It isn’t necessarily possible to calculate when (or even if) the exact moment of crossover will occur. For years scientists have disagreed, if amiably, about the finer points of the sequence.
You arrive at the party a picture of engine-idling sobriety, the console’s lights dimly lit by caffeine. As a committed believer that the show itself should provide the soundtrack, the stimulation, there’s no point in pre-over-egging it. Newspaper articles concerning the volume of people drinking Tesco’s vodka at home before the night ‘kicks off’. And then a miniature shudder at the idea that football terminology should have been allowed to leak into something as wholesome as a house party.
A party’s precise dramatic possibilities turn mostly on the players, of course, though a Scottish castle or Monaco beachfront would have been nice additional dimensions. To this end, arriving as something of a blow-in from the social peripheries only heightens the need to make publicly sound alcohol choices. Tins of wife-beater are a no-no, for obvious reasons – overstating your hedonistic game plan with a plastic bag and a five pound four-pack might have worked at 17, but at 38 the headroom remains in deftly staged choices, poured with at least a modicum of élan. Real ale? In a beard-strewn pub a fine thing, but it’s not a sharing drink and this, this, is a party.
Sally, whose take on burlesque is a disappointing combination of the mostly clothed and chansons that make ‘Gloomy Sunday’ sound like Los del Río, opens the door. Peering past her, you can see people of a certain confidence bobbing and swelling within the room beyond. There’s that almost tactile challenge, it’s always like this, its precise vectors carved by the loud physical declarations about a new fashion collection, art show or an impossibly self-referential DJ mix you haven’t heard. A full-throated challenge, to find some room among this lot – but oh, beautiful people do make the competition worth it all.
‘I’ve brought a bottle of white?’
Not strictly speaking a question, but you’re still finding your feet. Sally nods and smiles, inverting what you recall of her most recent stage appearance. Her face motions that there’s a kitchen. This being the blasted east of any European city, the kitchen is a series of pop-up plywood afterthoughts, a tiny lacuna of food preparation in an off-white industrial space. Nagging, shameful memories that the kitchen in your family home was tiled with folksy scenes of harvest-time wheat sheaves momentarily surface. Inner blanching, mouth wider, regain that edgy profile; swerve through the crowd with a smile that says, ‘Look at me… I know where the kitchen is.’
In just a few steps, we move from London industrial heritage through Italo-disco to a ship’s galley or an under-budgeted TV-set version of same. True, the beards are adding to the seafaring vibe back here and though your attention is briefly taken by scanning the artsy surfaces for glasses or a bottle opener, the thing has just happened again. For this is the raised and tempered ground, the town’s cobbled square, that hill where the sacrifices are staged and the sun always looks most beautiful just before night-break.
The brain, its computational power revered by scientists, psychologists and physicists alike, does that thing where it conjures at least five delectably apt names for the beautiful girl who’s just announced that she too is hunting for the bottle opener. Tasmin, Verunka, Sophie, Natalya, the number 9 – let us reel on the spot while central casting gets busy in the frontal lobe.
At this point, the philosophical chemistry is reasonably well understood. Free will gloriously undermined and overpowered by ethanolic determinism, combining to produce powerful pulses of ambivalently held beliefs. Then a sudden, carefree alacrity for the unfamiliar new forms perceived through the lenses of your lips. The point is that more things than there were, suddenly now are, without the physical numbers changing themselves, you see? Boom! There she was.
And really, who cares about reality when you can be both actor and audience in this slipping unto a new world? Sure, it wouldn’t pass muster in even the lowliest regional centre of academe, and yet you’re sure you can feel the edges of a discovery. The overwhelming nexus of subtly applied make-up, impossible clothing patterns, jewellery bearing messages from a thousand judicious, tiny, delightful choices. Suddenly, the light seems so very bright.
In an admirable piece of parallel processing, the remainder of your consciousness tries to turn this communal endeavour into a low-level 1950s musico-theatrical scene. The audience settles in, as the cast unknowingly elevate tiny tasks into the very dance of discernment, luck and love. It’s a slow reveal but with lots of zippy moments.
For this is hallowed territory. Forget the dance floor, everyone knows the real magic happens in the kitchen at parties. Here it is that we will unconsciously rehearse the kitchen rituals that must surely follow once Tasmin/Verunka/Sophie/Natalya/‘9’ joins your forces in a different kind of hallowed public place, at a later time. It’s only 25 seconds into this, your relationship, and you are already demonstrating an ability with glass cleaning that will mark you out as a potential mate of some distinction. And look: as per the prophecy, the bottle opener is located, and the most powerful moment of all is upon us. The wine will be opened in public, great love established and proclaimed. Without corking, without tears, effortfully effortless.
‘What did you say your name was?’