‘I feel so sorry for people like him. Cameras poking into his face wherever he goes. Particularly with that difficult-to-manage, flyaway hair and the kind of complexion that always lets you down.’
Dora knew the speaker’s face but she couldn’t remember his name. He shook his head. ‘I would hate to be famous,' he added shuddering.
Dora found him arch but touchingly beautiful. She assumed he was gay and therefore out of the question for anything but friendship. Not that she undervalued that. After Cambridge, her friendships still endured – unlike the relationships she’d had with straight boys.
The pretty, well-bred publicity girls known as Davoli’s puffettes had fielded just one A list celebrity for Davoli’s latest splashy book launch and he’d had a grim time with the paparazzi on the way in. Dora supposed the singer felt obliged to come as Davoli was going to publish the earnest photography he wasn’t ever likely to be famous for in a big glossy book.
‘If it was me I think I would never go anywhere. He’d go to the opening of a stock cube. Lovely for the puffettes to have such a tame celeb.’
There was a bitchy note in the beautiful boy’s voice. Dora thought he sounded jealous. She was only half listening when she became aware of something.
She began to giggle. Laughter rose from her stomach in a bubbling stream. She tried to keep her mouth shut but the joy escaped through her nose. She snorted and clutched her middle with one hand.
‘What’s the matter? Are you all right?’
She was speechless. Giggles were escaping all over her face and her eyes began to stream. She wiped them with the floppy cuff of her New Romantic shirt, staggering backwards, looking for a wall to lean on but encountering only solid, disgruntled, fashionable flesh. She wheezed and ached with laughter. His anxious face only provoked fresh paroxysms.
‘What have you taken?’ the boy inquired, looking down at her hands to see if she had a joint. Her first glass of champagne was still half full.
Dora was held upright by the crush of the party. Davoli always gave good ones – champagne rather than warm white wine. The assembled liggers were squashed firmly together, rapidly smoking and drinking with arms clamped to their sides and hands up near their faces.
‘Look behind you,’ she managed to gasp, an idiotic grin wavering on her face.
The boy swivelled his head over one cramped shoulder. ‘What is it?’
‘It’s him,’ she whispered. The celeb. ‘You’re leaning against him.’
She was overcome again when on the boy’s elfin face it dawned that the celebrity was pressed firmly against his back. There was no way that the singer hadn’t heard their conversation.
She was suddenly afraid that her companion would abandon her in a sea of complete strangers. She’d been so relieved to see a face she half recognised, even if she couldn’t remember his name. Excruciatingly shy, Dora had been desperately pretending to have a good time before she ran into him. She had been thinking about leaving, hoping to give off an aura of an urgent, thrilling dinner date as she went.
Due to the squeeze the boy couldn’t move away, which was a temporary comfort. She thought his ears looked pinker, but it was difficult to tell in the gloom. His mouth trembled and his expression became more intense. Her heart sank. Then his face seemed to crumple.
He closed his eyes and threw back his head, not caring that he nearly nutted the famous object of his pity. He opened his mouth to the tonsils and bellowed with laughter. As far as they could, the cramped partygoers looked around to see who was so genuinely enjoying themselves.
He put out his hands – a cigarette in one and an empty glass in the other – on either side of her and pressed himself against her. Bending to lean his blond head upon her shoulder, he gave way to the giggles as well. This set her off again. She put her arms around him to hold them both up.
They held on tight, glasses behind each other’s backs, terrified of parting, looking for an escape route and trembling with crazy elation.
The crowd had parted crossly to let them through. They found a table and put their heads down on their arms to recover, gasping for breath, little last bubbles of laughter breaking free from their loosened mouths, faces wet with tears, feeling weak and abandoned.
Dora didn’t dare look up. Then she felt him take hold of her forearm. She raised her head slightly. Only his eyes were visible. As she couldn’t see his mouth, she couldn’t tell what he was thinking or feeling. His eyes were enormous in his thin face. His straight blond hair was dishevelled. Dora didn’t know what it was like to come back to life with a man after passionate love making, but she thought this stillness, gasps for breath, utter relaxation, happiness and enormous warmth towards the other might be how it would – or could – be.
They turned their heads towards each other, still resting them on folded arms, their only contact his left hand on her forearm. She studied the worn gold signet ring on his little finger. She didn’t want to speak.
‘What’s your name?’ he asked. ‘I’ve seen you before, haven’t I? Aren’t you a friend of Evangeline’s?’
‘I work with her at Modern Woman. My name’s Dora Jerusalem.’
