‘Hello, darling, so good of you to come. I see you’ve got a drink. Jimmy is inside panicking about glasses but I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to see you – go and find him. I know he’ll be so relieved that everything is … OK.’ She looks at me with a tiny raise of an eyebrow, just the hint of a smile. He told her. Of course.
I go inside, not wishing to talk to Jim but desperate to get away from Archie and Laura and some guy called Phillip who’s now loudly suggesting that someone bust out the Charlie. It’s not 1989, Phil, you fucking embarrassment.
I find Jimmy on the sofa with a nice girl called Iris who he works with. I am given a bear hug, the kind that only a big man can give, and I know that he’s determined to forget our conversation and he’s very physically trying to tell me to do the same. So I do. Tonight he pats me on the back and grins with relief that everything is well between us. The flat fills up, booze is consumed until the only bottles left are the kind of chardonnays you find in Tesco so I switch to vodka. By 1 a.m., I can tell most of the people still here are high. I’ve never taken drugs – a classic need to stay in control – and I’m never offered them. But I can see the signs, the glassy pupils, the inner gum chewing, the fucking inane conversation （though frankly, that could just be the company）。 Caro is swaying in the middle of the room, rubbing her own arm. Jim walks over to her and takes her hand. She pulls away abruptly, says something and turns away. He tries again and she shoves him. Not hard, but sloppily, visibly.
‘Let’s all wake up a bit, you guys are getting sleepy,’ she says, and heads to the kitchen. I look across at Jimmy and make a face – trying to convey that I’m here and also less obviously that his fiancée is a nightmare – but he looks at me with something veering on contempt and sits down. Caro emerges from the kitchen with a silver tray teeming with shot glasses and people assemble around her.
‘To my betrothed,’ she says, before downing her glass and slinging an arm around a brunette next to her. She doesn’t offer Jimmy one. I can feel the rage build up again, at her for being a bitch, at Jimmy for letting her behave like this. Someone has brought a cake, covered in chocolate ganache and bearing the letters C and J in pink icing. It has been forgotten by the baker in the frantic desire to get drunk. I grab a knife and start carving it up into rough slices. Putting one on a napkin, I hold it aloft.
‘Caro, have some cake. I know it’s not your usual fare but you’ve got to keep your strength up, don’t you? Don’t want to lose that famous right hook of yours.’
The group huddling in the doorway titter. Caro looks at me, her mouth frozen in fury and stalks off. Jimmy, who was too far away to hear what I was saying, walks towards me with purpose and pulls me into the toilet.
‘What are you doing?’ he hisses, leaning on the sink and pushing me down onto the seat. ‘Are you trying to pick a fight with her at our engagement party? I thought we’d agreed that you were going to at least try and be happy for us.’
‘How can I do that when you’ve agreed to marry a narcissist who seems to actively dislike you?’ I said, standing up. ‘I want to respect you, not pander to you. Why do you expect me to be kind but you don’t ask the same from Caro?’ I push past him, and past the queue of people waiting for the bathroom to become available.
The night has ramped up now, it feels frantic and sharp. It’s not a happy show of love, we aren’t here to celebrate a union, we’re here to indulge Caro. But in what? I want to leave, but I can’t abandon Jimmy here with a drunk fiancée and a group of people who probably don’t even know his full name. I sit in a corner of the sitting room and pretend to be on the edge of whatever group is nearest. I pretend to check emails, I break my strict limit and smoke more cigarettes. The party thins out, people stumbling into the bedroom to get their coats, pulling away from Caro as she entreats them to stay. She keeps pace only with herself, her small body unable to stay still. Jimmy hasn’t even attempted to try to engage her again, but he won’t look at me. Eventually, at 3 a.m., it’s just the three of us and one other woman left in the flat. The woman is talking earnestly to Jimmy, and over the music （which Caro has cranked up） I catch some words: ‘Worried …’， ‘Eaten?’， ‘Again …’ I imagine they’ve both seen this version of Caro before and are waiting to intervene and get her into bed. But Caro is in her own world, changing songs every minute or so, pouring another drink, numbing herself. I sit and watch, wondering whether to call a cab and leave them to sort her out, but abruptly, she stops dancing and looks at me.