Strategy

Leonora was not winning.

It was hardly surprising as she had never played the game before and wasn't remotely interested in military strategy.

The nearest she had got to any contact with military strategy was reading about the spread of the Roman Empire and its subsequent decline, and that was not proving at all useful during this game.

Leonard, unsurprisingly, was being very good-natured. He was also being very patronising and superior. Every time Leonora made a poor move, he helpfully pointed out exactly why it was crap and suggested a few other moves she could have made instead.

Leonora's head was spinning. It was worse than chess. Leonard had done it deliberately and she hated him. It was totally unfair to choose a game that she had never played and which she disliked out of principle. She would have stood a good chance of beating him at all the other games (apart from chess). She sighed. She hated being beaten. She liked to win, and she was not going to win this game.

Leonard heard the sigh and tried not to laugh. He hated being beaten and liked to win too. He very much enjoyed beating Leonora, because there was the added delight of knowing how much she hated to lose.

Totally forgetting his earlier resolution to wait until she was in a good mood - which she clearly wasn't at the moment - he asked his favourite question.

"What did you do with the letters?"

That was it. Leonora had had quite enough of Leonard and she tipped up the board. Infantry, cavalry, artillery, cards, and dice flew all over the sitting room and she sulked back against the sofa. At least it got her out of losing the game.

"Flippin' heck, Leonora. Why did you do that?" he asked.

"It wasn't because you were losing was it?"

And he patiently started collecting everything back together, crawling all over the floor to retrieve the tiny pieces from underneath furniture. This took some considerable time.

Tata and the little crutches watched in amazement at this latest development in their morning's entertainment.

"Well, anyway, you've got the idea of it. We can regard that as a trial game and play a serious one now," he said peaceably, once he had rescued all the displaced armies, cards and dice.

And Leonard started sharing out the pieces again. Smiling.

Leonora was horrified. She hadn't got out of the game at all, and she had missed her chance to give him grief for mentioning those irritating letters again. What a disastrous morning.

Nor did she seem to have any choice. With a furrowed brow, she settled down to learn how to play Risk and prove she wasn't entirely useless at the stupid game.

She grabbed the rules from Leonard and read them yet again. Hmmm, it seemed fairly straightforward in a confused sort of way. Perhaps if she treat it like a complicated version of draughts she might get the hang of it. She needed to look it up on the internet and then she could get some tips on strategy. How to get Leonard out of the way long enough for that?

Fortunately he decided to take Tata out into the garden for her morning run round, and to smoke a couple of tabs while he watched her.

Leonora promptly threw off her cover and fell over to the computer to look up strategy for playing Risk on the internet. Gloom. There was far too much information. She went for a couple of key sites and decided to print them off so she could refer to them. By the time Leonard came back she was lying innocently on the sofa as usual.

"Ready to start again Leonora?"

"To be honest Leonard, it's done my head in a bit. Can we take a break, and I'll have a nap, and then we can start again later? If that's OK with you?"

Leonard didn't really care when they played as he was going to beat her. And apart from her amazingly childish tantrum, she had been quite pleasant and seemed mildly interested in learning.

He picked up Essential Gadgets Just For Men and decided to have a browse through for the tenth time to decide which of the latest gadgets he absolutely needed immediately. He plonked himself on the other sofa. Tata bounded up to lie next to him with her head on his lap.

Leonora drifted off to sleep.

Peace and tranquility descended on the household for a short while.