4 August
Jack
I’d rather punch myself in the face than go to a dinner party at Laurie and Oscar’s tonight, especially since they’ve invited his brother as well. Another banker wanker. What are the odds? Sarah’s all but tattooed the time I need to be there on my head. Bring flowers, she said. I’ll take wine, she said. I think she’s been googling dinner-party etiquette.
She’s just sent me a text – Think of some good questions to ask Oscar’s brother tonight. I’m tempted to send something pissy back, but I just switched my phone off. I’m at work, I don’t have time for this shit.
I’m grateful to have playlists to draw up for the next seven days, and a meeting with the producer tabled for this afternoon to discuss a new quiz we’re thinking of introducing. Reaching for a biro, I make a note on my hand of the latest possible time I can leave and still scrape in on time. God knows I don’t want to be early.
Laurie
‘Are you sure it looks okay?’
I stand back with my hands on my hips and cast a critical eye over the dining table. Oscar slings his arm over my shoulders.
‘Looks fine to me,’ he says.
I was hoping for more fulsome praise than that; this is my first ever grown-up three-course dinner party, a far cry from pizza on our knees at Delancey Street. I wish I’d had the chance to just invite Sarah and Jack, a trial run before extending the invite out further. Not that I did, actually; it was only meant to be the four of us, but then Oscar invited his brother, Gerry, and his wife, Fliss, last weekend when we ran into them at Borough Market while buying artisan chocolate for the mousse. I know. Could I sound any more like a middle-class twat if I tried? Indulge me, this is my first dinner party and I’ve watched back-to-back episodes of Nigella snapping artisan chocolate into a pan while batting her eyelashes at the camera for weeks in preparation.
I’ve only met Oscar’s brother once before. All I can recall is that Gerry doesn’t seem to be much like his easy-going younger brother, and his poker-thin wife, Felicity, looks as if she exists on fresh air and Chanel No. 5. She reminds me of someone famous, I just can’t put my finger on who it is. Anyway, that’s how my cosy party of four became a scary party of six, and I’ve spent the whole day in the kitchen painstakingly following a complicated recipe for coq au vin. It’s no ordinary coq, either. This lucky bird was corn-fed and pampered and folded into waxy brown paper by a butcher, and I hope to God this is reflected in the taste because it was triple the cost of its shrink-wrapped supermarket brethren. I’ve whipped air into the chocolate mousse, tossed the salad, and now I’m gagging for a glass of wine.
‘Would it annoy you if I kissed your lipstick off?’
‘Yes.’
One of the perks of working on a teen magazine is the plethora of beauty samples that flood the office; teenage girls today clearly spend a hell of a lot more on cosmetics than I did a decade ago. Tonight I’m testing out a trendy new brand of lipstick; the case looked more like a space-age dildo than a lippy and while it doesn’t quite give the promised bee-stung look, the product is creamy and rich and makes me feel that tiny bit more confident.
Oscar looks momentarily crestfallen, but the sound of the buzzer cuts the conversation dead.
‘Someone’s here,’ I whisper, staring at him.
‘That is the general idea of a dinner party,’ he says. ‘Shall I get it or do you want to?’
I creep towards the door and peer through the peephole, hoping Sarah and Jack are first. I’m out of luck.
‘It’s your brother,’ I mouth, tiptoeing back to Oscar.
‘I take it that means I’m answering it?’ he asks.
‘I’ll go in the kitchen and you call me when they’re inside as if I didn’t know,’ I say, heading for the kitchen.
‘Can I ask why?’ he asks mildly.
I pause in the doorway. ‘So I don’t look over-eager?’ What I’m really thinking is that I want to neck a glass of wine for Dutch courage; my socially awkward streak is suddenly alive and kicking again.
I reach for my mobile as I pull the wine from the fridge and fire off a quick text to Sarah.
Hurry! G&F already here. Back-up required!
I check the coq au vin, and I’m pleased to report it looks quite a lot like the picture in the recipe book. Hey there, Jamie Oliver, my coq’s better than your coq. I’m laughing to myself as my phone vibrates, and I grab it quickly as I hear Oscar calling my name.
On my way, 5 mins max. Jack’s running late, be there when he can. Sorry. Don’t drink all the wine without me!
Five minutes. I can do that. Bloody Jack, Sarah was practically in tears right here in our kitchen last week after he’d missed another of their dates because he had to work late. And it’s going to get worse when he starts the new presenting job in a couple of weeks. Pretty soon the only way we’ll be able to keep up with Jack is to tune into his radio show. I shake off my annoyance and plunge the opened wine bottle into the ice bucket as I plaster a smile on my nearly bee-stung lips and head through to the lounge.
‘I don’t think I can hold off much longer without it drying up,’ I say. Sarah and I gaze down at the already slightly less impressive coq, then she looks at the clock and shakes her head.
‘I’m really sorry, Lu, he’s acting like a complete twat lately. He knows how important this is for you.’
Jack is more than an hour and a half late, and aside from a text to say he’d be here soon, just after Sarah arrived, it’s been radio silence.
‘Shall I text him too? He might be too scared to open your messages,’ I say, filling up her glass.
She shakes her head. ‘Don’t bother. Come on, let’s take this through and eat. It’s his loss.’
It might be better all round if Jack decides to swerve coming tonight; he’s already late enough to look horribly rude, and there’s every chance Sarah will knock his head off his shoulders.
It’s after ten, the coq was a triumph and Gerry isn’t so bad after a couple of drinks. Fliss is hideous – teetotal and a fucking vegetarian (not that I would have minded, but she never bloody said until I put a great big chicken limb in front of her! And it’s come to me who she reminds me of – Wallis Simpson, proper waspish). And Jack still isn’t here. Not only that, he hasn’t even called. Sarah’s so pissed off that she’s started to refer to him only as shitface while swigging more than her normal helping of wine, and poor Oscar is doing his best to defend him, even though Jack’s done nothing to earn such loyalty.
‘Chocolate mousse, anyone?’ I say loudly, to change the subject.
‘God, yes,’ Gerry groans as if I’ve offered him a blow job, at the same time as Fliss makes a hissing sound similar to the cry of the Wicked Witch of the West when Dorothy doused her in water. I look from one to the other, unsure what to do, when Sarah’s mobile starts to trill and we all stare at it expectantly. Over the course of the dinner Sarah’s gone from having it tucked under her bum for a sneaky check every now and then to having it in full view on Jack’s empty dinner plate. I think she might be making a point.
‘There we go,’ Oscar breathes, relieved. ‘Tell him it’s fine, Sarah, there’s food left if he hasn’t eaten.’
Her mobile rattles and bounces on Jack’s white china plate.
‘Personally, I wouldn’t dream of answering that.’ Fliss looks down her nose, full of haughty disdain. ‘Bloody cheek.’
Sarah looks at me, wavering and uncertain. ‘What shall I do?’
‘Get it,’ I say, mostly to piss Fliss off, and after a second Sarah grabs it and stabs at the button.
‘Balls. Missed it,’ she says, disappointment in her eyes even as she adds, ‘Serves him right, shitty shitface,’ and lays the phone back on Jack’s plate. ‘Let’s have dessert.’
As I push my chair back, Sarah’s phone rattles again to alert her to the fact that Jack has left her a message.
‘Odds-on he’s in a pub somewhere,’ Fliss says, even though she has no right to an opinion having never even met Jack.
‘He’ll be stuck at work.’ Gerry bats for Team Jack, God knows why – perhaps he dislikes his wife as much as I do.
Sarah picks up her phone. ‘Let’s see, shall we.’
A hush falls around the table and we can all hear the tinny voice informing Sarah that she has one new message in her inbox. She huffs and clicks again, and I cross my fingers under the table that Gerry’s on the money.
‘Hello, this is a message for Sarah,’ someone says, fast and loud, traces of an Australian accent. Sarah raises her eyes to mine, frowning at the unknown male voice. ‘I’m calling because this phone has fallen out of the pocket of a guy who’s just been involved in a serious road accident on Vauxhall Bridge Road. Your number comes up as the one he dials most often – we’re just waiting with him for the ambulance crew now. I thought you’d want to know as soon as possible. My name’s Luke, by the way. Let me know what to do with his phone when you can.’
Sarah’s already crying hot, panicked tears before the end of the message, and I drop to my knees beside her chair and take the phone from her shaking hands before she drops it.
‘What do I do, Laurie?’ She’s breathing too fast, clutching my hand. All of the colour has drained from her face; she can’t keep a limb still.
‘We go to him,’ I say, trying to keep my voice steady. ‘I’m calling a cab now, we’ll be there in a few minutes.’
‘What if he’s …’ She’s shaking so violently that her teeth chatter.
‘Don’t,’ I cut across her, my eyes nailed to hers because I need her to listen to me. ‘Don’t say it. Don’t even think it. It’s going to be okay. Let’s just get there first, you and me together, one step at a time.’
She nods, still dithering, trying to get a hold of herself. ‘You and me. One step at a time.’
I hug her, fast and fierce, and Oscar’s bleak eyes meet mine over her shoulder. I look away.