Anne Billson - Stiff Lips

Miles fiddled with his fork. 'Actually I found she'd been shagging someone else all along.'

Miles had been shagging other women left, right and centre all the years he'd been living with Sophie, but I didn't remind him of that. Instead I said, 'Oh, bad luck. You must be feeling a bit depressed, then.'

Miles nodded. 'Suicidal. You know how it is. This party might be just the thing to cheer me up. I thought you might know who was going to be there. Which of Sophie's friends, I mean.'

Now I understood. He wanted Sophie back, and I was supposed to tell him if he had a clear run. Well, I wasn't going to roll over and play his game. It took me all of two seconds to postpone the proposed visit to my grandmother indefinitely.

'It's my party too,' I said.

'It is?' asked Miles, chomping away on a particularly stubborn piece of pigskin. 'Sophie said you'd be away.'

'I was toying with the idea. Nothing definite.'

'So. Who will you be inviting? Anyone I know?'

This, I knew, was Milespeak for, 'And who might you be shagging these days?' An image of Graham unfurled my brain and hung there, undulating gently like a banner in the wind, but I made it go away. I didn't want Miles thinking I was that desperate. 'I'm sort of between men,' I said, peering at him over the top of my spectacles.

Miles looked pleased at the thought of there being at least one unattached female dancing attendance on him. He smiled a wicked smile that made my stomach do a back-flip. I considered the odds; they were big, fat and juicy. I would have an entire evening to work on him, and there would be no one to get in the way. Carolyn was ancient history; he wasn't about to retrace his steps with her. Charlotte had fancied him for ages, and I wouldn't have stood a chance against her in the normal run of things, but her style would be severely cramped by Toby, and perhaps by Grenville as well, though I still wasn't sure what was going on in that department.

I had no way of knowing whether or not Robert Jamieson was going to put in an appearance. Who was I kidding? It was the anniversary of his suicide; of course he was going to show up. But I would be surrounded by friends, and I had no intention of sleeping alone. I would have Miles in my sights and even if — heaven forbid — things didn't work out between us, there would always be Graham to fall back on.

The only other obvious contender for Miles' affections would be Sophie. This was a tough one. But she'd changed so much I wasn't sure he'd recognize her any more, let alone fancy her. Maybe she was no longer his type. Not that Miles had ever been fussy enough to have a type.

But I had no intention of letting Sophie spoil things. Not now. Not ever again.

On the morning of the party I got up early and wolfed down a big bowl of muesli before tidying the flat. There wasn't much tidying to do, but I made sure that all the more embarrassing things — such as the stash of Pop Tarts, the Madonna tapes, and my Bon Ton Guide to Chic Shopping — were well concealed, while items likely to impress — such as my new Mont Blanc pen, the ashtray Marsha had got me from Cinghiale, and a bottle of Extra Virgin Olive Oil from the shop up the road — were occupying centre-stage. On second thoughts, bearing in mind what Miles had told me about his pen being snatched, I hid my Mont Blanc and left the empty box on display in its place.

Sophie and I had called a truce. After lunch I nipped downstairs to ask if I could borrow some earrings and she invited me in to take a look at her living-room. I reeled in shock: the place had been transformed. The white-with-a-soupcon-of-pistachio had been almost obliterated by black and purple nebulae, several galaxies' worth of silver moons and stars, and a couple of primitive rainbows. The windows had shed their fluttering buttermilk drapes and were now hung with ill-fitting red velvet which looked suspiciously like the curtains that had been up in my flat before I'd moved in and torn them down.

'How are you going to get this stuff off?' I asked, testing the surface of the nearest nebula with the tip of a fingernail.

Sophie inclined her head and said, 'Maybe I want it to stay.'

I was astonished and not a little discomfited. What had happened to my friend's discerning eye for all that was most refined in interior decoration? What about her carefully worked-out colour schemes? Her eye for subtle yet authentic detail? Either she was exercising a zany sense of humour that had hitherto escaped my notice, or she'd been infected with some rapid-acting disease which had wiped out her taste receptors.

'When did you do all this… spraying? '

'Oh, it wasn't me,' she giggled. 'I hired a couple of tomcats.'

'Oh, what? You spotted them painting their names on the side of a tube train?'

'No, I got Dirk and Lemmy to do it.'

'Dirk and Lemmy? Dirk and Lemmy have been here?' I found it hard to believe she'd allowed Dirk and Lemmy back within stippling range of her walls.

'They're down with Marsha right now,' said Sophie. 'They're really imaginative. Aren't you going to get them to do something to your place?'

'They're here? Now?'

'Why don't we pop down and see how they're doing,' said Sophie, taking me by the hand.

The door to Marsha's flat was propped open with a large metal Buddha, and the noise from an improperly tuned radio drifted out to greet us. The first thing I saw as I walked into her living-room was Dirk slopping a bucket of blood over the wall. The second thing was Lemmy sitting in the middle of the floor with a Rambo knife, hacking away at a pumpkin wedged between his thighs like an off-colour testicular swelling.

Lemmy's face lit up as he saw me. 'Clare!' he exclaimed. 'Silmarillion ornella muti!'

Dirk turned round, the front of his overalls an impressionistic study in scarlet. 'Clare!' he yelled, ditching the bucket and advancing towards me with arms outstretched. 'Where've you been?'

He smothered me in his bearlike embrace, leaving me smeared with so much red it looked as though I'd been attacked by a knife-wielding maniac.

'You're not mad at me?' I asked.

Lemmy and Dirk looked at each other like Bill and Ben wondering where on earth Little Weed had got to.

'Mad at you?' asked Dirk. 'Why? What have you done?' He adopted a schoolmasterly baritone. 'Have you been a bad girl, Clare?'

'The Boar's Head,' I prompted him. 'Don't you remember?'

'Melissa stribling,' said Lemmy, shaking his head.

Dirk scratched his face, leaving a big red smear on his stubbly chin. 'Old bikers' pub,' he said. 'Lots of gays in there now. Not really your kind of place.'

'You mean you don't remember?'

'Remember what?'

I could have wept with relief. Dirk and Lemmy were so brain-dead they hadn't even noticed me running out on them. I couldn't understand how I'd got so worked up over it. 'I behaved rather badly,' I said.

Dirk and Lemmy sniggered. They thought they knew everything there was to know about bad behaviour.

'Do tell,' purred Sophie, who had stationed herself at my elbow.

'Impossible to misbehave in the Boar's Head,' said Dirk.

Lemmy nodded. 'Vetivert,' he said sagely. 'Nogbad.'

'You're telling me,' said Dirk. 'I mean, you should see what those gay bikers get up to on a Saturday night.'

As soon as Sophie realized there weren't going to be any true confessions, she lost interest in the conversation and wandered over to inspect Dirk's splatter effect. 'Looks like someone got chopped up with an axe in this very room,' she said.

'Noddy in toyland,' Lemmy said to her excitedly. 'Annabella salmonella.' He gestured towards the floor.

I was about to ask Dirk for a translation when Marsha came in from the kitchen, rattling her stainless steel cocktail shaker. 'I didn't know you were friends with Dirk and Lemmy,' I said, unable to keep the accusatory tone out of my voice.