What a minefield this party is. Joshie has no idea! Well, obviously!
I’m trying to remember what I’ve said to who (to whom??) about what. Who I’m friends with. (Whom I’m friends with? No, Saskia, that’s not right). Best thing I can do is keep smiling and talk about the weather.
Joshie has done a fabulous job, I have to give him that. The house looks beautiful. I’m going to miss it – I can’t even tell you. I’ve put so much love into this place. He hired a firm of caterers, and they have made nibbles to die for. In our kitchen! Apparently, they just show up with their ingredients, make all this fabulous food, clear up after themselves. I’m sure it cost a fortune.
He has the three latest Farmer Giles runners – I forget their names, two boys and a girl. All way too drippy to make an impact in the industry IMO – acting as waiters, hovering with trays of champagne and glasses of fizzy water. Not that anyone is drinking the water, haha! Our parties are notoriously boozy. The day after is always one long parade of people coming to collect their cars because they got too drunk to drive home. Usually, I just hide upstairs and pretend I don’t see them because I’m never at my sparkly best with a hangover.
And hangovers become far worse when you’re forty blah blah, let me tell you that. God, what am I really now? Forty-three? Forty-four in a few days. It doesn’t bear thinking about. And I try not to think about it, in case I accidentally give myself away. Joshie knows, of course. Robbie has never asked, so I’m keeping quiet. You’re as old as you feel. Or, at least, as old as other people think you are. Although I have started to wish lately that I’d only knocked off two years instead of five all those decades ago. I’d much rather people thought I looked good for my age than that I was a bit ropey for thirty-eight. Still, nothing I can do about it now. Imagine the field day if I came clean!
I’m avoiding Robbie as much as I can, without it looking impolite. I always do at these things – and he does the same – hence our reputation for disliking each other. It gives me a buzz, though, to know he’s in my house. It always perks our sex up for a bit after we’ve been at one of these dos together. Not that it needs perking up, you understand, but a bit of added spice never hurt anyone, did it? Robbie likes to tell me how he couldn’t take his eyes off me, how much he wanted to have me there and then and sod the consequences.
I feed Paula a bit more Robbie and Samantha ‘gossip’. She laps up the stuff about him getting bored of her, and I wonder for a moment whether she’s thinking of pretending it never happened. Letting him off the hook, when he doesn’t even know he’s been caught. She’s made of stronger stuff, though, I think. She’s on a mission to reclaim her life.
Jez wasn’t invited, by the way. It’s pretty much considered the worst faux pas on any show – but especially a long-running one with a regular cast – to invite all the players along to something but leave out one person. It’s as if the rest of us have signed a secret pledge, though. No one has mentioned the party to him, and no one will talk about it in front of him on Monday. It’ll be as if it never happened. He’s too much of a loose cannon. He could start a fight in a nunnery (although, to be fair, some of those nuns can be quite feisty, haha!) and I didn’t want anyone to ruin my night.
It’s fabulous, it really is. All my friends gathered under one roof to celebrate my birthday. So much love. And it’ll be the last time, I know that. I’m sure Robbie and I will have spectacular parties in the flat, don’t get me wrong. I fully intend to make it the place everyone wants to be. But we won’t have the space or the garden. Not for a while, anyway. It won’t be the same.
So I just need to enjoy this last hurrah. Before we blow everyone’s worlds apart.
I’m still out in the garden, now chatting to Grace, wife of David (Farmer Giles himself), about baking – a subject I know nothing about and have no opinion on, but she seems to find it fascinating – when I hear a shout coming from inside, followed by a mix of laughter and gasps. There’s a tangible change in the atmosphere and I know, I just know, something has happened.
‘Let me just go and see what’s going on,’ I say to Grace, glad of the excuse to get away, truthfully.
I don’t know what it is I expect to find. Everyone turns towards me as I walk in. It’s as if everything is in slow motion. Like in a Western when the piano player lowers the lid and everybody swivels around to stare at the stranger who’s just strolled in.
I instinctively look for Robbie in the crowd. He’s standing at the door to Joshie’s study, his face a mix of disbelief and anger.
I step further into the room, push my way through the gathered crowd, in an effort to see what’s going on.