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As we walk away, Cate and I remain silent, until we are well well well out of sight, when Cate throws herself against the railings by the train tracks and the slope down to the beach, and says, ‘Oh my God. Thevibewas insane. I mean .?.?. he so fancies you.’
‘I feel so weird when I talk to him,’ I groan into my hands. ‘Like, I forget how to benormal.I do mad laughs.And I can’t believe I said the lick thing.’
Cate bursts out laughing.
‘I said what’s a good lick between friends.’
‘Say that at the party in the catsuit,’ says Cate, ‘and you’ll be quids in, my friend.’
Moments later, we barrel, giggling through the door of the flat. Ralph is polishing shoes. ‘And how was shopping?’ he asks. ‘Any colour breakthroughs to report?’
‘Forget the shopping,’ says Cate. ‘You just misseddesire, Ralph. Desire walked up and smacked the whole of Leigh on Sea in the face. And it was all for our Millie.’
*
Text message from Dad:Millie, your mum and I have spoken. Can’t talk now. It’s a lot to take in. Maybe I can come and see you. Let me know when you’re free? Love you, darling. I’m so sorry this has happened. Dad xx
Chapter Sixteen
Maybe thisiswhat I need tonight. Not quite the squeezing myself into a jet-black full body suit with my head in a huge felt frame bit. But the party itself. Because what better way to forget about everything than to get dressed up into something stupid and drink and eat and watch Michael Waterstreet do the worm (which is more like, the salt-doused slug) before crying into a miniature hot dog because his wife has left him again.
Plus .?.?.Jack.Jack has a way of making nothing seem like a big deal. Best friend blocking you? No worries. Your mum has been secretly seeing her ex-husband nobody talks about? Happens to us all. Send out all your draft emails? So what? So bloody what?
Cate drives me to the party in Ralph’s car, and she is so excited, she can barely contain herself in her seat. ‘That catsuit is going to change your romantic life for good. I just know it,’ she says as I get out of the car, and she watches me traipse across the gravel drive like a proud parent, seeing her daughter off to prom. She waves and wolf-whistles out of the window (until a taxi beeps at her to move).
The HTG Summer-ween party –big wince, and an extra one, in Vince’s honour – is being held at a hotel, in a banquet hall, and although the doorman barely acknowledges the fact I’m dressed all in black like someone who is about to break into the British Museum on a wire from the ceiling, the hotel staff smirk to each other when they see me hobble in holding my giant wearable frame.
‘I’m a scene from a reel of film,’ I say. ‘A frame?’
And when I get into the lift to the basement, and get the film trapped between the doors, they laugh even more.
I love Cate, but I do wonder if sheisright about this costume. Genius, she called it. But then, who am I to argue, given how she’s made me look tonight. I looked in the mirror after she’d finished with me and I could not stop smiling. Using a curling wand and a hair serum that smelled like coconuts, Cate turned my usually pretty standard, frizzy shoulder-length hair into cascading waves that actuallybounceand my make-up is note-perfect. She nailed the nude eyes, and my lips are the most sultry shade of classic Hollywood red I have ever seen. They’re full and silky and I took more selfies on the way in the car than I think I have ever taken in my whole life. Even Ralph looked up from ironing patches onto his new swimming club towel, and said, ‘Well. Bloody Hell.’ So, yes, I may be wearing a giant rectangle on my head tonight, but at least I look ‘Well. Bloody Hell’ levels of cool.
The lift opens into a carpeted corridor, where I come face to face with a printed signpost. ‘HTG PICTURES SUMMER-WEEN PARTY’. Funny, to see the ‘ween’ immortalised in print.
I follow the arrows, deep, muffled music getting louder. A Katy Perry song.
‘Eeeyyyyyy!!!’ comes a voice, plus two large heavy hands on my shoulders. ‘Fuck me, what do we have here?’
Oh, God.
It’s Barry Hendrie, head of field sales, who we only see at parties and the ocassional leaving drinks, and he’s eyeing my frame like I just walked in dragging a dead body I’d hit on the way here.
‘Oh, it’s .?.?. I’m a film frame? A still?’ I explain. ‘Well, the actressonthe film. The film theme? A take on? You sort of just put your head in it .?.?.’
He cries with laughter and barrels past me, already stinking of beer, despite the fact the party’s only been going for an hour. He isn’t in a costume, or if he was, it’s been thrown asunder, because he’s in a lemon-yellow shirt that’s undone at the collar and sweat has spread all over it, from the armpits. I imagine his sweaty Halloween mask split and broken, tossed onto the bar.
Oh, I hope I can find Jack or at least someoneelseI recognise (and haven’t pissed off with emails) fast. At least I can always shove my frame on and blend into the background of all the other weird, wacky costumes.
Barry lets the banquet door swing shut and I have to throw a hand out to stop it smashing in my face.
Well. I’d better enter the fancy dress partyinfancy dress, I suppose. What is it Cate said? Fun. This is fun. To be a bit silly. A bit frivolous. To forget everything from Life B.E and A.E andremember me.
I put the frame over my head, push my face through the hole and shuffle my way in, which is exactly as tricky as you’d expect. This must be how my brother Kieran feels, ducking in doorways. He was six feet by age sixteen, six five, by nineteen, and I always laughed as he ducked into the kitchen, at home. I shake away a stupid, little thought that says, ‘Maybe you’ll never see him duck through Mum and Dad’s tiny cottage doors again because they’re breaking up right this second and you’ll see your brother even less than you do now.’
‘Oh!’ And, as I push my way in to the party, Barry turns to see me, erupts into laughter and at the deep, guttural sound, so many people, so manystrangers, in the dark, disco-lit room, turn around to look at me and – oh. Oh, no no no no. Am I .?.?. Oh, God, I am. I am the only one in costume.
I am the only one in fancy dress.
