by Adele Parks
‘I’m sure they will, Rose,’Craig says with an encouraging smile.
I grin back at him. ‘Oh, I hope so, because if my sister has her way I’m likely to die trying.’
Craig checks his watch. ‘Damn.’He glances around the field.
‘What’s up?’
‘I wanted you to meet my friends and I think they might have gone. They’ve probably sloped off to a pub.’
I grin like a helpless teenager, thrilled with the thought that Craig wanted to introduce me to his friends.
‘I particularly wanted you to meet Tom and Jen. The thing is, they are getting married next weekend and I wondered –’Craig breaks off mid-sentence and looks to the sky. I follow his gaze. Has a final lone firework caught his eye? I can’t see anything. ‘And I wondered if you’d like to come with me. To the wedding. I’m best man, you see, and I haven’t got a date. I think it should be a lovely wedding. It’s in a sixteenth-century chapel, right in the heart of the City. Beautiful building, very interesting structurally, and the reception is at…’
‘Yes.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Yes, I’d love to accompany you,’I say with a grin.
‘Oh good, I wasn’t sure…’
‘What time?’
‘I’ll pick you up at 10 a.m.’
‘Hats?’
‘Sorry?’
‘What’s the dress code?’
‘Yes, hats, I think. I’ll be in a morning suit.’
‘Lovely. It’s a date then.’
‘A date,’Craig confirms.
The thing is, I can list a thousand reasons why it’s a terrible idea for me to date my sons’headmaster and they are all rational, reasonable, logical thoughts. But the counter-argument for why I should date him is overwhelming.
He’s lovely.
Fireworks are magical.
34
Thursday 9 November
Lucy
‘So, Lucy, what’s your excuse tonight?’
‘Excuse?’I beam at Mick and pretend I don’t catch his drift.
‘Well, you are unlikely to be gracing us with your presence at the fabulous office party, even though there will be free champagne and it’s being held at the oh-so-tomorrow, miserably hip Wasp bar. So I just wondered what excuse you are going to plead. Lack of babysitter? Headache? Tired?’
‘I’m coming,’I say with a smile.
He can’t hide his surprise. ‘You’re coming?’
‘Certainly am. Said I would, didn’t I? Anyway, the vast majority of the profits that Ralph is celebrating are thanks to me. I deserve a glass of champagne.’
‘I have to disagree about the vast majority.’
I stare at Mick and then concede. ‘True. You’ve done your share. But the point is, rest assured, I’m coming.’
‘Good news,’says Mick with his cheeky grin.
I need some sort of distraction, and although I have no intention of having a quick grope in the stationery cupboard, making photocopies of my ass, drunkenly insulting my boss or any other traditional office party antics, I cannot spend another night alone in that house in Holland Park. When I say alone, I mean with Auriol, but being with a child is just like being alone but with the misery of having to play Buckaroo. Peter is as busy as ever. I’m trying not to be paranoid; I’m resisting the thought that he’s avoiding me. He’s been out every night since the disastrous Hallowe’en party. Annoyingly, he’s just called to say that his dinner tonight has been cancelled and he is now free. He asked me to give my office party a miss. He even suggested we go to Nobu, my favourite haunt. While I was tempted, I felt unable to agree to his proposal. I don’t want to turn into one of those women who makes herself available at the drop of a hat. Such behaviour didn’t do Rose any favours, did it?
‘I’m glad you’re coming, we can get silly on the dance floor,’says Mick with a smile.
‘I don’t do silly on the dance floor,’I remind him.
‘Only kids care about being cool, Princess.’Mick flings out the comment with flippancy but it feels like he’s punched me. He winks at me and walks away.
I’m too old to be cool. He thinks I’m old, he said so. He pretty much told me to start dancing to the Agadoo at parties. I seethe.
I catch sight of the box of six bottles of champagne that are secreted under my desk, a client thank-you for the tens of thousands of pounds I’ve helped make his company this year. It arrived last week and I stashed it away, all but forgetting about it. I could do with some instant cheer. It’s only 4 p.m., but the atmosphere is unusually flippant. Many traders are still enjoying lunch and the majority of PAs have spent the last hour or so in the bathrooms trying on new outfits. Others have spent the entire afternoon at the hairdresser’s – it depends on their level of seniority. It’s accepted that an office party in November signals the start of Christmas festivities. The hunting season has begun. Most PAs in the City only put up with the year-round arrogance and the crippling work schedules because their long-term aim is to marry their boss. The office party is a very risky occasion for wives sitting at home and a mass of opportunities for the next crop of bright young beauties.
My PA, Julia, is not at the hairdresser’s or preening in the loo. She does not want to marry me. In truth she rarely wants to look at me; she got the short straw when HR were dealing out the roles. I demand a lot from my team, but not as much as I demand from myself, so I’m not unreasonable; still, I think she’d prefer to be working for a fat guy. Yet it is a party to say thank-you to staff and Julia is quietly efficient; she deserves a thank-you. I instruct her to dig out the champagne flutes and I pop open a bottle of champagne.
‘Julia, you know, you can be really funny.’
I drape my arm around Julia’s neck. We are both finding our high heels a little trickier to walk in than usual. We stumble down the corridors and towards the lift. Luckily, we are late for the party and no one is around to witness the spectacle we are making. I really don’t know where the time’s gone, we were having such a giggle. The floor is empty now, except for Vic, the Puerto Rican guy who vacs the carpets. I give him the three remaining bottles of champagne because I can’t be bothered to carry them home. I warn Julia that if she tells anyone else I’ll sack her. I can’t have people speculating that I have a soft underbelly.
‘You can be nice and funny, Lucy. How come I’ve never noticed before?’Julia starts to giggle. ‘Normally I think you are so scary. But you’re a sweetheart.’
Even though we’ve drunk over a bottle of champagne each and I’m close to getting off my face, I’m not off the planet. I’m no sweetheart. Still, if it makes Julia happier coming into work thinking that perhaps I’m not a Class A bitch, then who am I to burst her bubble? We are not the first to discover that a couple of bottles of Bolly can forge a convincing, if short-term, friendship. Besides, we’re both learning new things about one another. Julia is hilarious. She can do amazing impressions of just about anyone on the trading floor.
‘Your impressions are really, really witty and really, really amusing and really, really cutting.’My God, I think I just slurred that sentence. Disaster, I’m drunk. I must be. I’m not being at all articulate. I think I said really about a zillion times in that last sentence and really there are other words I could have used, really impressive ones like…especially. Now that’s a really, really good word.
‘Do your impression of me.’
‘I don’t have one of you, Lucy,’says Julia.
‘Liar.’
She bursts into giggles as we finally stumble into the lift. I prop myself up on the back wall and Julia stabs around the button that will take us to the ground floor and our waiting taxi. She seems to be having trouble with her aim.
‘You’ll sack me, if you see my impression of you,’she laughs.
‘It must be good then,’I comment. We both collapse into fits of giggles again, but Julia knows that I may be friendly tonight but I’ll be sober in the morning. I’ll never get to see the impression.<
br />
We arrive at Wasp at about 9 p.m. I can’t believe this place has been open six months and this is my first visit. I remember a time when I used to go to the opening-night party of every trendy bar and delicious eatery in London. I was a face the columnists expected and wanted to see.
The walls and floor are mirrored so I keep stumbling into myself. I grope my way around as discreetly as possible until I find somewhere to sit down. There are no individual chairs, only massive leather daybeds the size of four coffee tables joined together. People are lying on them; chatting, smoking, drinking and laughing. I recognize most faces but still feel uncomfortable lying down next to colleagues. I’m not one for speedy intimacy, as a rule. However, after I’ve knocked back a glass of whatever it is Julia hands me, I decide I’d better sit down before I fall down.
I should have eaten lunch. I’m out of the habit of getting trolleyed on Bolly. I remember the days when sloshing back a couple of bottles of bubbly was what I did as a chaser to several Cosmopolitan cocktails and I still felt relatively unaffected. I don’t do drunk. Or I didn’t do drunk. I like to be in control.
It’s another sign of bloody ageing, isn’t it? I can no longer handle my drink. Soon it will be thin bones, leather skin, floppy boobs, incontinence, meals-on-wheels. Will I ever feel the thrill of a stranger catching my eye and holding it a little longer than necessary? The fact is, for the last five years or so, since Auriol was born, I don’t believe I’ve lived my life in a true or full way anyhow. It’s a half life. A step closer to nothingness, to death. I’ve travelled less. I’ve eaten out less. I’ve missed out on promotions and bonuses. I rarely orgasm. I’m always tired. People promise that motherhood expands horizons in unimaginable ways but that has not been my experience. Motherhood has wrapped me in chains.
I should go home. I don’t want people to see me slurring, or dribbling or passing out. I’ve enjoyed a rather unique position at Gordon Webster Handle in that I’ve seen just about every one of my colleagues plastered and pathetic but no one has seen me behave with anything other than decorum.
Ever.
Even Peter.
I mean, of course, I get a little squiffy with him sometimes. We have been known to knock back a couple of bottles of wine at dinner but I feel totally different now. Not squiffy, more splattered. Not that what I’m feeling is actually bad, rather it’s unknown and as such, a little disconcerting.
‘Go with it, Lucy,’yells Julia, as though she’s read my mind.
She’s lying on the red leather daybed, next to me, and staring at the ceiling. I look up. Fantastic images of incredibly beautiful clubbers are being projected on to the ceiling. As the floor and walls are mirrored it becomes almost impossible to work out what’s up and what’s down. Reality begins to lift and float with something more dreamlike and a little easier to handle: illusion. I wonder what Peter’s doing right now? Sitting with his feet up probably. He’ll be balancing the remote control and a bottle of beer on his stomach. Feet up on the coffee table, even though I’m always telling him not to do that.
I flop on to my back and watch the images flitter and flutter above me. Julia passes me a cigarette and I take a drag. For the first time in months I start to feel a little relaxed.
‘Hey look, Lucy. Ralph is snogging Mick’s PA,’says Julia.
I try to sit up but find the movement too taxing. I take her word for it.
‘I thought he fancied me,’I comment.
‘He fancies everybody. He’s totally indiscriminate,’she says. I see. ‘He tried it on with me when I was working late one night. Very clumsy attempt. Embarrassing all round, to be honest. What about you? When did he take a pop?’
‘Well, he’s never actually moved in on me,’I confess. ‘I’m too senior for him to risk that,’I add.
‘Right,’says Julia but she sounds unimpressed.
I thought Ralph fancied me.I’ve been giving him a gentle cold shoulder since he joined, as I was sure if he made a pass our working relationship would be destroyed, but it looks like I needn’t have worried myself. I didn’t realize he was indiscriminate. I normally pick up on that sort of thing. Not that I fancy him in the slightest, but. Well. I just thought.
The evening seems to be being played on a faulty video recorder. One moment everything is happening at double speed and life rushes by in a series of vibrant, disjointed images, loud noises and spicy smells. The next everything is slowed right down and it seems to me that the people dancing look exactly like footage of the guys landing on the moon. Sushi is being served but I can’t be bothered to sit up to eat any; I do however accept two, or perhaps three, funny-coloured cocktails from beautiful girls who want to be writing novels; most of the liquid makes it to my mouth.
The noise around me is deafening; laughter and lasciviousness bash against one another. Unassuming people who usually limit themselves to the odd decent glass of port after dinner are suddenly downing fluorescent liquids and challenging one another to break-dancing competitions. The loos are already packed with sobbing girls trying to fix their rivers of mascara and there are groups of guys from accounts wearing paper hats and acting ‘wacky’. Their desperate show of merriment puts me in mind of the presenters of the programmes that Auriol likes to watch.
Suddenly, I notice the presence of someone sitting on the daybed next to me. I’m still lying flat and can’t summon the energy to turn and see who it is. It’s not Julia – she disappeared to snog one of the traders some time ago. She’s a thoughtful girl, though; she left me with two drinks lined up so I haven’t had to go to the bar.
‘Hi-ya, Princess.’
‘Mick!’I beam at him. ‘Lie back, lie down flat,’I instruct. ‘It’s sensational. Look at what’s on the ceiling.’There are no longer images of sexy clubbers strutting their stuff; there’s now a montage of fabulous street scenes. One minute I’m in Venice, then Miami and then Barcelona.
‘Sit up, Princess,’says Mick. He gently grasps my shoulders and pulls me to a sitting position. I am a floppy dead weight and don’t help him. ‘Has someone been spiking your drinks?’he asks.
‘Nooooooo. I did all this on my own,’I slur back with a smile. ‘I’ve eaten very little for three days now. And tonight I have drunk lots and lots. It’s wonderful.’I fling my arms wide to illustrate my exuberance. Nothing spills out of my glass because it’s empty. I look around for my next one.
‘Why aren’t you eating?’
‘Don’t want to get fat.’I can’t believe I’ve said this. Never in my life have I ever admitted to dieting, although I’ve dieted since I was an adolescent. I no longer regard the way I eat, or rather what I don’t eat, as a matter of dieting, it’s simply being sensible. I never eat processed food, saturated fats, crisps, chips, sweets, biscuits, cakes or ice cream. It’s a fact that a moment on the lips is a month on the hips. I also regard alcohol as prohibitively fattening and since my thirty-third birthday, when I noted a considerable slow-down in my metabolism, I’ve made it my rule to limit my alcohol consumption considerably. It’s stupid to break my own policy. Even as I accept this in a part of my subconsciousness, I take a large gulp of champagne. Why aren’t I more bothered?
‘I’ve never seen you this drunk, Luce.’
‘I’ve never been this drunk, Mick. Do you like my dress?’
‘Sorry?’
‘My dress. It’s new. Do you think it suits me?’All at once I need a compliment specifically from Mick, and I need it now.
‘Very nice.’
‘Really?’
‘It’s great,’he says.
Even three sheets to the wind I note the lack of enthusiasm in his voice. Since NY Mick and I have settled into a relationship that is sprinkled with friendly banter, more friendly than before we went away and less flirtatious. Of course I’m delighted to have a buddy and I acknowledge that the relationship couldn’t have gone any other way, I’m married, but.
But. A small part of me thinks that this new safe relationship is just a teensy bit dull. By
opting to be ‘just good friends’I’ve agreed to don the invisibility cloak. Why do all grown-up decisions have to be so dull? What to do? What to do? I am unused to having relationships with men unless they are sexual. I don’t have a precedent for a male friend. In the past I had lovers, admirers, exes and men I flirt with, and those relationships were fun.
‘Look, look, up there!’I catch Mick off-guard and am able to push him flat on his back on the enormous daybed. I lie down next to him; our arms are touching and we both watch the images flicker above us. ‘See, it’s New York.’I beam at him. ‘I had a fabulous time in New York,’I comment, trying to sound casual. ‘Did you?’
Mick smiles. ‘It was a laugh, Princess.’
‘I didn’t get this drunk ever in New York,’I state. I’m aware that my voice sounds a little like Auriol’s when she’s telling me of one of her achievements, about which she is particularly proud, arranging her soft toys in size order, perhaps.
‘No, Lucy, you didn’t.’
‘I wonder what would have happened if I had.’
Mick shrugs and sits up. The movement is swift and decisive, which just goes to show he’s got great stomach muscles. ‘Now come on, I’m going to get you a big glass of water and you are going to stop drinking.’
This just goes to show he doesn’t know me very well at all.
Noise, constant noise, clamours and tears around the room at full volume now. People are shouting, chatting, laughing, singing. No one is listening. Music is blaring and the clink of bottles hitting the rim of glasses sounds like a chorus of ‘Jingle Bells’. Despite this I’m almost asleep when Mick arrives back moments, or maybe ten minutes, later. He brings with him a bottle of water and Joe Whitehead. Since meeting Joe in September my initial impression of him (that he is an incompetent nuisance) has only deteriorated. He is spotty, sweaty and sneaky. All of which I might forgive if he was good at his job but he’s not. I’m too drunk to bother being polite to him. When he asks me if I’m having a good time I mouth, ‘I can’t hear you, the music is so loud,’and then I turn my attention back to Mick.