Ralph's Party

by Lisa Jewell

  They drove on for a while, deep in singular thought, while the sky hung above them like a kaleidoscopic mosquito net, changing colour every second.

  ‘Glencoe two miles: we’re nearly there. Are you ready to party, girl, hmm hmm? Ready to take some class A narcotics and just be wild and crazy, hmm hmm!!’

  They were looking out for a tiny turning off the main road. The trees were painted white apparently; that was the only way of identifying it.

  There – there!’ Siobhan pointed to the left.

  They pulled off and followed a short dirt-track to a fork. A peeling green wooden sign to the right said ‘St Colombas.’

  That’s the place.’

  The little black car bumped up the track for a while in darkness, but within a couple of minutes Siobhan and Karl were transported to Fairyland; the sides of the tiny lane were lined with bright pink and red Chinese lanterns, hooked on to the branches of diminutive cherry trees, prettily delineating the meandering route through the dark towards the chapel.

  ‘My God, this is beautiful,’ whispered Siobhan.

  More was waiting for them at the head of the lane: the last dramatic red moments of the sunset reflected in the loch, the clapboard chapel lit up with fairy lights, a set of winding wooden steps from the graveyard down to the banks of the loch hung with more Chinese lanterns, shining the same warm crimson as the sinking sun, a picturesque wooden boat tied to an ancient wooden jetty bobbing blissfully in the still, icy water. An owl called from one of the towering chestnut trees around the chapel clearing, and windchimes hanging from the windowframes tinkled gently in a small gust of refreshingly clean air.

  ‘I want to be buried here,’ said Karl, his jaw hanging.

  Even Rosanne was extra quiet, seemingly as enchanted as her masters by the unbelievable beauty of the place.

  ‘I thought it was going to be really flash but it’s not, it’s just beautiful. I reckon Jeff must have been a real old hippie when he did this place up.’

  They slowly unbuckled their seat-belts and collected their bags from the boot. There was already another car in front of the chapel.

  ‘OΚ. Ready, Shuv?’ Karl held his hand out for Siobhan.

  ‘As I’ll ever be.’

  Karl rang the large copper bell hanging outside the vast wooden doors. Within seconds the door was answered.

  ‘Karl, mate, good to see you. What a place!’ Rick was barefoot, in jeans and a big jumper, and holding a glass of wine.

  ‘Yeah, isn’t it! I’ve never seen anything like it.’ The two men shook hands.

  ‘Rick, this is Siobhan, my girlfriend.’

  ‘Lovely to meet you, Siobhan – Karl never stops talking about you.’

  Siobhan attempted to smile, but she could barely breathe. This man was absolutely gorgeous! He was beautiful. She almost felt weak at the knees. Why did men never tell you things like that; they never said ‘Oh, by the way, so and so’s really good looking.’ She wished Karl had warned her.

  ‘Pleased to meet you, too.’ Siobhan had suddenly remembered how to behave in a social situation. She smiled her most gorgeous smile and shook his hand firmly and confidently. She was not going to be a fat aunt in front of this angelic man, in this magical place. ‘Isn’t this the most beautiful place you’ve ever seen?’ She was thin, thin and beautiful and desirable. She shook her hair round so that it framed her face.

  ‘Stunning. I can’t believe old Jeff would be capable of doing something so nicely. I thought it was going to be all shagpile and satellite dishes and log-effect gas fires. Anyway, come in the two of you – it’s freezing out there. We’ve put the central heating on and Tamsin’s just lighting a fire.’

  They followed him into the chapel – the damp stone hallway was full of Wellingtons and waterproofs and piles of wood – and then through the main hall and into the body of the building. They both gasped. The room was at least thirty foot high, raftered, galleried and cavernous. It was floored with antique boards and old rugs and lit up by an eclectic mix of dozens of Art Deco lamps and Victorian chandeliers. There were three enormous cream sofas at the far end, dressed in Chinese tapestries and an old oak banqueting table at the near end, covered in candelabras and vases of flowers.

  ‘Wow!’

  The girl kneeling in front of the monstrously large sandstone fireplace around which the sofas huddled got to her feet and rubbed at the knees of her jeans.

  She was small, petite even, with soft, sandy-coloured curly hair tied back in a pony-tail and a light smattering of freckles over her nose and forehead. She wasn’t wearing any make-up, and she was, Siobhan was pleased to notice, ordinary – pretty, but ordinary.

  ‘Siobhan, Karl – this is Tamsin.’ Karl and Tamsin looked at each other quizzically as their hands touched and a strange atmosphere suddenly descended upon the group.

  ‘Shit – Tamsin – what a coincidence!’ Karl was saying.

  ‘Oh – yeah – hi.’ Tamsin was looking slightly uncomfortable, stepping from foot to foot.

  Siobhan looked at Karl in confusion. Rick looked at Tamsin in confusion.

  ‘You two know each other?’ asked Rick.

  ‘Erm, Tamsin used to be a student of mine – Ceroc – last summer …’

  ‘Aaaah,’ said Siobhan.

  ‘Oh, right,’ smiled Rick. ‘Cool! What an amazing coincidence. I didn’t know you’d been a dance teacher.’

  ‘Well … you know … mortgage to pay.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah.’

  The atmosphere was inexplicably and negatively charged and, instinctively, Rick changed the subject. ‘Well,’ he said, clapping his hands together in an attempt to quell the unsettled mood, ‘let’s show you your room.’

  Karl and Siobhan exchanged glances and followed Rick up the stairs and on to the gallery.

  ‘What’s going on, Karl?’ whispered Siobhan, as they unpacked in their over-the-top Rococo bedroom, walled with swathes of dusty satin Jacquard and batches of browning Victorian and Edwardian photographs in chipped wooden frames.

  That’s that girl,’ whispered Karl. ‘Remember? That one I told you about. The nympho, steam-train chick – it’s her. The one who had that ménage à trois with those two French guys.’

  ‘What?’ Siobhan put her hands to her mouth to muffle her delighted shriek. ‘God, no wonder she looked so awkward. D’you think she was going out with Rick then?’

  ‘God knows. Probably,’ said Karl, painstakingly arranging his trousers over a large wooden hanger. ‘They live together.’

  Siobhan suddenly felt that everything was going to be all right. The house was beautiful, Rick was gorgeous, and his girlfriend was ordinary – an ordinary girl with an extraordinary secret that she bet Rick didn’t know about: it was Tamsin’s place to feel uncomfortable this weekend, not hers. She smiled as her hopes for the weekend elevated towards the woodworm-ridden rafters like big pink helium balloons. She was going to enjoy herself. This was going to be fun.

  She flopped backwards on to the huge four-poster, her hair flying out around her head. ‘Isn’t this brilliant! I feel like a princess, the one in the Princess and the Pea!’ She began to bounce around on the vast bed. She was suddenly feeling unbelievably overexcited.

  ‘Careful, Shuv, that’s a really old bed. You might break it.’

  Siobhan stopped bouncing and looked at Karl with disbelief. ‘Oh, charming! You wouldn’t say that if I was some slender young size-eight thing.’

  ‘I’d say it if you were Will o’ the Wisp, Shuv. Don’t be so sensitive, for God’s sake. It’s probably an antique, and it wasn’t made for bouncing up and down on, that’s all I’m saying.’ Karl zipped up his holdall and shoved it into the back of the towering tallboy.

  A few of Siobhan’s pink helium balloons had burst, leaving her feeling resentful and annoyed. ‘He’s very good looking isn’t he, Rick? You didn’t tell me he was so handsome.’ Siobhan felt the insecure need to wind Karl up, get a reaction.

  ‘Yeah, he is, isn’t he? Especially for a rad
io producer!’

  Typical – no reaction whatsoever. Siobhan had never tried to make Karl jealous before. She’d never felt the need to test his love, to push him to see how far he could go, how much he could take. But after the way things had been between them for the last two months, since that night at the Sol y Sombra, Siobhan didn’t trust him any more.

  Well, sod it. She certainly wasn’t going to let Karl’s attitude stop her from having fun for the first time in, oh, as long as she could remember. She was going to flirt with Rick, she was going to get roaring drunk, take any drugs that were offered to her and she was going to shine, even if it was only for a day and a half.

  She decided to get changed, she suddenly felt uncomfortable in her old leggings and Aran cardigan. And she was going to put on make-up and do her hair. Just because Karl hated her fat, it didn’t mean that other men would.

  She pulled her neglected make-up bag from her case and sat at the dressing-table under the huge stained-glass window. Two small pink glass lamps illuminated the area, casting a soft flattering glow. As Siobhan delicately puffed at her face with a big soft brush and carefully applied a thin line of black liquid-liner to her eyelids she felt prettier than she’d felt in months. This was a magical house: it wasn’t 1996 any more, it could be any time, past or future, but it was a time when your dress size was irrelevant, a time when you could be beautiful just because of where you were, because of the particular light of a pretty pink lamp. Fairy lights; magic lamps.

  Karl watched her from the bed. ‘I guess we should try not to bring up the subject again,’ he said.

  What?’ murmured Siobhan, disturbed from her reverie.

  ‘Tamsin. We shouldn’t say anything else about Tamsin and the dance class.’

  ‘Oh, no, you’re right. I don’t want to talk about London and everything anyway, I just want to get lost under the spell of this place.’ She was twisting her mane into an intricate knot of golden strands and stabbing it aggressively from behind with pins from a cardboard holder.

  ‘Do you want a hand, Shuv?’ asked Karl eagerly. Siobhan always asked him to put pins in her hair in the old days, when she used to wear it up regularly. He’d loved doing it, it was such a feminine act, and he’d thought himself privileged to be allowed to play such a vital role in Siobhan’s grooming.

  ‘No, I’m all right, thanks, nearly finished. You can go down if you like, I’m going to get changed now.’

  ‘I don’t mind waiting for you.’

  ‘No, really, you go down. It’ll spare you the unpleasantness of watching me get undressed.’ Siobhan hadn’t meant to say that, it had just come spilling out; an unbridled, feral thought had just escaped from her mouth. It was something she’d thought a million times over the last few weeks, few months in reality, and had never, ever intended to say, and now it was out, free, independent of her. She waited the split second for a reaction with her breath held.

  ‘Shuv, what the fuck are you going on about?’ Karl was incredulous. ‘You think I don’t like seeing you naked – Jeez, you’re so wrong – I love you naked.’

  Oh, nice try, Karl, thought Siobhan, you expect me to believe that? ‘Karl, go downstairs. We’ll talk about this another time.’

  ‘No! I’m staying here and we’re going to talk about this now. Is this what everything’s been about, all this, all this … sadness, this sadness between us?’

  ‘Karl, go downstairs. Go downstairs now or I’ll scream. I do not want to talk about this. I do not want to listen to your bullshit. Get out!’

  Bald-faced lies. Bullshit. Bullshit, Karl Kasparov. If you liked me this size, why would you be getting sweaty and flustered by that girl from upstairs, why would you think I’d break the bed, why would you want me to get pregnant? Liar.

  Karl slowly left the room, and Rosanne followed him, unsettled by the unfamiliar atmosphere, and scared by the anger on Siobhan’s usually placid face.

  Siobhan felt no regret; she’d show him tonight. She’d be the old Siobhan, happy, poised, funny and attractive, except it wouldn’t be for Karl’s benefit – he wasn’t worthy of such a performance – this would be for Rick.

  She slipped on her black tunic, the one she’d made for herself, with the indiscreet split down the front that revealed a good few inches of cleavage – this was the first time she’d had the nerve to wear it – and matching trousers, and slid her feet into strappy sandals.

  She opened the door out on to the gallery and looked down into the room below. Karl and Rick and Tamsin were all sitting on the sofas, drinking wine and talking quietly and politely. As the door closed behind her the trio turned around and looked upwards. Siobhan saw Rick gulp.

  ‘Siobhan’ – Rick stood up – ‘just in time. I was just about to break open the champagne.’

  Siobhan moved as elegantly as she could down the stairs, her heels making a feminine click against the wood as she walked. She felt like a contestant in a beauty pageant.

  ‘I feel a bit underdressed now,’ said Tamsin light-heartedly, gesturing at her jeans and fleecy top. ‘You look fantastic.’

  Rick handed Siobhan a champagne flute. ‘Here’s to a wild and wacky weekend!’

  ‘Here’s to Jeff!’

  ‘Here’s to Scotland!’

  The four almost-strangers clinked their glasses together. Siobhan met Rick’s glass with a smile that emanated almost entirely from beneath her eyelashes.

  ‘And here’s to new friends,’ she beamed.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The first bottle of champagne lasted half an hour, the second twenty minutes, and the third was gone almost before it was opened. Siobhan was feeling flushed and was waving goodbye to the last vestiges of her inhibitions. She, Karl and Rick were talking animatedly and frankly about work, and Tamsin was in the kitchen heating through a fortune’s worth of party food from M & S. Siobhan would usually have volunteered immediately to help in the kitchen, and it had crossed her mind, but she didn’t want to, not this time. She wanted to stay out here with the men and elegantly cross and uncross her legs and join in the conversation. She was preoccupied with her posture, keeping her back straight and her chest out and her stomach in, occasionally smoothing her hair back with her hand or fiddling with her rings, watching Rick’s body language and responses, gauging his interest in her and then turning to Karl, wondering if he’d noticed yet.

  Tamsin appeared, laden with plates of chicken wings and pizza squares and trout goujons. She put them down on the table unnecessarily hard, hoping to attract attention to herself and her efforts, but none of them even looked around from their conversation.

  ‘If anyone’s interested,’ she began, then decided to take the unattractive sarcasm from her voice, ‘there’s some food here – it’ll soak up the champagne.’

  ‘Excellent,’ someone murmured, but still no one moved, still they sat there and laughed and joked and revolved around Siobhan like balls on a weather-vane.

  Rick poured the dregs of the champagne into Siobhan’s glass.

  ‘Oh,’ said Tamsin, clutching her empty glass, ‘was that the last of the champagne?’

  ‘Sorry, darling,’ said Rick, ‘it was only a drop. There’s some wine in the kitchen, do you want me to get you some?’

  ‘No, it’s all right,’ said Tamsin, unashamedly playing the martyr. ‘I’ll get it. The food’s getting cold, by the way,’ she added as nicely as she could.

  ‘Oh, go ahead – I won’t be eating anything,’ said Siobhan. No way. There was only one thing more unattractive than a fat woman and that was a fat woman eating. Things were going really well with Rick, she was feeling wonderfully in control, she’d forgotten just how easy it was to turn a man to mush. She didn’t want to blow it now by stuffing her face with chicken and pizza.

  ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like me to bring you back a little something?’ asked Rick, getting to his feet.

  ‘Oh, no, really, we had a big lunch on the way down. Maybe I’ll have something later.’

  As Tam
sin and Rick made their way over to the table, Karl approached Siobhan shyly.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked tenderly, leaning into her shoulder to whisper in her ear, brushing her neck with the tip of his nose.

  ‘Never better,’ she replied stiffly, trying to ignore the bolt of sadness and bitter-sweet love that coursed through her at his touch and the feeling that she wanted to comfort Karl, to reassure him.

  ‘You look a lot happier,’ he whispered.

  ‘Well, I’m having a great time. Rick’s fantastic.’

  ‘Yes, he’s great, isn’t he? I told you you’d like him.’

  Siobhan gritted her teeth in irritation. ‘I’m going to get some more wine,’ she said, getting to her feet, suddenly aware that she was drunk, as she felt her legs wobble slightly underneath her. She quickly gauged the distance from her seat to the kitchen door and the number of obstacles she would encounter on the way. The last thing she’d want to do now was trip over something or start weaving across the room like a dodgy shopping-trolley.

  Unfortunately, she was already too drunk to start trying to regulate her drinking. But then, so was everyone else. The little bag of white powder made an entrance at about eleven o’clock and Siobhan was the first to accept the rolled-up fiver and square mirror from Rick. She turned away slightly in case she messed it up and dabbed lightly at her nose, dislodging a couple of small crumbs before passing the mirror on to Karl.

  ‘I guess this is when we’re supposed to start being wild and wacky,’ she said.

  ‘Ah, well remembered, said Rick. ‘I brought a tape recorder.’ He walked to the hallway and returned with a tiny, state-of-the-art machine. ‘It occurred to me that we’d come up with all these brilliantly witty ideas and we’d be so pissed that none of us would remember them. This thing’s brilliant, it tapes for six hours and the sound quality is breathtaking.’ He placed it on the mantelpiece. ‘Are we feeling funny yet?’

  A general cheer went up and he switched on the machine.

  Jeff was right about Rick. He was very funny and his humour infected the other three. They sat for three hours and talked complete nonsense, inventing quiz games and characters and role-playing, Siobhan and Tamsin pretending to be listeners phoning in. It was actually working. Jeff obviously knew what he was doing – there was no way they’d have managed to come up with so many good ideas sitting in a boardroom in the ALR building. The coke had given them all the confidence to contribute ideas they might have felt foolish about in other circumstances, and the alcohol had also lowered their inhibitions and freed up their imaginations.