for seven just to be sure.’
She grimaces. ‘I really hope Jack remembers.’
She doesn’t add ‘this time’. But I think both of our thoughts turn back to that other night a few months back, and I send up a silent hope that tonight will be memorable for all the right reasons.
Jack
I’m pretty sure Sarah is expecting me to be late. I can’t seem to win with her any more, despite my almost-constant apologies. She banged on and on about me finding a job, and now I have one again she’s on at me because I’m always at work. It’s not as if it matters whether or not I’m there for the big jazz-hands surprise when Oscar arrives at his party. Who has those anyway? I thought they were the domain of American sit-coms. Sarah’s perfectly able to manage the Spotify playlist without me, and I’m pretty certain I don’t feature on Oscar’s ‘it’s not a party until you’re here’ list. That’s okay. He wouldn’t feature on mine, either.
But despite all that, for some reason I’m here just about on time. I can see the gracious terraced house they live in as I turn the corner on to their road. My breath mists on the cold air in front of me, but still I drag my feet to make the most of the last few minutes before I have to go inside and pretend to like his braying friends. Or their braying friends, I suppose I should call them, seeing as he and Laurie are joined at the hip these days. I sometimes think she would have been better off hooking up with Billy. At least he’s a laugh, and he doesn’t pretend to be something he’s not. Every now and then Sarah and Laurie drag us into the hell of a double date, where they laugh like sisters and we make civil chat like neighbours who don’t especially care for each other. Not that we could ever be neighbours, because he lives in Wankerville and I live in Stockwell. And whatever world we live in, we’re just not similar enough to be friends. The only thing we have in common is Laurie, and she’s becoming more like him and less like us by the day.
I’m outside the house now. I consider walking straight past, but Laurie is framed in the open doorway welcoming someone I don’t recognize, and she spots me and half raises her hand in greeting. I loiter until her guest’s gone inside, then I saunter up and try for a grin.
‘Lu.’
‘Jack. You made it.’
She heroically resists looking at her watch, and I try, and fail, not to look at the starfish nestled between her collarbones. Her fingers move to cover it, as if she fears I might fly into a hulk-rage and rip it from her neck again.
‘You look nice,’ I say.
She glances down at her dress as if she hasn’t seen it before. It’s an unusual style on her; black and vintage-looking with blue piping and a skirt that flips around her knees. It takes me back to Barnes Common, to drinking beer in the sunshine and riding the Ferris wheel.
‘Thank you,’ she says, a wavering, uncertain smile on her lips as she brushes a kiss against my cheek. ‘Come through. Sarah’s in the kitchen.’ She leads me across the tiled lobby to their door. ‘She’s made rum punch.’
‘Has she put too much rum in?’
Her laughter over her shoulder jolts me; it’s the first time she has genuinely laughed at anything I’ve said in a long time. ‘Of course she has.’
We pass through groups of people I mostly don’t recognize and a few I do, including Oscar’s florid brother, who’s name escapes me, and his wife, who looks like she sucks whole lemons for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Sarah and I met them on Boxing Day at a pub not far from here. True to form, Oscar had hired a room for a Christmas get-together – because why mix with the riff-raff in the bar when you can kill the mood by putting too few people in too large a room?
Oscar’s brother pumps my hand as I pass. ‘Good to see you looking well, fella,’ he says, and to give him his due I recall that he’s not all that grim. I can’t say the same for his wife. She looks as if her pencil-thin smile actually hurts her face and her narrowed eyes tell me to keep on moving along. Fine. I wasn’t planning on talking