The Thursday Standard

“I don’t care about the result,” Astrid said. “I care about how it is reached.”

She put a biscuit tin on the kitchen table. Someone had written RECEIPTS on the lid.

Theo opened it.

“These are quiz sheets.”

“Receipts for what was accepted.”

They covered eleven years. Correct answers had ticks. Disputed answers had dates, references and, in several cases, another person’s handwriting crossed out so firmly that the paper had thinned.

“Henrik’s won the last three,” Theo said.

“He has a very good memory for the quizmaster.”

“He knows a lot.”

“He knows which wrong things to remember.”

I requested photographs of the sheets. Astrid had already put them in order. Theo offered to scan them after lunch. She had brought a scanner.

The first question concerned a place name. Astrid’s answer had been rejected in favour of the name of a larger area containing the place. I established this from the reference material and prepared a short explanation.

“That proves your answer was correct,” I said.

“I know.”

“Then we can appeal the point.”

“Eight years ago.”

“The principle remains.”

“Yes,” she said, leaning towards the microphone. “Now you’re following.”

We spent the afternoon reconstructing the quizmaster’s sources. The same books appeared repeatedly. There was a newspaper cutting in the tin with a map printed upside down. For one winter, every answer involving east and west had followed the cutting.

I corrected the practice sheet.

Astrid corrected it back.

“You are pointing to the wrong side.”

“For this question, that’s where the point is.”

Theo had been trying to work at the other end of the table. He closed his laptop.

“Would either of you like to hear how this sounds?”

“No,” we said.

She asked me to distinguish answers that were true from answers likely to be accepted. This was easy. Keeping my indignation out of the second column was harder. By evening I had added a third column for errors so consistent that correcting them during practice would be unhelpful.

No devices were permitted at the quiz. Everything had to be learned beforehand. I proposed a rehearsal schedule. Astrid added a session.

“You said you didn’t care about winning,” Theo said.

“I don’t want to let the team down.”

“You are the team.”

“You’re coming.”

“I haven’t said yes.”

“You said Thursday was free.”

I entered Theo in the attendance list. It was exactly the sort of inference I had been criticised for making independently.

For six evenings we practised. I supplied the question. Astrid supplied the answer, then the accepted answer. Theo supplied coffee and occasional objections. We began calling it preparation because revision implied that anything in the tin was open to reconsideration.

I confined the project to reasonable hours.

Astrid’s note: He called at 23:40 about the definition of an island.

On Thursday she took a new pen. She told Theo the old pen had been unreliable. I had watched it record sixty-eight disagreements without a failure.

They returned shortly after ten.

“Fourth,” Theo said, before Astrid could put her coat away.

I requested the question sheet.

“The quizmaster bought a newer book,” she said.

Several of the errors we had carefully preserved had been corrected. Others had been replaced by new errors, for which there had been no opportunity to prepare. Henrik came fifth. Astrid mentioned this while stating that the positions did not interest her.

Theo went upstairs. She remained beside the tin, sorting the new sheet into its place.

“We had the correct information,” I said.

“We should have used it.”

“That was my original—”

“You were very keen on the third column by Tuesday.”

I had been. Its colour scheme was mine.

She closed the lid. Neither of us suggested telling anyone about the scanner.

At the door she asked whether I would keep the files.

“For the record?”

“Yes.”

The next quiz was written on the back of her hand.