Phil and Marek trade consistent blows too, their voices getting louder as the empty wine bottles stack up. Phil ‘seriously cannot believe’ that Marek has never been to South America – he and Becky spent three weeks in Argentina last summer, and it was ‘iconic’. Marek retaliates with a blitzkrieg of name-dropping: he had an ‘epic’ meeting last week about shooting a soft drink campaign with Tim Henman (‘a bloody good guy’). Plus an encouraging Skype call about a cufflink commercial with Piers Morgan, who apparently is surprisingly down-to-earth.
As the meal goes on, I watch them all closely – my new partner and my new friends – and it strikes me that they’re not really talking to each other; they’re just taking it in turns to speak, each gearing up for their latest pitch about why they’ve got the best job, or the best house, or the best taste in restaurants or TV shows or holidays.
The scariest thing is that Alice is competing the hardest. She interrupts excitedly whenever she can trump an anecdote, and twitches with annoyance whenever someone trumps one of hers.
I do my best to make an effort and join in, but it gets harder and harder as the afternoon draws on. Not just because my thoughts keep flying back to Daphne, but also because Alice seems to jump on pretty much every comment I make, either dismissing it out of hand or using it as a springboard to wring a laugh from the others.
At one point, Phil presses me for further information on Wyndham’s, and I mumble something neutral about how I’m ‘getting along OK there’. Alice cuts in sharply and snaps, ‘Don’t be stupid, Ben, you’re doing amazingly.’ She turns to Becky and Dee: ‘Dad says he’s actually in line for a promotion pretty soon.’
Phil smirks at this. ‘Dad says …’ he chuckles under his breath.
Alice shoots me an irritated glance before turning away again. She seems to take my self-deprecation as a personal slight, as if it reflects badly on her. It’s like she wants our friends to believe I’m a success because it makes her a success for being with me.
On the other hand, though, she also seems to relish any chance to put me down in front of them. When Marek starts laying into some ‘massively pretentious’ new novel he’s reading, Alice groans and looks over at me.
‘Oh my God, Ben, do you remember your novel?’ She puts her head in her hands, miming utter mortification.
‘That bad, was it?’ Phil booms over the laughter.
Alice sets her teeth and winces at me. ‘Sorry, babe. I’m being mean. But it was a bit cringe.’
‘No, it’s true,’ I say quietly. ‘It was pretty terrible.’
‘Aw, sweet that you let her see it, though,’ Dee says, reading my mind – although I’d have swapped the word ‘sweet’ for ‘insane’.
Alice adopts a cartoonish expression of guilt. ‘Actually … I just found it in one of his boxes when we moved into the flat.’ She grimaces. ‘He came into the room and found me laughing my head off reading it.’ A beat, and then: ‘It wasn’t a comedy.’
Laughter rings around the table, and I do my best to add mine to it.
‘Good thing you found your niche in the end, Ben,’ Marek chuckles. ‘I’d say management consultants earn a few bob more than wannabe novelists.’
Alice nods. ‘Mmm. And press-release writers, thank God.’
There’s more laughter at this – though mostly from Alice and Marek. It’s strange: I’m only starting to remember it now, but during the first term at uni, the two of them used to do this a lot. Team up to take casual swipes at me after a few drinks in the student bar. We were a tight little trio, and I was usually the butt of our jokes. It was another reason I felt so much more comfortable with Daphne and Harv from the second term onwards.
Pretty soon, our plates are taken away and heaps of steaming Christmas pudding are set down in their place. As the meal comes to an end, I lapse into silence, nodding at whatever’s being said while getting steadily drunker and drunker. I can see Alice’s glare sharpening every time I refill my glass, and I remember her comment earlier about how we should take it easy on the alcohol. But I can’t bring myself to stop. The thought that this might be it – that this might be my life from now on – sits like a lead weight on my shoulders. I can almost feel myself sinking into the ground as I contemplate it.
There must be another way. There must be a way back.
By the time we stagger out of the pub, the white sun is beginning to sink into the horizon.
Decked out in thick scarves and woolly hats, we meander slowly through Queen’s Park, trying to work off the goose and gravy. Phil leads the way, stumbling slightly from his excessive wine intake while outlining his New Year’s resolution to buy a sailboat. Becky looks distinctly unimpressed – by either his nautical ambitions or his drunkenness, or both.
My head is fuzzy from too much booze, and I realise with a lurch that this route through the park is one Daff and I used to take occasionally on weekends, just after we’d bought our flat in Kensal Rise. We’d wander hand in hand through the trees and read our books on the grass, or sit and people-watch on the bandstand.
I’m lingering at the rear of the pack, lost in these memories, only half listening to Alice telling everyone about the second series of some Game of Thrones prequel we’ve apparently started watching – ‘Ben can’t stand it, but I’m hooked. Aren’t I, babe?’ – when suddenly a bright red rubber ball stops us all in our tracks.
It skitters across the grass in front of us, followed a split second later by a shaggy-haired miniature Schnauzer, which scoops it up in its slobbery jaws and beams at us triumphantly.
‘God, I wish people would learn to control their dogs,’ Becky tuts.
I glance in the direction it came from, and in an instant, my wine-fugged head is clear, and my heartbeat has tripled in speed.
On the other side of the park, a scruffy-bearded man in a shabby-looking suit is waving at us.
‘Yeah, OK, mate, chill out,’ Phil mutters, waving back. ‘Apology accepted.’
That lead weight on my shoulders has disappeared, and my whole body is suddenly alive with hope. He’s here!
I glance around frantically for somewhere – anywhere – I might be able to talk to him privately, but the others keep walking on. The little dog stays rooted to the spot, staring up at me with its tail wagging. I get the strange impression that it won’t move until I start walking with it.
‘Hey – I’ll catch you guys up,’ I blurt.
Alice turns around. ‘What?’
‘I’ve just seen someone I know. From work. I should go and say merry Christmas. I’ll catch up with you in a sec.’
Alice appears faintly appalled by this suggestion, but makes no effort to stop me. ‘All right … fine. We’ll meet you by the bandstand.’
‘OK.’
It’s all I can do to stop myself sprinting in the watch-seller’s direction. I set off speed-walking as a compromise, and the Schnauzer begins trotting along next to me, panting happily. The watch-seller is wearing his usual crumpled Grandad Jack grin, and as I approach, he raises a hand in cheery salute.
‘Lovely day for a Christmas stroll!’ He nods in the direction of Alice and the others. ‘They seem like a friendly bunch.’