The Ring Master — a short story by Des Molloy

For Audrey Barker, the déjà vu of her humdrum work days was interrupted on every second Thursday through the months of May to October.  On each of those thirteen days there would be a frisson of excitement.  Joyous anticipation would sustain the hours of tedium she endured every day.  As an airport security ‘agent’ she knew that she enhanced nobody’s day.  She was a seemingly dull woman doing a dull job, one that she saw as totally unnecessary.  She didn’t expect to be appreciated or feted, because she fully concurred with the irritability that she encountered and unwaveringly fostered all day, every day.  She was fully aware that even her physical appearance did nothing to balance the books and bring a little enjoyment to the travelling public’s experience.  She knew that she was no oil painting … but those Thursdays saw a transformation in the after-hours.  She became the Ring Master, setting and delivering the general knowledge questions for an elite quiz competition.  She had two off-siders Bruce and Barry, who covered Sport and Music respectively but clearly for all who avidly attended, it was her show, her happy place … one where she was liked and admired.  

She hadn’t always been the sad sack in the droopy uniform that suited neither her colouring, pear-shaped body or tree-trunk legs and thick ankles.  She’d been a bit of a shining star growing up.  She was popular because of her gregarious, nice nature, and because she just ‘knew’ stuff.  Clever and witty, she held her own in the popularity stakes until her friends transitioned from awkward ugly ducklings into the beautiful swans … and she didn’t.  Yes, she’d been heralded, when not surprisingly she was announced as the Dux Litterarum of the prestigious high school she attended.  She had then surprised many when she bucked the trend and was the first dux in decades to decline the scholarship to university.  Audrey had been more than happy to join her dad in the family business — Technical Books.  She’d been weaned on all the shop magazines, not only National Geographics, but also publications from every institute or special-interest group there was.  ‘Everything but fiction’ was their slogan and for decades their shop in Flemington Arcade had been the go-to shop for all things technical.  There were biographies, manuals, text books, guides, maps, globes … pretty much everything but Women’s Day, and the Women’s Weekly.  Over the years Audrey absorbed content like blotting paper.  She was a ‘font of all knowledge’.  Sadly in the internet era, the need for such a specialised shop declined and in tandem with her father aging into dementia, Audrey found herself in her mid-30s with no qualification or marketable skills.

After a jobless six months, she had initially been grateful for the opportunity to have some sort of income, even if it was just checking the carry-on luggage and personal effects of domestic travellers.  It didn’t take long for the meaningless and repetitive nature of the role to do her head in.  Allowing knitting needles on board if they had yarn attached, but not if they didn’t, was just one of her pet peeves.  One box of matches or one lighter?  100ml of shampoo … but only if it was in an appropriate container … but adjudging whether the partly-filled 250ml bottle met the rules was beyond their remit.  Audrey couldn’t fathom how the New Zealand Aviation Security Service could have come up with all these nonsenses, and bewilderingly embraced the ‘corporate’ world.  They had a Mission Statement — Keeping New Zealand skies safe and secure … then had to create KPIs to show they were meeting their ‘measurable targets’.  For 20 years, the service had kept New Zealand safe, with no one hijacking a plane and flying into the Beehive. ‘Although some would call for us to be given bonuses should that have come to pass’ she mused.

Audrey had just endured her Performance and Development review and had been unable to resist speaking her mind.  Scoring her Job Satisfaction question as a zero had disappointed her boss Duncan, a boring and unimaginative man.  It also instigated her pointing out that the parallel regional air service had no security procedures and had achieved a matching 100% score in the safety stakes.  “So you screen people who fly on jet planes, but not people who fly on propeller planes!  I would have thought that 20 years of data would be enough to show that your enhanced services on the ‘big’ plane routes has shown no measurable increase in safety … so it should be dropped!  Think of the savings.  I read that about 5 million internal flights were done last year through our service and we’re charging $4 per head, so that is a cool $20 Million … every year.”  This was almost seen as treason in the eyes of dour Duncan, bringing forth a suggestion that perhaps she was not suited for the role she ‘enjoyed’.  Audrey pointed out that neither her Employment Contract nor the Procedures Manual contained a requirement for her to be happy in her work.  “My shift starts in three minutes, so I must dash!”

“Dash … perfect!  I’ll do something with that for Question Two.”

A key part of the enjoyment of her role as the Quiz Queen was the self-imposed protocol of not using Google or any web-based information site to generate her questions.  She might use them to check her accuracy, but that was rare, and a disappointment for her.  To bring a bit more excitement to her role, she would always leave it until the last day to set her questions.  She’d slipped into a habit of generating three in the morning spell, three before lunch, three after lunch, and one on the way to the quiz.  She loved the drama this brought.

‘Question One wont be one of mine, but it will bring some levity to the night, and maybe half the teams will have either seen the QI show or a recent YouTube regurgitation.  A lady with a ‘perm’ hairstyle provided the trigger for the question.  Thank  you Ma’am.’

• Q:  What do Sperm Whales do to protect their pod from Orca attack?

• A:  The adults herd the vulnerable into a close-knit group, swim around the perimeter, then collectively and simultaneously carry out a defensive defecation, which puts the orca off.

‘Question Two will part out the non-scholars of English.  Possibly the Vic Uni team, the high school group with the Head of English, and the Southern Star newspaper team, might know this.’

• Q:  There are three common dashes used in English grammar: the hyphen -, shortest of the three, the slightly longer En dash – (option/hyphen on your keyboard) and the long Em dash — (shift/option/hyphen).  What is the mid length En dash specifically used for?  

• A:  The divider between a range of numbers should be an En dash.  Eg 45¬–60 … with no space before or after.

An UK passport in the X-ray tray, triggered the morning’s final question, one that Audrey thought might bring a few back into the game.  She knew that there would be at least three engineers in the room and any history buff should bank this as an easy one.

• Q:  The famous Victorian engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel was born in which country?

• A:  England

Audrey was happy with the first spell’s gleaning, and thought about which of her 11 berets she would wear tonight.  In total contrast to her day’s garb, she enjoyed flamboyantly dressing up in vivid colours and topping off her outfit with a signature beret.  Her alter-ego was so unlike the Plain Jane who duly processed the flying public, saving the nation every day.  She knew that she engendered no ‘warm fuzzies’ by adding ten minutes to their travel time and occasionally confiscating their Victorinox  Swiss Army knife because the blade was deemed to be longer than 60 mm allowed.  Often this was disputed because the blade’s sharp edge was not over 60 mm.  An updated prohibited items list now showed the definition of the blade to be from the pivot point, not the depth that could be stabbed … and another 25 knives a year made it into the social club grab bag.

A tea break with ‘dim-but-nice’ Sally provided a pause in question-gathering and gave rise to a reflection of the year’s quizzes to date and the attendees. It had been a good season.  The evenings were so far removed from the popular pub quizzes, one of which Audrey had attended, just to see how they did it.  She’d been appalled at the trivial questions and the social media style of the whole event  There was nothing cerebral about the night and the ignorance on display was shocking. “Happy to be elitist!” she’d told Bruce and Barry the next day.  Mentally she reviewed ‘our’ lot and compared them with the swilling, giggling gaggle at the Foresters Arms, dismissively noting that with the venue including no apostrophe in their signage, they got the crowd that they deserved, whilst we get what we deserve. –

o Community newspaper team includes reporters, editor, compiler

o Two university teams, one of tutors, one of students (The Swats)

o An engineering consultancy

o Two college teams of teachers, one boys, one co-ed

o Logistics Company, young and varied

o Two teams of retired locals

o Mixed team of accountants and Lawyers

o Three government department teams — Statistics, MSD and Parliamentary Services

One of the engineers, a homely-looking guy called Dave had asked her out most weeks, but Audrey felt that a quizzer shouldn’t be seen to go out with the quiz master, so always dismissed his offer with laugh.  She might look at being a bit more lenient ‘between seasons, in the joyless six months’ … if he asked again.

On their way back to the coal-face Audrey and Sally passed a bicycle being wheeled towards the ‘over size’ counter.  To Audrey’s surprise Sally turned to her and said “Knock, knock!”

“Who’s there?” responded Audrey appropriately.

“Isabell.”

“Isabell who?”

“Isabell necessary on a bicycle!”

“Oldie but a goodie Sally!”  Audrey’s mind slipped into search mode and within seconds came up with Question Four.

• Q:  The famed British explorer Richard Burton did many things in addition to adventuring to the source of The Nile.  A noted linguist who spoke 29 languages, he translated and published the erotic writings The Perfumed Garden from Arabia and The Kama Sutra from India.  His wife Lady Isabell Burton is famed for doing what?

• A:  She controversially burned all his papers after his death, purportedly to protect his reputation, despite having been offered a substantial amount of money for them.

With her mind reflecting on ballsy women, Audrey decided on another question that she thought the Uni professors might scoop up but the others possibly would struggle with, although she had previously observed that one of the Parliamentary Services’ women was pretty good on history.

• Q:  American Robert Peary may or may not have been the first man to the North Pole in 1909.  He carried out several arctic expeditions but there is one thing that set him apart from other explorers of the age.  What was it?

• A:  On six expeditions his wife Josephine accompanied him, and in 1893 gave birth to a daughter less than 13 degrees from the North Pole.  Named Marie, she was also known as Snow Baby.

Among Audrey’s last bunch of Auckland-bound flyers before her lunch break, she spotted ex-Prime Minister Jenny Shipley, and by default her mind slipped into making a connection for a question. ‘Shipley … Yorkshire … Captain Cook?  No, that is Whitby … Shipley is linked to someone famous though.’  A few more trays ground their way through the X-ray machine before it came to her.  ‘Mawson!  Douglas Mawson … Aussie, but born in Shipley.  A legend of the ice … he led the Australasian Antarctic  Expedition 1911–1914’

• Q:  Douglas Mawson took revolutionary equipment with him to the Antarctic in 1911 and it failed miserably what was it?  The answer must be quite specific.

• A:  His plans to take a Vickers aircraft were thwarted when it crashed prior to leaving Australia.  Mawson took the wingless remains and intended using it as a motorised sledge.  Disappointingly, the air-tractor as they called it, lasted only 10 miles before the pistons seized to their bores in the cold.

Lunch in the staff room was no more than what it was every day … black coffee and home-made sandwiches.  On this occasion there was a small bonus as she acknowledged one of the Air Traffic Controllers as he passed her table.  “Hi Des, all good?”

‘Such an easy score … Des, Pez!’  A fond memory momentarily intruded … a childhood party with all the kids getting varied versions of the gun-like sweet dispenser they came to know as a Pez.  No one was particularly fond of the hard pellet sweets but there were kudos for having a Pez.

• Q:  Where are the Pez candy pieces from?

• A:  Austria

‘So seven down and it isn’t even one o’clock.  Going well, Shell!’  Audrey’s next question she felt might be a little too simple … but you never could tell.  She spotted the ID on the lanyard of a smartly-dressed slender matron which proclaimed her to be Fiona Biggly.  Internally smiling at the irony of her surname, the path to Question Eight was short.  ‘Biggly, Wriggly, Wriggley … chewing gum.

• Q:  What is the original name for chewing gum?

• A:  Chicle or Chiclet.  From the Mayan Indians on the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico.

Work colleague Marie was the stimulus for her penultimate question.  She’d previously exhausted her Marie posers with Marie Curie, Marie Antionette, and Marie Osmond, but a bit of cogitation through a couple of pat-downs and body scans brought her to Maree, the town in South Australia.  Famous for being a stop on the Ghan Railway, but also as the base for Donald Campbell’s Land Speed Record attempt on a nearby salt lake.

• Q:  What was the speed recorded by Bluebird in 1964 to achieve the World Record for a driven-wheeled vehicle on Lake Eyre?

• A:  403.1 mph.

The grind up Brooklyn Hill on her bicycle gave rise to her last and hopefully most challenging question.  She always liked the final question of the night to be a stumper.  There was no limits to how obscure she could go with her posers.  ‘This is an elite group of quizzers after all … and I think at least old Grumpy, the bearded bikie in the Ridgeway Rebels team will know the answer.  So Brooklyn gives me Brooklands, the legendary UK motor racing venue of the pre-war years … so try this!’

• Q:  These three women have an interesting connection.  Beatrice Schilling,¬ during the Second World War designed the RAE carburettor restrictor (which became known as Miss Shilling's orifice), a simple thimble-like device that overcame the problem of the Rolls-Royce Merlin aeroplane engines losing power during negative-g manoeuvres.  Florence Blenkiron and Theresa Wallach were famed for riding a Panther motorcycle and sidecar from Britain, across the Sahara Desert (the first to do so) and down to Capetown.  What unique achievement links them together?

A:  They were the only three women to get awarded the Gold Star which was given to racers who achieved a 100 mph lap of the Brooklands Speedbowl.  Florence Blenkiron achieved it first in 1934 on a 500 cc Grindlay Peerless,  Beatrice in 1936 on a Norton of the same capacity and Theresa in 1939 on a borrowed 350 cc Norton.

So with the questions all under her belt, and the decision made to dress in dark blue, the colour of knowledge, there was just the actual night to conduct.  Fittingly for the last night of the season, it was a cracker.  The boys excelled themselves with their questions limiting the successes to less than 40%, some teams down around the 15%.

Audrey’s starter question brought forth six correct answers, many with less-than-polite descriptions and one team drawing an explicit diagram.  Two teams knew the En dash, but several returns included the initials WTF.  Ten teams knew Brunel.  Four teams knew Isabell Burton’s actions and the presence of Josephine Peary in the Arctic.  Surprisingly, five teams knew of the Mawson air-tractor.  Pez, Chicle and the Bluebird’s speed all were known by six teams and true to her predictions, Grumpy knew of the bikie women through an article in Old Bike Australasia.  Her time on the dias was coming to an end.  She knew that it would be six months before she would experience this thrill again.  She could sense the attending teams also were showing signs of disappointment that the season was over.  Yes, there was a winner, and for the fourth time in a row the Southern Star team took out the honour of the top team for the year.  The quizzers had somehow come up with chocolates for all three of the quiz masters and some flowers as well for Audrey.  Everyone was reluctant to disperse and from the Parliamentary Services team a corpulent man whose name Audrey didn’t know, stepped forward and called for attention.

“On behalf of everyone here, I would like to thank Bruce, Barry and Audrey for the wonderful times we’ve had over the last six months … in particular Audrey’s questions have probably enhanced our knowledge-base ten-fold.  My sister is the proprietor of The Glade restaurant and on our team’s behalf, she has put up a prize of an evening for two … to be offered to Audrey, should she be able to answer the question which I will put to her shortly.  Her squire is to be chosen from this room, and the question is — Who is or was Bette Nesmith Graham?  You have 30 seconds to answer, starting now!”

Audrey’s mind went blank.  The name had a ring of familiarity but nothing was coming to the forefront of her consciousness.  ‘Sounds American … an older generation name?  A writer? Painter?  A suffragette?’  The seconds ticked away.  She sensed the room urging her on.  Her eyes alighted on Dave and with his left eye, he winked at her twice … then again.  Three seconds passed and once more he winked twice.  It had to be a message.

“Ten seconds!”

Two more winks … ‘What is he trying to tell me?  Each time he is winking twice!’

“Five seconds!”

“Three … two …”

“TWINK!  She invented liquid paper and went from being a solo mum to being a millionaire … and her son was later in the Monkeys!”

The room burst into applause, then came the calls “Who … who?”

With tears in her eyes, she whispered “Dave!”

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