She ordered a taxi and mixed them a gin and tonic. The plan was to sit listening to music - Sara's choice - until the taxi arrived. Nathan hated the Cranberries.
He walked to the bathroom, locking the door behind him.
Faintly embarrassed by his own nervousness, he ran the taps just to make a noise. Then he removed from his pocket a little Ziploc bag containing four grammes of cocaine in four paper wraps. He'd cleaned out his savings account to buy it. The supplier was Howard, the grey-haired ex-hack who produced The Mark Derbyshire Solution.
Nathan racked up two fat lines on the cistern, then took the little pewter snorting spoon he'd bought from a now-closed head shop in Cornwall one good summer that seemed a million years ago, and he snorted back, crisply and efficiently. Then he stood straight, looking at the ceiling, sniffing. His snot tasted chemical.
He smiled with joy at the memory of it and knew it was working already.
He tucked the spoon into one pocket and the wraps into another, opened the bathroom door and walked out, sniffing.
In her party dress, Sara stood alone in the centre of the room, one hand cupping an elbow, the other holding a long glass of gin and tonic. As if she were the host and waiting for the party to begin.
At the railway station, they queued for tickets. There were twenty minutes to kill. They stopped for a drink at the generic railway bar.
Nathan visited the lavatory. Then they hurried to catch the train. It sat on a wintry platform. They boarded and sat without speaking, Sara staring - apparently sombre - at her blank-eyed reflection in the train window, and through it to the passengers on the platform who passed spectrally by.
Nathan said, 'Christ. I'd kill for a cigarette.'
She gave him the look.
'Come on,' he said. 'Just one night. It's party nerves.'
She allowed herself an expression of benevolent radiance. 'Go on.
It's only one night.'
It's only cancer, he thought, producing a packet of Marlboro Lights from his coat pocket; one of four he'd bought to last him a long evening.
He stood between the carriages of the juddering train, blowing smoke out the window.
Half an hour later, they pulled up to Sutton Parkway. It was little more than a dark, astringently cold concrete platform.
Nathan gathered himself, saddened a little to know the best part of Sara's evening, the anticipation, was nearly over. Almost certainly, from now on, the evening would only get worse.
Outside the station, they caught a minicab.
Nathan paid the driver and the minicab pulled away, its tail lights smudged and indistinct in the billowing white exhaust.
Their party shoes scratched on the cold gravel of the long driveway.
From inside the big house came a faint, muffled, repetitive boom; the windows vibrated with it.
Mark Derbyshire had built this mansion in the late seventies, when he could still afford it. At the rear was a helicopter landing pad, long since overgrown.
Nathan offered Sara his elbow and together they approached the door. It was answered by a balding man dressed as a butler; Nathan hoped he'd been hired for the evening.
Sara removed her coat, shrugging it from her narrow white shoulders in a way that made him remember, for a moment, why he'd once believed himself to be in love with her.
The magnolia hall was hung with gold and silver discs from forgotten bands and singers whose records Mark Derbyshire had once helped to climb the charts. And there were many framed eight by tens. In them a younger and thinner Mark Derbyshire - but with the same neatly trimmed beard, the same look of jovial malice - placed his arm round the shoulder of one squirming celebrity or other: a young Madonna was there, and David Bowie showed his David Bowie teeth. Elton John looked frumpy and unhappy in a straw boater and comedy spectacles. The photographs made Nathan melancholy.
Sara said, 'Shall we?' and - feeling for a moment like Cary Grant -- he led her inside the double door into the ballroom.
At the far end, the wedding DJ stood at his mixing desk. A few guests, mostly young local girls, were dancing.
Sara tugged his elbow.
'What?'
'Celebrity count?'
'It's early days. It's not even nine.'
She looked at him, trustingly. They pushed and 'excuse-me'd and danced round the loose crowd to get to the drinks table. It was a long trestle, behind which stood six young men in burgundy shirts, pouring drinks.
Nathan surveyed the party, holding a gin and tonic. He barely knew anyone - certainly nobody to whom he felt inclined to introduce Sara. He wondered what on earth they could find to talk about until it was time for her to go home disappointed.
They stared at the party and into their drinks. Nathan tried not to look at the senior managers -- whom he regarded with contempt for their black suits and their big, old-man ears and their stupid fucking cigars.
He made an effort to point out colleagues whose names he might have mentioned in passing, but Sara wasn't really interested; she wanted to see, and be introduced to, celebrities. But no real celebrity had stepped over Mark Derbyshire's threshold since Margaret Thatcher was in power.
Eventually, Howard strolled past. Although to Nathan he was obviously fucked out of his mind, he carried a certain louche charm, with his curly grey-white hair, his unlatched bow-tie. Nathan grabbed his elbow.
'Howard! Mate! Have you met Sara?'
Howard had not met Sara.
Shaking her hand, he glanced at her creamy decolletage with an expression that resembled sorrow. Then he locked eyes with her.
Howard had pale Icelandic eyes and they shone like a missile guidance system.
Nathan said, 'Tell her about some of the people you've worked with.'
'I'm sure she's got better things to do than listen to my war stories.'
'The Rolling Stones,' said Nathan, not without desperation. 'The Beatles. Spandau Ballet.'
'Spandau Ballet!' said Sara.
And that was it. She was happy.
Nathan hung around for a while, but soon it became clear he was no longer required. He wandered off to get another drink, then followed the chlorine tang towards the indoor swimming pool.
The atmosphere round the pool was excitingly muted and full of potential. Nathan leaned against the damp wall and stared through the steamy glass ceiling at the pin-sharp December sky. He recognized none of the constellations and for a moment fantasized that he'd entered a deeply foreign country. He felt good.
In the corner was Mark Derbyshire. He was engaged in restrained conversation with a big, shambling, shaggy-haired man in crumpled dinner jacket and an Hawaiian shirt. The shambling man seemed to be controlling the conversation: Mark Derbyshire looked diminished, clutching his glass of wine in one hairy-backed hand, nodding along, glancing left and right.
Mark spotted Nathan and rolled his eyes with relief, beckoning Nathan over.
'Nathan. You have to meet this guy.'
The shambling man turned. And for the second time in his life, Nathan reached out to shake Bob's hand.
'Mate,' he said, recognizing Nathan. 'Good to see you.'
Mark said, 'You know this guy?'
Nathan said, 'Kind of.'
Bob said, 'From way back. How are you? You're looking a bit more prosperous.'
Nathan looked down at his suit, still unpaid for. 'Well. Y'know.'
He caught Mark Derbyshire's confused, malevolent little eyes.
Bob explained to Mark, 'He was a bit of a hippie when I knew him.'
And Nathan protested: 'I don't know about that'
'Bit of a new age traveller,' said Bob. 'All patchouli and ganja.'