stairs, mostly – but he felt that he knew them intimately. For the other draw-back about the building in which Simon, Angus and Fergus all lived, lack of mantelpieces aside, was extremely thin ceilings.
As a result, Simon had witnessed, albeit indirectly, most of the important recent events in the lives of Angus and Fergus. He listened to their rows, and to their drunken reconciliations. But, most of all, he listened to them having sex. It wasn’t that Simon was a voyeur, or whatever the aural equivalent of that was, it was simply that he didn’t have any choice. Wherever he sat in his flat, the unmistakable sound of heavy-duty bonking would permeate through the ceiling, causing his light fittings to wobble alarmingly. Angus and Fergus enjoyed having sex, and consequently they did it a lot, with as many different girls as they could.
Simon grew to recognize the sounds of the various females who visited the upstairs flat. There seemed, at any given time, to be at least five or six who could be identified. Simon would sit in bed and, recognizing a particular trill or coo, settle back into his pillows, knowing that it was this one or that one who was being entertained that evening. He never got to see any of these women, of course. They would all leave early in the morning, while their performances were analysed in forensic detail by the two flat-mates over breakfast. Simon preferred not to listen to these post-coital discussions. The two men pored over techniques and replayed certain copulatory highlights with the relish of football pundits analysing a questionable penalty decision.
Angus and Fergus led torrid social lives. Most weekends were punctuated by the regular ringing of their doorbell. Simon sat in his flat listening to the parties swell and throb above him with a despairing heart. How he wanted to join in! How he wanted to float and glitter with the Beautiful People! He would listen to the festivities as long as he could, and then would retire to bed with an old pair of socks wrapped around his head as sound insulation.
Simon stared at the invitation again. This was it. His time had finally come. He wrote the date in his diary, and put a big red ring around it.
It was soon after this that the worries began. Simon was out of practice at parties, and hopeless at social small talk. He met people every day at the shop, of course, and could talk to them. But this was quite different. At the party he would meet sophisticated people with beauty and charisma. He would have to sparkle.
It had been a long time since Simon had sparkled.
Keen to make a good impression, Simon instigated emergency measures to hone his social skills. He spent two evenings watching Wim Wenders videos, hoping that these would see him through any sticky conversational moments. He spent hours smiling at himself in the bathroom mirror, tilting his head this way and that as he listened to imaginary chit-chat.
‘Really?’ he murmured in his best Sean Connery, as the extractor fan whirred noisily above him. ‘How fascinating.’ He flashed his eyes dangerously. ‘Tell me more.’
As the appointed day approached, Simon began cramming information as if he were taking an exam. The problem was that he was preparing himself for the unknown. He had witnessed countless parties through the vibrating medium of his ceiling, but it had been impossible to distinguish specific conversations. All he was sure of was that the conversation must be awfully sophisticated. In the absence of any specific intelligence, he employed the cultural scatter-gun approach, and was ready to discuss – albeit at rather superficial levels – everything from football to Fellini.
On the evening of the party, Simon waited for several people to arrive before venturing up himself. As he climbed the stairs, he could feel his brain bulging with useless information. He clutched an excessively expensive bottle of Montrachet, hoping that it would impress his hosts.
Taking a deep breath, Simon knocked.
The door opened. In front of Simon stood a huge man in jeans and a striped shirt. Angus or Fergus. Simon could not remember which. Suddenly he realized that he had never actually known which of Angus or Fergus was which. The man looked at him enquiringly.
‘Hello. Simon from downstairs.’ Simon proffered the bottle of wine as a fleeing refugee might attempt to bribe border guards.
‘Oh. Right,’ said the man. ‘Come on in. We’re just getting going.’ He took the bottle without bothering to read the label, and turned to go back into the flat.
‘You been here before?’ asked Angus/Fergus over his shoulder. His voice was ripe with public school fruitiness, and ridiculously deep. He sounded like an aristocratic Darth Vader who had taken testosterone boosters.
‘No,’ squeaked Simon self-consciously. He cleared his throat and followed his host. The flat was in total disarray. The corridor was lined with piles of magazines, garlanded with dirty socks and crumpled underpants. There were no pictures on the walls. The carpet had been worn bare at several points. There was the unmistakable smell of unwashed laundry, uncleaned toilets, unemptied bins. It was the smell of two men living together.
‘Right,’ said Angus/Fergus, as they went into the sitting room. ‘Here we all are. Let me do some introductions.’ He pointed at an equally large man who was sitting at one end of the table which sat in the middle of the room. ‘Him you know, obviously.’ Simon nodded weakly. This was the other host, whichever of Angus or Fergus that Angus/Fergus was not. Simon swallowed. This wasn’t going to be easy. Angus/Fergus continued. ‘Next to him is Stella, then Joe. Over there is Delphine, and next to her is Suzy.’
Simon nodded, trying to take everything in. The other people around the table hadn’t stopped talking or even looked up.
‘Tell you what, why don’t you stick yourself there,’ said Angus/Fergus, pointing to the empty chair next to Delphine. He winked at Simon. ‘You’ll get on well with Delphine. Fantastic bit of totty. French. Très sophistiquée.’ He lowered his voice to a mild bellow. ‘Goes like a shit house door in a hurricane. Drink?’
‘Er, thanks,’ said Simon.
‘Margarita?’
‘OK. Fine.’
‘Right. Back in a tick.’
As Simon hesitantly sat down next to Delphine, she momentarily half-turned her head towards him and smiled, before turning back to the conversation.
Not much, really, but it was enough.
Delphine was extraordinarily beautiful. She had rich, dark hair which hung down past her shoulders. She wore a sleeveless dress which showed her exquisitely turned arms. From where he sat Simon had a good view of her long and elegant neck, but what he really wanted to see again was her face. In those few moments that she had acknowledged him, he had had the sensation of having the breath knocked out of him. Delphine had huge, beautiful, dark green almond-shaped eyes, which were embellished by the longest eyelashes Simon had ever seen. Her mouth was delectable, too, a perfect oasis of dark, kissable lips.
Simon’s brain began to haemorrhage all of the information he had been hoarding so carefully over the past few weeks. He could almost hear the facts whizz out of his ears, and realized that all of his careful preparation had been fruitless. Two minutes of sitting next to Delphine had been enough to empty his head of everything except the knowledge that she was without question the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in his life. Oh great, he thought bitterly. I get to sit next to the perfect woman, and then have nothing to say to her. And she goes like a shit house door in a hurricane. Just my bloody luck.
Simon stared numbly at the table in front of him as the conversation continued without him. Come on, he told
