HESTER

      Although Melissa said any time after five, I didn’t want to appear too keen so I have waited until almost twenty past to go round. I lift the heavy doorknocker in the shape of a lion’s head. With its tarnished gold snout and blank eyes, it seems to assess me unfavourably as I rap once, and then again with more confidence than I am feeling.

      My heart is beating a little too fast and my armpits prickle uncomfortably in the flowered dress that was chosen after much painful wardrobe deliberation. It was dispiriting to note that everything I own, although clean and pressed, is a little worn and soft to the touch from wear. This is the best I could do. They will have to take me as they find me.

      Strains of music and loud male laughter seep from the house but no one answers. Just for a second, I get the wildest, oddest, sensation that they aren’t going to let me in. I will stand here, ignored, until I am forced to take my bottle of Blossom Hill Merlot home. I don’t even like wine, and this cost more than five pounds.

      But a vague flash of colour through the stippled glass of the door sort of coagulates into a shape and the door opens.

      Tilly blinks, then frowns. Finally, she smiles.

      ‘Hester? What are you doing here?’

      I swallow and smile brightly, hoping she won’t be able to see how much her surprise has stung me. Has she forgotten how close we were, too?

      ‘I’m coming to the party, of course,’ I say, tilting my chin. ‘Your mother invited me this afternoon.’

      Her cheeks flush as she remembers her manners. She’s all smiles now, beckoning me inside.

      ‘Go on through and get yourself a drink,’ she says. ‘Ma’s out there holding court, I expect.’ She turns to the stairs and her legs scissor away and above me at speed. She is wearing a pair of short dungarees over black tights, which hardly seem like party clothes to me.

      I make my way inside. The hallway smells just lovely and I can see that Melissa has new wallpaper since I was last invited round. It’s a bit of a funny colour, the sort of dark green you used only to see in institutions, but I expect it cost a bomb. I expect they all favour this overpriced decor round here.

      We live in a part of London that I’ve heard described as ‘on the wrong side of the North Circular’. It’s always suited me fine, but when the train line was extended into the City, all the yuppies started moving in with their lattes and their big cars and their complicated prams. Now I’d be lucky to afford a garden shed in the area.

      But it’s just as close and unpleasant in here as in my boring old hallway, that’s for sure. The lilies on the hall table are already nodding drowsily and speckling mustard-coloured pollen. It’s a devil to get out of clothes, that stuff, so I give the table a wide berth as I make my way towards the kitchen at the back of the house. I pass the sitting room and see a couple of people standing in there smiling and talking animatedly.

      I haven’t really been that nervous until now but my tummy begins to positively thunder with butterflies as I step down into the packed kitchen.

      Sensations assail me and I almost stumble. Conversation and laughter billow around me like clouds of smoke. There’s a repetitive tsst-tsst musical beat coming from somewhere. And peacock flashes of colour everywhere. Summer frocks cling to bodies in pink, scarlet, turquoise, black. High-heeled, impossible sandals and painted toes. Lipsticked mouths sipping at drinks or parting in wide smiles.

      It’s so hot in here.

      I lift my shoulder and subtly drop my head to check that I don’t smell of the perspiration that is prickling my armpits. I have showered and am wearing both deodorant and perfume but I already feel uncomfortable. You wouldn’t think it was possible to feel both invisible and horribly self-conscious all at once, but I do. I always do at this sort of thing.

      ‘Ah! Hester, isn’t it?’

      The husky voice makes me turn sharply to my left.

      ‘Oh, hello Saskia,’ I say, without enthusiasm.

      Melissa’s annoying friend is gurning away, revealing a line of healthy pink gum above the white, almost horsey, teeth. A glass of something alcoholic and fizzy is held precariously in one manicured hand.

      She laughs, but I don’t recall having made a joke. She leans over and I catch a strong scent of the cigarette smoke on her breath along with a pungently spicy perfume.

      ‘Have you just arrived?’ she says. ‘Can I get you a drinkie?’

      I let my gaze sweep over her.

      Today she is wearing a bright orange halter-neck dress that is cut very low and the two large brown orbs of her bust are almost popping out. In actual fact, her tan is so deep, she is probably darker-skinned than a good many coloured people. I glance down to see orange toenails with some sort of pattern on them poking out of gold sandals. She has money but absolutely no class, that one.

      I force myself to meet her thickly made-up eyes. It always feels like she is secretly mocking me but I force myself to smile and say, ‘I can help myself, thank you.’

      ‘No, let me!’ she trills. The next thing I know, she has gripped me by the arm and she’s almost dragging me through a forest of people to the kitchen island, where we find Melissa, chatting animatedly to a small bespectacled woman.

      ‘Look who I found!’ says Saskia.

      Melissa gives her a look I can’t read.

      But then she says, ‘So glad you could make it, Hester,’ with real warmth. She even touches my wrist lightly and I don’t mind that her fingertips feel rather clammy against my skin. Maybe I am not the only person struggling with the muggy heat.

      I am quite overcome with relief at her kind welcome. For a second I fear tears may well up. I did do the right thing in coming! Oh if only