The Last Question

Author’s Note  “Quids in Questions”, using the British expression “Quids in” which means “in the money” is an entirely fictional gameshow. However, should anyone wish to commission it, I am open to offers!!!!    

“Now here is your final question, Vicky. The final question of this series of Quids in Questions. In fact, though the host, Martin (who isn’t quite as smarmy in real life as he seems on TV) is being studiedly upbeat, probably the last series ever.   QIQ as it’s nicknamed has ended up giving away for more money for far fewer viewers than was ever the intention. But I’m the first one ever to do a run of five programmes. I’m already “quids in”, so to speak! Enough to buy a new house and a new car and never have to worry about paying for holidays or whether I can update my laptop. “Are you ready, Vicky? This is where it gets totally life-changing!” He said that last week. And the week before, if I remember. Not that it’s entirely wrong.

     “Ready as I’ll ever be, Martin,” I say, perkily. I have decided that my persona is “perky”. Not edgy. There’s a difference. I will be quite glad when I have a chance to become a person again and stop being a persona or a personality. 

     “Here we go then. For the highest prize EVER paid out on British Television in a quiz, to win the kind of money that you could only generally get – I won’t say earn – by playing massive odds in the lottery – well, here we pay that amount for knowledge, not chance.”

     For pity’s sake, man, get on with it, I think. 

     “Which great novel starts with the line There was no question of taking a walk that day?”

     Oh my good God! As soon as he got past the word “question” – did somebody intend that as a nice joke or am I crediting them with more wit than they actually have – I knew the answer. It’s Jane Eyre of course. Only my most favourite book EVER! The book I first fell in love with when I was ten before I could even properly understand half of it. I could have answered before he finished the question.

     “You like your books, don’t you, Vicky?” He proceeds to give a brief resume of my past success in literary questions. By this stage in the competition, there aren’t any alternatives, or lifelines, or anything like that. Sudden death, all or nothing. Well, not nothing, of course. I have a VERY nice little stash already in the bank that nobody can take away from me, thanks to QIQ. Well, not time for false modesty. Thanks to my knowledge, of course! Oh, I’ve had my sticky moments! My mind went a total blank on the capital of Turkey, I mean, that’s basic baby-quizzers stuff, but for some heart-stopping minutes I could only think it’s NOT Istanbul! Whatever you do, don’t say Istanbul! Thankfully, my brain went out of lockdown and I didn’t need a lifeline. But I did when it came to What is the home ground of Portsmouth Football Club? Now that was a stinker! I have the Premier League grounds off pat, but going down to the third tier is STIFF! Okay, if any Pompey fans (see, I do remember the nickname!) are reading, I know they HAVE been in the Premier League and probably will be again at some point. Mercifully, I hadn’t used up Go for it with Google, giving me a whole two minutes to find out, which I did. It’s Fratton Park. You can have that one on me!

     I am two syllables away from it. And there is no might or may or perhaps or fingers crossed. I have the right answer. 

     Martin will appreciate me not giving the answer at once. QIQ thrives on tension and suspense. If I blurted it out they’d probably edit in pregnant pauses and even try to make my face look more – well, quizzical! 

     Mum has sent me a good luck text though of course she’ll be sworn to silence until the show is actually broadcast, as will everyone “in the know”, well, at least theoretically. The original idea was to broadcast it live, but then apparently someone pointed out the problems with the logistics of that and also the fact that contestants who thought themselves badly done to or were merely overwhelmed by disappointment might – well, might say or even do something that wouldn’t do the channel’s image much good. 

     There’s no audience. That’s another of the features. None of the whooping and clapping you get on some game shows. Just a throbbing blue light in the background with white “Q”s floating around. 

     Mum texted back, “Good Luck! Buy me a drink and don’t let thoughts of Albert put you off!” 

     I grinned at the message, which was typical for her wry sense of humour. But the trouble is, it’s now jabbing and jagging in my mind. Oh, not about buying her a drink! Let’s be honest, I could buy her the vineyard and have plenty of change over for a brewery! But what about Albert? Oh WHY did she have to mention Albert?

     Albert was her employer, back in the nineties, when I was only in my teens, and she worked as a waitress at the café he owned. As she always said, he was a brilliant employer and more of a father figure, in a way. He was one of the first people to win what I’ve heard called chunky money in the National Lottery when it was still in its early days. It was less than I’m on the point of winning, but given inflation over more than twenty years, probably more in practical or real terms. He was one of the most popular winners of the Lottery Jackpot. He was the kind of person who was called a nice little man without it being in any way demeaning or insulting or condescending. Even before he became seriously rich, he always did all he could to support local charities. He handed out free hot drinks and sandwiches to rough-sleepers, and never made impatient noises if someone sat nursing a cup of tea for the whole morning. 

     He looked vaguely dazed on the picture of him being handed one of those oversized fake cheques with the amount on it by a famous sportsman. He was even a perfect gentleman about him playing for, well, a team he’d not have cheered on! 

     Albert wasn’t used to having vast amounts of money. He was careful, and had always kept his head above water, but he didn’t have any particular taste for luxuries. He quietly said that he might buy a little cottage in Cornwall, where he and his wife (such a shame she wasn’t around any more!) used to spend their holidays, and donate to local charities, but he intended keeping the café open. And giving Mum and the other waitress, Shona, a big pay rise!

     The trouble was, it didn’t work out like that. Albert would always have said that though he hoped he wasn’t a mean man (he definitely wasn’t!) he wasn’t a pushover, either. But then the letters started to come. It would have been mainly letters then, I suppose. Some of them were totally genuine and for causes nobody could deny were excellent and deserving. The whole town rejoiced when that little girl with the rare form of cancer was sent to the USA for life-saving treatment, and when the local park, that frankly had become a bit of a dump, was restored to its full glory. But as Mum said, how could he tell. How could anyone tell? How could he decide which letters were wholly genuine, and which were not? Of course, his fortune did dwindle, but he had plenty to spare and interest rates were higher back then when it came to savings. 

     Mum and Shona were worried when they realised that one of the customers, a woman called Lilly, definitely had “designs” on him. They would have been more than happy for him to find love again late in life, and there was always the risk that you became cynical and thought that if a person had money, then anyone who wanted to get involved with them had to be a gold digger. But Lilly hadn’t shown much interest before. Shona had once overheard her telling someone that she hoped to play her cards right and be a rich widow when he popped his clogs. “But how can we tell him that?” she asked. Mum agreed. He’d had proposals through the post (nobody seemed to pay much heed to the idea that women could only propose in leap years!) but this was a different matter. 

     “And it never seemed to make him really happy,” Mum said, with a sigh when she was telling the story. “I’m not dewy-eyed about such things – I’m a firm believer in the saying that money doesn’t necessarily make you happy, but at least you can be miserable in comfort!”

     He and Lilly did get married, and he gave up the business . The new owner turned it into an internet café (remember those?) and Mum and Shona worked there for a while, but somehow, though their new boss was amiable enough, it wasn’t the same. Albert had given both of them a generous golden handshake. Mum fulfilled her ambition to go back to her studies as a mature student and Shona started a business of her own – a little craft shop. Both of them did well, and were happy. 

     At Lilly’s prompting, Albert bought a big house on a smart avenue. The kind of house that you couldn’t really call a mansion, but was pretty darned close. It had a swimming pool and a solarium and Lilly, who hated getting her hands dirty, employed a cleaner and a gardener. Mum knew the gardener “at second hand” – one of her fellow students was his niece – and recounted that Lilly had poured scorn on Albert’s ideas about rose-beds and honeysuckle. She liked her decking and her water features. “And I don’t mean a fountain,” she said, “Apparently there’s something that looks a bit like outside plumbing but Lilly thinks is very fashionable and elegant.” 

     “He should never have gone public,” Mum said, “That was his downfall, though I suppose these things do get out.”

     Well, I will have no choice about going public. When you’re the jackpot winner on a primetime gameshow you don’t get the choice. I tell myself that I wouldn’t let myself fall into that kind of trap, but I suppose that’s what Albert thought too, and he was older and wiser than I am. 

     “Thinking it over, Vicky?” Martin gently prompts me. “Sorry, but there can be no help or lifelines now! You take all the time you need!”

     Of course he doesn’t literally mean all the time I need. I am still within the acceptable parameters, but in a few minutes I will be getting into the zone where his prompting becomes slightly more urgent, though still with the fixed smile and the air of being a cross between an indulgent uncle and a slightly frustrated schoolteacher. 

     “I’m ready to give my answer now, Martin,” I say.

     Cue the slightly spooky music and more frequent flashes of the “Q”s. 

     I draw a deep breath, and then, facing the camera, say confidently, “Wuthering Heights”!