The curtain parted and four young male dancers appeared, also in speckled pink and red. Into the centre of the floor they drew a large, covered object on wheels which they secured before moving back to join the girls in a dance of worship around it. The music became slowly louder and louder in a steady crescendo until the throbbing beat seemed to vibrate through the entire building and the strobe lighting became so wild that the eyes ached.
Then it stopped.
Blackness.
Silence.
A soft drum roll, faintly at first as the dark object in the centre of the room was slowly unveiled and they saw what it was. Around the room ran a cold shiver of fear as first the pale green light became visible, then the great glass-sided tank with the jellyfish floating lazily in its water.
Tim’s grip on his champagne glass tightened until it shattered between his fingers.
Dorothea buried her face against his shoulder, her whole body shaking. ‘Oh, God, how could they?’
Why he’d accepted the invitation to come to this party Tim no longer knew. He hated these crazy Chelsea parties at the best of times. This one was given by a visiting American film star who had just tried to revive his slipping fortunes by doing a guest appearance for the company; he might have known it would be more obnoxious even than usual. The star was at the microphone now, saying his few ill-chosen words and trying to coax his guests to begin dancing around the jellyfish tank. They’d not be switching the lights on again, he slurred in those world-famous syrupy tones; no, they’d let the jellyfish provide the illumination. So dance, everybody, dance! Or did you ass-holes just come here for the free drink?
To their credit, most of the guests kept well clear of the tank, though a couple of drunken sots began to toss in some of the empty champagne bottles, laying bets on how many times they could score a direct hit on a jellyfish.
It was sick, Tim thought in disgust.
Bloody sick.
‘You’re bleeding,’ Dorothea observed, noticing his hand.
He produced a white handkerchief which she wrapped over the wound. Her fingers were long and skilful, and he saw she’d given up painting her nails jellyfish red.
‘Careless of me,’ he said when she’d finished. ‘Both hands in bandages.’
‘What?’
His words were drowned again by the band and the restless chatter around them. A yard or two away a girl was having hysterics, screaming that she wanted to leave, she couldn’t stand jellyfish, everyone knew that, and she’d never forgive Charlie for bringing her here. On the far side of the room he spotted three other members of the Gulliver cast. They’d found themselves a haven near the drinks table and looked set for the night.
‘Careless of me!’ he yelled to Dorothea. ‘For Chrissake, let’s get some fresh air.’
Holding her close to him, he pushed through the crowd to the nearest door which opened into an alleyway at the side of the building. Outside they found it easier to breathe, despite the rotting garbage from overflowing dustbins.
‘Phew! That’s better!’ she exclaimed, smiling at him. She put her empty glass on a window ledge. ‘Not many here from Gulliver. It’s a dead loss.’
‘Not even Jacqui,’ he agreed.
‘Oh, Jacqui warned me she couldn’t make it. She and her soulmate are having a miserable time in their flat, dividing all the belongings between them. You heard they’d broken up?’
He nodded.
Tall, willowy Dorothea, he was thinking: the girl with the oval face and that cool Cheltenham manner who had seemed, when he first met her, such an improbable person to find on film location. She kept Jacqui in order and anyone in the crew who tried it on with her soon regretted it.
‘What’s he like?’ Tim asked.
‘Who?’ An incredulous little smile appeared around her lips.
‘The man Jacqui was living with.’
‘You don’t know?’ She laughed outright. ‘Oh, Tim — surely?’
‘No.’
‘Thought everyone knew. Jacqui’s gay. I only met the soulmate once. She’s quite nice but rather fat. Head of the English Department in a comprehensive. I was afraid she’d make a pass at me.’
‘And did she?’
‘What do you think?’ she retorted, teasing him. She looked towards the open door and the mob milling around inside, their faces sea-green in that jellyfish luminosity. ‘Want to go back in?’
He shook his head. ‘Do you?’
For a moment she gazed at him speculatively, then kissed him on the lips, making the most of it. ‘With two hands in bandages you’re quite defenceless and in my power,’ she mocked. The other couples in the alleyway took no notice of them. ‘It’s back to jellyfish on Friday, isn’t it? That lot in there are doing their End-of-the-World bit all right. I think, for you and me, the best plan would be to find a bed somewhere. My place?’
‘OK. Your place.’
Bloody hell, why not? he thought savagely. Sue passed fleetingly through his mind, but where was she now? And tomorrow they might all be dead.
Another couple emerged from the jellyfish madness of the party, both clutching champagne glasses. ‘So I said to her,’ the first man squeaked excitedly to his bearded companion, ‘I said, darling, tell me — how did you get into that dress, or is it sprayed on? She was furious. Can’t think why!’
Dorothea winked at Tim, then cuddled up to him, putting her hand through his arm.
‘First thing I’m going to do when we get there,’ she said in her most practical producer’s assistant voice, ‘is take a look at that cut in case you got any glass in it.’
18
As Roberta waited down in the village by the bus-stop, she regretted ever having mentioned to Frank that Jocelyn would be away all day. Not only was the rain trickling uncomfortably down the back of her neck; she also felt she was betraying Jocelyn who hated the very thought of strangers poking their noses into her lab when she wasn’t around.
Whatever Frank said, Roberta liked her job as a laboratory assistant. It was interesting; and, at nineteen, it gave her much more responsibility than she’d be likely to find in any other work. With her three A-levels, one of them in zoology, she could have gone on to university but chose not to. It had always been the lab practicals which had attracted her, not swotting over books.
She looked at her watch. The bus was late and the tree she was standing under didn’t offer much in the way of shelter. Well, a spot of rain wouldn’t harm anybody, though she could imagine what Frank would be saying by the time they had got soaked walking up the hill. She hoped at least he’d have sense enough to wear a raincoat, though she doubted it.
Why she bothered with him she didn’t know. He’d nagged at her for weeks to let him see inside the laboratory and she’d always refused till now. He’d glance around, make a few silly comments, touch things he shouldn’t, without even the vaguest idea of what he was looking at. Science and Frank didn’t live on the same planet. Perhaps that was what had drawn her to him in the first place: he was so different.
They had met at the sixth-form college where they had both been students. He was a tall, gangling, spotty boy with long untidy hair and a wild sense of fantasy, whereas she was down to earth, practical, and not too certain what he was on about half the time. He dressed like a tramp; she kept herself neat, nothing outrageous, and liked her vaguely-blonde hair cut short, which was more convenient for swimming. She’d taken Frank swimming once: he’d floundered about in the shallow end spouting poetry, and narrowly missed drowning. Now he was in his first year at university studying English literature, though as far as she could judge most of his time was spent consuming beer or moaning to a battered old guitar while waiting for the pubs to re-open. It wasn’t what she’d call work.