“J, J!” and she turns and there is P. “Where’ve you been?”
“Around,” she shrugs.
“What?” Oooh, look, sofa’s free!” P’s long bulk is dropped into the waiting comfort and J’s follows more neatly shortly afterwards.
“I,” announces P, “am getting old. I now scout bars, pubs and parties to see what the seating is like - how much is there and how comfy is it. Damn!”
J grins and rolls her eyes. She is hunched forward a little, not quite settled into the sofa’s embrace yet.
“Have you seen this place?” she asks, twisting round to smile at P.
“Pretty much all of it - how about you?”
“I’ve spent the last ten minutes becoming over-acquainted with the ‘artspace’ kitchen,” with air-quotes, “waiting for someone to finish in the bog.”
“Straining, were they?” says P, breaking into a cackle.
“Clearly. Gina Harrow and some random bloke.”
“Oh,” says P.
“Leaving me to fall back on conversation with Karen.”
“Karen White?”
“Dunno - blonde, wiggly hair and uncertain complexion.”
“Yes. But - hold on - you used to...”
“We had one thing in common - last year - and it’s all she ever talks about when we meet. Like there is no other topic in the universe of conversation.”
“Harsh.” Then: “Why did you wait so long? There are plenty other toilets, Kira’s not mad! Well, not stupid, anyway...”
“Laziness. Lethargy. Unconvinced it would take less time. Unaware that someone was - uh - straining, as you so eloquently put it.”
“And thence queue-stroke-kitchen conversation with random.”
“Quite.”
“The queue was a lot worse earlier.”
“Yeah?”
“Especially coz people weren’t sure who was queuing and who wasn’t and what was going on and where the alternatives were and they were milling around in a kitchen-party kind of way.”
“Ah.”
“And I’m wondering what the etiquette is, and am on the left-hand side of the kitchen, as you face the toilet, but with my back leaning into the worktop because I am become P, The Old, and on the opposite side of the room (which, let’s face it, ain’t that far away) is a swarthy young man with what looks like a perpetual frown.”
J grins and settles back into the sofa at last, knowing the prelude to an anecdote when she hears it.
“So,” says P, “we’re squished in together, holding drinks and he meets my eye and I meet his, and we do that kind of grimacey nod, look away thing that blokes do - yeah, yeah, shut it - anyway, we’ve done this like three times and I’m bored, but suddenly he nods more... emphatically and: ‘My name’s Muhammed Chang,’ he says.
“‘Wow,’ I say, unable to match his remarkable self-possession through, you know, being pissed. ‘That’s unusual.’
“‘Well,’ he says, ‘Muhammed is the most common personal name in the world, and Chang the most common family name.’
“‘That must make you pretty special, then,’ I say.” J sniggers. “And ‘How would you top that?’
“‘I’m planning on converting to Judaism - I figure that’d really annoy them.’”
“No,” says J, wincing.
“Yes,” says P. “I utterly, utterly shit you not. And I consider him for a second. ‘Can I suggest Qabbalah,’ I say, straight-faced as anything, ‘the magical element would be more concerning for them.’
“‘That’s a bit... Madonna... isn’t it?’ he says, dubiously.
“‘Well, you could always try Thelema then - not even very trendy nowadays.’”
J frowns. “That the one with the k, right?”
“Yes. ‘Riiiiight,’ he says. ‘What’s that then?’
“I spell it for him. ‘Google it. I’m just that too drunk to explain it properly.’”
“Crowley would have a fucking field day.”
“He’ll be spinning in his tomb. Although he’d definitely have fucked him.”
“Would you?”
“My relationship status is somewhat fluid right now, but I’m fairly sure fucking husky young half-Arab, half-Asian boys is low on the list of accepted behaviour.”
“Hee.”
“Oooh, and then he started going on about my hair. Said it was very Japanese. Started touching his own spiky thing.”
“Really.”
“You know, that’s a very similar intonation to the one I used. Anyway.”
“Yes.”
“Anyway, he’s impervious, and I’m nodding like he’s congratulated me coz, well... and he says ‘what do you use?’ and I say ‘the usual stuff’ and he nods - see how bloke-at-party I was being? It’s like becoming bilingual!”
“Curb that foppish enthusiasm - you’ll never blend in like that.”
“Hah. Well, anyway, then he nods up to the mop and says: ‘You know, John Major used to do that.’ and I think ‘What, fudge up his locks - was this when he was prancing with Eddi...?’ and say ‘Yerwaah?’ Coz I’m that smooth.
“‘And Bill Clinton, I reckon.’
“‘Right. What?’
“‘Dye their hair silver coz they were going grey and grey’s like, you know... well grey. Well, you do know, coz... er... and... er, and...’”
“You were giving him the Look, weren’t you?”
“Only a demi-Look, frankly. I was really starting to need a piss. Shortly thereafter there was exeunt.”
Relationships come and go with us, but some things don’t change. And one of them is that knackered feeling at the end of a night, P’s narrow flank warm against mine on someone’s sofa and the short drop sideways when I tilt my head onto the shoulder which is level with it.
Which is what I did then.
You know the nice thing about getting old? Comfortable silences. I never believed in them. After the clamour that had been claiming my head those last twenty-four hours, it was just incredibly nice to have that. I staked my claim on it and indulged myself for what must have been five whole minutes before my brain started its malfeasant chattering, self-examination, deconstruction and crazy questioning. Some of it bubbled to the surface more pungently and persistently than other bits and made it to my mouth:
“P?” I made the question mark go on for a bit, up and down - childlike.
“Yeah?” The exact, drawn-out cadence back at me.
“Do you think we’ll be friends this time next year?”
“’Course!”
“Mmm. How about the year after that?”
“Sure.”
“How about in five?”
“Weeell, that depends on how far your glittering career’s taken off and if your bodyguards still let us near.” P still uses ‘us’ like a Northerner a lot of the time. Sounds like ‘uz.’
“Huh. What about your glittering career?”
“Darling, I’m an academic in a big university. I have my niche all sorted and need never look the real world in the face again.”
“Doctor P,” I said wonderingly, letting my head drop back and my eyes close. I felt shoulders stirring against mine.
“Jenny?”
“Yeah?”
“You are gonna be there?”
“When?” Pause. “Oh - July!”
“Yeah.” P’s voice was closer, like sat up and looked around at me.
“You must be jokin, mate.” I opened my eyes and smiled. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
I got a finger in the ribs for that one. “Cheers, joker. Listen... if my folks do decide to come...”
“I’ll take loads of photos and hang around ’til you come out of the Hall.”
“Don’t be daft, I can swing extra tickets, ya plum. I meant: will you be all right with ’em?”
“I’m not pretending to be your girlfriend - there’s not enough money in the...”
“No...”
“... to persuade me to lie to your folks.”
“Yeah, I remember your thing about lying. Don’t worry, I won’t be asking you that.”
“Do I have to wear a hat?”
I got a smile for that. “Listen, love, wear what you like as long as the hat isn’t a Burberry cap, and...”
“Don’t worry, I do know what ‘appropriate dress’ means.”
P slumped back into the sofa again. I couldn’t throw any blame that in that direction. It was... hold on... I dug out my mobile... 2:20am. Damn...
“Damn, it feels a lot later than two,” said P.
“Mate, we are getting old.”
“Seconded. Let’s fuck off to bed.”
“It’s a deal.”
“Actually,” said Kira, emerging from the hallway, “you’re all right, crusties, it’s 3:20, in actual fact.”
“Yewarr?” said P.
“D’oh!” I clapped my forehead. “Coz the clocks went forward, innit?”
“Yep,” said Kira, swigging from her drink. “You don’t wanna crash here?”
P looked at me. Something about my face said through P’s mouth: “No thanks, love, we’ll stagger off to our respective pits.” Kira got an appreciable percentage of the full wattage of old P charm. “Not that it’s not tempting.”
“Oh, P, you wee demon. And here we’d have to make it a threesome...”
“Oh, who?! Don’t tell me you’ve left them panting up there on their own...?”
“Hush, love, just taking a break for water. Anyway,” her face screwed up ruefully and the arch veneer dropped. “S’no a sure thing anyway. Just feel it in ma bones - or maybe it’s wishful thinking.”
“Shut up and get back upstairs, then, ya daftie,” said P.
Kira crossed to the kitchen. “Just gettin ma water. Ye can find yer own way oot, yeah?”
“No probs, but I want full gossip.”
She groaned. “Don’t you ever... bugger...”
“See ya,” I said, slightly feebly.
“Go on, then, hen,” I got a sleepy smile. “See you soon, give that big man o’ yours a hug from me, eh?”
“’night!”
We weaved out of the place. “She always sounds more drunk when she’s pissed, doesn’t she?” said P.
“Er, yeah, mate, people often do.”
“What did I just say?”
“That she sounds more drunk when she’s pissed.”
“Fuck me, I’m out of it - I meant Scottish.”
“Oh, right. Yeah, or tired.”
“You think so?”
“She looked sleepy to me.”
“She looked stoned.”
“You know her better than I do, mate.”
“Really? Yeah, I guess so.” Pause. “Who do you think’s upstairs, then?”
“Blimey, I dunno. Who’s your money on?”
“Well, she’s always been all Unrequited Chemistry with that Scouse lass, can never remember her name, you know the quiet one with the reddish hair...?”
I let P’s gossiping carry us away into the night.
P’s pocket chimes and is reached into by the hand not gesticulating its way through a particularly spirited exposition on the lives and loves of some of the party-goers with whom J is not so familiar.