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forgotten. But these gatherings were wont to drag on for hours, moving on to a nearby pub, and then continuing to a night club, until the post-production energy had dissipated into hangovers and depression.
    Carla waved and danced across the room. She returned a minute later with none other than Alastair Ticehurst. He was a short, clean-faced handsome man in his late twenties, with blonde curls and a look, I swear, of insufferable arrogance.
    Carla introduced me. “Jonathon, this is Al.” I wondered if she was playing a game, or merely drunk. She was downing her third gin and tonic with an abandon that bordered on the obscene.
    I shook hands with Ticehurst and exchanged a few strained pleasantries. To my annoyance, he insisted on asking me what I ‘did’.
    Carla was still hanging on his arm. “Jonathon’s a novelist, Al. I told you.”
    The prig swirled his brandy with a practised air of condescension and stared up at me. “A novelist? Are you published?”
    I’d had this response before, and it has always struck me as asinine. If one introduced oneself as an air-line pilot, would the other person then ask, “Have you ever flown a plane?”
    I drained my glass. In the crush of people jostling us, I found it easy to ignore him. I squeezed from the press and bought myself another drink, a pint this time, and remained at the bar for the next hour.
    Towards eleven, Alastair Ticehurst sought me out. He was more than a little tipsy by now, and I was in no mood to suffer fools.
    “You’re a ler-lucky man,” he slurred.
    “How’s that?”
    He gestured with his brandy glass, sloshing the contents, towards Carla, who was laughing uproariously among a group surrounding the play’s director. “God, what a beautiful woman.” His eyes devoured her, and it was all I could do to stop myself from punching the fool.
    He focused on me. “Did she tell you that me and her-” he hiccupped - “me and her, once upon a time...”
    I lowered my head and whispered into his ear. “She did tell me that you were an insufferable prig,” I began.
    Rather than bridle at this, he laughed. “That’s interesting, be-because she, she told me that you’re insanely jealous.”
    I decided that, rather than continue the insults, I would get myself another pint - but he was like a dog with a bone. He sidled up to me. “Langham, I remember now. Jonathon Langham. Of course, now I come to think about it... I have read one of your novels. Summer in Kallithéa , ser-something like that.”
    I tried to ignore him, eased myself through the bodies to Carla. She wrinkled her nose. I sought her hand, but she pulled it away.
    Ticehurst was right behind me. “To be perfectly honest, I didn’t much like it. Very shallow, unbelievable.”
    “Very much like you performance tonight,” I said. “And I noticed you fluffed a line in the first act.”
    I had the bad luck to state this during a lull in the conversation, and everyone heard.
    Carla turned to me, wide-eyed. “Jonathon.” She swayed. “I think you owe Al an apology.”
    “I was merely stating a fact, darling. Or can’t you people take criticism?”
    Carla reached out and linked arms with Ticehurst. There was something at once malicious and calculating in her gaze as she stared at me. Pointedly, she mock-whispered to Ticehurst, “Take no notice of Jonathon, dear. He can be an awful stuffed-shirt at times.”
    I heard a round of stifled giggles as the carousing continued. I escaped to the bar, contemplated yet another beer, then thought better of it.
    I pushed through the crowd towards the exit, hoping that I had departed unseen. I was drunk, and the drunkenness exacerbated my rage. I was angry at Carla and Ticehurst, quite naturally, but also at myself for so crassly losing my temper. I should have treated the creep with the contempt he deserved, and cut him dead. Instead, I had given Carla more ammunition to use against me.
    It was almost midnight by the time I arrived home. By some