I’d had enough of canapés, and I couldn’t stay in that room all evening. I prepared myself to go back into the fray, but who would I speak to? What would I say? How much longer did we have to stay here? The night seemed discouragingly young.
“Oh, there you are!” Margery was at the door. “Do come through, Lennie’s about to make a speech.”
“Well, I wouldn’t want to miss that,” I said, whoever Lennie was.
Margery vanished and I eyed the glass of wine I had declined. Nobody would know. But I walked away.
Lennie, it transpired, was the man I had just met in the refreshments room and what he had to tell us about—at length—was that he had been leading a campaign to raise funds for a nearby hospice, and they had finally reached their target. He pulled one of those enormous checks out from behind a screen and handed it over to one of the other guests. There was much applause, although it was for just over £1million, an amount that most of the people there could have handed over without a second thought.
With the presentation over, everyone, except me, arranged themselves into groups: huddles of business men and women and separate cliques of their partners arranged in some kind of hierarchy I couldn’t decipher and couldn’t penetrate. I roamed from group to group, looking for my tribe, but no one paused in their conversation and said, “Oh, hello, Daisy, come and join us.” No one moved to let me in.
James was in the center of a group of middle-aged men, laughing and speaking with loud voices; they were all holding their wrists out, comparing watches.
“Nearly two hundred thousand,” I heard James saying.
“Two hundred and fifty,” the man next to him said, rotating his wrist so everyone could get a good look.
“Four hundred,” said a third, and I put a curse on him:May your watch always run five minutes late.
Clearly that group wasn’t where I was meant to be; my watch was worth just under a grand. I stood alone in the middle of the room, ignored by everyone except the waiting staff, who had to walk around me. I was uncomfortable, I was nervous, I was wondering how I was going to get to the end of the evening.
It takes approximately an hour to process one unit of alcohol. It must have been at least an hour since I had that drink. At least. I made my way back to the room, where the food had been taken away, but the drink I had declined was still on the table. I glugged it down, but it wasn’t cold anymore, so I tipped a splash in from the bottle in the chiller, just a taste, so I could have the memory of that first glass.
My head was still as clear as day, but I didn’t feel better, the way I should have done. I looked at the bottle of wine again, just one last gulp? I tipped the neck toward my glass, but then, no, maybe I needed more food, that was a better idea. I went to look for some.
As I turned to leave the room, I saw James in the doorway, watching me. He walked away.
I headed back out into the party, but the only food remaining was scraps. So I returned to wandering around, lingering on the fringes of various groups, hoping someone would let me join them. Ignored, I went to wait in the toilet again, until, at last, just before midnight, James was banging on the door. His work here was done.
“Let’s go,” he said, marching past me, tugging at the buttons on his shirt. “How much have you had to drink?”
“Not much,” I said, but on reflection, I didn’t think it would be a good idea for me to be in charge of a car. I was pretty sure I was within legal limits, but I didn’t usually drink anything if I was going to drive and I wasn’t confident about doing so. I couldn’t tell him that, though. Instead I said, “I’m really tired; can you drive?”
“No, I’ve had half a bottle of whiskey. Is that glass all you had? Can you touch your nose?”
Well, of course I could.
“Can you walk in a straight line?”
I could.
“There you go, then. We’re not going far.”
He started walking toward the front door and I followed, taking my phone out of my bag. James would not be happy if I suggested phoning a taxi, but if one was already on the way, he might agree to wait. If… There was never a taxi available if you hadn’t booked it decades in advance, but it was worth a try.
I dialed Rich from the village, who was known professionally as Upper Iffley Private Hire, but predictably, he had finished for the night and it went straight to voicemail.
Then I called the taxi service from town, who answered but told me, “Sorry, we’ve got nothing all night. We start again at six in the morning.”
James was not going to go for that.
“Daisy!” he called from the drive, and I hurried after him.
“Is there anyone here from Upper Iffley who could give us a lift?” I asked.
He looked around at people emerging from the house. I was born and bred in the village. I knew all the residents, except a few in the new-build houses, and I was confident there was no one.
“Someone driving past Langley Hall?” I asked. “They could drop us off.”
