Page 70 of Textbook Romance

I laugh. ‘Not quite. You wore trainers?’ I say, looking down.

She looks down at her New Balance. ‘You know I’m not hugely sporty, yes?’ she says, still trying to work out the boxes in my bag. ‘You haven’t given me much in the way of clues here. Is this one of those puzzle escape rooms? Is that for someone else?’ she asks.

I told Zoe to meet me here. Let’s just have a date, spend some quality time together, I told her. Her kids had both agreed to spend an evening with their father – just him alone, this time – but I sensed that after what happened in Manchester, she still wanted to stay close. Just give me a couple of hours, I asked. She now looks at me suspiciously.

‘It actually is.’ But before I have a chance to let her know what’s happening, two people bomb us from behind.

‘UNCLE JACK!’ Barney shrieks. ‘YOU CAME!’

I think Zoe may be shocked. I can’t quite work out if she’s impressed by this ambush or not, but she ensures that it doesn’t show in front of my nephews. To the rear, Dom appears, carrying a couple of shopping bags and some helium balloons. ‘Barney, George, Dom – this is my friend, Zoe. I hope you don’t mind that I asked her to come along today?’

Zoe laughs to herself. ‘I’m so sorry for the gatecrash. But I guess happy birthday?’

The boys high-five her but I can see Dom working it all out, slowly. It’s the older woman. I’m trying to gauge if she was what he expected. He realises he’s probably left it too long without saying anything and snaps his manners into place.

‘An absolute pleasure, Zoe. God, the more hands the merrier. I’ve got eight more boys showing up – it’s going to be chaos.’

He gives the supermarket-bought cake to Zoe to carry while he hands me a bag full of what look like some version of party bags.

‘Dom. What are these?’

‘Oh, I forgot party bags, so I had to improvise and stuff them with things I found at work,’ he tells us, trying to corral the boys in the right direction. I look down. Some lucky kid is getting a full set of neon Post It notes, what looks like some vending machine crisps and some multicoloured paper clips, which makes me smile. ‘I hope you’re a huge fan of Laser Tag then,’ Dom asks Zoe.

I’m not sure about the look that Zoe gives me next. I think she’s mildly amused, but I also hope my smile is going to persuade her that this is far more interesting than a restaurant pizza or an overpriced drink in a generic pub. She looks at me and then down at the boys. ‘Well, I hope you like being beaten, kids, because birthday or not, you’re all going down…’

I thought I’d seen bedlam before. I’ve travelled through train stations in Asia, and I’ve even been at the canteen in Griffin Road Comprehensive, but nothing has quite prepared me for Laser Tag with a group of thirty kids on a Friday night. Because it’s not just the nephews celebrating their birthday today, we all seem to be lost in this neon maze with Lewis who is turning eight and Kai who is turning nine and all their little friends, too. Some of whom seem to have inhaled some Haribo beforehand so they will be absolutely feral and take no prisoners. One of them eyeballs me in his glowing vest and slides a finger across his throat. Well, I’m sorry. You may be close acquaintances of my nephews, but you’re going down first.

‘Right,’ says a very bored teenager who’s been sent to brief us. ‘I need to remind you of our house rules. Please remember there is no eating or drinking in the arena and if we hear any foul language then I am afraid that we will ask you to leave.’ I am not sure why he looks at the little girl at the front when he says that. ‘No running, no biting, no kicking, no phones, no climbing and please do not lie down on the floor. ARE WE READY?’

‘Yes!’ cry a number of small children.

The bored teenager suddenly summons up a roar out of nowhere. ‘I SAID, ARE WE REEEEEEADY?’

‘YEEEEESSSSSS!’ they all reply.

The tension and energy are palpable. It’s like a scene out of Gladiator when the doors are going to open and the slaves have to fight some tigers except all the slaves are tiny and in tracksuits and there’s a techno soundtrack. There will be blood. Behind these children stand six less enthusiastic adults – family members who’ve been asked to supervise, many of whom against their will except for one particularly exuberant dad who came in sports gear, a makeshift headband and who you know has eyes on the leaderboard. Mate, you are also going down.

A door suddenly opens, and all the children disappear into clouds of dry ice and flashing lights, their screams fading into the darkness.

‘This feels like the ship out of Alien,’ Zoe says next to me. She has a point. Exuberant sporty dad runs in, his laser gun held close to his body like he’s in actual battle.

I watch a girl immediately shoot him. ‘Come get me, you giant dick.’

Zoe laughs as we stroll through this strange, darkened maze of terror. ‘So, give me your line of reasoning here… why you thought this date was appropriate,’ she jokes. She doesn’t seem annoyed or angry but slightly bemused to be finding herself in this position on a Friday night. In a hoodie, leggings, a glowing vest and armed with a laser to take on a bunch of hyperactive kids.

‘I thought, in my mind, it could be fun. Something a little different.’

‘Dom seems nice.’

‘He makes a shit party bag, but his heart is the right place.’ We allowed Dom to sit this one out so he could sit outside, put candles in the cake and enjoy forty-five minutes of relative peace before the children emerged again. ‘That vest is super hot, by the way – just saying…’

She pushes me, which at first I think is a little aggressive until I work out she’s pushing me out of danger from incoming fire. The speed with which she returns shots and manages to accurately take out an eight-year-old leaves me mildly aroused.

‘Zoe? Methinks you’ve done this before…’

‘I have a son. Of course.’ She pulls me to a corner of that arena, behind a padded cushion. ‘The strategy is to let the kids do all the running. You just find a corner, take a defensive stance and then shoot them whilst they’re running in circles.’

‘So, you’re like some expert Laser Tag strategist. Just impressive on so many levels…’

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