‘I’ve no idea what this is about, but do come in. Any friend of Pete’s is very welcome. What does the F stand for?’
Another handshake. Always shaking hands, these people. Next he’ll be giving me the wink and gun, thinks James.
‘I’m not his friend. It stands for “Fuck fakes”.’
Upstairs, Brenda Vickers peers between the vertical louvres of the ceiling-to-floor blind, along the canal with its lamp-lit concrete promenades and Paddington Basin’s indecisive mix of office and apartment blocks, towards a narrow chink of horizon. There is of course no comforting glimpse of distant hills or fields — this city, its peculiar breed of self-satisfied desolation, sprawls away for miles in every direction.
She steps back and glances at a full-length mirror, which frames her reflection as snugly as an open coffin. Boyish pants, a comfortable unwired bra that just barely escapes the category of sports bra, a physique not quite Jessica Ennis but unyielding, unforgiving and impossible to dress. Her body gives an impression of solid bigness, despite being neither broad nor especially tall. She can, after all — and frequently does as part of her on-off job — dead-lift a sizeable tree. She hates being in a crowded room.
The dress on the bed was last worn the last time she was told to wear a dress, perhaps at her graduation party. Her brother, who makes such choices effortlessly, has contributed an unshowy pendant that she doesn’t hate. She picks it up. She seems to have stopped sweating.
Her gift to him — he’s the birthday boy, after all — was a whittled sphere of scots pine the size of a tennis ball, with carved lines of latitude and longitude picked out in black, and a simple stand carved from the same wood. It had cost her one pound and ninety-five pence, for a fine-pointed pen.
‘What can you give the man who already holds the world in the palm of his hand?’ That was her prepared line, and it went down well. He frowned for an instant, but then twizzled the globe with delight and unhesitatingly put it on his mantelpiece beside a bronze knick-knack that he’d picked up in Marylebone for the price of a small car, after receiving his last bonus.
Brenda takes five deep breaths and reaches for the door. Her bedroom opens onto a mezzanine gallery above the double-height living space. A throng of about fifty people sips and babbles around a ridiculous ice sculpture, which depicts a naked muscleman wrestling a python. You are supposed to pour your drink into the man’s grimacing mouth, and then collect it when it dribbles, well-chilled, out of the snake’s mouth, or maybe out of the man’s dick — she isn’t sure whether Mike was joking about that and doesn’t intend to embarrass herself by trying it out. A three-piece funk band is playing some gentle openers. She walks down the open-tread staircase with a white-knuckled grip on the handrail, and tries to ignore the two-dozen faces that glance upwards.
Mike Vickers has a birthday party every two years (on the even years, he lines up a date). He sips his Chablis and casts an approving eye over proceedings. Now that Pete Walley has arrived, the only really significant people missing are Dan (a cousin’s wedding — who gets married in November?) and Mike’s colleague Mij, whose stunning and oddly familiar-looking wife he will once again not meet. Sly bastard, is Mij.
Pete is already standing on a chair, force-feeding the Laocoön (a custom order from hotandicy.co.uk, donated by Mike’s new boss, who tactfully declined his invitation) with a vivid red cocktail. There is a crackle of laughter. Brenda isn’t talking to anyone, but looks calm. James, Pete’s tramp, is behaving himself, sampling but not scoffing the nibbles and now eyeing up the place thoughtfully and sipping a bottle of beer.
He’s a similar age to Mike, taller, with stooped shoulders and a week’s untidy stubble. Kind of southern European complexion, but paler than he ought to be. You ain’t seen the southern sun for a while, kiddo. Jeans with one knee ripped (not by design) and a shabby cardigan that proclaims arty type. Didn’t get the memo about not being a student anymore. Mike feels an urge to talk to him, and meanders casually in his direction.
‘Do you like my sculpture?’ he asks, following James’ sullen gaze.
‘In a way.’
‘In what way?’
‘In that I’m glad the rich waste their money on tasteless, pointless crap. If they spent wisely I’d be more inclined to envy them.’
Nasal voice, well-spoken, hint of Brum. No doubt a disappointment to middle-class parents. Mike smiles. ‘You envy their wealth precisely because you believe it would enable you to accomplish greater things, greater good, but you would struggle to elaborate. Anyway, it’s not pointless: it’s a tribute. Laocoön is one of my heroes.’
The wastrel shoots him a critical glance. For a moment it looks like there might be some substance to his arty charade, but then his face slackens and his puffy-looking eyes drift off. He needs a bath, a shave, a hot meal and a good night’s sleep. Mike, on the other hand, needs to rescue Brenda, and politely excuses himself.
‘We won’t bite!’
It’s Maurice, a university acquaintance, usually tiresome, occasionally sincere — Mike always invites him because he looks flamboyant (this evening, purple silk and mascara) and talks a lot. He doesn’t know about Brenda, and his encouragements have a mocking edge.
‘Oh, but you will, Maurice,’ says Mike, feigning disapprobation and stepping between Brenda and the Oxford crowd. ‘You’re like an angler fish, dangling your little lamp.’ Maurice, whose face has filled out alarmingly and looks more like a pink puffer fish, stares at him open-mouthed.
‘That’s the kindest thing anyone’s ever said to me.’ The others laugh, and Mike guides Brenda away.
‘I’m going upstairs,’ she declares, quietly. Mike gently takes her by the shoulders.
‘Let’s look at you. You’re doing fine. Don’t go yet. I want to introduce you to some friends I think you’ll like. They run. One’s a triathlete.’ Brenda shakes her head.
‘I can’t. My mouth’s going weird. Just leave me alone.’ Mike sighs.
‘Alright. Just observe. I want a report on who’s genuine and who’s—’ he emits a small cough ‘—fake.’
It’s the very worst kind of party for an outsider — the kind with no other outsiders. These people, thinks James, punching out the mots justes in his mind, have harmonised their affluent conviviality to perfection. Nobody is even rude to him. As an opportunity to think bitter thoughts it could hardly be bettered, and he indulges.
The recent slow collapse of his self-belief, not from visible disappointments or external influences, but from an accumulation of internal failures — the insistent song of emptiness that plays in his mind — is neatly complemented by this evening’s outward humiliation. An authentic wastrel — yes, he really is wasting his life trying to do something for which he has no talent.
There is, he notices, one woman standing on her own, devouring chips from a miniature cone of newspaper — the latest droll canapé offering. Her dress doesn’t quite measure up to the general elegance: a plain navy number with a bit of lace on the upper arms that might be intended to conceal her formidable biceps, but only draws attention to them. She’s another outsider.
James is beginning to overheat, but he hasn’t washed for three days so the cardigan must stay on. As he goes for another cold beer, he catches the woman’s eye and sees a refreshing hostility in it. That’s more like it.
‘Quite a party,’ he says, momentarily revived by the slug of lager. ‘You look like you don’t know anyone either.’