Ralph's Party

by Lisa Jewell

  Ralph felt his stomach contract and his bowels move. He tried to ignore it, but as his excitement mounted it got more and more unbearable. He rubbed his stomach through the cotton of his stripy shirt and clenched his buttocks tightly. The hair on his arms stood on end. He paced the room some more. He squeezed his buttocks some more. He smoked another cigarette. He stood at the door again and watched the traffic and the w11 trendies and the foreign couples walking into expensive restaurants. He took off the Everything but the Girl CD Philippe had chosen and put Radiohead back on. He put ‘Creep’ on repeat play. ‘You want your guests to die of depression?’ muttered Philippe. His stomach kept churning. His bowels kept moving. He could feel sweat patches under his arms. It was 8.28 p.m. Where the bloody hell was she? Christ – if she didn’t come – no, she’d come, she would …

  His bowels were going crazy now, every cigarette he smoked loosening them even more. She wasn’t here yet – she should have been here by now – he wanted to wait for her, be at the door when she arrived, but he had to go to the toilet. He dashed through the office and into the cubicle by the back door. He sighed with relief as his nerve-racked insides fell into the toilet bowl. He pulled up his lovely new trousers, tucked in his shirt, straightened his tie and mopped under his arms with some balled-up toilet-paper. He looked at his reflection in the mirror. He looked frightening – pale and clammy with an expression of pure terror in his eyes. And he was so thin. Shit. He’d wanted to look so together, so successful. He looked like a drug addict in an expensive suit. He dried his hands and walked into the office, taking deep breaths and pinching at his cheeks to restore some colour.

  There was so much to think about, so much to worry about. What had started off as a nice idea, a little party with all his friends to celebrate his success and the end of his self-imposed exile, had turned into a potential soap opera peopled with strange, complex characters and woven through with convoluted story-lines. It could all go horribly wrong. He hoped it wouldn’t end in farce.

  Oh, where was she?

  She said she’d be here before everyone else – she said she’d be here at quarter past, and it was now 8.45 p.m. He walked back across the gallery towards the door just as she arrived, gliding into the room in an electric puff of perfume and glamour. Her silken hair was piled tousily on top of her head and her burnished skin gleamed like copper under the merest hint of make-up.

  ‘Oh, God, Ralph, I’m so sorry I’m late, I couldn’t get a cab and …’

  ‘Don’t worry, it’s fine, they’re not here yet anyway. Here, let me take your coat.’ He slipped it awkwardly from her shoulders, revealing long, bare brown arms and an ankle-length sliver of sheer, black, body-clinging lace.

  Ralph’s mouth sprang open like a cash register. ‘Jesus Christ – you look absolutely – Christ – you look fantastic!’

  Cheri smiled, trying not to look as if she was too used to such compliments.

  ‘And I can’t thank you enough for this, really I can’t. Thank you so much for coming and thank you for looking so … fucking gorgeous. You’re absolutely perfect … umwah, umwah.’ He grinned and kissed her theatrically on each cheek. Suddenly his muscles relaxed, his heart rate slowed down and a smile returned to his face.

  This is going to be great,’ he said, clasping Cheri’s arms and smiling widely into her eyes. ‘It’s going to be great!’

  Chapter Thirty

  Smith hadn’t so much as given Jem a second glance, let alone commented on her appearance when she’d emerged from her bedroom, looking, quite frankly, stunning, in her rose-printed dress, with her hair pinned up all over her head with tiny little satin rosebuds, and wearing a pair of extremely sexy strappy sandals that fastened all the way up her finely-turned ankles with suede laces.

  ‘Have you finished in the bathroom yet?’ he’d asked with a hint of impatience in his voice that was wholly misplaced as it was his fault that they were running late in the first place, and Jem had only been in there for fifteen minutes, not really a terribly long time for a girl to make herself look so utterly ravishing.

  He’d refused to wear the white shirt that Jem had suggested he put on, and was now grumpily undoing the shirt he’d chosen because he’d discovered a stain on the sleeve that was, to judge by the tone of his voice, also Jem’s fault (although she’d never laid a finger on the shirt in her life) and moaning under his breath about what a bloody hassle the whole evening was turning out to be and he hadn’t even left the house yet.

  The cab finally arrived twenty minutes after the third time the increasingly unconvincing man at the cab office had informed them that it was ‘just around the corner’.

  By the time the cab had fought its way through an unexplained, slow and extremely long traffic jam on Holland Road and pulled up outside the gallery, it was 9.30 p.m. and Smith and Jem had lost all interest in talking to each other.

  They paid the driver, who may well have been in a good mood when he’d arrived at Almanac Road to pick them up but had obviously been infected by the general atmosphere of hostility and resentment that had suffused his cab for the last thirty minutes and was now as grumpy as both of them, if not more so.

  Jem adjusted her furry wrap and waited on the pavement for Smith to get his change.

  ‘I’m not staying late,’ he muttered, tucking his wallet into his back pocket and joining Jem on the pavement. ‘Ralph’s friends are a bunch of nobs.’

  Jem raised her eyebrows behind Smith’s back in a very married way and they walked towards the door, at precisely the same moment that Karl sauntered towards the gallery.

  ‘Oh, all right, mate! Didn’t recognize you for a moment there, out of context sort of thing!’ Karl grasped Smith’s hand.

  ‘Yeah, nice to see you.’ Smith shook hard, a look of confusion spreading over his face at the sight of his upstairs neighbour. ‘What are you doing here, then?’

  ‘Your mate, Ralph, he sent me an invite. Said he’d been listening to me on the radio and felt sorry for me. Hah! Half of London feels sorry for me y’know – it’s a strange predicament. But then again, I do get invited to an awful lot of parties these days.’ He winked and nudged Smith in the ribs and Smith and Jem both saw that he was drunk.

  Realizing that Smith’s general mood was unlikely to bring forth an unprompted introduction to the large Irishman, Jem stuck out one small hand and pointed it towards Karl. ‘Hi, I’m Jem. I live downstairs with Smith and Ralph. Nice to meet you.’

  ‘Ah, yes – you’re the flatmate. Is that right?’

  Jem smirked. ‘Yeah, sort of.’

  ‘Nice to meet you, too. I’m Karl.’ Karl smiled a warm drunken smile and squeezed Jem’s little hand, a bit too hard. ‘You’re a lovely looking girl, if you don’t mind me saying.’

  Jem didn’t mind him saying, in the least. It was the only compliment she was likely to get tonight and she embraced it warmly.

  ‘Not at all,’ she smiled, looking towards Smith to make sure he’d registered the comment and was feeling suitably inadequate for not having matched it earlier. He was already half-way through the door.

  The party appeared to be in full swing. Smith, Jem and Karl wove their way through the room, looking, respectively, for the toilet, Ralph and the champagne. Bloody hell, thought Jem, as they squeezed past bare backs, designer labels, skinny blondes, male models and fashion victims, Ralph really has got some glamorous friends. She felt very short. The air was thick with Issey Miyake, pretentious talk, dense clouds of cigarette smoke blown from bored round mouths and the high-pitched whine of plummy girls moaning about other plummy girls. They were greeted with disinterest as they moved through the room, or the occasional slow and deliberate eyeing up and down, followed by a look of vague disappointment when no labels of note or drop-dead good looks were spotted among their number.

  Jem started to feel her spirits droop. Smith was right. Ralph’s friends really were a bunch of nobs. She could actually feel Smith’s bad mood increase as he followed behind her.

>   She scoured the room desperately for Ralph now. She was scared that he’d have suddenly turned into a pretentious artist-type and that he’d ignore her when he saw her and pretend not to recognize her in front of all his supercool friends: ‘Excuse me, do I know you?’ She shuddered. She had to see him, to reassure herself that he was still lovable, gorgeous Ralph, despite the throngs of two-dimensional magazine-cut-out people he’d surrounded himself with. She kept walking.

  Karl was glad he’d had a few drinks before he came out. He looked around him at the plastic people and suddenly felt very alone and very old. He was glad he’d bumped into these two at the door, at least he hadn’t had to walk in on his own. Karl hated this ‘being single’ business. He absolutely hated it. All his friends kept telling him he’d get used to it, come to enjoy it, in fact. He’d soon realize the benefits, they insisted. Instead, Karl came to hate it, more and more, every day. Not a day went by that he didn’t miss Siobhan and their cosy lifestyle and their nights on the sofa. Life was so simple, then, he hadn’t had to make an effort, hadn’t had to go to parties full of strangers and make conversation with people he didn’t like. Life with Siobhan had been pure, domestic bliss.

  He was still sure she’d come back. She couldn’t stay in her dreary little bedroom in Potters Bar for the rest of her life. She’d forgive him soon enough, she just needed time and space. It was his birthday next week. He was sure she’d phone him then – it was the perfect opportunity to start afresh, to forgive and forget.

  In the mean time he had a party to get through. He reckoned he’d put away a few glasses of champagne, down some of those delicious-looking morsels of food he’d spotted over the other side of the room, make a wee bit of polite conversation with his lovely neighbours and then slip off and back to the rather good bottle of single malt he had waiting for him back at the flat. He started fulfilling his evening’s resolutions by grabbing a glass of champagne off a passing tray and knocking it back in one, wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand and stifling a little burp.

  Smith had spotted Ralph’s head at the far side of the room. There he is,’ he muttered with relief. His little band of followers shadowed him as he headed Ralphwards.

  Ralph was wearing an incredibly smart grey suit and had finally had his hair cut. He was, thought Jem, looking absolutely delicious. He had his body turned away from them and was chatting to yet another tall, skinny blonde in a black lace dress whose face they couldn’t see. The conversation seemed quite animated and their heads were pressed close together, their body language insinuating that they were making more than polite chit-chat. Jem felt a little nausea rise in her gut and swallowed it quickly. Ralph could talk to whoever he liked; it had nothing to do with her.

  Ralph spotted them approaching and broke away from his intimate chat. When he saw Jem his face broke open into an enormous smile and he opened up his arms to embrace her. Jem breathed an enormous sigh of relief – he was being Ralphy – and let him absorb her in a bear-hug.

  ‘Jemima Catterick, you look breathtakingly beautiful,’ he whispered in her ear and brushed her cheek with a tiny kiss that sent shivers down her spine. She blushed and felt her heart pump under her breast.

  ‘So do you,’ she giggled.

  The tall, golden woman had turned around now and Ralph broke away from their embrace to put an arm around her bare shoulders. Jem felt jealous again.

  ‘Urn, I think you all know Cheri, don’t you?’

  Cheri beamed at the trio.

  ‘Cheri, this is Karl … you know each other, don’t you? … Smith, my flatmate – I believe you’ve met … And this is Jem – Smith’s girlfriend – I think you’ve met her, too, haven’t you? Well, isn’t this a nice, neighbourly little gathering! Sorry about all these pretentious bloody Notting Hill trendies … didn’t invite them … someone else’s friends. My real friends are probably still in the pub …’

  Ralph continued talking, but no one was listening.

  Smith was swaying on the spot, his hand still where he’d left it, in Cheri’s, when they’d been introduced. He’d gone a rather bilious shade of puce and looked like he was about to faint. He was grimacing and was obviously trying to form a word in the back of his throat, his dry mouth forming and unforming circles, like a tongue-tied trout. He wished he’d worn that white shirt.

  ‘Didn’t know you knew Ralph?’ he finally managed, in a rather unattractive squawk.

  ‘Well,’ said Cheri, trying delicately to extricate her hand from Smith’s, ‘he’s a new friend’ – she imbued the word ‘new’ with half a ton of innuendo and put her arm around Ralph’s waist, proprietorily – ‘and he’s just such a little sweetie.’ She puckered up her voluptuous lips and kissed him softly on the cheek.

  Jem stood rooted to the ground, feeling even smaller, and foolish and over-flowery. She felt unexpected and entirely uncalled-for tears well up from her chest and breathed deeply, clinging on to Smith for dear life, while he stuttered manically about how much he liked Cheri’s dress and how stunning she looked and what a pretty hair-do that was.

  In the general atmosphere of hatred, jealousy, lust, embarrassment and shock, no one had noticed Karl, whose face was slowly turning from a pale lobster-pink to a bright, lurid crimson and whose large frame was filled with so much anger and rage he looked like he might explode like a microwaved sausage at any moment.

  What the FUCK is going on?’ he began, slowly and deliberately, looking directly at Cheri. ‘Is this some sort of FUCKING joke?’ This was said almost silently except for the final ‘fucking’ which was bellowed so loudly that they all jumped from their skins and clutched their throats.

  The group turned towards Karl. Cheri put out one nervous hand towards his arm. ‘Calm down, Karl. It’s not what you think. I promise you, you’ll understand …’

  Karl jerked his arm away from her touch. ‘You FUCKING SLAG. Don’t you fucking touch me. JESUS ! I feel sick. Isn’t it enough that you destroyed my life?’ He leaned in towards Cheri, who cowered into Ralph’s shoulder, and began spitting into her face. ‘Now you’re going to destroy this fella’s life too …’ He pointed viciously towards Ralph.

  ‘Now, mate, come on …’ Ralph tried to intervene with an outstretched arm. Karl swiped it away like it was an annoying fly. He was approaching boiling-point.

  ‘No, mate, you come on. I don’t know what the fuck’s going on here, but I don’t like it. Not one bit. Is this all a joke, huh? Is that it? Why did you really invite me here tonight? Did this BITCH put you up to it?’ he snarled.

  ‘Karl, please! I promise you, it’s not a joke. You’ll see,’ Cheri beseeched, theatrically, ‘it’s just not like that at all, it’s because I care …’

  ‘WHAT!’ Karl began to laugh, a deep, ominous, unpleasant laugh that made all three of them flinch. ‘You! Care! You’re incapable of caring about anyone or anything but yourself. You are the most selfish, self-centred, manipulative and evil woman it has ever been my misfortune to meet. You’ve already ruined my life once and I’m not going to stick around here while you and your “friends” entertain yourselves at my expense.’ He slammed his empty glass down on a shelf. ‘Thanks for the invite – mate’ he spat at Ralph.

  ‘Please, Karl, don’t leave – you can’t leave now!’ Cheri was desperately holding on to him. If he left now, then all her work would have been for nothing and she’d be stuck at a party she didn’t really want to be at, with a bunch of people she didn’t even know, and she’d never be famous.

  But Karl extricated himself from her grip, turned on his heel and began to stride through the room, knocking dahlings and It girls out of the way with his large elbows as he moved. The twittering and chattering had died down during the confrontation and everyone now fell silent, apart from one hooter-nosed idiot on the far side, who was so taken with the sound of his own voice that nothing, it appeared, could stop him talking.

  Karl had almost reached the door when someone grabbed him from behind and spun him around. It was Smith
, who had watched the whole sorry scene unfold in utter horror and had chased Karl uncertainly across the floor of the gallery, through the gap in the crowd that Karl had left behind him, and to the door.

  ‘Now listen here …’ he began.

  Jem watched from the other side of the room and winced, thinking for the first time how silly Smith really was. ‘Now listen here’ – it was the sort of thing that only a really silly man would ever say. It would be entirely his fault if Karl were to wallop him one.

  ‘ … now listen here. I don’t know exactly what your problem is, but you are way out of order and I suggest you go back immediately and apologize to Cheri. That is no way to talk to a lady.’

  Karl stared at Smith. He suddenly looked a lot taller than six foot and certainly a lot taller than Smith. His lip curled up in a Rottweiler-like sneer.

  That BITCH over there is no lady. And what – the fuck – has it got to do – with you?’ he asked, poking Smith in the shoulder in what looked like an extremely irritating manner. ‘Oh – don’t tell me – she’s got you in her nasty little grip as well, has she?’ Karl laughed and pushed Smith gently away from him. ‘Well, good luck to you, mate, you’ll need it.’ Karl turned away and towards the door.

  Smith bridled a bit, looking as if he was seriously contemplating grabbing Karl’s arm again and taking this argument outside, but was saved by the timely entrance of another guest, a pretty blonde woman in a black coat and heels.

  ‘Oh, my God! Siobhan!’

  ‘Karl!’

  ‘Christ! What … what the … what’re you doing here?’

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I don’t know. Who invited you?’

  ‘I don’t know. Wasn’t it you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’ve got no idea.’

  ‘Christ, Shuv, you look amazing. What happened to your hair?’

  ‘I had it cut. Look, what the hell’s going on? Whose party is this?’