I dash down the stairs, one foot in front of another, apologising to the people who are queueing for the bathroom or simply chatting, as they have to swiftly move out of my path. I take stock of the scene and instantly surmise that Simon, shamefully drunk, has smashed Connie’s French porcelain table lamp. I’m overwhelmed by a simultaneous sense of protectiveness and powerlessness and for a moment I can’t move, so I watch the scene from the elevated position, two or three steps up the staircase.
Then fury seizes me. Why can’t he just behave like everyone else?
The lamp was on the hall console, pride of place. It’s eye-catching and Connie likes to tell the story of her great-grandfather living in Paris as a young man. He worked backstage at a theatre but apparently had access to all the artists, writers and philosophers of the time; he used to drink with them in cafés and bars on the Left Bank. An actress had gifted the lamp to him in 1920, the year it was made. It held sentimental value then, now it has that in spades, plus a substantial price tag attached. Not that Connie would ever sell it; she just had it valued for insurance purposes. The lamp was the only thing her great-grandfather brought home and Connie had worked quite hard to ensure that it was passed to her and not any of her cousins or three sisters. I’m not into antiques but I’ve always admired the lamp. It was designed in the Egyptian taste that was popular during the roaring twenties. It was decorated with fluting and had gilded panther heads on either side. Now, it lies in four big pieces, at first count I can see that there are about ten smaller pieces scattered about. It’s irreparable.
I don’t imagine Simon caused this chaos deliberately, but it was careless in the extreme. He’s apologising loudly although in an aggressive, unconvincing way that really means he thinks Connie is to blame for putting her precious, sentimentally valuable heirloom on a console where people are partying. Guests are crowding around, ghouls. Luke is thoughtfully trying to smooth things over, he takes Simon’s arm and tries to guide him somewhere private, but Simon pushes him away. Simon is pale, his temple is pulsing, as though something is beating at him from the inside. ‘I don’t need your help. This is your fault. If you hadn’t stuck your nose in. I was just trying to get away from you,’ he sneers. There’s an edge to his voice, a layer of meaning that isn’t lost on Luke, who keeps his jaw clenched shut, he’s determined that nothing he’ll regret will escape. He looks away hurt, beat. Simon looks furious, hostile. Something is going to happen, something already has.
Connie pushes through the onlookers. Seeing the smashed lamp, her face crumples like a used tissue, she turns grey. I feel so sad for her. I’m sorry but powerless. It’s done. Ever the perfect hostess, in a loud, calm voice she tells everyone to step back. ‘I don’t want any cut feet. The important thing is no one is hurt.’
‘Connie, I am so sorry, I—’ I break off. She’s holding her hand up to silence me. I don’t think she can bear to hear a word from anyone right now, least of all me. She smiles up at me. It’s forced and as fragile as the gorgeous lamp.
‘This isn’t your fault Daisy, is it?’
Suddenly I feel exhausted. Bone weary. Exhaustion has pressed its weight on me all day, for many days, for weeks. A choking wad of fatigue is layered upon my sense of responsibility. Layers and layers of dreadful things threaten to bury me. Disappointment, cluelessness, frustration. I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. The space in my mouth swells to stupid proportions. My sister Rose silently passes me my handbag. I head to the door, pulling on Simon’s sleeve so he has to follow me.
Once we are outside and at the end of the path I hear the music start up again. I glare at Simon. He shrugs and mutters, ‘Sorry.’ But he’s only as sorry as a little boy caught with his hand in a biscuit tin. Not very, and confident that the misdemeanour will be forgiven because I always forgive him. I’m stunned when he reveals a bottle of wine that he’s lifted.
‘How did you manage that? Oh, never mind…’ It infuriates me that while he sometimes seems incapable of putting on matching socks, he’s always astute and wily enough to keep his alcohol flow constant.
‘Do you want some?’ He offers me the bottle.
‘No.’ Then, ‘Oh give it here.’ I need to take a swig. I take a couple of glugs but hand it back to him because I remember we have the car with us, I have to drive. I wish I had the courage to throw the bottle away, but I don’t. For one thing I don’t want to be responsible for broken glass outside Connie’s house and secondly, I can’t face the scene that would inevitably occur if I did. ‘Come on, let’s go home.’
We are parked two or three streets away. We walk in silence. Simon continues to drink from the bottle but not with as much gusto as I expected. He looks pensive, borderline repentant. I once read that family and friends of functioning alcoholics are advised to try to talk to them when they are hungover. I’ve read a lot on the subject, some of it is contradictory. Damned internet. I understand that there’s no point in talking to him if he’s drunk, even if I do extract promises from him to change, he won’t remember them in the morning. I know this is true, through experience, so I stay silent.
As we walk to the car we pass a pub. People are spilt out onto the pavement. The night is almost unbearably hot. The sort of heat that makes people wild. Everyone looks flushed, sweaty. Simon sways and stumbles next to me but there are plenty of other people outside the pub who are drunk too, so we go unnoticed. This disgusts me and, simultaneously, is a source of relief. It disgusts me because I wonder how in this society – where binge drinking is normalised and being inebriated is seen as funny, friendly, the social norm, and abstaining is seen as dull, pious and a bit odd – how I will ever get him to stop drinking. And it’s a source of relief because I simply don’t know how much more shame I can shoulder tonight. It’s better for me that he blends in.
‘Do you remember that we met at a party exactly like that, Connie and Luke’s first wedding anniversary party?’ I ask him.
‘Of course I do,’ he mutters sulkily.
I don’t know what else to say. Was it there then? This problem. Was it hibernating? Lurking? How would I have been able to tell? We all drank so much back then, too much. You have to be ballsy to not drink. Confident, assured, so certain, and few of us are that. A lot of people pressure each other into drinking because they worry that the sober member of the gang will remember just how crazy the night before was. Drink is marketed as something fun, sexy, magical. The very word intoxicated is such a beautiful word and yet—
‘I feel sick,’ Simon turns his head and a train of hot vomit pours from him. He straightens, wipes his mouth and then takes another swig from the wine bottle. It’s far from beautiful.
The sky darkens, becomes more solid, as though someone had dropped a blind. The clouds ooze and billow, morphing into a single homogenous mass. The evening is cast in a shadowy, deep, deep greyness. A storm is threatening, there is imminent thunder in the air.
When I first met him, he was like a green stalk pushing up through the dull earth. Or maybe a firework exploding in the black sky. He was promise, cleanliness, excitement. He was everything. I search my mind but conclude that honestly, I had no idea that Simon would take this path. He did not drink any more or less than the rest of us, he just carried on while the rest of us eased off. Some people make snap judgements about others, I don’t. It’s not that I’m wise or considered. It’s more that I’ve never had the self-assurance to trust my gut. The thing about people is that it takes years, and years, and years to know them. Really know them. Because we hide things, all of us, all the time. We’re ashamed, cautious or secretive. Sometimes, we just have trust issues and feel people need to earn the right to knowledge about our true selves. We don’t gift it generously. And even when you finally think you know someone, something changes. We can’t know each other. It’s a fool’s game trying to.