“It’s purple satin. Classic strapless from Demone. With so much gorgeous lace edging. That’s antique, you know. Daddy had a fit when he found out how much it was, but I had to have it. It’s just
“Wow,” Lorraine breathed.
“I’ve seen it,” Danielle said brightly. “It’s lovely.”
“Thank you,” Rachel said. “What about you, Annabelle? Have you bought a dress yet?”
Annabelle finished her Bacardi in a single long swallow. The evening gowns on Stephanie’s site cost an absolute fortune, and she hadn’t found any reproductions that were any good, not in her price range. She knew she’d wind up hiring one for the night. “I haven’t decided what I’m wearing,” she told them, even though they were being evil. Rachel knew damn well she hadn’t got anyone to go with. That one and Simon were going to be well suited, she decided. “I’m going to get another drink.” She walked away, her empty glass held casually low, as if she hadn’t a care in the world.
God damn Tim for not asking her yet!
IT MUST BE A SIGN of true age to think parties were a pain to be avoided at all costs. Long before this one started, Jeff had decided there was no way he was going to spend more than an hour pasting on a false smile and saying: “Really, how interesting,” to people he didn’t like, didn’t know, and considered utterly boring. And this was a party in his honor. Age, or grumpiness? he wondered.
However, once it got started he found himself mellowing. For one thing, he could actually enjoy the champagne. Drinking too much in the early evening before he had the regeneration treatment used to mean getting up to pee all bloody night long. No damn genoprotein cure for that! And back then he was sure his taste buds had decayed, while now he found the vintage Veuve Clicquot to be perfectly crisp and light. He’d also gotten the most awful headaches, which neurofen could never cushion. Well…he’d just take his chances on the hangover front tomorrow morning.
As ever at these things that Sue organized, he didn’t know half the people enjoying his own home. Or maybe that was: didn’t remember. The two sessions in Brussels he’d undergone to check out his memory retention hadn’t been as reassuring as he had expected. About half his life seemed to have vanished. Old pictures, even videos of himself with other people that they’d shown him to try to stimulate association had done nothing. They really did belong to someone else’s life.
One thing he hadn’t lost was Tracy, his first wife. Those painful details still burned hot and bright in his memory. Trust that bloody harpy to cling to him no matter what.
But he’d remembered the one thing that was truly important to him, though: his wonderful son. Tim had sat opposite him during the whole Eurostar train trip back to Peterborough. The two of them were nervous and awkward to begin with, as if they were on a first date; but his urgency to find out what his son had been doing for the last eighteen months pushed him past that initial hesitancy. Mutual delight at being in each other’s company soon had Tim emerging from his shell. Listening to his son babble on about school grades, and friends, and events, Jeff could scarcely believe that this young adult was the same gawky lad he’d said good-bye to a year and a half earlier. It was as if he’d expected the world to go into stasis and wait for him. Sue, of course, hadn’t changed in any respect, which helped spin out that particular illusion.
The other person he’d been delighted to see was his little sister. Alison had arrived at the manor for his party, and the two of them had looked at each other for a long emotional moment. Then she parted her lips in a soft indulgent smile as they finally embraced.
“It really is you,” she whispered, sniffing hard and blinking moisture away from her eyes. “Oh God, Jeff.”
“There, there.” He patted her gently as she cried. “I’m okay, everything worked.”
“You’re just how I remember. I was at school when you were like this before. You helped me with my homework.”
“I remember.”
She leaned back to study his youthful face. “We had to write it down in exercise books and sheets of A-four. There were no computers in those days, no dot matrix printers and laser jets. Just pens and calculators.”
“I must have got my Sinclair Spectrum around then. The hours I spent using it! But I don’t suppose it was much use for your homework.”
“We always used to do it on the kitchen table.”
“And Mum would be fussing round with the ironing, getting supper ready.”
“Waiting for Dad to get home.”
“While Ruffles got in the way.”
“Damn stupid dog.” She wiped a hand across her eyes, looking annoyed when she saw the streak of tears on her skin. “I haven’t thought about Ruffles in years.”
“Decades.”
“Yes, decades. And you’ve got those decades again, haven’t you.”
He held her chin in his hand, making her look at him. “Are you jealous?”
“God, yes! But I’m glad it was you they chose. I mean that, Jeff.”
“Thanks.” He kissed her brow.
“For God’s sake,” Alison grunted in mock anger. “You look so damn good, you’re making me self-conscious. I’m going to have to start using those ridiculous cosmetic treatments. I swore I never would.”
“You look great as you are.”
“Oh please! Do you think genoproteins can get me to match up to Sue?”
“No problem.”
“Ha! I’d need two of your treatments before I stood a chance to get equal to her. How is your dear wife taking all this, by the way?”
Jeff grinned at the lack of enthusiasm. Alison had never approved of Sue, though she adored Tim. He waved a hand at the line of waiters hovering with their laden trays. “In her element.”
Alison grunted, and handed her coat to one of the eager young men. She took a flute of Veuve Clicquot and sniffed at it suspiciously. “Huh. Gnat’s piss lite. Give me a decent gin and tonic every time.”
After that Alan and James arrived, and the three of them greeted one another with childish whoops in the hallway. Alan was seventy-two, a retired aerospace engineer who lived over in Stamford. Taller than Jeff, he didn’t spend much of his pension on cosmetic genoproteins, preferring to buy treatments that kept his joints and muscles in shape. By doing so, he was still able to play golf three times a week and keep a ten handicap. It was his only real remaining interest now that his old company had quietly dropped him from even token consultancy work. In contrast, James was only sixty-eight, and still working at the finance and asset management company he’d set up nearly forty years before in the first dotcom boom. Unlike most of the companies from that era, his had survived. Not that he put in many hours a week now that he was a nonexecutive director. But his salary allowed him to buy the full range of male cosmetic genoproteins. He’d kept his apparent age in his late forties, with a thick shock of ebony hair and skin that was suspiciously tanned. Unfortunately, not even his treatments could do much about his weight; forty years of expense-account meals had bloated him into a man who waddled rather than walked.
The two of them were among Jeff’s closest friends. Out of those who were still alive, Jeff thought sourly. But it was good to see them.
“Definitely some features I recognize on this appalling teenage youth,” James boomed as his meaty hand enveloped Jeff’s. “Jesus Christ, is it really you?”
“So they tell me,” Jeff said with a shrug.
“How the hell can you know?” Alan asked. He was giving Jeff a strangely contemplative look. “I mean, damn, man, where’s the evidence?”
“I remember being me.”
“Yeah, but, like, prove it.”
“Give the guy a break,” James protested.
“You can run a DNA fingerprint if you’re that worried,” Jeff said.
“I have to concede, it gives the lawyers something to argue about,” James said. “It’s like Tim’s found a long- lost older brother. And dear old Jeff would never wear anything like this.” Thick fingers stroked the lapel of Jeff’s gray-green jacket. “New, aren’t they?”
“My clothes?” Jeff queried. “Yes, well, even geniuses can’t think of everything.” It was only after he got home that they realized none of his old clothes would fit. Until then he’d been wearing loose shirts and trousers supplied
