He looked at me then, with a soft smile, and rubbed my hand. ‘We won’t change. But you can’t talk about her like that anymore. You need to see this for what it is. I’m not abandoning you. I’m not your dad – this is just what happens in life.’ He gave me a little hug and walked off towards Waterloo. I didn’t say a word. I hated myself for being so weak. I hated that he was right. I hated that I had buckled. I hated them all.
Caro and Jimmy held their official engagement party a month later.
We hadn’t spoken much in the intervening weeks, but I went because I was invited and because if I didn’t, then it would become a thing. And worse, she’d think that I was devastated and she’d enjoy it. I wore a dark bottle green velvet suit with a white silk T-shirt and ignored the slight nausea I felt at how much the whole ensemble had cost. Red lipstick was applied. We dress for other women. It’s a banal cliché but it’s true. She’d take my meaning from it. That was worth the credit card bill.
I got there at 10 p.m., having had a drink around the corner at a local bar when I judged that I’d arrived too early. Caro’s parties usually didn’t get going until at least 9.30 and I wasn’t going to waste time with her guffawing friends when everyone was still sober. Their flat was on the fourth floor of a mansion block with views over the park. The building was beautiful, with marble steps and an original lift with brass gates. I never saw anyone else in the lobby or hallways. Rich people owned these flats. Rich people who have several homes around the world which they call ‘bases’。 None of them homes which have overflowing junk drawers or old bicycles clogging up hallways.
The party was loosening up when I walked in the door. A smallish group of Jimmy’s mates congregated in the kitchen – a few school friends that I liked well enough, and some dull blokes from university that he refused to shrug off completely. But mainly, the flat was full of Caro’s friends. Girls who were nervous level thin, dressed in muted silk dresses. They all had posh-girl hair – you know the kind – thick, shiny, long, looks careless but the highlights alone cost ￡500 and are anything but. The men were all in identikit chinos and blue shirts. Occasionally there was a loafer on display, but mainly it was trainers in an attempt to look more relaxed than they really were. Pretty much everyone was white. The music was turned up loud but nobody was dancing.
I nodded at a few faces I recognised but kept moving towards the drinks table, grabbed a glass of wine and headed out onto the balcony. I’ve never been someone who enjoys parties. The amount of small talk involved depletes my energy and makes my whole body tense up. Not because I’m shy, but because it’s so boring it makes me want to die. Life is so short, and we spend so much of it talking to terrible people about the minutiae of their nothing lives. I cannot do it with any enthusiasm. It’s no better in prison, you know. You might think that there would be less bullshit filler chat. You’re in jail, you don’t need to talk about the weather, or your commute or your kid’s art project. But prison makes people even smaller than usual, desperate to cling on to reassuring normality. That means there’s a lot of chat about breakfast options or discussion about what’s on TV that night. And unlike in normal life, I cannot escape it.
*
I light a cigarette on the balcony, slotting myself in between two groups of people I don’t know, and turn away so that it’s clear that I’m not trying to join in the conversation. I smoke my cigarette （I aim for one a week, like Gwyneth Paltrow does – and that is the limit of our shared experience） and listen to the conversation going on around me. Someone called Archie is going skiing at Easter with his new girlfriend and someone called Laura is pretending to find it sweet but her increasingly shrill cooing suggests that she hopes said girlfriend falls off the mountain. Someone on my right is telling a story about how he once met our dreadful Prime Minister at a bar off the Kings Road, and thought he was ‘genuinely a very funny bloke’。 The conversations all come to a stop when Caro emerges onto the balcony. Her tiny body is sheathed in an emerald green slip dress, which requires no bra （posh girls don’t need bras）， her hair is loose, and she’s barefoot. That suggests a sort of next-level nonchalance, doesn’t it? As though you’re usually holidaying in villas where maids sweep the floors constantly and someone comes to give you regular pedicures. Everyone cheers when she steps into the group, quick to proffer fags and wine. She spots me, and draws me towards her with a slim wrist.