surprise party

“Meet us at Southbank on Saturday night, birthday party, surprise party.” We turn up late, missing the great unveiling, and sit at the very end of a long table outdoors. Gray Street is one long dinner party, a half mile of revelry and carousing. How many teaspoons, I’m thinking, how much milk. After dinner there is a general dispersal but seven people close to the bride, sorry, the birthday girl want to have a drink someplace quiet before heading home.

There’s a bar in Paddington. “Is that quiet?” A bar in the Valley. “But the parking!” It comes down to The End, nearby in West End, or a place called Lefties in Paddington which I have visited once before, hardly quiet but hearty, a merry joint, both of them sound good, no one can decide.

“The End is nigher,” says my German friend, thus proving if you can make puns in your second language you can make half a dozen people really happy at once. Birthday girl comes weaving through us on her high high heels. She is holding up her loot, a clank of wine bottles in different sparkly carrier bags with gift tags, in bunches either side of her head like a victorious shopper. “I’ve got 6 litres of wine,” she says. “Why are we going to a bar?”

Later at home I tell my companion, her husband must have said the same to everyone when he invited them. I asked him, “What kind of thing would she like, for a little birthday present?” and he said, “She likes wine…” Her sister is also well-equipped and after we finally find a beer bar that’s open in West End and accidentally shove some other people off their table and buy a round of local brewed beers and down those, she says, “I’ve got a hip flask. Who wants gin?” Someone goes up to buy glasses of tonic and after the G&T spools its way down to my stomach I am feeling so restful, so possum-like, so inexplicably toasty. I dance in my seat, I unwind the scarf from my neck and sling it onto our large pile of coats and bags. Birthday girl opens her gorgeous black purse when I admire it and says, “In the op shop it came with this little wallet inside…” It is Glomesh and came with the original brochure, cunningly tucked in a windowed plastic wallet, the price in the old money hand written on the back, in its satin side pocket. I say, “You want to know the best thing about Glomesh? How it sags into your hand so soft and comforting, like a really old and worn pair of soft underpants, you can just cup it, it just falls into your palm.” “I know!” she says, “I love that!” and her sister says, “Me too!” and we spend some time passing the purse between us to cup the fall of heavy enamelled mesh in one palm after another. Oh, Glomesh. My companion nudges me. “I’ve never seen that before. People dancing on the dance floor to a cover songs guitarist.” It’s true! Lost in a sea of writhing bodies the guitarist is bearded and intently concentrating, oblivious to the girls gyrating in front of him waving their hands like they’re attracting air craft and are stranded on some deserted island. Boys are dancing too, everybody’s dancing, although the song he’s covering seems to be… “That’s Katy Perry!” I slowly realise. “He’s singing Teenage Dream.” He goes on to cover Don’t Stop, by Fleetwood Mac, Africa by Toto which gets half the room singing along with its moving and meaningless lyrics, Girls Just Wanna Have Fun by Cyndi Lauper – “This guy is fearless!” Birthday girl returns from the bathrooms and slaps her Glomesh down on the long wooden table. She beckons me and says into my ear, “In the bathroom? There was this long line and every girl in the queue was on her phone, scrolling and texting. So funny.” I say, “No! What?” She says, “I was watching in the mirrors and it just looked so funny and sad. And then this other girl? came out of a cubicle flushing behind her – with her eyes on her phone, texting and texting – and she stuck out one hand and turned the tap, like this, still texting, and washed that hand and dried it, texting, and went out the door, still -”

I say, “No!” “I know!” she says. We are both laughing painfully, trying to draw breath, getting out these little squeaks of sounds that resemble those furry animals you keep in a cage and feed on sawdust, mice, rats, guinea pigs, hamsters. We stagger to our feet, weak with laughter, cramming our arms into jackets and coats, winding scarves. The beautiful Indian girl raises luminous eyes to mine and I lean forward, clapping down on the table, and tell her, “You – are one of the most beautiful women I have ever met in real life.” She silently bows her head to one side and glancing at me lengthwise indicates with a wash of one pale-palmed hand, No, you… Between the high tables a couple is dancing, dreamy and fast, he spins her thus and that, forth and back, over, she ducks a quivering ponytail under his arm; they are only in jeans and tshirts but the Viennese splendour of tea dances, gold-rimmed cake dishes, and penguin orchestras wafts round them like smoke in a Berlin nightclub.