‘This isn’t life.’
A bald woman wearing a kaftan came into the room, sought out Bill and kissed him on the lips. Tony didn’t know whether she proved or disproved the statement he’d just made.
Bill finally came over to see them, and they shook hands warmly. They’d met for lunch a few times, and Tony had told him about his troubles with Diane and the new series. Bill had been mildly sympathetic but uninterested; he’d gone to a better place. He had nearly finished a second novel, and he’d been commissioned to write a play for the Royal Court.
He kissed them both on the cheek. Tony tried to pretend that he was bohemian enough to carry it off without self-consciousness, but he was acutely aware of his jacket, his tie and his wife.
‘Thank you both for coming to this den of iniquity,’ Bill said.
‘The Pinner Mothers’ Union will be agog when I tell them,’ said June.
‘She’s not actually a member of the Pinner Mothers’ Union,’ Tony said, completely unnecessarily.
June and Bill both laughed, but at him, not with him.
‘You can’t have it all ways,’ said Bill, and then Michael Braun pulled him away to introduce him to someone else.
Tony’s eyes wandered around the room and then came to rest on a beautiful young coloured woman wearing a beautiful shimmering silver chemise and a dramatically tied headscarf. Why didn’t he know any young coloured women? Why didn’t he know people who tied their headscarves in a dramatic way? He didn’t care about Bill’s success, he thought. He liked it. It was great. And he didn’t worry about whether he was missing out on life. What Tony really wanted was to walk into a room somewhere and feel he was at home in it.
Years later, Tony would discover that writers never felt they belonged anywhere. That was one of the reasons they became writers. It was strange, however, failing to belong even at a party full of outsiders.
‘It’s not working,’ he said to June suddenly, on the way back to Pinner.
‘What?’ She looked alarmed, and he squeezed her hand.
‘Oh. Sorry. I meant work. Diane. All that. It’s hopeless. I’m writing with a kid who thinks that wearing the wrong heels to a discotheque is the stuff of life.’
‘I don’t see why it couldn’t be the stuff of a joke,’ June said.
‘A joke she wants to turn into thirty minutes of peak-viewing television.’
‘Well, stop her,’ said June. ‘You’re the senior writer in the partnership.’
‘I have stopped her,’ said Tony. ‘But I don’t know what to replace it with. I don’t know anything about young women or fashion magazines or boyfriends.’
‘So turn it into something else.’
‘What, a searing indictment of race relations in Britain?’ He was still thinking about the coloured girl at the party and feeling resentful. ‘How come Bill knows coloured girls?’
‘Wasn’t she beautiful!’
‘But how did he meet her?’
‘I’ll tell you how,’ said June.
‘You actually know?’
‘I can guess.’
‘Go on, then.’
‘He was at a party, and this beautiful girl came in, and he went over and said, “Hello, I’m Bill.” ’
‘But how do you get invited to parties like that?’
‘Are you serious?’ said June.
‘Yes,’ said Tony.
‘You do know you were invited to a party exactly like that.’
‘Tonight, you mean?’
‘Yes. Tonight.’
He tried to think of a reason why tonight didn’t count, but there wasn’t one.