Ralph's Party

by Lisa Jewell

  She hadn’t been fully aware of any of this at the time, of course. People never really are. Jem believed that very few people were as calculating as other people assumed them to be when they did something wrong. Things did just happen, and it was only afterwards that you could look back and see the points at which you allowed yourself to lose control, to make the wrong decision, to behave badly. Ralph’s interest in her made her feel good, and she couldn’t ignore it. She’d been ashamed of herself when she’d experienced a flutter of excitement at the prospect of spending a weekend alone with him. But nothing, absolutely nothing, of any description, shape, size or form was going to happen this weekend, or ever for that matter. Nothing. No way. Never.

  His announcement tonight about Claudia had unleashed a whole new set of unwelcome emotions. He was free, he was available. Jem had no idea why this was important, but the moment he’d told her her stomach had done a backward flip and triple pike. She was pleased because over the two and a half months she’d been living at Almanac Road she’d become very fond of Ralph and wanted him to be happy, not henpecked by a dissatisfied, uptight, walking nightmare; she was pleased that he at last appeared to be taking his life in hand. But there was also a part of her that was pleased just because he was single, because he was no longer with someone else. And then she’d made that remark about finding him someone to fall in love with, and a strange feeling had overcome her, for a second she’d felt awkward and uncomfortable. Stupid, really. After all, she wasn’t in love with him, she was just day-dreaming; she was in love with Smith and that was that. She was flattered by Ralph, fond of him, cared about him. But she was not in love with him. And he was not in love with her.

  ‘What are you doing tonight?’ she asked him abruptly, to diffuse the peculiar mood that had descended on her. ‘Your first night of freedom,’ she added, finally getting to her feet.

  ‘Not a lot,’ he replied. ‘I was going to stay in and do a bit of sketching, now that my wrist’s stopped hurting so much.’

  Jem looked down at his bandaged wrist and started laughing.

  ‘What’s so funny?!’ asked Ralph, laughing too.

  ‘I just thought of something.’

  ‘What?’ said Ralph, smiling widely.

  ‘I just thought, you sure chose a bad time to finish with Claudia! No sex and now no wanking! You’re going to get pretty frustrated!’

  Ralph looked down at his impotent right hand as well, and a look of dismay came over his face. ‘Shit,’ he muttered, ‘I hadn’t thought of that. Supposed to be good for you, though, isn’t it?’ he added, brightening. A bit of abstinence, holding on to your seed. Good for the mind and soul. Still … shit …’

  Jem continued to laugh at the look on Ralph’s face. ‘Looks like it’s the old hoover attachment for you, then,’ she cackled, slapping her thighs with her hands.

  Ralph winced.

  ‘Come out with us tonight, Ralph, we’re only going up the Falcon. Come on, it’ll take your mind off your predicament!’

  ‘Who’s “we”?’

  ‘Oh, just some friends. It’s Becky’s birthday, it’ll probably be quite a big group.’

  Ralph quickly weighed up the pros and cons: night in alone υ. night out with Jem. ‘OK. When do we have to be there?’

  *

  Ralph rolled a spliff for the walk, using some grass he’d just acquired from a friend of a friend.

  ‘I don’t know what this is like,’ he said, pinching it out of the bag between his fingertips, ‘but it was fucking expensive and it smells amazing.’

  ‘Looks like skunk,’ said Jem. ‘Go easy on it.’

  ‘Nah,’ said Ralph, smiling wickedly and piling it on to the Rizlas with the abandon of a man who has a brand-new bag of weed.

  They took the spliff and a can of lager, wrapped themselves up in as many clothes as possible and began the freezing walk down St John’s Road, smoking as they walked. Half-way down they both suddenly realized that they were completely stoned.

  ‘Shit,’ said Jem, ‘I’m wasted.’

  ‘Me, too,’ agreed Ralph. ‘That’s completely taken me out.’

  ‘I told you to go easy on it!’

  St John’s Road was empty and gaudy, brash chain stores twinkling with fairy lights and sale banners, the occasional group of revellers passing them drunkenly in swaying bands. It was the last weekend before Christmas.

  They walked up to the traffic lights giggling at their predicament, quickly finishing the lager, finding a bin for the empty can. St John’s Hill was busier, chilly commuters still pouring out of Clapham Junction station clutching Blockbuster Video cases and hoping they weren’t too late to make it to Marks and Spencers. They crossed the road and pushed open the door to the Falcon and were greeted by a blast of warmth and Oasis and loud male talk, accented by the occasional shard of female laughter. The huge U-shaped pub, replete with traditional Victorian fixtures and fittings, was packed, and they had to push their way to the bar.

  ‘I’ll get these,’ said Jem. What do you want?’

  She stood on the foot rail to gain a few inches and leant into the bar, years of experience teaching her that this was her only chance of being served at a busy bar lined with tall men, smiling at the barmaid, who was serving someone else – barmaids always served girls first.

  ‘Two pints of Löwenbräu, please,’ she shouted, when it was her turn.

  They took their drinks and Ralph followed Jem while she manoeuvred her small frame through clusters of office workers in suits and skirts, circles of friends in jumpers and jeans, scanning the room for a familiar face.

  Eventually, the glimmer of recognition, the raised hand, the introductions, the sea of strange faces and barrage of instantly forgotten names, the echoing question, Where’s Smith?’, the quizzical looks, the friendly handshakes, the gradual separation of the group back into the individual conversations which had been momentarily halted by their arrival.

  ‘Jem tells me you’re an artist.’

  Oh, God. Ralph turned to face the architect of this dreadful opener, a lanky young man with an agreeably lop-sided face wearing a Reservoir Dogs T-shirt and drinking a pint of cloudy bitter that looked like it contained frog spawn.

  ‘Um, well, sort of … lapsed, you could say, but trying.’ He managed a snigger and looked down into his glass before taking a large gulp.

  ‘Actually, I’m a sort of artist, too – sort of,’ replied Reservoir Dogs, unfazed by Ralph’s lack of interest. ‘I’m a graphic designer; Jem tells me you do a bit of that, on the old Mac’ He was grinning and wriggling with excitement as he spoke, and Ralph knew what was coming: ‘You know, I think Macs are finally coming into their own …’

  And he was off. Ralph died inside. He loved computers but he hated talking about them. And he was stoned. So stoned. It was all he could do to keep up with what Reservoir Dogs was saying, let alone think of one single response that wouldn’t make him sound like he’d just landed in a time machine from the year 3000 BC. It was loud; the music was so loud, he kept asking Reservoir Dogs to repeat himself and then wondering why he’d bothered. He’d lost the ability to make eye contact. He glanced across at Jem every now and then, and she would glance back from the conversation she was conducting with an unattractive girl with a squandered bosom, and he could tell that she was having a hard time too. He smiled, he chuckled, if the intonation of Reservoir Dogs’s voice suggested that that was appropriate, he nodded agreement, he shook his head with disapproval, he said ‘Yeah, I know’ a lot. But he didn’t have the first idea what the man was talking about and he didn’t care. He had to get away, this was a nightmare. He finished his pint; he’d only had it for ten minutes.

  ‘Can I get you a drink?’ he asked, affecting an angled glass with his empty hand in case his voice got lost in the atmosphere.

  ‘Yeah – thanks. I’ll have a pint of Parson’s Codpiece please.’

  Ralph made his way gratefully to the bar. This was such a bad idea. Why had he loaded that spliff? He
was a paranoid, twitching, nervous wreck. The vibrant pub was electric with colours and movement and noise. He felt like he was walking on a moving carousel and everyone, but everyone was looking at him. He wanted to go home.

  ‘How you doing?’

  He turned around. Oh, thank God. It was Jem. ‘I’m completely fucked, I can’t cope. Who is that bloke? He’s so weird.’

  ‘What – Gordy?! He’s not weird, he’s lovely – that’s just you being stoned.’ ‘How are you doing?’

  ‘Oh, I’m fucked too. I’ve been trying to talk to Becky but I’ve got no idea what she’s talking about, and I can’t take my eyes off her tits.’

  ‘I don’t blame you – better than looking at her face!’

  Jem hit him with mock indignation and then laughed.

  ‘Listen, Jem, d’you mind if I go after these drinks? This really is not a good night for me to meet a bunch of new people.’

  ‘This is not even a good night to be with a group of really close friends. I’ll come with you.’

  They took their drinks back to the crowd. Gordy slapped Ralph on the back: ‘Thanks mate, nice one.’ They had strange disjointed conversations with people with overexpressive faces and booming voices, concentrating hard to keep up, losing the thread, worried that they had HOPELESSLY STONED written all over their blank, uncomprehending faces. They finished their beers, made their excuses, pushed their way back through the crowd, ‘Mega Mega White Thing,’ clouds of smoke, faces, backs, voices, shouting ‘Excuse me, please, excuse me,’ ‘Lager Lager Lager,’ until they reached the doors, opened them and, as the last few bars of Underworld died away, emerged into the cool, beautiful, empty silence.

  ‘Aaaaaaaaah!’ they both exhaled in unison.

  ‘Nightmare,’ said Ralph.

  ‘Shit,’ said Jem, adjusting her furry wrap and putting on her gloves. ‘OΚ, I need to be somewhere very quiet and very mellow where I don’t have to talk to anyone I don’t know …’

  ‘Shall we go home?’ asked Ralph, blowing coils of steamy breath into his hands.

  ‘No, come on, let’s turn this to our advantage. Let’s go into town and have a really weird time. Let’s pretend to be German tourists and go to all those places we don’t normally touch with a bargepole. Come on. Look! There’s a number 19: it’s an omen, quick!’ She grabbed his hand and they ran towards the bus stop on Falcon Road. They leapt on to the platform just as it began to pull away.

  Chapter Twenty

  They started in Piccadilly Circus, and for the first time in their lives they sat with the tourists under Eros. A duo of African drummers provided a suitably irregular soundtrack as they sat and watched the lights of Piccadilly from, they both agreed, a far superior vantage point to the more well-trodden areas. They wandered in zombie-like awe around the Trocadero, blinking at the harsh illumination, gawping at the peculiar array of shops. They took a ride on the Emaginator and screamed themselves hoarse as they careered down bottomless pits and around blind corners at a million miles an hour. They walked up Gerrard Street, a street that Jem walked down every day of her life, which in her current state of mind took on the air of a film set filled with a cast of weird and wonderful extras. London was alive; it smelt of Christmas. Everywhere they went they were filled with wonder. What a fascinating city, what an interesting shop, look at that person, look at that restaurant, those noodles look good. The world was full of colour and activity and sound and music and the most remarkable people.

  They went into the Chinese supermarket and wandered up and down the aisles for ages, oohing and aahing over packets of all sorts of God Knows What. Jem’s friendly Mancunian butcher was there.

  ‘Hello, Jem,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, hello, Pete!’ she replied. ‘Don’t you ever get a day off?’

  ‘Nah, I love it, don’t I? Can’t get enough of touching raw meat and playing with offal.’

  He was just finishing up, they were about to close, and he only lived just up the road. He invited them back to his flat for a beer and a smoke. This evening was becoming more and more bizarre.

  He lived in a flat over the Hong Kong bank. It belonged to his boss, the manager of the supermarket and, by the sound of it, most of Chinatown. Pete would not be drawn on the subject of Triads, but Jem and Ralph had reached their own conclusions. It wasn’t the smartest of flats, the stairway overwhelmed by camel high-gloss paint and tan shaggy carpets with shiny track-marks, the furniture in the high-ceilinged living room obviously expensive but sparse and tasteless.

  They followed Pete down a cavernous hallway, papered with beige bamboo-design paper and lit by grimy faux-candle wall-lights. He pushed open a white plywood door at the end.

  ‘This is my boudoir,’ he announced proudly.

  Ralph and Jem laughed out loud. The room was huge, three large sash windows framing the bright lights of Gerrard Street outside, the changing colours bouncing off the mirrored walls and ceiling. But it was the bed that had really made them laugh. It was at least eight foot square and topped by an enormous arched bedhead which looked like the console on the Starship Enterprise, with flashing white lights and an abundance of knobs and switches.

  ‘Shit,’ said Ralph, ‘have you got a licence for that thing?’

  ‘Wild, isn’t it?’ laughed Pete. ‘D’you fancy a ride?’

  Ralph and Jem looked at each other. It had suddenly occurred to them that they were in a strange butcher’s flat late on a Friday night and he was getting undressed and inviting them on to his potentially perverted bed.

  Pete sensed their unease. ‘It’s not mine, you know,’ he smiled, ‘it’s my boss’s. This is his Shag Palace, like – it’s where he brings his birds. Come on. I’m totally sound. I promise ya. It’s just a laugh.’

  He leapt on to the bed and it wobbled like a fat girl’s stomach.

  ‘It’s a water-bed!’ Jem shrieked with delight. ‘I’ve always wanted to go on a water-bed!’

  ‘Well, now’s your chance – get your shoes off.’

  She threw her shoes aside, joined him on the bed and began to bounce around a little. ‘Come on, Ralph,’ she called, ‘this is fun! Get on.’

  Ralph still wasn’t sure. He was feeling less stoned than earlier but he was still nervous, a bit edgy. Maybe there was a gang of twisted psychotic fetishists hiding in the mirrored wardrobes that lined the walls. Maybe this Pete guy regularly brought gullible strangers back to his sick flat so that he and his mates could have a bit of fun. Maybe they were Triads. Maybe it was part of the deal for living in his boss’s flat. He scanned the room for video cameras, shackles, handcuffs, lengths of rope, torture implements. All he could see was a thousand reflections of the strange tableau of him and Jem and the butcher and a kaleidoscope of coloured lights. He was totally weirded out.

  ‘Um, nah. I’m all right, thanks,’ he muttered, shoving his hands into his coat pockets and stepping nervously from one foot to the other.

  ‘Suit yourself,’ said the butcher.

  ‘What do all these buttons do?’ asked Jem.

  He smiled and hit a knob. The bed started to vibrate. He hit another one. The bed undulated like a belly dancer. He flicked a switch and the lights started to flash and the bed began to play music. A tray popped out of the flush console bearing a gold pot of cigarettes, an inbuilt lighter and an ashtray. Another panel opened to reveal a shelf of miniature gin bottles and two tumblers.

  This is the best one, though,’ said Pete, fiddling with a joystick.

  With a gentle hydraulic hum, the bed lifted itself a few inches off the ground and slowly turned on its axis through 180 degrees until it faced the other way.

  ‘Wow!’ laughed Jem.

  ‘Isn’t it great!’ agreed Pete ‘And this is my secret compartment.’ Another panel lifted to reveal a small wooden box. He brought it out, opened it and gave it to Jem. It was a stash box full of Rizlas and cardboard and a large lump of black. ‘Help yourself. I’m going to have a quick wash and a shave – I’m going out later. Make yourselves
at home on the bed and I’ll be back in a mo.’

  He closed the door behind him and Jem peered around the bedhead at Ralph, who was still standing on the same spot.

  ‘You all right?’ she asked.

  ‘No, actually I’m totally freaked. What are we doing here? This is really dangerous, you know – he could be anyone. There could be anyone here.’ He moved across the room and began to open and close the mirrored doors.

  ‘What on earth are you doing, Ralph?’ asked Jem, getting off the bed and walking towards him.

  ‘I’m just checking, that’s all,’ he replied, a little embarrassed by his own paranoid behaviour.

  Jem crossed her arms and looked at him, smiling fondly.

  What?’ he demanded gruffly. ‘What are you smiling at?’

  ‘Yοu.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you’re sweet.’

  ‘Oh, stop it.’ But a small smile had started twitching at the edge of his lips.

  ‘Come here,’ she held out her arms, still smiling.

  Ralph’s stomach flipped. She wanted to give him a hug! He moved shyly towards her, his smile now almost fully formed. She was tiny in her bare feet. Her hair was falling down. Radiohead played ‘Creep’ quietly in the background. The lights on the bedhead flickered in rhythm. The room was dark but alive with light and colour. It seemed to spin around them. He would never forget this moment.

  He wrapped his arms around Jem’s neck. He wanted to say something but he didn’t want to talk. She wrapped her arms around his waist. They squeezed each other tightly. She stood on her tiptoes and buried her head in his chest. It was the best hug of Ralph’s life. The moment was magical, enchanted. She smelt like happiness. She felt like happiness. If only, if only she was free, free to lift her head up and offer him her ripe, red sweet mouth …