This was it, surely. She checked the time. Nearly two in the morning. It had to be soon. There were only four members left now, still drinking, still talking – most of them slurring, really – sunk deep into sofas and sprawled across armchairs in front of the library’s blazing fire. Annie, as always, found reasons to constantly shift position – Ned didn’t like her talking to one member for too long, playing favourites, so she was perching on the sofa arm one minute, then jumping up to order a drink the next, then crouching down （with difficulty, given the dress） to throw another log on the fire.
Jackson and Freddie were knocking back Ned’s famously strong Old Fashioneds, Keith was slumped with his crystal tumbler resting on his chest, Kurt sipped on sparkling water. None of them had the slightest idea of what was about to take place, the turn the evening was about to take.
Ned was talking about the paintings that had come with the house when he’d bought it, the supposed Stubbs, the disputed Gainsborough. Keith had stirred himself up onto his elbows briefly to announce that ‘all great art is either about sex or death, yeah?’ and then when this failed to produce much response sank down into his armchair once more.
‘I fuckin’ hate Gainsborough,’ he could then be heard muttering into his chest.
It was surely going to happen soon.
Nikki and Georgia were probably fast asleep by now, tucked up in their emperor beds with the thousand-thread-count sheets, both having yawned and made their excuses almost as soon as dinner was over.
It was half an hour since Kyra – who had been sitting staring at the fire in silence for quite some time – had suddenly shaken herself out of her reverie, announced it was past her bedtime, and tottered off down the hall to relieve the babysitter.
Was it the shallow breaths this too-tight dress was forcing her to take that were making her feel light-headed or was it the anticipation? What was Ned waiting for, exactly?
All evening he had been laying the groundwork for this moment. Making a big deal about what very special friends of Home they all were – avoiding eye contact with Kyra, at this point – what remarkable, important people they were, to the clubs, to Ned himself personally, how much it meant to him that they had all been able to make it tonight . . .
At which point Keith had snorted, as if at the very idea that anyone would turn an invitation like this down. As if it was conceivable that somebody given the option of being in this room, sitting around this table, could choose to be anyone else in the world tonight.
Annie smiled to herself.
It was one of her old editors, back in her journalist days, who had outlined to her his five rooms theory of fame – which she had loved explaining to people and then name-dropping the person who had come up with it, until he published his memoirs and now everyone else knew it too. The theory was this: that to the public, the general public, it looks as if being famous is like being in one big room, the Oscars or the Grammys or something, a room full of familiar, beloved faces all huddling up together for selfies, all smiling, all the best of friends. Whereas in fact, Annie’s editor had explained, leaning in slightly closer, what fame more closely resembles is a series of roped-off rooms, each more exclusive than the last, the whole thing as hierarchical as high school.
Picture a nightclub, he had told her. If you’re on the outside, queueing to try to get in, all you can see is a bunch of people having what appears to be a good time. And then you get inside. And for a while you think you’ve made it. And then you realize that in the club there is a VIP area, behind another velvet rope that, actually, is where all the really exciting people are. And maybe you manage to get in there, eventually. And you get a drink, and you see who’s around, and you feel pretty pleased with yourself. And then you realize there is another velvet rope, and another door, and beyond that there is a VVIP area and your name’s not on the list. And even if you manage to get in there you realize . . .
‘You get the point,’ he had concluded, with a wave of his hand.