lips to quieten Paul, held a fully-inflated balloon behind Jamie’s head and jabbed a sharp fingernail into the balloon’s rubbery flesh.
‘Jesus!’
Jamie dropped his drink and clamped his hand to his heart. Kirsty and Paul rocked with laughter.
‘That’s for leaving Heather and me to do all the hard work. Now, give us a beer.’
She stooped and kissed him and he handed her a lukewarm bottle.
Six hours later, Jamie was standing among a crowd of party-goers feeling queasy but still very happy. He’d long since lost count of how many bottles he’d drunk. He’d also lost the plastic trident that went with his devil’s costume, which consisted of a red T-shirt, red velvet trousers and a matching cloak, plus a pair of plastic horns strapped to his head. People kept asking him if he was feeling horny. He roamed the party, chatting and drinking and laughing and feeling…wonderful. He still couldn’t believe the flat was theirs. All evening, people had told him and Kirsty how lucky they were to find it. This guy called Jason, who ‘dabbled’ in property, told Jamie he’d made a very wise investment. He shook Jamie’s hand. ‘If you ever want to sell,’ he said, ‘I might know a few people.’
But Jamie didn’t care about investments, or property booms, or making a quick profit. He simply loved this flat. It had spirit. It had soul.
‘Soul!’ he shouted, holding his bottle aloft and squeezing between a sailor and James Bond. ‘That’s what we need.’ He bent over the iPod in its dock and found the track he wanted.
The first bars of ‘Get Up’ blared out, and Jamie danced off across the floorboards, ignoring the ground-out fag butts and puddles of spilt beer, looking for Kirsty. He banged into the doorframe on his way out of the room and grinned to himself.
Before finding his girlfriend, he came across Heather, standing outside the bathroom, talking to this guy in trendy glasses who Kirsty knew from somewhere or other. What was his name? Matthew? Or Luke? Something New Testament. Heather was dressed as a St Trinian schoolgirl and her friend was a vampire.
‘Have you seen Kirsty?’ Jamie asked.
Heather shook her head. ‘Last time I saw her she was talking to your neighbour, out the front.’
Jamie thanked her and went out through the front door of the flat and down the hall, which was crammed full of people he’d never seen before. He didn’t know if they were friends of Kirsty’s or gatecrashers. He didn’t really care. He caught sight of Kirsty, standing just inside the front door talking to an older man. He stopped for a second and looked at her in her Catwoman outfit. He wanted to drag her to the bedroom and do delicious things to her.
Pushing his way past a girl dressed as Morticia Addams, Jamie crept up behind Kirsty and blew gently on the back of her neck.
‘I know it’s you,’ she said, turning to give him a hug.
‘This is Brian,’ she said, introducing the man she was talking to. He was in his fifties, with a neatly-trimmed beard and black-framed designer glasses. He was one of the only people at the party who wasn’t in fancy dress. ‘He lives in the top flat.’
‘Hi. Pleased to meet you.’ The two men shook hands. ‘Do you live on your own?’
Brian shook his head. ‘Oh no. My wife, Linda, is here somewhere. Probably chatting up some young bloke, knowing her. This is a great party. I was really pleased to see another young couple move in. We need some more young blood round here. The prices put a lot of young people off.’
‘We were lucky,’ said Jamie.
Brian nodded. ‘I think you were. And I hope I’m not being presumptuous when I say I think we’re lucky to have you. It’s so important when you live in a small block of flats like this to get the right type of people, by which I mean people who are easy to get along with, who are easy-going and who believe you should live and let live. You both seem like you fit the bill, and I hope you won’t prove me wrong.’ Brian raised his bottle. ‘Welcome to Mount Pleasant Street.’
They stood in silence for a moment and looked out at the street. This could almost be a suburban town thirty or forty years ago, the roads were so quiet, the gardens so well-kept, the cars so shiny. But central London was only a ten-minute Tube journey away. They were close to