always need a roof over your head, won’t you? You’re not going to join a Bedouin tribe?’
‘You can’t always do what makes absolute practical sense … I’ve got a drink, Caro, you’re alright.’
She nods, hands Graeme a glass, sips from her own, eyes downcast.
‘Living for the day is all very well in your twenties, you’ve got to start planning for the future sometime,’ Graeme continues. I know what he means is, no one else is going to do it for you now. ‘Things don’t fall into place by accident.’
‘Maybe.’
As he launches into another monologue, I interrupt: ‘Graeme. Par-tee. Noun, two syllables, a social gathering for the purpose of pleasure.’
Ben, Olivia and Simon arrive while I’m busy mopping up a spilled drink and Caroline lets them in.
She leads them over to the kitchen, and as I join them Simon’s saying to her: ‘… Had cocktails at a bar on Canal Street, or should I say Anal Treat. Ben said it was mixed straight-and-gay, then the only woman in the place had an Adam’s apple like a tennis ball. They were all the sort who could select scatter cushions, I’m telling you.’
Never mind Adam’s apples, I just hope Simon’s tongue is in his cheek most of the time.
‘We brought you a homophobe, and this,’ Ben says to me, as Olivia hands over a Peace Lily in a gold lacquered pot, ‘to help warm your flat.’
Ben’s wearing washed-out-to-look-old-but-new grey jeans and a black sweater. As ever: phew. Olivia’s in a delicate grey wrap dress. Between the two of them, they must love grey. He leans in and does that double kiss thing again. I’m better prepared for it this time but I still get flustered, glad of the distraction the plant affords.
‘This is amazing,’ Ben says to Olivia, looking at the flat, putting an arm around her. ‘Isn’t it, Liv?’
‘Your house is even nicer and your house is really yours,’ I say to Olivia, with feeling, and she beams.
37
I’d forgotten that approximately four per cent of parties, like four per cent of nightclubbing experiences, are truly superb, which is why you waste time, money, bandage-like undergarments and hopes on the other ninety-six per cent. And astonishingly, odds-defyingly, my flat warming has fallen into the magical minority. Conversation’s buzzing, the drinks flow, the soundtrack works, the décor’s admired, circulating happens effortlessly, my domestic-slut choices of snack (square crisps, round crisps, the ones that resemble tiny rashers of bacon) have been received well, or at least, eaten.
Zoe appears to be having a whale of a time, laughing non-stop with the MEN crowd, Gretton’s advert forgotten.
I feel as if I’ve been climbing a hill for a very long time and suddenly the sun’s broken through and I’ve found a spot to sit on my cagoule and admire the vista. I’ve been missing Rhys like a phantom itch in a lost limb but for the first time I don’t miss him at all. Time for another drink.
As the night wears on, Mindy takes control of the music, which makes things more raucous. Jake waves to me as he leaves, having explained he has to be up to revise in the morning; Ivor rolls his eyes behind his back. Caroline is deep in conversation with Olivia. I find myself next to the panoramic window, with Ben and Simon.
‘Natalie said the interview went well,’ Simon says.
‘Good, I’m glad,’ I say, dismissing a stab of discomfort. ‘I thought so.’
‘And when do I get to take you to dinner?’
Ben does a double-take.
‘Whenever you like,’ I say.
Ben does what I suppose must be a triple-take.
‘Do you like Italian food?’ Simon asks.
‘Sure. Food in general, really.’
‘Rachel’s learning Italian,’ Ben says.
‘I know some Italian, stayed in Pisa on an exchange trip,’ Simon says. ‘Parli bene?’
‘Uh … non.’
‘Non?’
Oh shit. Shit! Subject change, quick.
‘I was reading these tips about icebreakers today,’ I blather. ‘Party prep. Can I try one out on you two? OK. Your most embarrassing incidents in the last year. Go.’
‘Last week. My Latvian cleaning lady caught me in the nuddy,’ Simon says.
‘Seriously?’
‘I grabbed the nearest thing to hand that was large enough to cover my modesty.’
‘Which was?’
‘My payslip.’
‘Tosser!’ I laugh despite myself, which is becoming the form with Simon.
I see Ben looking at both of us with mild concern, no doubt trying to figure out the dating thing. When he comes to a conclusion, I’d be grateful if he could explain it to me.
‘There’s one he prepared earlier,’ Ben says.
‘Yours?’ I ask Ben.
‘Apart from totally forgetting your name when I bumped into you again after ten years? Let me think …’
‘You didn’t?’ My kneecaps feel as if they’re not screwed on right.
‘Of course I didn’t, you arse.’
Ben’s disbelieving expression reads how could you fall for that?
Because the idea of you having erased me, clicked and dragged me to the mental trash can icon like a deleted file, is the stuff of anxiety nightmares, right up there with the one where I’m scuttling the streets at dawn, naked, hiding behind milk floats.
‘It was offering an albino girl my seat on the tram. I only saw her from behind, I thought she was 72, not 22.’ Ben bites his lip at the memory, Simon laughs, I wince.
‘Lack of pigmentation can be heavy on the legs,’ Simon says.
‘Hey, you meant well,’ I say.
‘Yeah. Simon.’ Ben pushes a hand in a pocket as he drinks.
It strikes me that Ben and Simon are competing. What for? My attention? Surely not. Not Ben, anyway. He’s married. Am I flirting by having a laugh with them? I imagine Olivia on the way home, saying acidly: ‘She certainly puts the “ho” in hospitality.’
‘More
