Ralph's Party (34 page)

A glance at the clock on the wal behind him told him it was only 7.30 p.m. Another hour to go. Again he paced the room. He drank more wine. He smoked a dozen cigarettes. 'You want we cal this exhibition "Study in Nicotine"?' Philippe had complained.

The caterers worked around him, placing artfuly designed platters of canapes on to white-clothed tables, Miniature Thai crabcakes festooned with sprigs of fresh coriander, dwarf sticks of satay with tiny little bowls of gloopy peanut sauce, diminutive pink bundles of prawn wrapped around baby butts of sugarcane, the smalest samosas Ralph had ever seen in his life, saucers of sweet chili sauce, hot chili sauce, chopped green chilis, minced red chilis and chili pickle. Ralph had taken a lot of care over the food order.

Two large black bins behind another table were 1 to brimming with ice and champagne and a young girl in a black skirt and smart white blouse was busy putting shiny glass flutes in rows on the table in front of her.

Philippe was fussing with the peonies, arranging them around the room in huge extravagant bouquets, humming quietly to himself as he went. He was the girliest heterosexual Ralph knew.

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 hel 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 fel into the toilet bowl. He puled up his lovely new trousers, tucked in his shirt, straightened his tie and mopped under his arms with some baled-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 al 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 al 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 galery 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, realy 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 theatricaly 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!'

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 al over her head with tiny little satin rosebuds, and wearing a pair of extremely sexy strappy sandals that fastened al 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 wholy 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 realy 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 finaly 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 0on Holand Road and puled up outside the galery, it was 9.30 p.m. and Smith and Jem had lost al interest in talking to each other.

They paid the driver, who may wel 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 pave ment for Smith to get his change.

Tm not staying late,' he muttered, tucking his walet 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 galery.

'Oh, al 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 smal 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 al,' 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 ful swing. Smith, Jem and Karl wove their way through the room, looking, respectively, for the toilet, Ralph and the champagne. Bloody hel, thought Jem, as they squeezed past bare backs, designer labels, skinny blondes, male models and fashion victims, Ralph realy 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, folowed 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 realy
were
a bunch of nobs. She could actualy feel Smith's bad mood increase as he folowed 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 al his supercool friends: 'Excuse me, do I know you?' She shuddered. She had to see him, to reassure herself that he was stil 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. Al his friends kept teling 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 ful of strangers and make conversation with people he didn't like. Life with Siobhan had been pure, domestic bliss.

He was stil 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 per-feet 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 fulfiling 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 folowers shadowed him as he headed Ralphwards.

Ralph was wearing an incredibly smart grey suit and had finaly 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 tal, 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 swalowed 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 tal, 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.

'Um, I think you al 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

-1 think you've met her, too, haven't you? Wel, isn't this a nice, neighbourly little gathering! Sorry about al these pretentious bloody Netting Hil trendies... didn't invite them... someone else's friends.

My real friends are probably stil in the pub...'

Ralph continued talking, but no one was listening.

Smith was swaying on the spot, his hand stil 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 finaly managed, in a rather unattractive squawk.

'Wel,' 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 smaler, and foolish and over-flowery. She felt unexpected and entirely uncaled-for tears wel up from her chest and breathed deeply, clinging on to Smith for dear life, while he stuttered manicaly about how much he liked Cheri's dress and how stunning she looked and what a pretty hair-do that was.