The Party: The thrilling Richard & Judy Book Club Pick 2018

The Party: The thrilling Richard & Judy Book Club Pick 2018
Elizabeth Day

‘As the train pressed on, I realised that my life was in the process of taking a different direction, plotted according to a new constellation. Because, although I didn't know it yet, I was about to meet Ben and nothing would ever be the same again.’Martin Gilmour is an outsider. When he wins a scholarship to Burtonbury School, he doesn’t wear the right clothes or speak with the right kind of accent. But then he meets the dazzling, popular and wealthy Ben Fitzmaurice, and gains admission to an exclusive world. Soon Martin is enjoying tennis parties and Easter egg hunts at the Fitzmaurice family’s estate, as Ben becomes the brother he never had.But Martin has a secret. He knows something about Ben, something he will never tell. It is a secret that will bind the two of them together for the best part of 25 years.At Ben’s 40th birthday party, the great and the good of British society are gathering to celebrate in a haze of champagne, drugs and glamour. Amid the hundreds of guests – the politicians, the celebrities, the old-money and newly rich – Martin once again feels that disturbing pang of not-quite belonging. His wife, Lucy, has her reservations too. There is disquiet in the air. But Ben wouldn’t do anything to damage their friendship.Would he?

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Copyright (#udb1ee16b-168a-5c80-b4d2-4d8a6dd58263)

4th Estate

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.4thEstate.co.uk (http://www.4thEstate.co.uk)

This eBook first published in Great Britain by 4th Estate in 2017

Copyright © Elizabeth Day 2017

Cover photograph © Willie Maldonado/The Image Bank/Getty Images

Cover designed by Anna Morrison

Elizabeth Day asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Source ISBN: 9780008194307

Ebook edition: July 2017 ISBN: 9780008194284

Version: 2018-03-09

Dedication (#udb1ee16b-168a-5c80-b4d2-4d8a6dd58263)

For my friends

party (#udb1ee16b-168a-5c80-b4d2-4d8a6dd58263)

noun

1. a social gathering of invited guests, typically involving eating, drinking and entertainment.

2. a formally constituted political group that contests elections and attempts to form or take part in a government, e.g. ‘faction’, e.g. ‘the party’s election manifesto’.

3. a person or people forming one side in an agreement or dispute, e.g. ‘the guilty party’.

Contents

Cover (#uec6feefc-0143-5b96-be10-9864760079f9)

Title Page (#u1534854f-fdff-5d31-bc40-71598ecd863b)

Copyright (#uf806b378-53e7-52e8-a403-706ceaace9a3)

Dedication (#u4a7e04a2-6ab3-549f-8bfb-73c72ad84eae)

I. (#uea9c9797-5d3f-5042-8058-3d46a3a54411)

II. (#ud0169f2f-4510-5573-b2e5-cd7374467190)

III. (#litres_trial_promo)

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VIII. (#litres_trial_promo)

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X. (#litres_trial_promo)

XI. (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

I. (#udb1ee16b-168a-5c80-b4d2-4d8a6dd58263)

THE INTERVIEW ROOM IS SMALL AND SQUARE. A table, three plastic chairs, a high frosted window, the glass grimy with dust, strip lighting; our faces cast in dingy yellow shadow.

Two cups of tea: one for the female police officer, one for me. White with two sugars. Too much milk, but I’m not in a position to complain. The rim of my cup is patterned with indentations where, a few minutes previously, I bit into the polystyrene.

The walls are off-white. They remind me of the squash courts at the RAC on Pall Mall where, just a few days ago, I demolished an opponent who was several positions ahead of me in the club rankings. He was a banker. Florid face. Baggy shorts. Surprisingly lean thigh muscles. I dispatched him fairly swiftly: serve, slice, smash. The rubber thwack of the ball as it pinged into concrete, a dark green full stop at the end of each rally. Grunting. Swearing. Eventual defeat. Aggression contained within four walls.

The police station has a similar feel: a sort of bristling masculinity even though only one of the two officers interviewing me is male. The woman has clearly been designated ‘good cop’. It was she who offered me the tea, said it would be beneficial. She also suggested two sugars.