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stick to glossy unreality, faint hearts and all.
    â€œThat’s your trouble, darling, you want too much—you want a Ralph Lauren ad for a life, but those boys are all gay and babies vomit all the time. It’s not so pretty in reality.”

C HAPTER 5
    W hen was the last time you went to a party which lived up to your expectations? Parties, let’s face it, are a metaphor for dashed hopes. By far the best bit is the getting ready. Keats got it right, thought Amy, pushing her toe into the tap to stop it dripping. “Sweet fancy melteth like bubbles when the rain pelteth.” The anticipation is all, the reality just never seems to come up to scratch.
    The steamy lilac vapors rose around her, and she sank beneath the waters as oh-so-handsome men swirled in her head and her evening built up before her into the glorious Technicolor of late-1950s films. Her head became a rainy Saturday afternoon in front of the television. All ladies in pistachio gowns removing themselves from the whirl of the ballroom to a balcony of orange blossom and cool air; moments later a devilishly good-looking man would emerge onto said balcony and there’d be a brush of skin or proclamation of love. Or perhaps some film noir of rainy nights and cruel, red mouths and dark encounters. Whatever, it had to be better than real life, she thought, rising from the bubbles and simultaneously drenching the floor.
    The party was a champagne-and-oysters affair in Holland Park, at a magazine editor’s house. This particulareditor loved the world to know she had exquisite sofas and perfect cornicing so was altogether happy to have a relative nobody such as Amy there, as an apostle for her interior decorating. This editor was also known as the worst bitch in London, and a total nutter to boot.
    â€œWe call her Dagenham, because she’s one stop up from Barking,” a journalist who labored under the dictatorship of the hostess proudly informed Amy. He sniggered as though he’d just stuck his tongue out to his schoolteacher. He gave her a whistle-stop rundown of the assembled luminaries. Most of them seemed to inhabit the strange cloisters of daytime television. Take a vow of nonentity and you, too, can retreat there to atone for some long-ago sin on prime-time TV. Amy remained a paragon of unimpressedness as these besweatered men and fluffy women were introduced to her. She bore with fortitude the slings and arrows of insult as they addressed her just beyond her left ear, one eye trawling the room for someone more interesting, or at least more wealthy.
    Lucinda was one of life’s believers in social self-sufficiency; you picnic on conversation, mingle with ease, and charm and flatter effortlessly, or else why were you invited? Amy came from the school of thought which preferred a girlfriend to weld herself to as a permanent source of security, a safety valve for difficult conversations and the human equivalent of a T-shirt declaring, “Hey, it’s OK, I know someone here.” Thus Lucinda bellowed with laughter by the fireplace with a group of curtain designers and Amy stood alone. Lucinda’s boyfriend Benjy spotted her, much to her shame and relief.
    â€œI take it you’re Amy, I’ve heard lots about you. Benjy, I go out with Lucinda.” He proffered his hand.
    â€œYeah, I’m Amy, nice to meet you.” He was very handsome, blue-black hair and china blue eyes, slim and slightly wasted looking. Very man-of-the-moment. But Lucinda had obviously been ahead of the game, spotted his fashionable potential three years ago before he was a glimmer in a style guru’s eye.
    â€œWhat do you do?” asked Amy, knowing full well he was a scriptwriter but opting for perfunctory rather than inspired conversation.
    â€œOh, I write scripts, mostly documentaries right now, but I’m doing the odd project of my own, films of obscure Russian novels, par-for-the-course stuff.” He smiled