England Roberts, Tumdrum’s incongruously black South African Presbyterian minister, preferred to use the quiz nights as a simple excuse for a good night out, and he stood proudly now, microphone in one hand, Diet Coke in the other, at the back bar of the First and Last, wearing his Lord of the Rings-style “One King to Rule Them All, One Son to Find Them, One Love to Bring Them All, One Spirit to Bind Them” T-shirt.

“Pencils at the ready!” he boomed.

Israel had been dragged along by his landlady, George Devine, and her grandfather, old Mr. Devine. Mr. Devine had come in his usual garb of flat cap, ancient stained suit, and sturdy shoes, but George had dressed up: she was out of her usual dungarees and wearing a green velvety dress with a little cardigan and these pointy little shoes, and her raven hair was swept back from her face, and she was wearing earrings, and it looked as though she was maybe wearing makeup. She looked like a 1940s film star: Israel was thinking maybe Dorothy Lamour, in Road to Zanzibar, with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, one of the DVDs he’d been watching when he’d been lying in bed, thinking…

About Gloria. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He’d texted her earlier. No reply. Gloria was more Lana Turner than Dorothy Lamour. And Lana Turner in The Postman Always Rings Twice. She had so many clothes and shoes, Gloria, he wondered sometimes if she was maybe a shopaholic. When they’d first been together and they were students, she’d been fine, but then she’d got the big legal job with the firm and she’d had to upgrade. And as she’d been promoted she’d upgraded again and again, until the only thing she hadn’t upgraded was Israel. And so eventually she’d upgraded him. In the good old days they’d go shopping together to secondhand shops and Camden Market, but then she’d moved on to Next and Monsoon and then it was Ghost, and finally little places that she knew in Kensington and Chelsea that friends had recommended, with Israel sloping along after her while she bought clothes and shoes, although somehow she would never have the right shoes to go with the clothes or the right clothes to go with the shoes, and if Israel liked it, it was wrong, and if he didn’t, it was wrong, so he felt like he couldn’t win, and of course in the end, he hadn’t. He’d lost.

“Question one,” said the reverend. “How many books are there in the Bible? And for our Jewish brothers and sisters in tonight,” he added-

“Hooray!” said Israel, pathetically, alone. He felt one hundred pairs of Christian eyes bore into him.

“-I am referring to the Christian Bible. That’s question one, brothers and sisters: how many books are there in the Bible?”

“God, I have no idea,” said Israel, turning to his companions.

“Do not use the Lord’s name in vain,” said old Mr. Devine.

“Shit, sorry!” said Israel.

“Sssh,” said George, nudging him, but not unpleasantly, thought Israel, not in the way she might usually nudge him. She’d been very kind to him since he’d been holed up in bed for two weeks. Maybe it was the beard.

“Sixty-six,” whispered old Mr. Devine.

“Really?” said Israel. “Are you sure?”

“As sure as there’s an eye in a goat,” said Mr. Devine, narrowing his already narrow eyes under his cap.

“Right. And of course there is an eye in a goat,” said Israel.

“Aye,” said Mr. Devine.

“Unless it’s a blind goat!” said Israel, who had already finished his second pint of Guinness and started, unwisely, on his third. “Boom boom!”

“Sixty-six,” repeated Mr. Devine.

“Isn’t that like the number of the beast?” said Israel.

“That’s six-six-six,” said George, who was drinking sparkling mineral water.

“Oh. Right. I don’t know if I’m going to get many of these.”

“No,” agreed old Mr. Devine, who wasn’t drinking anything at all. He’d had a lemonade on his arrival and was saving himself for the fish and chips. The Fish and Chip Biblical Quiz Nights cost five pounds: fish and chip supper, plus one free drink, all profits going to a literal and proverbial orphanage in Romania.

“I’ll tell you what, shall I write?” said Israel, reaching out for George’s pencil.

“I’ll write,” said George, patting away his hand. “Thank you.”

It was the first time anyone had touched Israel in a long time-except for Ted, which didn’t count, because Ted was usually walloping him round the back of the head. Israel suddenly remembered being on the Underground with Gloria one night, traveling back home in an empty carriage, and his pulling Gloria onto his lap, and-

“Question two,” said the Reverend Roberts. “What is the longest book in the Bible?”

“I know what the longest book outside of the Bible is,” said Israel.

“Tssh,” said old Mr. Devine.

“À la recherche du temps perdu,” said Israel, in his best French.

“You mean À la recherche du temps perdu,” said George, in her better French.

“Thank you,” said Israel.

“Pleasure,” said George. “But what about War and Peace?”

“No,” said Israel. “That’s nowhere near.”

“I always preferred Dostoyevsky,” said George, pushing hair back behind her ear.

“Me too!” said Israel, overenthusiastically, although it was a long time since he’d read either Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky. Working on the mobile library, he’d found himself drifting inexorably toward chick lit and misery memoirs. He found he quite liked chick lit-it was like reading Anne Tyler, without trying-and he’d even started wondering about writing his own misery memoir, title: The Books in My Life. Subtitle: And How They Have Disappointed Me. A book about the mocking of his expectations of what life should be, based on his reading of great literature. Every student of literature would buy a copy of that, surely? A book about slight emotional deprivation and bourgeois career disappointment? Dostoyevsky, Kafka, Knut Hamsun, Robert Musil, Philip Roth, Fernando Pessoa: eat your bitter little hearts out.

“The Psalms,” said Mr. Devine.

“What?” said Israel.

“The Psalms: longest book in the Bible.”

Israel remembered the way he and Gloria would sit around when they were first together, discussing books, reading to each other, thrilling over food, drinking wine, lolling around in bed, making love, drinking more wine, and then reading together, exchanging meaningful kisses while reading out bits of Milan bloody Kundera! Oh god.

“Question three,” said the Reverend Roberts. “What council-I repeat, what council-adopted Sunday as the Sabbath day?”

“Tumdrum District Council?” said Israel.

“Sssh!” said George, throwing her head back slightly and laughing.

“But you have to put your bins out on the Monday,” said Israel.

“The Council of Laodicea?” said Mr. Devine.

“Are you sure, Granda?”

“Let’s try it,” said Mr. Devine.

“Let’s live dangerously,” said Israel.

“Yes,” said George. “Let’s.”

Gloria had been a thrill seeker: she was that kind of a person. She had to push herself to the limit and beyond. She’d done sponsored parachute jumps and marathons. Husky sledding. Team-building weekend city breaks in Europe, arriving back on Monday mornings and going straight into work. And there were other things also…Israel stirred again uncomfortably on his seat.