As Quin had done a meditation weekend, he was about to be written off and – surprising myself – I said, ‘He’s not a Feathery Stroker. He looks like he does triathlons and might bore on about clothes that wick away sweat.’ Hastily I added, ‘But he might not, either.’ （Boring on about clothes that wick away sweat was also suspect.）
Helen groaned. ‘Christ, one of them. Betcha he has a spork.’
And I was in the clear! ‘Might own a spork’ was a different kind of insult.
A quick survey revealed that I was the only one of my sisters who’d never done an escape room.
‘Honestly, it’s such fun!’ Margaret declared. ‘Garv and I did one with the kids. The clock is ticking down and you’re trying to decipher the clues and when you beat the clock – we escaped with like ten seconds to spare – you feel a million dollars!’
‘They’re the most stupid fucking things ever invented,’ Helen said. I took this to mean that she had not beaten the clock.
‘Angelo and I adore them.’ Anna, starry-eyed, was on one of her many visits home to Ireland. She dropped in every six weeks or so, for a weekend. ‘It’s like being a kid again. If you go to a high-spec one, it can blow your mind. We went to a zombie hunt in a deserted mall; it was amazing!’
‘This is Dublin,’ Helen reminded her. ‘We don’t do high spec. Or low spec. Or any spec at all. We’re shit.’
‘Not always,’ Margaret said. ‘Our one was in a science lab. A virus had escaped and we were –’
‘Oh yeah,’ Claire said vaguely. ‘I was at that one. Team-building exercise for the volunteers.’
‘You?’ Margaret said. ‘And did you do all the stuff?’
‘Me? In Simone Rocha? On my knees slithering through a crawl space? Not bloody likely.’
‘Who’s on their knees?’ Mum had come into the sitting room for the first time in this conversation.
‘Rachel’s going on a date,’ Helen volunteered. ‘He’s taking her to an escape room.’
Mum’s face filled with outraged colour. ‘A Shades of Grey thing?’
‘WHAT?’
‘He ties her up and whacks her with a riding crop? She has a ping-pong ball in her mouth and tries to escape? I heard about it on Liveline.’
‘Hashtag for fuck’s sake.’ Helen sighed.
Quin’s escape room was in an industrial park of anonymous grey warehouses beyond the M50.
He had offered to pick me up, but I’d declined. ‘What if things – as you said – go south? Then you had to drive me home? Sitting side by side in your car for forty-five minutes would take ten years off my life.’
‘Mine too. See you there.’
I got to the place on time and there was no sign of Quin. I stared at my phone and watched the numbers click into two minutes late, then three … When he was six minutes late, a car roared into the car park and, with a screech of brakes, pulled up beside me. It was Quin, this time in a jeep.
Late? Two flashy cars? I was having serious doubts.
He jumped out. ‘Sorry I’m late. My son couldn’t find his inhaler.’
A son? Okay, so he has at least one child. ‘Maybe you could have texted?’
‘I did.’ There was an edge to his voice.
A quick look at my phone showed that he had. ‘Why didn’t I see it?’
‘Spotty coverage out here.’ He softened. ‘But, yeah, sorry.’
I needed to know about his kids. ‘Have you just the one child?’
‘Two. A boy of eleven, a girl of thirteen. They’re great. I’m forty-two, been divorced for five years. My ex-wife and I get on.’ Seeming slightly entertained, he said, ‘Anything else you’d like to know before we start?’
I shook my head.
‘Over this way.’ All business, he walked us into one of the giant warehouses. ‘I know it doesn’t look promising,’ he said, ‘but trust me, these guys are great at this.’
Giving me a once-over, he said, ‘You look good.’ At first I thought it was a compliment; then he said, ‘Sensible clothes.’
His gear was the stuff from my memory – dark, sleek athleisure wear.
Setting off down a long, empty corridor, we passed an endless sequence of shuttered rooms, until Quin stopped at a door. ‘Here.’
In a small but fancy reception area, a neatly combed man, wearing black tie and tails, was holding a little round tray that served no obvious purpose. He looked like a butler. Flanking him was a woman wearing the black dress and white apron of a Downton Abbey-style domestic.