‘No,’ Philip says. ‘No.’ He’s driving carefully, worrying about breathalysers and speed traps. ‘It’s just that Laura’s got exams next week, and I didn’t want her up all night. Besides, it wasn’t such a great party anyway,’ I say. Philip doesn’t answer, just stares straight ahead through the windscreen. ‘Did you think? …’ There was nothing wrong with the party. Chic and sleaze, reasonably mixed, I enjoy just as much as the next person. It wasn’t the party that was the problem, it was me. It has been me, I realize, for some months now. Longer. Two hours ago I’d stood in the upstairs bathroom of this ritzy house where the party was held – the bathroom was vast, tiled, glass-walled, spa’d – and looked into the mirror, into its green lights. I’m thirty-nine, I thought, haggard, bagged, past it. Old. I’ve got old – and boring. In a year I’ll be forty. I’d knocked on the bathroom door before going in. I’d heard giggling from inside, and turned away.
