THE QUIZMASTERS

GERARD MCKEOWN

Cycling home that afternoon, my biggest concern was whether it might rain. I had just passed Glarryford, with a ten-mile ride ahead of me back to Ballymena. Wished I’d taken a coat, like Mum had suggested. As a muddy old Ford Fiesta crawled up on the left of me, I thought I felt the first spit of rain. There was a car that needed a good burst of rain. Would it be heavy enough to clean the dirt off it though? Also available in white, even though it was blue. I looked up at the heavy grey sky and waited for another spit.

“Excuse me,” the driver, a beardy-looking hippie in sunglasses that didn’t suit the weather, said, leaning his head out of the window. “Am I close to Ballymena?”

“Keep following this road,” I said to him. “Turn left at the end and keep going straight. That’ll take you into Carniny. That’s you on the outskirts of Ballymena.”

“Very good,” he said. “Is Liam Neeson from Ballymena?”

He had an English accent. This was the sort of question I’d have expected from an American tourist, in a car too big for the road, honking at me to get outta the frickin’ way.

“He is,” I said. “There’s no statue or anything though.”

“Can you name anyone else famous from Ballymena?” he said. Ballymena is an odd place for a tourist to go; it’s not scenic, and there are no tourist attractions worth talking about.

“Eamonn Loughran? He was a world champion boxer. Not sure what his weight class was. Lost his belt there a couple of years ago and hasn’t fought since.”

“Very good,” he said, like that was his catchphrase. “What weight division did he fight in?”

“I just said I didn’t know.”

“Well take a guess.”

I squeezed my brakes to stop. The hippie had his foot on the brake just as fast.

“Guess,” he said, not mentioning that we’d stopped.

“Welterweight?”

He motioned with his head at the road in front of us. I obediently began peddling at my previous speed. The Fiesta trundled alongside. The hippie stuck his head back in the window. That’s when I clocked someone in the passenger seat. The driver stuck his head back out.

“Very good,” he said in an enthusiastic tone, as if he was a true TV quizmaster who could turn on the charm when the cameras were rolling, as if me stopping had been forgotten. “Who’s the MP for Ballymena?”

I knew where this was going; he was leading up to ask my religion. I could give the wrong answer, say I didn’t know, but these two would make their own minds up anyway.

The best chance I’d have of getting away was if they stopped the car to get out. I’d throw the bike over the hedge and hope the field wasn’t too bumpy to ride across.

“What’s with your questions?” I said, hoping I could bait him into stopping the car.

Whoever was in the passenger seat said something to him, but I couldn’t hear it.

“Do you know the answer?” the quizmaster asked.

“I might.”

“You look too young to vote. I don’t think you know it. You might as well take a guess though.”

“Ian Paisley.”

“Very good,” he said. I’d half thought of giving him a wrong answer just to hear what his catchphrase would be then.

“Ballymena’s not the name of the constituency,” he said. “Do you know what that is?”

I noticed his accent slip when he said Ballymena. He pronounced it Ballamena, like a local would. He was from somewhere in Northern Ireland. His beard was probably fake too.

“Do you know this one?” he asked.

I did know, and I only knew because my dad insisted we watch the news every evening, at a time when my schoolfriends were watching The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, The Simpsons or, fuck knows why, Boy Meets World. Dad loved to shout at the TV when some politician he didn’t like was being interviewed.

“North Antrim,” I said.

“Very good,” he said. “Be a bit quicker with your answers now. Quickfire.

Quit this stalling. What party is Paisley the leader of?”

“The DUP.”

“Which stands for?”

“Democratic Unionist Party.”

“Very, very good,” he said, adjusting his catchphrase as if he knew it needed refreshing. “Is politics a subject you know a lot about?”

“Not really,” I said, getting ready for them to jump out of the car. “I keep myself pretty neutral.”

“That’s sensible. Here’s a sports one,” the quizmaster said, his accent slipping again. “Who’s the most capped player for Northern Ireland?”

“Surprised you’re not asking me how to spell John.”

“Quick now. Do you know?”

“J-O-N.”

“Ha ha,” he said. “Quit your time-wasting and answer my question.”

His tone when he said my implied an importance to the questions, something beyond this weird set-up, that I wouldn’t be able to guess, and he wouldn’t explain unless he had to.

In the distance I heard a tractor. At our speed, there was no way we were catching up to it; it must have been coming towards us. When they pulled aside to let it pass, that’s when I’d jump the hedge into the field.

“Pat Jennings,” I guessed. Him and George Best were the only Northern Ireland players I knew.

The tractor, a big red Massey Ferguson, came puffing out the end of a lane and turned down the road away from us. Even at its slow speed it pulled quickly ahead. I turned back to the quizmaster, who’d been watching me watching the tractor. His grin seemed to acknowledge he’d known what I’d been thinking, as if he’d read the change of emotions on my face at every step of my failed plan, from hope to despair, through flickers of disappointment and anger as the tractor did the opposite of what I wanted it to. Needed it to.

The quizmaster ducked his head back into the car and spoke to the person on the passenger side. I tried to get a look at whoever was sitting there, but in the overcast afternoon, they were in shadow. I couldn’t even make out their shape clearly, whether they were male or female.

“Very good,” the quizmaster said. “It was Pat Jennings. Most people go for George Best.”

Most people? Had they done this before? I couldn’t just wait to see where they were going with this. Next time he ducked his head back in, I was going to ride for it. I changed up a gear to make it easier to accelerate.

“What was that you did?” the quizmaster asked.

“That one of your questions?”

“If you like. You’d better give me the correct answer.”

“I changed gear. There’s a bit of a hill coming up.”

“No there’s not,” he said. “Don’t get any ideas about riding off.”

I maintained eye contact, without agreeing or disagreeing.

“We can do more than run you off the road,” he said.

I didn’t want to ask what the more was, but the fact he had admitted this much, that running me off the road was an option, proved I was right to feel unsafe.

“What’s your strong subject?” he asked, again in that friendly TV host tone.

“Dunno. Music, Films, TV shows,” I could hear in my voice that he’d shaken me.

The guy in the passenger seat said something to the quizmaster. I knew it was a guy by the tone of his voice, but I couldn’t hear what he’d said.

“Okay,” the quizmaster said, sticking his head back out of the window. “Who plays Joey Potter on Dawson’s Creek?”

My surprise at being asked a question about something as unexpected as that silly show, snapped me momentarily out of the fear I’d been feeling, then plunged me back into it and held me down deeper. For the first time, my legs shook with adrenalin. I thought I was about to cry.

“What?” I said. My mouth was dry.

“Who plays Joey Potter on Dawson’s Creek?”

I almost started to laugh. “Katie Holmes.”

“Ten out of ten,” the quizmaster said. “You’re a lucky fella.”

“What?” I said, knowing as soon as I’d said it that I shouldn’t have challenged him saying lucky.

The quizmaster glanced ahead of him. I realised he’d barely looked at the road since he pulled up beside me. The guy in the passenger seat must have been watching for oncoming traffic.

“Stay in school,” the quizmaster shouted before they sped off.

I squeezed my brakes and stopped abruptly. Without realising it was coming, I vomited over the handlebars. Stringy orange saliva hung from my mouth, strands of it resting in the treads of my front wheel.

A fresh wave of panic hit me, as I realised they might turn and come back. I cycled on, hoping to come across a house, a phone box. Somewhere I could tell someone. Somewhere I could feel safe. Only, I wasn’t exactly sure what had just happened. Sure, the man had threatened me, or been threatening, by telling me they could run me off the road, or do more than that, and the mysterious guy in the passenger side had been creepy, but really what could I tell the police? They asked me some questions and drove off. I picked up speed, hoping not to see that muddy blue Fiesta coming back for me.

I heard the shot before I saw the body. I knew it was them. It didn’t sound as far ahead as I’d expected, and even after the quizmaster had threatened me, I hadn’t thought he’d meant with a gun. Even the suspicion of it would have sunk me so deep into fear, the shock of it would have killed me before they’d taken aim.

My shaking hands threatened to fly off the handlebars, but the danger of cracking my skull on the tarmac forced me to hold steady. I squeezed my brakes but going slower felt more uncertain. I started to peddle, then sped up, not processing why, or that I shouldn’t. A wave of what I could only describe afterwards as morbid curiosity overcame the instincts that should have been protecting me. I felt strength in my arms as I gripped the handlebars. I didn’t even slow down for the corner, and even though I took it as wide as possible, I almost came off the bike.

Again, another clear straight road stretched out in front of me. The combination of a signpost ahead, the clouds, and a distant house made the sight seem like a messed-up face. Like it was grinning or something. As if it was someone from the newly opened McDonald’s in town wishing me to have a nice day.

In the road ahead I clocked a bike lying on its side, but no sign of the rider. I stopped beside it and looked around, wondering about the gunshot and if they’d taken the owner with them.

“Who plays Gunther in Friends?” a woman’s voice said. “Who plays Gunther in Friends?”

The voice sounded impatient. A body lay crumpled in the long grass beside the fallen bike. I stepped off my bike, laying it on the edge of the grass, and tried ignoring the unsteady feeling in my legs.

“Who plays Gunther in Friends?” the woman said.

I’m not sure if she noticed me, as she stared upwards at the heavy bags of potential rain crowding the sky. She was wearing a baggy top, like a waterproof jacket, black like a bin bag. I wasn’t sure if I should touch her to feel for where she’d been shot. I’d heard you were supposed to put pressure on the bullet hole, or tie your shirt round it like in the films, but I froze with my hands held in front of me as if I was about to do something with them.

As my shadow hit her face, her eyes flicked but didn’t connect with mine. “Who plays Gunther in Friends?” she said, more frantic than before.

“I don’t know,” I said. I could picture the actor who played him, his peanut-shaped head bright like a lightbulb, but I didn’t have the first clue what his name was. That would have got me shot.

“Who plays Gunther in Friends?” the woman repeated, her voice sounding close to crying, her breath catching in her chest, like sobbing, as if she was dragging every breath into her lungs.

“Gunther,” she said, alternating with each breath. “Friends.”

“Gun,” she said, fighting for breath. “Gun.”

I hadn’t even time to make the connection before her speech dissolved further.

“Gu . . .” she said. “Gu . . .”

The last attempt at a word caught in her mouth as the ‘u’ drew out into a long rattling exhalation. All sound from her stopped. Sirens were the next thing I heard. For all the good they did.

The police never caught The Quizmasters, as they came to be known. The details I gave the police were useless, a blue Ford Fiesta, very muddy. In my panic, I’d forgotten to note their number plate. Others did, and the plates were fake. As fake as the quizmaster’s beard and English accent. There were three other survivors. Two passed the quiz, while another survived the shooting. There were five deaths in total, including the cyclist I’d witnessed. Because guns were involved, paramilitaries were suspected, but the different organisations all put out statements saying they weren’t connected.

One local newspaper, in bad taste, printed the quiz questions from the survivors. I refused to speak to the paper, so they must have got mine from the police. I’d kept the question about Gunther to myself. Not telling the police, the woman’s family when I went to her funeral, or the counsellor I saw afterwards when I started getting panic attacks every time I left the house. I didn’t know who played Gunther and could have answered only a few of the questions put to the other survivors.

I couldn’t watch Friends after that, and it’s on everywhere, even still, though the series has long finished. That show will never die, first being repeated endlessly on Channel 4 for over a decade, to being repeated endlessly nowadays on Channel 5. After that, it will move to a smaller channel, something like Dave, or UK Gold. And I’ll come across it when I’m channel-hopping, perhaps even seeing one of James Michael Tyler’s 148 appearances as Gunther. I might even gather enough nerve to watch Gunther harmlessly long for Rachel, a girl he will never get. The character and the actor both innocent parties. Neither knowing their connection to the slaughter of three cyclists and two pedestrians between Coleraine and Ballymena on that unlucky overcast day.

That small secret nugget of knowledge being only mine, is the tiny, but present, burden I carry for not being able to hold that woman’s hand, or offer her comforting words as she died, but also a reminder that I’m only here because of a small set of lucky questions.

Every time I flick on the television, the possibility of seeing Gunther haunts me.