After the Party by Lisa Jewell Read Free Book Online Page A

on his studio, kiss his family good-bye, climb into a Boeing 747, close his eyes and wake up in America. Alone. Ralph had not been anywherealone since 1996. He felt simultaneously excited and scared. This trip was so important to him; without it he could see himself going down under the pressure of work, family, his own feeblemindedness. But the week of his visit also felt like a large white void. He had no fixed mental image of Smith’s abode, his lifestyle. Smith was a secretive bugger, his emails terse and to the point, never more than a line or two. It was almost as if he felt that he were still here, still sharing a flat with Ralph, that he didn’t need to expound on the details of his existence or his circumstances, his emails the equivalent of passing Ralph outside the bathroom and throwing him a vague, “All right?” He didn’t even know if Smith lived on his own or with friends.
    Ralph pulled down the lid of his laptop and exhaled. This was good, he thought, this was good. To get away from this room, this house, this world in which he’d become less and less essential, more and more ordinary, just a bloke at the top of the house painting flowers, changing the occasional shitty nappy and annoying his partner. Whatever happened in California, whatever kind of a trip he had, things would change when he got back, change for the better; he would make sure of that.
    And with that thought, instead of heading downstairs to help Jem tidy up after tea, instead of sitting on the sofa with his baby boy in his arms, instead of admitting to himself that the paintings could wait, that his presence up here was not so vital, that there were better things going on downstairs and that the time to make a change could be right now, he picked up his Marlboros and a green Bic lighter and headed for his balcony, where he smoked a cigarette in contemplative and solitary silence.

Chapter 8
    J em saw Joel again three days later. It was a blustery morning and she was taking Blake and Scarlett to Brixton library for parent and toddler story time. Blake was strapped upon her chest, small heels flopping back and forth against her abdomen in leather booties, his head covered with a blue fleece-lined deerstalker that kept twisting around and covering his eyes. Scarlett was in the buggy. Scarlett was too big to be in a buggy, but due to a combination of her own indomitable spirit and the reality of how long it would take for her to walk there without it, Jem had acquiesced with a weary “Okay then” when she’d come upon her daughter in the hallway, jaw set with determination, already strapped in.
    Jem’s hair was loose, apart from a small diamanté clip to the side of her parting which she’d contemplated momentarily before leaving the house—at what age should a woman stop wearing things in her hair, particularly sparkly things?—but decided, on balance, that she wasn’t forty yet and that maybe one day when she was forty she’d wish she’d worn more sparkles in her hair when she was thirty-eight.
    She was glad of the diamonds in her hair now, as she approached the man called Joel walking toward her, his girl, Jessica, careering toward them determinedly on a small pink scooter. Jem had made little effort with her wardrobe this morning:skinny jeans, zip-up hoodie, sheepskin boots and a huge knitted scarf. The fact of a small baby attached to her body added little to her overall allure, she imagined, but maybe, just maybe, the touch of glamour in her hair would provide enough of a distraction.
    She questioned her need to look pretty for a strange man. And then she questioned her lack of physical interest in Ralph. Did it mean that she didn’t love him anymore? Did it mean that she wanted to be with someone else? She considered the question for a second or two and decided that no, it just meant that she wanted someone to notice her and see her for what she used to be rather than