‘There’s a lot of Kylie on this playlist.’ She laughs to herself and then points across to the buffet. ‘There’s a special doggy treat section. I had to put a load of signs around it in case people accidentally ate the biscuits themselves.’ The grin has barely left her face as she waves across to someone I don’t recognise. She turns back to me and says: ‘Have you seen the state of Nick?’
He’s in the corner chatting to three women. From what I can tell, he is the only person in fancy dress. He’s gone all-in, too – it’s not some cheap mask with scraggy jeans. He’s either way more talented than I realised, or he has a friend who’s a make-up artist. His face is covered with drawn-on flesh wounds, while the rest of his skin has a greyish tone. There are some sort of entrails hanging from underneath his ripped top.
‘I think he thought it was fancy dress,’ I say.
‘I think he wanted to dress up regardless,’ Karen replies with a smile.
‘Good point.’
Karen waves to someone else and then says she’ll catch up with me later. She hugs me one more time and then, as if on schedule, there is momentary pause in between tracks before Kylie’s ‘Spinning Around’ comes on. Karen does the half-walk, half-dance that people do when they’re on the way to drunkenness and disappears away to talk to other people.
I watch her, wondering how many people would come to a birthday party of mine. Definitely not this many. From feeling happy for her, I suddenly feel a little sorry for myself. I have Billy and, after that, I’m not too sure. Even when I find someone I like on, of all things, a dating app, it’s me who turns out to be the mental one.
I coax Billy over to the buffet and give him a couple of the doggy biscuits. He makes a mess of crumbs, which is more or less a given, and then trots back to socialise with his new friends. Even he’d have more attendees at a birthday party.
I follow him back and, before I know it, I’m chatting to the bloke whose French bulldog is dressed as a ninja turtle. I strongly suspect his biggest reason for having the dog is to try to pick up women. He’s youngish and hipstery; all beard, hair wax and no chance of ever buying a house. There’s a charm to him, though, and we’re soon banging on about the things all dog owners do. There’s an unspoken checklist – he or she? – age? – breed? – and then it’s on to bigger issues. He knows Karen because he used to work with her on a production line. He’s gone back to university since, but they are friends on Facebook and blah-di-blah-di-blah. These are the exact kinds of relationship I don’t have.
The music continues to scroll through hits mainly from the nineties as more people arrive. There are probably eighty or ninety people milling around now. Few are dancing but most seem to be drinking and chatting. It’s a Friday night and this is an alternative to pubs, clubs, or the organised bonfire displays. It seems the dogs are a popular attraction, too. Many people arrive, ditch their coats, and then head straight for the congregation of animals to say hello.
Billy is loving it all and there’s no question this is a better place for him than my flat would have been. The fireworks would’ve made it the worst evening of the year for him, but now, because of Karen, he’s having one of his best.
I go on a lap of the hall, trying to make it look as if I have friends and know how to be sociable. It amazes me that this is natural for some people. As I’m on my way around, I spot Vicky standing close to the buffet by herself. She’s tugging on the ring through her nose but nods and smiles when she sees me. There’s a moment in which it feels as if we’re both experiencing the same degree of awkwardness, but I amble over towards her. The music seems to have got louder, so I lean in to talk into her ear.
‘No baby tonight?’ I ask, although it’s largely stating the obvious.
‘Mum said she’d take her,’ Vicky replies. She pulls away momentarily and then angles in again. ‘I want to pay you back the money. I know what you said, but it doesn’t feel right.’
She doesn’t want to catch my eye, so I don’t force it. I touch her on the arm instead, to say I understand. ‘Whatever makes you happier,’ I reply. ‘But you don’t have to.’
Vicky is about to say something else when the music stops fleetingly between songs. It’s the difference between a DJ and a playlist and means that there’s almost always a drop in the volume of conversations, if only for a second. When the music returns, a shiver whispers along my spine. Elton John is singing about a woman packing her bags. It’s nine in the morning.
Vicky has been talking, but I’ve heard none of it.
‘Sorry, I’m not feeling well,’ I say. Or think I do. Everything is a bit of a blur and the spinning lights above are suddenly disorientating. The hall is as it was. People are chatting, drinking and dancing. The dogs have their own corner, although some are now settling down for a snooze. Zombie Nick is still surrounded by women. Karen is dancing with a man I’ve never met before. She’s swaying tipsily and laughing to herself. Nobody seems to have noticed that anything out of the ordinary has happened.
I drift through the crowd on autopilot until I’m close to the stage. There are two large speakers on either side, but I head towards the one at which Karen pointed. There’s a small table, half hidden by a curtain. Her phone is sitting on top, its garish purple case unmistakeable. There is a cable trailing away from the table but, instead of being plugged into Karen’s phone, it is now clipped into a small, plasticky MP3 player. It’s the type of thing that was once close to the height of technology but now sells for a tenner on a market stall. Karen’s phone screen is locked but the MP3 player has a photo of Elton on the front.
It feels as if someone has breathed down my neck, but, when I turn, there is nobody there. That sense of being watched eats away at me once more. It was there as I walked away from Chappie’s Café after I was supposed to meet whoever had put up the posters. I’ve felt it in the hallways of Hamilton House and it was there when I was trick or treating with Karen’s boys last weekend.
I pull myself up onto the stage and turn to take in the floor. The attendance is even more impressive from higher up. I never realised Karen knew so many people, though I recognise almost nobody. There’s no one identifiably out of place; nothing untoward… except, almost as if it was timed, a firework explodes into the sky beyond the glass doors at the back. A shower of shadow and light splays wide across the lawn and, in that second, there’s a flicker of movement, a shadow… probably nothing. It’s gone as soon as it was there. But the chill is back.
I clamber off the stage and work my way through the crowd, to the doors and onto the grass beyond. It’s colder than it was and I wrap my arms around myself. My breath spirals up and into the night sky. From behind, Elton’s tones are muffled and yet, somehow, that makes it more powerful. It feels like a dream; a memory.
The moon is shrouded by cloud, leaving everything doused in dark or dim, vague shadows. It’s in my periphery that I see another glimmer of movement. A ghost in the night. I follow it over towards the play park. For a moment, I feel weak at the knees, but then I realise the ground is covered with the springy, spongey material that coats all playgrounds nowadays. It’s like walking on a trampoline as I bob across the surface, searching for the shadow that’s no longer there. I can barely hear Karen’s music any longer.
‘Hello…?’
My voice echoes into the night without reply, but my heart leaps as a rocket fizzes high above the houses beyond, exploding into blue and purple droplets. The boom comes a fraction of a second later and then it all dissolves into nothingness, as if it was never there. I’ve been holding my breath and puff a thick, chilly cloud into the dark.