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

‘Spooky,’ I said.

‘You have no idea, LS. No idea. There’s a ghost, you know.’

He went on to say that the ghost was said to hang about the medieval graveyard, just by the ornamental maze they had planted to entertain their four children – Cosima, Cressida, Hector and Wilf (known to the family as Bear). The ghost was referred to locally as ‘The Brown Monk’. He was believed to walk through the walls of the house making a soft, low, moaning sound.

‘You don’t believe in all that though, do you?’ I asked.

Ben shook his head. ‘No, but … Serena. You know how she is …’

Yes. Yes, I did.

The first time I met her, at a restaurant situated at the top of one of London’s newest skyscrapers, Serena had leaned across the table and clasped my forearm. She did it so quickly, I had no chance to remove my cuff from her grasp and so we sat there, uncomfortably, while she looked at me earnestly with those chlorine-blue eyes and said ‘Ben’s told me so much about you. I already know we’re going to be kindred spirits.’

I gave a non-committal smile. The non-committal smile is one of my specialities.

‘I can see the child in you,’ she said and as she spoke, a strand of blonde hair stuck to her lip gloss and stayed there, bisecting the lower half of her distant, beautiful face. Behind her, I could see the dark sweep of the city: the carcass of recently erected scaffolding illuminated by a foggy moon and the red twinkling lights of Canary Wharf, sequenced like the LED display of an unreadable digital watch.

‘It’s so important, isn’t it?’ she said as the first course arrived. ‘To keep that childlike wonder about the world.’

She removed her hand, pleased with herself. There was a single wrinkle on her smooth forehead and it seemed to have been placed there expressly to denote concern and empathy.

Serena was the latest in a long line of girlfriends. But even I had to acknowledge she was different. Prior to this, Ben had had a type. He was handsome and came from money. His life had been almost too easy – public school, Cambridge, hedge fund manager – and as a consequence, he sought out difficulty in his personal attachments. He liked neurotic girls with ripped jeans who smoked too much and cut their own hair. They never lasted for more than a few months and Ben had always been the one to end the liaison.

Often, I would have to mop them up afterwards. They would come to me, these girls, a muddied mess of tears and eyeliner, and I would always tell them the same thing: that Ben just wasn’t ready to settle down and who knew if he ever would be and it wasn’t them, it was him, and he adored them in his own way but he couldn’t help it, he just wasn’t ready. And they would nod and bite their lips and then, after a cup of sugary tea and a few crumbs of cake (they would never eat the whole slice), they left my flat, never to be seen again.

I liked these girls, probably because I never felt threatened by them. They had no designs on my friendship with Ben. They respected our unbreakable bond. We knew each other better than anyone else in the world, you see. No woman could compete with that. Like I told them: not their fault.

Until Serena.

Serena, with her casual confidence, bowled him over. They met on a skiing holiday. Of course they did. That’s where people like that meet. It’s either Verbier or St Tropez.

She was blonde and tall and striking. Lean muscles. A sugary scent. Hair that swung from side to side as if advertising itself. She worked in an art gallery, although as soon as they got engaged, she gave up the job. She was the kind of person I had always assumed Ben would find boring. We used to laugh about the dull Sloanes with their made-up careers and their reliance on Daddy’s trust fund and their weekends in the country in Hunter wellingtons and padded body-warmers.

But I underestimated Serena. Because although she looked boring (beautiful, yes, but undeniably boring) she possessed this unspoilt quality. She was deeply naive. It wasn’t stupidity, not exactly, but rather a sense of other-worldliness, as if she had never quite found her place on the planet. A more unkind word might be ‘ditzy’.

For whatever reason, Ben was smitten. I realised, that night, when I looked across the table at him, desperately wanting him to look back, that Serena was there to stay. Ben turned to her and, with the pad of his thumb, stroked the stray strand of hair away from her mouth, then kissed her with excruciating tenderness. And I knew things were going to change.

It wasn’t a perfect marriage. They had the requisite children, each one precocious and adorable in a slightly different way from the one that had come before, and as Ben broke away from the company he had worked for since graduation to build up his own business, they spent more and more time apart. Serena, ever vague, never understood the pressures of his work. Ben, increasingly preoccupied, had no time left over to devote to the emotional maintenance of his wife. She grew harder. The naivety I had once noticed became polluted by a certain world-weary assessment of things and people – of their value; their cost. Ben loved her still, of that I was sure. He just wasn’t in love with her.

I don’t think either of them really cared. They put on a good show. Serena had aged well, thanks to the judicious use of fillers administered by a discreet plastic surgeon and the unparalleled youth-preserving tactic of having very little to do. She became one of those glamorous, wealthy women who don’t have enough to occupy their time and who attempt to fill it with charity luncheons and a nebulous search for meaning. She went on Ayurvedic retreats and meditation weekends, leaving the children in the care of two full-time nannies and a dedicated housekeeper who wore a dark uniform designed to look not too like a uniform. She spoke a lot about ‘connections’ and ‘auras’. Ben was kind to her. In public, they made a good pair.

But she still had her ‘ideas’. And one of these, Ben told me as we stood in the chapel, was to do with the ghost at Tipworth. He said she had arranged for a local exorcist to come and perform some charade that would ‘release the negative energy’.

‘How does one find a local exorcist?’ I asked. ‘Do they advertise in the Yellow Pages?’

Ben laughed. ‘Fuck knows. I mean, does the Yellow Pages even still exist?’

‘Trust Serena …’ I let the thought dwindle, unanswered.

We stood side by side for a few seconds, as the light outside slid into paleness. The coloured panels in the windows sent rhombuses of pink, green and blue across the worn stone floor.

‘You’re not drinking,’ Ben said, accusingly.

I looked at my champagne flute. It was true. I hadn’t taken a single sip. My fingertips were clammy from the accumulated moisture on the side of the glass.

‘Sorry.’ I smiled, then raised the glass. ‘Here’s to you, Ben. Your new home. And, happy birthday.’

‘Thanks LS.’

We clinked. But I felt again, looking at the studied vacancy of his face, that something was amiss.

‘My oldest friend,’ I said, trying once more to elicit some sort of spark of recognition. But he shuffled uncomfortably and still couldn’t look at me.

‘Listen, LS. We need to talk.’ His voice was dry and reedy. ‘About …’ He gesticulated broadly with his free hand, as if painting treble clefs in imaginary sand.

I waited. One beat. Two. Blood pumping. Muscles clenched.

‘I’ve got a business opportunity I want to discuss with you.’

Relief. The flush of it almost physical.

‘Oh,’ I said, trying not to think of all the things he might have said. ‘Interesting. Tell me more.’

I made an effort to keep the pleasure out of my voice. Ben had never asked me to join him in any kind of business venture before. I’d always been a little offended at his failure to do so. Of course, in the early days, I didn’t have the necessary funds. But since the publication of Art: Who Gives a F**k?, my bank balance had been conspicuously healthier. Published in twenty-one languages. In the Sunday Times bestseller list for twelve solid weeks. The royalties kept rolling in.

Now that he was offering me an in, I was delighted. It meant he trusted me. It meant I was just as good as any of his trustafarian friends.

‘It’s a little investment idea I have. A new casino-style resort in Montenegro.’

‘Ah. Montenegro: the new Monte Carlo.’

‘Ha!’ he said again. ‘Very good, LS. Yes. Should use that as a slogan, really.’

I took a sip of champagne. The bubbles pricked my tongue.

‘Of course. When do you want to have this chat? Not now, surely?’

He shook his head, the curls in spasm.

‘No, mate, no. We’ll find a quiet time after the party. With the wives.’

I raised my eyebrows.

‘I mean … it will involve them too.’

‘How intriguing.’

‘We can do it once the guests have gone.’