'Hi. Wow, long time.' Ben sticks out his hand.

Rhys shakes it. 'Yeah. How are you?'

'Good. You?'

'Fine.'

Conversationally, it's clear none of us have anything else to offer. Ben glances at the bag in my hand and starts backing off, b.u.mping into pa.s.sers-by.

'I better run, anyway,' he says. 'On the clock at work. Nice to see you again.'

'Bye,' I say.

'Yeah, bye,' Rhys adds.

Ben rejoins the flow of pedestrian traffic, very much in the fast lane.

'That was awkward,' Rhys says, and I look at him in startled confusion.

'Why?'

'Don't remember him at all.'

36.

I'll say one thing for entering your third decade and your life falling apart, it does shift the pounds before a party. As diet plans go, though, it might be a bit extreme. The old red dress I haul out for my flat warming suddenly fits quite well and skims over my 'twin airbags and side impact bars', as my ex-fiance had it.

It gets screeches of approval when Caroline and Mindy arrive with their other halves, plopping overnight bags inside the door. Caroline asked to stay over as she's booked an induction at a city centre gym for half nine the next morning (nothing changes) and when Mindy found out, she demanded to stay as well.

'Mindy, you live ten minutes' drive away,' I said.

'If she's staying, I want to stay too,' she insisted. 'It'll be like old times!'

'That's what I'm afraid of,' I said, remembering when we stayed up talking until dawn in our halls. These days, I need my sleep. Mindy settled the issue by saying there was easily room for three in Rupa's bed, and I couldn't deny that.

'Rach, this is Jake,' Mindy says, as a slight, dark-haired, nervous-looking man follows the done-up-to-the-nines Mindy into the flat. I don't like to think we look old, but he does look young.

'Nice to meet you,' I say. He blushes. Yep, very young.

Mindy does a pirouette in a black sequin dress. 'Does this say Studio 54 or "fifty quid for him to watch"?'

Before I can answer, Ivor b.u.t.ts in. 'You could never look that cheap, Mind.'

She puts her tongue in her cheek and turns to him. 'Wait for it.'

'It says "a hundred pounds for him to watch, plus dry cleaning, and not on the face".'

'Zing!' Mindy says.

Ivor holds up clanking bags to me. 'Where?'

'Over there,' I say, pointing to the pink lady fridge.

'You're trolleyed already, aren't you, Rach? Is that boozer's flush I see?' Graeme says.

'It's rouge,' I say. 'Going for the Palace of Versailles look.'

The only way to deal with Graeme is to play along. Or at least, that's the only way to deal with him when he's married to one of your best friends.

Graeme peers into the sink.

'What the devil's going on here?'

I've put the plug in and filled it with white flowers, peonies, lilac and roses, their stems coiled and bent under the waterline. I saw this piece of stylistic flash at the gathering of a fashion writer once and always wanted to copy it. It wasn't on the cards when I lived with Rhys. He'd have demanded to know where he should put the dregs of his lager and, most likely, I'd have told him.

'Did you run out of vases?' Graeme asks.

'Gray,' Caroline says. 'Stop being a wind-up merchant.'

'Vases are for gravy,' Ivor says.

Graeme looks nonplussed.

'You've done a great job,' Caroline says, looking round and, if I do say so myself, I really have. I've run 'landing strips' of tea lights in clear gla.s.s holders along every straight line and there are vertical explosions of white gladioli in gla.s.s tanks dotted around the room. I was never much of a fan of gladioli when I lived in Sale, but there's something about their imperious legginess that suits this apartment.

'Funeral parlour minus the corpse,' Graeme says, with what he imagines is his roguish twinkle that exonerates all sins.

'One could be arranged,' Caroline says, crossing her arms.

'So,' Graeme fixes me with a beady look, 'Our Lady of the Ruinously Expensive Tastes, what's your rent here?'

'None of your business,' I say, hopefully sounding sweet.

'I'm only thinking of you. You're going back into the housing market with a single income, and six months here is a chunk of your deposit gone, I'll bet.'

I look to Caroline to silence him, but she's already stalked off to get a drink.

'I can't buy yet.'

'Why not?'

'Because I've split up with someone I spent half my life with and I don't know what I want or where I want to live.'

'You'll always need a roof over your head, won't you? You're not going to join a Bedouin tribe?'

'You can't always do what makes absolute practical sense ... I've got a drink, Caro, you're alright.'

She nods, hands Graeme a gla.s.s, sips from her own, eyes downcast.

'Living for the day is all very well in your twenties, you've got to start planning for the future sometime,' Graeme continues. I know what he means is, no one else is going to do it for you now. 'Things don't fall into place by accident.'

'Maybe.'

As he launches into another monologue, I interrupt: 'Graeme. Par-tee. Noun, two syllables, a social gathering for the purpose of pleasure.'

Ben, Olivia and Simon arrive while I'm busy mopping up a spilled drink and Caroline lets them in.

She leads them over to the kitchen, and as I join them Simon's saying to her: '... Had c.o.c.ktails at a bar on Ca.n.a.l Street, or should I say a.n.a.l Treat. Ben said it was mixed straight-and-gay, then the only woman in the place had an Adam's apple like a tennis ball. They were all the sort who could select scatter cushions, I'm telling you.'

Never mind Adam's apples, I just hope Simon's tongue is in his cheek most of the time.

'We brought you a h.o.m.ophobe, and this,' Ben says to me, as Olivia hands over a Peace Lily in a gold lacquered pot, 'to help warm your flat.'

Ben's wearing washed-out-to-look-old-but-new grey jeans and a black sweater. As ever: phew. Olivia's in a delicate grey wrap dress. Between the two of them, they must love grey. He leans in and does that double kiss thing again. I'm better prepared for it this time but I still get fl.u.s.tered, glad of the distraction the plant affords.

'This is amazing,' Ben says to Olivia, looking at the flat, putting an arm around her. 'Isn't it, Liv?'

'Your house is even nicer and your house is really yours,' I say to Olivia, with feeling, and she beams.

37.

I'd forgotten that approximately four per cent of parties, like four per cent of nightclubbing experiences, are truly superb, which is why you waste time, money, bandage-like undergarments and hopes on the other ninety-six per cent. And astonishingly, odds-defyingly, my flat warming has fallen into the magical minority. Conversation's buzzing, the drinks flow, the soundtrack works, the decor's admired, circulating happens effortlessly, my domestic-s.l.u.t choices of snack (square crisps, round crisps, the ones that resemble tiny rashers of bacon) have been received well, or at least, eaten.

Zoe appears to be having a whale of a time, laughing non-stop with the MEN crowd, Gretton's advert forgotten.

I feel as if I've been climbing a hill for a very long time and suddenly the sun's broken through and I've found a spot to sit on my cagoule and admire the vista. I've been missing Rhys like a phantom itch in a lost limb but for the first time I don't miss him at all. Time for another drink.

As the night wears on, Mindy takes control of the music, which makes things more raucous. Jake waves to me as he leaves, having explained he has to be up to revise in the morning; Ivor rolls his eyes behind his back. Caroline is deep in conversation with Olivia. I find myself next to the panoramic window, with Ben and Simon.

'Natalie said the interview went well,' Simon says.

'Good, I'm glad,' I say, dismissing a stab of discomfort. 'I thought so.'

'And when do I get to take you to dinner?'

Ben does a double-take.

'Whenever you like,' I say.

Ben does what I suppose must be a triple-take.

'Do you like Italian food?' Simon asks.

'Sure. Food in general, really.'

'Rachel's learning Italian,' Ben says.

'I know some Italian, stayed in Pisa on an exchange trip,' Simon says. 'Parli bene?'

'Uh ... non.'

'Non?'

Oh s.h.i.t. s.h.i.t! Subject change, quick.

'I was reading these tips about icebreakers today,' I blather. 'Party prep. Can I try one out on you two? OK. Your most embarra.s.sing incidents in the last year. Go.'

'Last week. My Latvian cleaning lady caught me in the nuddy,' Simon says.

'Seriously?'

'I grabbed the nearest thing to hand that was large enough to cover my modesty.'

'Which was?'

'My payslip.'

't.o.s.s.e.r!' I laugh despite myself, which is becoming the form with Simon.

I see Ben looking at both of us with mild concern, no doubt trying to figure out the dating thing. When he comes to a conclusion, I'd be grateful if he could explain it to me.

'There's one he prepared earlier,' Ben says.

'Yours?' I ask Ben.

'Apart from totally forgetting your name when I b.u.mped into you again after ten years? Let me think ...'

'You didn't?' My kneecaps feel as if they're not screwed on right.

'Of course I didn't, you a.r.s.e.'

Ben's disbelieving expression reads how could you fall for that?