Page 25 of Love Letters on Hazel Lane

Jo barely heard the first question of the round; she was concentrating on trying not to gawp at Tarquin. It was silly getting all worked up like this when he was clearly out of her league. If he ticked either of their boxes this evening, it would be Kate’s.

‘Have you given up on the questions?’ said Kate, taking the pen off Jo. She began to write.

‘Do you like art?’ Tarquin said, looking directly at Jo.

Was this the art round?

‘Of course. Who doesn’t love sunflowers and waterlilies?’

He laughed. ‘I know nothing about art.’

‘Nah, me neither.’

He twinkled at her. ‘Good to know we’ve got something in common.’

They watched as Kate and George established between them that Frida Kahlo was born in Mexico and that My Bed was by Tracey Emin. Tarquin sipped his wine. Jo noisily sucked up the last dregs of her mojito from the bottom of her glass, like a child trying to get the last drops of a McDonald’s milkshake. From time to time, she could feel his eyes upon her and felt her cheeks reddening, but kept her gaze firmly fixed on Kate and George, who were arguing about who had won the previous year’s Turner prize.

They settled on Grayson Perry.

‘Who painted The Scream?’ said the host.

‘Edvard Munch,’ Jo said.

Tarquin raised his eyebrows at her. ‘So you do know about art?’

‘Only cos that one hangs in our office,’ she said.

The question master’s voice boomed through the speakers again: ‘Who first developed the pottery known as Jasperware?’

‘Was it Jasper?’ Jo said.

Tarquin laughed. Initially, she was pleased that she’d amused him – a GSOH was a highly sought-after commodity in the dating world – but he laughed a little too loudly for a little too long, and Jo realised he was faking it. Her quip hadn’t been that funny. Still, he probably wanted to be nice.

Kate frowned and said, ‘No, too obvious.’

George said, ‘Wasn’t it Wedgwood?’

‘Oh yes, my gran had some Wedgwood,’ said Kate. ‘Joseph Wedgwood?’

‘Josiah,’ said George. ‘We’re a great team, aren’t we?’

Kate and George exchanged smiles as the bell rang, signalling for the men to move on.

‘See you later, Jo,’ said Tarquin as he left for the next table.

With Tarquin sitting only metres away, Jo wouldn’t have noticed if either of their final dates of the evening had been George Clooney himself, and she certainly couldn’t concentrate on the final round of questions: more general knowledge.

Numbers One and Two knew that the first successful vaccine was used to prevent smallpox, that Julia Gillard was the first female Prime Minister of Australia and that ‘E’ was the only vowel not used as the first letter in a US State. None of them had a clue which English city used to be called Duroliponte or how many states there were in India.

But Jo didn’t care about the quiz anymore. She had only one thing on her mind. Tarquin – 16 points.

12

Friday lunchtime. Caroline had dashed off to do some shopping. David was probably eating a sandwich at his desk; his office door was closed, a sure sign that he was busy working on something important and couldn’t be disturbed. And the rest of the office had disappeared off to lunch somewhere without inviting Jo. Leona’s doing, of course.

Jo refreshed her emails for the dozenth time that day. There was still nothing from the speed-dating company to tell her if she’d had any matches. Or one match. There could only be one match, because she had only ticked one box.

And that box belonged to Tarquin.