time would speed up.
Jenny sniffed. ‘Yes. Sorry, Harriet. Not very festive. This is supposed to be a party.’ They held on to each other.
‘That’s what parties are for. Seeing your friends. Talk all you like, and I’ll listen all evening.’
‘No, that’s enough. I haven’t asked how you are, even.’
Harriet acknowledged her concern. ‘I’m all right,’ she said briefly, knowing that she would be. ‘Here’s Jane.’
Jane drank hardly anything herself, claiming that it disagreed with her, but she poured out liberally for everyone else. She was carrying a bottle of wine in each hand. Tonight she had exchanged her combat trousers for an all-in-one made of some plum-coloured, silky material, with a wide belt that bunched the shimmery fabric over her hips and breasts. She was wearing a liberal amount of plum-coloured lipstick too, and eyeshadow in a slightly lighter tone, but the effect was not in the least voluptuous. She looked exactly what she was — matter-of-fact and uncompromising. Harriet was pleased to see her.
‘You know, I miss you, now you’ve moved out,’ Jane said. ‘I was beginning to get used to having you around. Perhaps I should stop looking for a husband, and hunt for a wife instead?’
‘I don’t think I’m your type,’ Harriet answered. ‘Get one who can cook.’
‘Of course.’
The three of them laughed. Harriet felt the weight and the warmth of friendship. Its fuel was the interlinking of their ordinary lives, and their trust in one another. They never spoke of its significance, but her awareness of it buoyed her up. She felt happy, and wealthy, because she possessed it.
‘What have you been doing since you left me?’ Jane asked. ‘She looks OK on it, Jen, doesn’t she?’
‘She looks great.’
‘I’ve been packing, clearing the flat. Leo was there this afternoon.’
‘Was it grim?’
‘It was, rather,’ Harriet admitted.
‘It will be better when you’ve sorted out the domestic details,’ Jane said decisively. ‘What you need now, what we all need, is a drink followed by some food followed by some dancing and more drink.’ She called out to the room, ‘Come on, everybody.’
In entertaining, as in everything else, Jane believed in leading from the front. Jenny and Harriet smiled covertly at each other, but Jane intercepted the look.
‘Could you two please mingle a little?’
‘I’m going, I’m going,’ Harriet protested. ‘I’m going into the kitchen to find Charlie.’
She eased herself across the room and into the hall, and down the two steps to the kitchen at the back. From this room french windows opened on to Jane’s sunny patio garden where she grew herbs and Alpine strawberries in pots. Tonight the dining table had been pushed right up against the doors, and it was laid with baskets of French bread, brown earthenware dishes of guacamole and aubergine dip and garlic pâté, and dimple beer glasses filled with sheaves of celery. There were quiches, already half-eaten and spreading freckles of wholemeal pastry crumbs, and a whole uncut Brie. On the back burner of the gas stove there was a big pan of hot soup, probably carrot and coriander. Harriet had helped Jane prepare for parties in the past.
The tiled worktop along one wall was a jungle of bottles, all different colours and shapes, interspersed with glasses, plates, and party tins of beer. Charlie Thimbell leaned against the worktop, with a full glass of the Bulgarian Cabernet in his hand. He was talking vehemently to a nervous-looking girl in an embroidered blouse. They were pinned in place by more groups of chattering, laughing people. The girl looked to be in two minds about their tête-à-tête.
Charlie was only about the same height as Harriet, but his broad shoulders and thickset figure made him seem a much bigger man. Beneath the bluster, he was a shrewd financial journalist.
‘Totalitarianism,’ Harriet heard him shouting. The girl shrank beside him.
Harriet reached them and touched his elbow. ‘Charlie?’
He stopped in mid-tirade. ‘Hello, darling.’ He kissed her noisily and then glanced over her shoulder. Harriet realised that he was looking for Leo. In the same instant Charlie remembered that Leo would not be there. His face turned a shade redder.
‘It’s all right,’ Harriet said mildly. ‘I forget, too, and turn round to ask him something. Force of habit is surprisingly strong.’ She turned to the embroidered girl, intending to introduce herself, but the girl was already backing away.
‘What did I say?’ Charlie demanded, when she had gone. ‘Or was it you?’
‘It was you. When did she last get a chance to say anything?’
‘I gave her plenty of chances. She just didn’t take them.’
Harriet put her arm through his. ‘Charlie, I want to ask you something. Can we go somewhere quieter than in here?’
He looked alarmed. ‘About you and Leo? Not my strong point, all that sort of thing. Ask Jenny.’
His unwillingness was a pose, Harriet understood that, but she also knew that like most poses it exposed more truths than the poseur might wish. Charlie could talk all night about the money supply, or Arsenal’s prospects, or the Booker prize, but he didn’t like to talk about what he felt, or feared. As if to do so was to become vulnerable, in some way less than entirely masculine. Harriet remembered what Jenny had said. At least Jenny had her and Jane, the network of women, to talk to. It was probably harder for Charlie.
‘Business advice,’ Harriet said carefully.
‘In that case,’ he winked at her, ‘come upstairs.’
In the end they perched at the top of the stairs, looking down on the heads below. The man in the smock was still doing door duty. Harriet took the first mouthful of her wine.
‘How are you, Charlie?’
‘I’m fine. What is it you want advice about?’ Deflecting her from his own concerns, of course. What was it Jenny had said? It hasn’t been very easy for us to live together. Harriet thought of Leo, and then of the spectacular strength of women’s friendships.
‘Are you sure you don’t really need a solicitor?’ Charlie prompted her.
Harriet smiled. ‘I’ve got a solicitor.’
Her plan had become important to her. More than important, almost a lifeline. Charlie would be the first person she had shared it with and she didn’t want him to laugh at it or dismiss it, because she valued his judgement. She took a breath, launched herself.
‘Listen.’
‘I’ve been given a game, a game of skill and calculation, by a friend of mine. He invented it, and it’s very clever, very original. I want to develop the game, market it commercially. I think it will sell.’
She glanced sideways and saw that Charlie was staring gloomily down the stairs.
‘I’ve never seen anything quite like it.’
To her relief, Charlie’s face cleared. ‘That encourages me a little. Originality is the first requirement.’
‘What’s the next?’
Behind them, on the landing, someone stumbled against the bathroom door. Downstairs the music suddenly boomed out at double volume. The party was warming up.
‘If you’ve really no idea, then you should abandon this scheme at once. Go and ask that man in the blouse to dance with you, to take your mind off it. I’ll dance with you, if it will help.’ He looked at her face then, and changed his tone. ‘You work in retailing. You own a shop selling fashion goods, don’t you? You tell me what your first step should be.’
‘I