entrance. As Alex and Sophie hurried in there was a brief burst of flash presumably in case they were celebrities whom no one yet recognised.
The party was on the first floor and the place was already crowded. On the far side of the room Alex caught sight of Stella laughing with a group of models. The sound system was playing Juliette Greco, two women in tri colore hats were spraying perfume at anyone not fast enough to get out of their way, and the sharp smell of 'Guillotine' cut the air.
'Come and meet Charlotte,' said Sophie, taking Alex's hand and sidling purposefully towards a slight, dark- haired woman who seemed to be dressed in 1970s wallpaper.
'She's the oldest of the Corday sisters. You've heard of the Corday fashion house, haven't you?'
'Why don't I go and find us a drink?' Alex suggested, disengaging his hand.
Within moments he had been swallowed up by the crowd. Around him brief snatches of conversation and shrieks of laughter rose like waves above the music and were inaudible again. A gravel-voiced broadcaster whom he vaguely recognised but had never met threw her arms round his neck, kissed him on the mouth and asked how the new restaurant was going. He told her that it was still serving human flesh and moved on, leaving her open- mouthed.
People pushed past, flickered a glance at him in passing to establish for certain that he was not someone that they needed to know and vanished. Alex wanted to speak to none of them -he simply couldn't summon up the interest. Over the months that he'd been seeing Sophie he'd attended quite a few of these occasions and he'd come to the conclusion that London society was peopled almost entirely by fuck wits From the outside it looked glamorous, all late-night restaurants and beautiful girls and champagne, but in truth, he had discovered, it was very, very dull. For every genuine achiever there were a hundred style journalists, fashion parasites and cokehead aristocrats desperately jockeying for recognition. None of them seemed to have any awareness of a world beyond their own tiny circuit, and listening to the endless loop tape of their conversation about clothes, accessories, drugs and parties bored him out of his mind.
There were exceptions. He liked Stella and of course he liked Sophie more than liked her, in fact.
But why was it, he wondered, that the whole scene that she was involved with made him feel so dead inside? And equally importantly why was it that situations involving real death made him feel so acutely alive? How was he supposed to square those facts with the idea of- one day, at least settling down?
'Bloody Mary?'
Alex looked down to see a tiny, large-busted girl in a tri colore cap, holding a tray. She giggled.
'Or Bloody Marie-Antoinette, I suppose I should say.'
Alex took one of the glasses and drank. It was almost fifty per cent pure vodka and fiery with tabasco.
'Bloody strong, whichever.'
She laughed.
'I know. I thought I'd loosen this lot up a bit. Come the revolution, they'll all be for the chop.'
'They certainly need culling,' said Alex morosely, taking a deep hit of his drink. It occurred to him a few seconds later that he was feeling rather over-sorry for himself. These people weren't so bad. He threw back the remains of the drink, helped himself to another and took a deep swig. He began to feel very much more cheerful. Get a life, Temple, he told himself Have some fun for a change!
'Shall I just stay here?' she asked.
'Let you help yourself?'
He smiled. Small girl plus big tits equals hard-on.
'You could do worse,' he said.
'Are you one of the caterers?'
'Sort of. Part-time. I'm actually trying to get into the fashion business.'
'You should speak to Sophie Wells. She's over by the entrance, or was when I last saw her.'
'She's a right snotty cunt,' said the girl, as Alex took a third glass.
'D'you know her?'
'Mm. A bit.'
'Which bit?'
'Go on.' He smiled.
'Piss off before we're all in trouble!'
'Hey, Alex from Clacton!'
'Stella! How's it going?'
She gave him an uneven grin.
'All right, apart from the smell of this perfume.
It's like fish guts at low tide.'
'I guess the original guillotine wasn't too fresh,' said Alex.
'What have you been up to?' she asked.
'I haven't seen you for a bit.'
'I've been in Africa,' said Alex.
'Yeah? How was that?'
He shrugged.
'Tell me something, Stella.'
'OK.'
'If you wanted to hide if you absolutely had to hide, life or death where would you go?'
'I'd go where I always go,' she said, as if the question were the most normal one in the world.
'The past.'
He stared at her. Heard someone calling her name.
She smiled and the crowd drew her away.
'Believe me,' she said, fluttering her fingers.
'There's nowhere like it.'
He found Sophie again and was just about to hand her her drink when something irregular registered at the edge of his vision.
At the entrance, by the glass doors, two tall heavy-set figures were forcing their way past the security guards. The guards were doing their best, but they were no match for the red-faced, guffawing newcomers. One of them, a beef-fed, tiny-eyed giant of at least six foot two inches in height, was wearing a rugby shirt while the other, city-suited, was only a shade shorter. The crowd backed away from them uneasily.
'Shit!' said Sophie quietly at Alex's side.
'Gatecrashers.'
She stepped with confidence into the path of the two men.
'Look, guys...' she began.
'This is a private... 'Charlie,' roared the taller man, throwing a massive arm round Sophie's shoulders.
'Take a look at what I've..
But the other was forcibly slapping a passing guest on the back.
'You, sir!' he brayed.
'Are you by any chance an arsebandido?'
Both gatecrashers had public-school accents, Alex noted. Everything about them spelt money and arrogance. Well, they were about to get what was coming to them.
'So, my darling'.' The bigger of the two reached drunkenly for Sophie.
'You were saying... A split second before his hand reached Sophie's chest, a fist crunched into his nose. The blow carried with it every ounce of resentment that Alex had ever felt towards the privileged classes.
'Alex!' he heard Sophie scream.
'No!'
The man turned to Alex, amazed. Blood poured from his flattened nose as if from a tap and streamed down the front of his rugby shirt. The other man stood there, swaying. There was a moment of absolute silence, then the bleeding man drew back a fist the size of a bowling ball.
Alex swerved, felt the wind of the blow pass his cheek and, half turning, seized the oncoming arm by the wrist. Forcing his shoulder into his attacker's armpit, and using the Hooray's own weight and momentum, he threw
