The Party Season

by Sarah Mason

  'So how are you today?' he asks. 'I haven't really seen you to ask.' This is accompanied by much face-pulling. You can't have a conversation with Aidan without these facial contortions; you know you've been with him too long when you find yourself incapable of saying a sentence without sucking in your cheeks, rolling your eyes and pushing up imaginary bosoms with one arm.

  'Fine!' I say brightly and pull a face back.

  'You don't look fine.'

  I can't keep it from him any longer. 'Something happened to me on the Tube,' I groan. 'Someone thought I was pregnant and offered me their seat.'

  'Oh.'

  'Don't you dare laugh, Aidan,' I say sharply, seeing him bite his lip hard. 'Because it simply is not funny.'

  'Oh, I'm not laughing, Isabel. I'm merely, em … So what did you do?'

  'What could I do? Tell them that my slightly swollen stomach is due to an excess of Cornettos since Rob dumped me? I did the only thing I could do. I thanked them very nicely and sat down.'

  Aidan puts out a comforting hand. 'Darling, you know it always goes on your stomach and never on your breasts. Nature is a bitch like that.'

  'Why couldn't I have simply said that I have put on a few pounds since my boyfriend dumped me? We could have had a nice chat about the pros and cons of the Hay diet versus the Atkins and a jolly time could have been had by all. But no, I was too British about the whole thing. Someone accuses me of being pregnant and I am far too polite to disagree.'

  'Come on, Izzy. It's only been three weeks. Besides, I think it's very useful to put weight on your stomach. At least it can't sneak up behind you and cunningly slip on your bottom while you're not looking.'

  'But then people don't think you're pregnant.'

  'No, they just think you've got a large arse.'

  'Thanks so much. Why can't I be one of those women who drop four dress sizes when they've been dumped?' I complain.

  'Ahhh, ducks, because then you wouldn't be you. I like you being you, apart from the anal cost projections thing of course.'

  'I just wish I could figure out why Rob dumped me,' I say. 'We used to have such a marvellous time. Maybe I was too keen, Aidan.'

  He snorts derisively. 'Keen, smeen. Darling, we're not in kindergarten any more.'

  'Do you think I should call him and ask?'

  'No, no and no,' says Aidan. 'We have been over this. Anyone who finishes with someone by telephone, and don't forget that he tried to time the call to get your voice mail because he couldn't be bothered to actually speak to you, is simply not worth the time of day. Also, may I point out, leaving a message on your work voice mail is simply the most gutless, horrible thing I have ever heard.'

  'I know,' I whisper, my voice wobbling.

  Stephanie wanders over to us with a fag in her hand before we can say any more. 'Lady Toss-well is here.'

  'Stephannnieee,' I hiss, standing up and smoothing down my skirt. 'I told you not to call her that. Did you put her in the boardroom?'

  'Yeah.'

  'Thanks.' I pick up my notebook, take a deep breath and march briskly over to reception, up one flight of stairs and into the boardroom. Lady Boswell is sitting bolt upright on one of the chairs with one hand lying gracefully in her lap and the other on top of the handle of a large umbrella she likes to carry everywhere.

  'Lady Boswell, how nice to see you,' I say smoothly. 'Did Stephanie offer you a cup of coffee?'

  Lady Boswell looks at me as though I have just offered her a cup of cat sick with a couple of teaspoons of maggots stirred in.

  'Coffee, Isabel, coffee? You must know that I never take caffeine in the afternoon. We are living in a coffee-obsessed age. Those dreadful bars are everywhere.'

  Lady Boswell is fairly typical of some of our more traditional clients. A stickler for the rules and Debrett's, she is also terribly thin, which does not endear her to me at all, and is today dressed in a navy blue suit complete with stockings and gloves. A large handbag accompanies her everywhere and she has been known to take a swipe with it when things aren't going according to plan. Hence my nervousness about the Nordic Ice Feast.

  She purses her thin lips, which she always over-paints with cerise lipstick, while I open my notebook. 'Now, how is the party planning actually progressing? Are the Vikings going to look like Vikings? You know I can't have Mrs Sneddon-Wells showing me up. Her Caribbean banquet is still the talk of London.' She pauses for breath and looks me up and down critically. 'Have you put on some weight, Isabel?'

  C h a p t e r 2

  Party planning hasn't always been my natural vocation. I wish I could claim a childhood of glitzy events had prepared me for it but the closest I had ever got to any excitement was when my father took me to a Don MacLean concert at the age of twelve. The whole thing was a disaster and we had to leave at the interval. My father thought things were getting out of hand because people were throwing their ice cream lids at the stage.

  My father was in the army so my sister Sophie and I were continually being uprooted and moved around the world. Perhaps due to my rather chaotic childhood I always craved a very solid career. Once I graduated from university the need for money and ambition took a strong hold of me and I went to train as a financial analyst. I didn't think you could get more solid than reassuring columns of figures and tables. After my training course, a nice City firm gave me my very own office, along with their assurances that they thought I would be very happy with them. I hoped I would be.

  On my first day I popped my head out of my office in search of a friendly face and the possibility of sharing a lunchtime sandwich. I was met by a maze of desks and people who were eating their lunch while still talking on their phones. I went back into my office and did the same. It doesn't matter – people who work so hard must play hard too, I thought to myself. We'll all be in the pub on the stroke of six. But as the days went past, we weren't in the pub at all. We weren't even in McDonald's. In fact, the only person who really spoke to me was the girl I bought my sandwich from.

  The days plodded on and it came as quite a shock to me when I found myself positively envying the sandwich girl. I envied her mobility. I envied her careless chatter with people. I envied her flexible hours. Things came to a head when I was showing some visitors around the building and we happened to meet the chairman outside his office. Once he had shaken hands with everyone, he turned to me and said, 'I hope we're impressing you!' with great joviality. He thought I was one of the visiting dignitaries.

  It was then that I started to wonder whether I hadn't in fact made the wrong choice. How could I be valued if my chairman didn't even know who I was? An uneasy period of indecision followed until one day, while in a conversation with one of our middle-aged employees, I discovered that she hadn't wanted to work in the finance industry at all. She'd taken the job as a stop-gap over eighteen years ago and had stayed because she didn't know what else to do. Peculiar how a conversation like that can shape your life. I didn't want to be her in eighteen years' time.

  So I packed up my pot plant and my photographs and left my safe little office in the City. By luck, I answered an ad for Table Manners, and the rest is history. What the advert for an administrative assistant in a trendy party planning firm didn't tell me was that all new employees have to spend a compulsory month being trained in the kitchens, which resembles some sort of boot camp. I was up ridiculously early, peeling and preparing endless mounds of vegetables. I always had at least two of those extremely attractive blue catering plasters on display (that month did nothing for my love life).

  But I learned how to make most of the basic sauces, when various ingredients were in season, the best way to cook all kinds of fish and meat; in short, I developed a real sense of food. Not that I hadn't been fairly aware of it before – I always knew immediately if chocolate biscuits were in close proximity – but I came to know instinctively which flavours and textures would work well together.

  My knowledge of figures also meant I was good with the foundations of party planning
. I could craft into beautiful tabular form the basic costs of an event, so I still had my reassuring figures but without the loneliness of the City. Maybe in a few years' time I might set up my own business because I think I have the foundations to manage it. And I had no idea work could be such fun! Even on a bad day like this one. It seems immoral somehow.

  I stomp up the steps to my flat in a thoroughly bad mood and press the buzzer impatiently. I know Dom, my housemate, will be home before me – he always is – and I can't be bothered to fish around in my handbag for my keys. This bugs Dom a lot but I know he will answer because he has learned his lesson from last time when he just picked up the handset and yelled, 'I'm not letting you in, you lazy slut!' Mrs Lawrence was only trying to drop off some Neighbourhood Watch leaflets. It took a card and several bunches of flowers before she would speak to him again.

  'Hello?'

  'Dom, it's me.'

  'Where are your keys?' he demands petulantly.

  'Don't know. Pl-ea-se let me in.'

  'No!'

  'Go on, Dom!'

  'Oh, all right.'

  He presses the release key in a half-hearted gesture, giving me exactly a second to elbow my way into the hall. Once inside I trot up two flights of stairs, cursing the woman's mag that told me I should do it two at a time or I'll have a backside the size of China, and push open the door to my flat. I bought this flat when I was more profitably employed than I am now and Dominic is my lodger. My period of flush employment didn't run to huge amounts of furniture but Dom claims he likes the minimalist look anyway, with our few well-chosen ornaments of Mouldy Toast on Plate, Dying Plant and Half-Empty Mug. Our bedrooms lead off from the hallway and we share a connecting bathroom. We have a rule that whoever gets any part of their body across the bathroom threshold first in the morning gets preference. This leads to downright dangerous bursts of speed at seven a.m. and even the occasional rugby-like tackle. Dom has been known, after his more drunken nights of revelry, to sleep in the bath in order to guarantee his slot.

  The Strokes blare out from the speakers amid much accompaniment of pan-clattering from the kitchen. Dom has probably been home for about an hour.

  It was through my job that I first met Dominic. His Aunt Agnes was giving a drinks party – my first solo drinks party. About halfway into the evening, Dominic sidled up to me and told me that his Aunt Agnes was vegetarian and the canapés were decidedly not. At this point all the blood drained from my head as I looked across the room in time to see Aunt Agnes taking one of the carnivore delights. Before it reached her mouth Dominic made a heroic dash, took it off her and ate it with much lip-smacking, while I brought up the rear and whisked the waitress away before an amazed Aunt Agnes could take another. Dominic then joined me in the kitchen where I was transfixed with fear, wondering how on earth the kitchen staff could have cocked up so monumentally and whether anyone would notice if we were about two hundred canapés down. Dominic simply took every piece of Parma ham off the top of the tarts, began shovelling the ham into his mouth and then sent the waitress back out to the party with the now vegetarian-friendly snacks. And so our friendship began.

  He is the most unlikely best friend I could ever hope for. We are undoubtedly the odd couple. I am tidy, Dom is not. I have a Filofax, Dom has the back of his hand and a biro. I schedule the housework, Dom thinks a coaster is something to do with surfing. But I absolutely adore him and I would like to think he feels the same way.

  Dominic works in the claims department of an insurance company to supplement his career as a struggling writer (struggling in the sense that he struggles to write anything). This sort of desk job suits Dom just fine. It comes without responsibility – no vying for promotion, no working overtime, no long-term goals because at the end of the day it's just that: a day job. He turns up just after nine, walks a fine knife-edge between doing enough not to get himself fired and little enough to ensure he goes unnoticed, and pisses off home on the dot of five. He looks on every day as a huge adventure and has the amazing gift of taking every ounce of enjoyment out of whatever he's doing. His 'send me a toffee in the post by Tuesday and I'll process your claim' promises are notorious throughout the company. That's notorious in the verbal-warning sense of the word.

  'Hello, gorgeous!'

  'Hi.' I dump my handbag and leather attaché case on to the kitchen table. 'What are you doing?' I ask him. 'It's not your turn to do the washing up.'

  Dom grins at me from behind the soap suds. On the rare occasions Dom does do the washing up he uses about half a bottle of Fairy Liquid. He's even got bubbles lodged in his hair. 'I couldn't find a clean mug. Life can be so cruel sometimes.' He sighs dramatically. 'How are you feeling?'

  'Dreadful. How are you?'

  'Absolutely fine. I was going to call you at work today,' Dom continues.

  'Were you? You never call me at work.'

  'That's because you never let me call you at work.'

  'Dom, if I let you call me at work you'd be on the phone every half an hour. But I did think about you today.'

  'Did you? Did you think ahh, Dom. I do miss him?'

  'No. Gerald was asking after you.'

  'Was he?'

  'And Aidan, come to think of it. What's this sudden fondness my workmates have developed for you?'

  'It's because I'm lovable.'

  I snort derisively. 'Hardly lovable. They just like you because you get me into trouble. Gerald is still teasing me about my bout of food poisoning that you told him was a hangover.'

  'It was a hangover.'

  'Yes, well. You see, Dom, this is why I don't let you call me at work – we'd end up having conversations like this. Are you coming up to Aunt Winnie's with me at the weekend?' Dom has visited my Aunt Winnie with me many times – she regards him as one of the family.

  'I'll come on Saturday. I've got a stag do on Friday night.'

  'A stag do?' This is the first I've heard of it.

  'Yep, some bloke from work.'

  'Who?'

  'Oh, you don't know him.'

  'When's the wedding?'

  'Not for ages.'

  'An all-boys stag do?' I ask suspiciously.

  'Is there any other kind? You've got a postcard from your folks, by the way.' He nods towards a pile of post on the table.

  I let the surprise stag do go and study a night scene of Hong Kong harbour, then turn it over to see the familiar scrawl of my mother.

  Just dashing off to another ghastly party full of diplomats. Honestly, darling, I simply don't know how you do it for a living all day long. Your father sends his love. Will try and call soon but can't seem to remember whether you are ahead of us or behind time-wise. Give our love to Sophie when you see her.

  Love Mum.

  I drop it back on to the pile and sigh. They seem so very far away from my own reality. 'Have you read it?' I ask Dom.

  'Yes. I thought they were coming over to see you and Sophie soon?'

  'I think something came up with Dad's work.' I shrug. They aren't the most reliable of parents.

  'So what's happened to you today?' Dom asks.

  I open my mouth to answer but the phone rings and I rush through to answer it, a small part of me still hoping it could be Rob. It's not even close.

  'IZZY!' a familiar voice booms. Aunt Winnie has been calling almost every day since Rob finished with me, bless her. 'You're home! I was hoping to have a jolly chat with Dominic but I suppose you'll do instead.'

  'Well, I am actually related to you, Aunt Winnie. Whereas Dominic isn't.'

  'That tyrannical boss of yours has let you come home at last, has he? I am absolutely convinced he has Marxist tendencies, Izzy. You want to watch out for that; you could be a communist before you know it.'

  'I don't think it's the sort of thing that creeps up on you, Aunt Winnie.'

  'Ohhhh, don't you believe it,' she replies sagely. 'They probably slip something into the water.'

  'Well, I always try to avoid drinking tap water if I can.'
/>
  'That's my girl! I brought you and your sister up well. Much better off with gin. I would ask how you are but you know I detest hearing about other people's health.'

  'How's the vicar?' I ask instead. The vicar is Aunt Winnie's new hobby. She adores engaging him in earnest theological discussions. I feel terribly sorry for the man because he simply has no idea what he is dealing with. I remember similar warnings in the Jaws film and look what happened there.

  'In the middle of a row over the church flowers. Mrs Harrison did an arrangement last week involving lots of aubergines. I suppose she thought she was being trendy but it turned out quite spectacularly indecent. Lots of phallic bulging purple coupled with some rather unfortunate poppy heads. I thought the vicar was going to have a coronary on the spot. I haven't laughed so hard since one of the Sunday school kids stapled his cassock to the bell rope.'

  I giggle. 'Aunt Winnie, you are terrible.'

  'Actually, I'm glad I caught you. I didn't want to have to leave a message with Dom as he would probably get the story completely tits-up. Guess who I met today!'

  'I couldn't.'

  'Go on! Guess!'

  'Er, George Clooney?' I say hopefully, praying she would have him at home right now with a large padlock on the door.

  'George who?'

  'Clooney.'

  'Loony?'

  'CLOONEY. He's a film … never mind. Tell me who you met.'

  'Mrs Charlesty!' This really isn't along the same lines as George Clooney.

  'No!'

  'Yes!'

  'Not really?'

  'Yes, I was … You're being sarcastic, aren't you? Actually, I haven't told you why it's such a big deal so I'll forgive you. I was in the butcher's at Bury St Edmunds. You know, they've had to close the butcher's here in the village for a few days because all the family have gone down with flu. But you needn't concern yourself because I have had my flu jab.'