Read No! I Don't Want to Join a Book Club: Diary of a Sixtieth Year for Free Online

January.
    Oh dear. Is this wise?
    December 3rd
    The big day of the party. A gray Thursday afternoon, and I had pushed back all the chairs in my sitting room, sprayed it with something weird from Floris that someone had given me many Christmases back, put out the thinly sliced salami, shaken the crisps into bowls, distributed the trays of water biscuits covered with sour cream and salmon eggs, checked that the sparkly wine was cooling in the fridge, given the final touches to the flowers in the corners and polished the glasses. A thousand mini sausage rolls from Iceland were crackling in the oven.
    Glasses polishing is very important as you get older. Jack’s late godfather lived with his wife in a grisly bungalow on a private estate by the Thames, and the big drawback to visiting them, in their old age, was the filth. Cat hairs everywhere. All the surfaces covered with stickiness. And those smeary wine glasses. Not just that, but they used miniature plastic footballs as an alternative to ice cubes and, in every one of the indentations of these pink and blue spheres, lay gray and greasy dirt.
    As a result, I am scrupulous in the glasses department. (I’m told by Hughie that the older you get, the more important it is to be clean. New shirt twice a day, is his motto, and the tie must be checked hourly for stains. Bottoms of trousers also must be monitored in case they’ve brushed in the mud, and shoes must be polished every morning.)
    There was a lovely expectant preparty feeling to the room. I closed the shutters, put on the lights, turned on a low piano boogie…sat down and felt those confused feelings, a mixture of excited anticipation and a sinking feeling, wondering why the hell I’d thought of arranging a party in the first place. I wouldn’t know anyone there, it was stupid of me, everyone would think I was pathetic, didn’t have any friends of my own, I would just be doing a skivvying job. Thank goodness Hughie was coming to help with the drinks pouring.
    The phone kept ringing. One person asked nervously: “Could you tell me—is it safe to park near your house?” Clearly from the country.
    The fake fire puttered in the grate. On the mantelpiece in a silver frame sat a picture of Jack and Chrissie—Chrissie looking stunning as ever, with long blond hair and rather a sultry expression, and Jack looking pale and tense, smoking, his eyes bright red dots like Satan, and wearing, of all things, a suit. It had been taken a year ago, at his grandmother’s memorial service in Ireland, on the cold, gray day when she was buried, amid lots of champagne, laughter and memories of her fey Irishness, her madness.
    I had once gone round to her flat in Kensington and in the window frame was jammed a large cardboard sign, made from an old cornflakes packet. On it she had scrawled: “Who killed the owl in Avondale Park? Murder most foul. I know who killed the owl.” When I knocked, she shouted: “Who is it?” I said it was me, and she yelled: “Go away, you thief!”
    The phone rang again. “What should we wear?” A bit late to ask that, I thought. I was wearing a very nice orange-and-green-spotted skirt from Hobbs, a black T-shirt from Shepherds Bush market and a piece of fifties costume jewelry belonging to my mother, and I looked rather mad and smart.
    Outside, someone shouted “Fuck off!” into a mobile. I think it was a mobile. There was no answer. A dog started barking and a child started wailing. “Fucking cunt!” shouted someone else. “‘Oo you callin’ a fucking cunt ?” The arguing voices faded down the street. “You said…” “I did not say…” “Fucking did…”
    The phone rang again. It was Jack.
    “Can you talk?” he asked. An odd question.
    “Oh, hi, darling,” I said. “Actually, I’m just sitting here feeling like a total wally waiting for people to arrive for a party that I suddenly wish I weren’t giving. How are you?”
    “Well, Mum,” he said. “I’ve got some news to tell