“Aladdin’s cave?” I asked.
“You’ve found the treasure!” I still didn’t get it. “You’ve found where they’re stashing the food. I knew there must be more than that piffling little morsel they brought round.” He picked up a wrapper. “Lidl’s are the best. Margery always knows where to shop.”
In contrast, James would have a fit if he knew he was eating Lidl canapés; he probably thought they were all handmade that morning by Margery’s personal chef. The man reached for one.
“That’s beetroot,” I said, just before he touched it.
He recoiled. “Horrible.”
“Watermelon,” I told him, pointing at the first one I’d tasted.
He took three and wandered over to the drinks, where he poured himself a generous slosh of vodka and mixed in some Coke. He waved the bottles at me.
“No thanks,” I said.
“Something else? What’s your poison?” he asked, swapping the vodka and Coke for bottles of wine, one red, one white.
I shook my head again. “I’m driving.”
“Oh, a wee one won’t hurt,” he said.
“That’s what Margery said,” I told him.
“Margery knows what she’s talking about.” He waved the bottle of white dangerously close to my glass, which was empty by then. “I won’t tell if you don’t. You can’t be expected to get through a night like this without a drink.”
That was also pretty much what Margery had said.
“Here, have a few of these.” He began piling canapés up on a plate. “And one of these.” He tipped white wine into a glass. “You’llfeel much better with a full stomach and a decent drink. As long as you stay within the limits.” He took my empty glass and shoved the food and drink at me. I took them from him.
I hadn’t thought I needed to feel better, or rather, I knew I would feel better when I was on my way home, but I thought I would just have to wait for that moment to arrive. Yet as soon as I stuffed a canapé with some kind of paste in it into my mouth, to my surprise, I did feel better. At least, I felt like the man was giving me permission to eat, when James would have said the four I’d already had were four more than enough.
I ate the whole plateful.
“Who are you here with, then?” the man asked as he chose the next canapé. “You’re not with that yuppie-type, are you? The whipper-snapper in the dinner jacket?”
“All the men here are in dinner jackets.”
“The one with the virtual money. The cryptocurrency. Right piece of work he is.”
“Yes, I’m with him,” I said.
“Don’t you get involved in that cyber money.”
It was a bit late for that.
The man nodded at the glass in my hand. The wine was still untouched, but after all that food, a mouthful wasn’t going to hurt. A mouthful mind, not a whole glass. So I took a mouthful, but a mouthful isn’t much and it’s true you can have a drink when you drive, within the limits; that is the law.
So I finished the glass and it was chilled and delicious and the man had been right, I did feel better, but I shook my head when he refilled it and I put the glass down on the table.
“You’ll be fine,” he said. “Let your hair down. Most people here are having a miserable time.”
It was nice to know no one here was enjoying themselves, but even so, I told him no thank you. Instead, I fetched a fresh glass and filled it with water.
I wanted to ask him about James—most people thought James was wonderful—but I was stopped in my tracks by a banshee howl.
I jumped a mile in the air and looked around to see who was being killed or where the monster was attacking from, but the man calmly put his hand in his pocket and took out his phone. The noise was his ringtone. “Better take this,” he said, and he left as my heart rate began to return to normal.
He was gone for now, but I resolved to find him later and ask him more about James. Maybe he’d like to join me in plotting murder.
