white jacket standing by a white table-clothed trestle table, pouring steaming red liquid into glasses, and his heart sinks even further. It was meant to be drunk when you were outside, frozen and numb-cheeked in some ski resort or other, when your taste buds were so bloody frozen that anything would taste good. Not for some chichi little drinks party in park-side East Sheen, with a thermostat that’s probably set at around 25 degrees Celsius. There’s a grainy film of something floating on the surface that hasn’t quite dissolved, and the smell of cloves which reminds Alex of fillings and drills. What he could really use is a Scotch.
‘Your favourite,’ Juliet grins at him, and Alex thinks it might be the first time this evening he’s seen a proper smile. Probably because she’s amused by his misery.
‘And yours.’
‘I don’t hate it as much as you. It’s seasonal, festive – mulled wine, mince pies and sausage rolls’. She lowers her voice: ‘Perhaps they’ll have Twiglets and cheese balls … oh and nibbles like cheese and pineapple and prawn vol-au-vents.’ Alex is almost in awe of how many hated words Juliet can cram into one sentence.
He follows Juliet towards the room where all the guests are gathered. A wall of noise hits them as they step through the doorway. It’s a familiar noise, a sort of phwar phwar phwarrring … interspersed with a few hohohos and hahahahahas, and a few eeeehuws and high pitched REALLYS and OH NOS and ABSOLUTELYS. It’s the tribal gathering sound of the professional southern middle-classes, where you’d struggle to find a regional accent, any residue of which would have been scrubbed from your tongue like a nasty dose of thrush, so that you could all be part of the same team. Being here meant you’d arrived. You’d made it. This was it . All one big club. There is something scarily similar about all the women – and the men, come to that. Perhaps it’s because they frequent the same hairdresser – he or she of the moment, or they shop for their clothes in packs and cheer each other on to buy the same sorts of styles. Their nail varnish is even the same colour, the big chunky gold jewellery with a preference for turquoise, or thick swags of pearls. They have chains and hearts and keys from Tiffany’s and jangly bracelets on slim, tanned wrists that were probably found in markets in Marrakesh or some other exotic location. Alex notices these things. Sometimes he just wishes his mind would flash up a computer-style warning saying: STOP – OUT OF MEMORY. The women are, mostly, pretty hot- looking. They put a lot of money and effort into keeping time at bay. Looking around the room there is a lot of black. A lot of that blonde-y, browny, streaky sort of hair, and teeth that have been whitened and straightened. There’s no room for imperfection any more, which results in a universal blandness. They’ve all got great tits; tits are the new black. He knows this because Juliet got herself a brand new pair and started a trend. He hadn’t been happy about it, but she’d insisted and now … well … actually he wasn’t unhappy about them any more. Like his beard, she’d done it as a surprise for his homecoming. More interesting to play with than a tattoo. And it was true, they did stay upright when she was flat on her back, unlike the previous fried eggs he’d got so used to. There is something niggling him though, and he isn’t sure yet what it is. That feeling of detachment is hovering around him. He is not a part of this – doesn’t want to be, never expected to be – and feels a growing sense of suffocation as he glances around the room at the familiar faces of their ‘friends’. These friends who know nothing about him, nothing about Juliet. It seems so fucking petty and pointless, but they’ve all got to play the game.
Juliet has melted into the fray and Alex knows what is expected of him. He must wear his social face; his approachable ‘aren’t I glad
‘Your favourite,’ Juliet grins at him, and Alex thinks it might be the first time this evening he’s seen a proper smile. Probably because she’s amused by his misery.
‘And yours.’
‘I don’t hate it as much as you. It’s seasonal, festive – mulled wine, mince pies and sausage rolls’. She lowers her voice: ‘Perhaps they’ll have Twiglets and cheese balls … oh and nibbles like cheese and pineapple and prawn vol-au-vents.’ Alex is almost in awe of how many hated words Juliet can cram into one sentence.
He follows Juliet towards the room where all the guests are gathered. A wall of noise hits them as they step through the doorway. It’s a familiar noise, a sort of phwar phwar phwarrring … interspersed with a few hohohos and hahahahahas, and a few eeeehuws and high pitched REALLYS and OH NOS and ABSOLUTELYS. It’s the tribal gathering sound of the professional southern middle-classes, where you’d struggle to find a regional accent, any residue of which would have been scrubbed from your tongue like a nasty dose of thrush, so that you could all be part of the same team. Being here meant you’d arrived. You’d made it. This was it . All one big club. There is something scarily similar about all the women – and the men, come to that. Perhaps it’s because they frequent the same hairdresser – he or she of the moment, or they shop for their clothes in packs and cheer each other on to buy the same sorts of styles. Their nail varnish is even the same colour, the big chunky gold jewellery with a preference for turquoise, or thick swags of pearls. They have chains and hearts and keys from Tiffany’s and jangly bracelets on slim, tanned wrists that were probably found in markets in Marrakesh or some other exotic location. Alex notices these things. Sometimes he just wishes his mind would flash up a computer-style warning saying: STOP – OUT OF MEMORY. The women are, mostly, pretty hot- looking. They put a lot of money and effort into keeping time at bay. Looking around the room there is a lot of black. A lot of that blonde-y, browny, streaky sort of hair, and teeth that have been whitened and straightened. There’s no room for imperfection any more, which results in a universal blandness. They’ve all got great tits; tits are the new black. He knows this because Juliet got herself a brand new pair and started a trend. He hadn’t been happy about it, but she’d insisted and now … well … actually he wasn’t unhappy about them any more. Like his beard, she’d done it as a surprise for his homecoming. More interesting to play with than a tattoo. And it was true, they did stay upright when she was flat on her back, unlike the previous fried eggs he’d got so used to. There is something niggling him though, and he isn’t sure yet what it is. That feeling of detachment is hovering around him. He is not a part of this – doesn’t want to be, never expected to be – and feels a growing sense of suffocation as he glances around the room at the familiar faces of their ‘friends’. These friends who know nothing about him, nothing about Juliet. It seems so fucking petty and pointless, but they’ve all got to play the game.
Juliet has melted into the fray and Alex knows what is expected of him. He must wear his social face; his approachable ‘aren’t I glad
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