Ralph's Party (32 page)

But now it was over and time to start living again. Besides, he had a party to organize. Thursday night was the press launch but Friday was his night. Invite whoever you want, Philippe had said, your mum and dad, your friends, your flatmates, your Uncle Fred. Get some caterers in, a sound system, have a party, you deserve it - and for God's sake, get a haircut, you look appaling.

He had a plan. He'd go back to Almanac Road now. He'd have a bath, he'd get one of those £3.99 spit-roast chickens from Culens and have it with mashed potato and gravy and eat it with
cutleryl
The thought excited him. He'd dig out his address book, he'd whack out some sort of groovy party invite on his Mac, print off a few dozen, go down to the Post Office, buy some stamps and send them out to al his friends. He'd put one in Jem's room and one in Smith's room.

And then he'd go upstairs. On the way to the first-floor flat he'd stop and put an invitation through Karl Kasparov's letter-box. It was the least he could do for him after everything he'd, albeit unwittingly, done for him.

Then he would wander up the stairs to the first floor and he'd knock on the door and ask that Cheri girl if he could come in for a moment. He'd accept her offer of a cup of tea and then he'd ask her a favour. She'd be confused at first but then he'd explain, in graphic detail, why he wanted her to do this for him and, hopefuly, she'd smile and say 'Sure', and she'd be glad to help. He'd finish his tea, thank her from the bottom of his heart, shake her hand, maybe even kiss her cheek and go back downstairs.

And then he'd walk into his bedroom, take off his shoes, strip to his boxers, peel back his soft, heavy duvet and slip into bed. Aaaah!

And then he'd sleep, al night and most of the next day, and he wouldn't wake up until the sun had already started to sink in the sky, until the sky was the colour of blueberries and plums and the footbal scores were tap-tapping their way through to
Grandstand.
And then ... and then what! And then he'd smile from ear to ear because he'd been half-way to happiness, half-way to where he wanted to be, half-way to Jem.

His coat was hanging in the halway, his clumpy boots stood side by side by the doormat, laces loose and undone, toes slightly turned in, just like his feet. Jem's heart missed a micro-beat. She hung her coat over his and wandered into the living room, looking for more signs of his return.

The ashtray on the coffee table overflowed with Marlboro butts and the remote control sat where he had always left it, on the arm of the sofa. In the kitchen a plate smeared with congealed gravy and shreds of crispy chicken skin sat at an angle in the sink, half-heartedly rinsed. A packet of Smash sat on the counter, by the kettle, surrounded by hard, floury nuggets. The door of the dishwasher was open, again like he had always left it, and a tea-bag sat in a pool of its own tan emissions on top of the bin.

So, thought Jem, the Phantom Diary-Reader is back.

The bathroom was humid and slick with condensation - large wet footprints steamed on the bathmat stil on the floor, his old green toothbrush with the long-flattened bristles lay on the side of the sink.

Smal globs of toothpaste clung to the white enamel.

Jem alowed herself a smile and walked quickly across the hal to Ralph's bedroom, her heart racing with anticipation. She knocked tentatively at the door and pushed it slowly open when there was no reply. Her spirits

dropped as she encountered an empty room. He was out. He was out, but he was definitely back! Ralph was back!

She'd realy, realy,
really
missed Ralph. She'd missed everything about him, his sleeping presence behind the closed door of his bedroom while she got ready for work in the mornings, his half-drunk mugs of old, cold, milky tea lying around the flat in the most unexpected places - she'd found one in the bathroom cabinet once -

his bare-footed padding around the flat, the packets of Marlboro stored al over the place like a squirrel's nuts, but most of al she just missed him being there.

She'd tried her hardest to put al that love stuff to the back of her mind. It was just sily. She didn't love Ralph — how could she love him? She didn't realy know him, she'd never kissed him, never slept with him — she was just fond of him. And he was just being sily, too, as sily as al those other boys, al those other 'I Love You's.

She was sure he'd realized how sily he'd been over the past couple of months, probably had a new posh, skinny girlfriend by now. And she'd got over her anger about the diary-reading business. It was good that Ralph had gone away, away from Almanac Road. It had given her time to put her mind into order and make sense of that night in Bayswater. If he'd stayed around she'd have been confused and bewildered, constantly comparing Ralph and Smith, wondering what to do. She'd have worried about the faling-off of her feelings towards Smith, the growing intensity of her love for Ralph. She might even have started to believe that Ralph was right, that they were supposed to be together and Smith wasn't her destiny.

Which, given the way things had been going between them for the last two months, was not quite such an outlandish theory.

Things weren't going wel. Things were, in fact, quite hideous. Smith had changed so much lately, since his weekend away in St Albans.

At first she thought maybe he was sulking, maybe he was jealous about her and Ralph having such a great weekend together, going out for
that
curry together, maybe he
was
just like al the other boys after al. But after a while she'd realized that he wasn't jealous, he wasn't sulking, but that he quite simply wasn't interested in her any more. And she didn't have the first idea what to do about it. He was no longer affectionate, no longer funny, he didn't make an effort, hadn't been out with her and her friends for two months, hadn't held her hand, taken her out for dinner, phoned her at work, nothing. Jem was wel aware that she didn't have very high expectations as far as men were concerned, she didn't demand much in the way of attention or romance, but this was ridiculous!

She'd tried to talk to him about it, tried to voice her concerns without coming across as insecure or paranoid, which she most definitely
wasn't,
but each time he'd reassure her that realy, he was fine, of course he was, he was just a bit tired, a bit stressed, a bit overworked, a bit preoccupied. And he'd apologize and stroke her hair absent-mindedly and that was that. She didn't like to go on about it because she knew from her own experience how trying that was, the incessant questioning: 'Are you al right? ... Are you
sure
you're al right? ... Why are you so quiet? ... What's the matter? ...

Is it me? ...' etc etc. She'd hated it and she refused to inflict it oh somebody else. Even if they quite patently
weren't
al right.

At first she'd been worried by Smith's change in attitude, alarmed, had spent hours agonizing over whal might be the problem. Boredom? Depression? Someone else? And then a couple of days ago she'd stopped thinking and stopped worrying and al of a sudden she'd stopped caring. And that was more worrying than anything. If she truly loved Smith, surely she'd stil care? No matter how awful he was, how cold, how distant? But she didn't.

Somewhere along the line, she realized with horror, they'd turned into one of those hideous middle-aged couples you see staring into space together in restaurants and pubs, seething with uncommunicated resentment and loathing, staying together for years on end, compromised to the nth degree, because neither one of them ever had the guts just to get up and walk out, one of those couples who just
don't care about each other any more.

Jem had tried to be positive about it; she knew that the early pheromone-induced passionate phase of a relationship was not a long-lived state of affairs and the fact that she and Smith had been living together from day one had probably hastened the whole process towards its inevitable conclusion a little, but stil, it had only been five months. Surely they were alowed a little more love-hued bliss than that? But it appeared not.

And now, Ralph was back. Ralph who
did
care about her. Lovely, lovely, lovely Ralph. Dearest, darling, gorgeous Ralph. It was the happiest she'd felt in weeks.

She wandered into her bedroom and kicked off her shoes.

There was a smal red envelope sitting on her bed, addressed to Miss Jemima Caterick, in Ralph's untidy handwriting. She leapt upon it and ripped it open. Inside

was a brightly coloured invitation on shiny colour-printer paper.

Ralph is about to be stinking rich. So come and celebrate at
Get drunk, dance, flirt, do whatever you want - I'm paying.

You can even have a look at my paintings if you like.

Galerie Dauvignon, 132 Ledbury Road, London Wll,
Friday 6March 8.30 onwards.

RSVP

Jem's spirits lifted substantialy. A party! How thriling! She could wear that lovely rose-printed dress with the skinny straps and al those little buttons down the back that she'd never had a chance to wear before. She'd be able to see Ralph's paintings, as wel, these amazing paintings that the press were raving about. There'd be dancing, she hadn't danced for ages — Smith didn't like dancing, of course, boring old git. But she'd dance anyway. With Ralph. She'd dance with Ralph. Sod Smith. Sod him.

She penned a reply and propped it up against Ralph's door.

Ten pound forty, mate.'

The cab driver held out his hand and peered up at Karl through the open window. Karl slowly ransacked the pockets of his jacket, his coat, his jeans, swaying ever so slightly in the cold, damp night air.

He eventualy

located his walet, licked the tips of his fingers witl a delicate pink tongue, and awkwardly puled out< twenty-pound note.

'Keep the change,' he slurred, turning heavily on his heel and weaving towards the front steps of numbei thirty-one. The cab driver eyed the twenty, eyed Karl, shook his head and drove away.

Karl lumbered precariously up the stone steps, left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot, leaning in towards the door to maintain balance, scraping his front-door key around the lock in clockwise and anti-clockwise circles before it finaly, more through luck than judgement, slid into the hole. The door opened heavily under his weight and took him somewhat by surprise. He closed the door gently behind him and surprised himself again when a loud slam echoed around the hal. He winced and put his fingers to his lips. Shhhhhhh!

He giggled and fel back against the door.

A smal pile of letters sat on the shelf in the hal. He picked them up between unwieldy fingers and his face puckered into an absurd mask of concentration as he screwed his eyes open and closed in an attempt to focus his two perfect fields of vision into one perfect field of vision and read the envelopes.

'Miss Shee Dickshon — ha! - shlag/ He tossed the top one away from him, towards the stairway leading to the first-floor flat. 'Miss Esh McNamara — huh! She's no' here, nah - she's fucking
gonel'

he shouted at the envelope. He fished in his inside pocket for a pen, removed the lid with his teeth and began to scrawl al over the front of the envelope:
'She's not fucking here - she's at her fucking
mother's
-
78 Towbridge Road, Potters Bar, Herts - send her
my fucking love.'

'Siobhan-fucking-McNamara, MishMcNamara, Mish Dickshon, Mish Dickshon, Siobhan.' Cheri's letters flew from his hands al over the carpet and up the stairs. He turned towards his front door in disgust and negotiated the lock, faling on to the floor of the hal, front first. Picking himself up, he noticed a red envelope on his doormat, handwritten, with no stamp.

He tore the envelope open, wobbling gently from side to side and stifling a dainty hiccup. He moved the letter within away from him and towards him until it made itself readable, squinting like an old man reading the
Times.
There was some handwriting scrawled on the back.

'...
listened to your shows
...
made me cry
...
live downstairs .
..

know lots of beautiful single women
...
thought you could do
with a good party
...
next Friday ... just a thought.
..
bring a
guest
...
champagne all night... just turn up .
..'

Karl smiled crookedly.

Free champagne, huh? He'd be there. What a nishe bloke, he thought to himself. What a nishe, nishe, nishe, nishe bloke. He smiled again, left his overcoat where it fel on the floor, stumbled into his bedroom and colapsed on top of his unmade bed and into a deep and instantaneous sleep.

Cheri watched Karl from her window, sliding into the front seat of his funny old black car and driving away down Almanac Road. She waited until he was out of view and then strode quickly and lightly to her front door and down the communal stairs, her cashmere-socked feet barely making a sound as she tiptoed across the floorboards.

She stopped outside Karl's door and quickly peered through the hal window, checking that he hadn't unexpectedly returned, before reaching into the back pocket of her jeans and taking out a screwdriver, a nail file and her expired American Express card.

Cheri's plan was starting to gather momentum. She'd had a most unexpected visitor the day before, one of the guys from the basement flat — not the good-looking one she'd had that drink with at Oriel just before Christmas, but the scruffy one - Ralph. He'd asked her for a favour, It was al a bit weird realy, and her first instinct had been to say no, but then Ralph had told her who else was going to be there and she'd thought about the journalist at the
Daily Mail
she'd phoned the day before, the one who said they'd be interested in her story, and she'd decided that it might be to her advantage to help out. And besides, he'd been realy quite sweet, that Ralph bloke, and such a nice smile.

So she'd said yes and now al she had to do was get into Karl's flat somehow to find what she needed. She knew it was possible. One of her old boyfriends had managed to get her door open a couple of years ago when she'd locked herself out. Al the doors in the house were the same, the original ones that had been put in during conversion, so the locks were probably the same, too.