But the evening was already backed up like the runway at Heathrow. I was late, he was late, I was going to be even later getting to literary friend’s party, so I knocked the wine back like it was a shot of tequila and was outside in the street before I could say ‘where’s your wife?’, looking for another cab to sweep me down to Shaftesbury avenue.
Yet another cab and £5 later, I ended up walking.
Briskly.
Now, the coat I was wearing is just about warm enough for an hour’s seated journey in a draughty bus, but soon starts to feel like one woman’s answer to global warming when I actually have to move in it. So, between the plush fake fur and the rapidly necked glass of wine, and my heels which were clomping down the street like a Nazi March Past, I must have looked simply glowing and bristling with purpose as I walked, ran, walked, teetered, walked ran, all the way to Chinatown.
Inside, well…
Party amnesia, which I hsd been suffering from until that very second, vanishes, and I suddenly awake from the deep coma of benign love of humanity, standing in a room crammed with people, silently screaming – where in God’s name am I, who are you all, why did I come?
Luckily, literary friend is standing in the doorway with a bottle of Bolly talking to a fantastic woman, who is funny and sharp and clever and subversive, and also has the kind of chest that would make Nigella feel inadequate and stop men from ever watching your lips move. Actually forget men – who in any case were mostly standing around in clumps, riveted by each other – I was entranced, and just as riveted by the twins in all their cashmere clad, ten-past two glory.
I didn't even feel jealous - well not for more than about ten minutes. I mean. there’s no point (or maybe it’s precisely because of the points). It would be like meeting Madonna and whimpering because your leotard doesn’t divide you neatly into three Kraft Cheese slices. It just doesn’t, okay? That’s not you. Never will be. You’ve entered a different world of different beings and all you can do is salute in admiration.
Every now and again, someone would push past and Mary-Kate would brush against me, and it seemed as though each time I lifted my glass to my mouth my knuckles would inevitably brush against Ashley. It was like being in a goose down pillow fight. I was, quite simply, in a cocoon of bosoms, none of which belonged to me.
Forget what I said when I was reading Sorrows of an American, I get it, I finally get breasts… What I don’t know is why so many men deal with them as though they are balancing the pressure on the central heating,
Sadly, I also get pushed out of my comfort zone when a new girl arrives and I reluctantly have to cede my spot in the sun and go to the cold nether reaches of the room where, at least, there is food.
But darn it, Jeremy Paxman is standing in the the corner next to the sausages which I deeply resent.
I feel if you are a famous television personality, it really behoves you not to park yourself next to party food which the timid, monosyllabic mini-brains such as myself long to eat but are then afraid to approach lest they look like sycophants.
‘Oh a teeny chipolata and ketchup, how wonderfully retro and delicious, and… my goodness.. what a surprise, Jeremy, how are you darling, here’s my starter for ten…’
Only the brave and David Willets, one of our Pedantic Press authors, dared crest the hill, but Willets was dazzling him with book ideas and all I wanted was a sausage.
I watch wistfully from afar until I found literary friend gently blowing smoke into the blissfully smiling face of a historian who, even with his eyes closed in what can only be described as rapture, I recognised from last year’s party (I’m a loss to the Scotland Yard Line up with my powers of facial recall). He was one of the people who spoke in fluent Xhonsa and clicked a lot about Hungary while I thought, please, please, please, don’t ask me to comment intelligently.
I reintroduce myself and amazingly he remembers me from the previous year and not because I had a strong Scottish accent and guacamole on my nose (or at least, he failed to point either of these out). Instead we bond on our similar ages and the discovery that he had gone to the same primary school my kids attended (one way or another we chattering classes always get on to schools) and so I can only assume he too learned to go to the bathroom while wearing a big key around his neck on a ribbon.
I was so pleased to meet him I offered him a lift home in my taxi.
My new friend in his Van Morrison hat said that though this was very kind of me, he didn’t want to do the ‘Scotch fumble’ and had left his wallet at home.
‘I am Scottish you remember,’ I said, somewhat unnecessarily, given my diction.
And then, poor thing, he was embarrassed and left me to taxi home (mercifully hangover free thanks to all that good fizz) alone.
No wonder I’m on the ruddy shelf…
At all good branches of WH Smiths, Waterstones and Asda.
