After the Party by Lisa Jewell

breastfeeding, shouting a lot, being exhausted—all that usual new mum stuff.”
    Smith, who had clearly never had a close encounter with a new mum, nodded vaguely. “Is she still, you know, agenting?”
    Ralph nodded. “Yeah, she’s on a cushy number there. They gave her her own division after Scarlett was born—the ‘Celebrity’ division. Which consists of two clients. One of whom is Karl Kasparov.”
    â€œWhat, Karl Kasparov who used to live upstairs at Almanac Road? The DJ?”
    â€œYeah, except he’s not a DJ any more. He’s a ‘TV personality.’ ”
    â€œWhat! No way!”
    â€œYeah, he crops up on panel shows and those Five Hundred Greatest Bollocks shows. And he even read out a bedtime story on CBeebies the other night, which freaked us all out.”
    â€œChrist, so he made the most of his fifteen minutes.”
    â€œWell, that was Jem’s job, to capitalize on it. I mean, he gets around, but he can’t be earning that much money because he’s still in the same flat.”
    â€œWhat, Almanac Road?”
    â€œYeah. Weird thought, huh, to still be there, all these years later?”
    â€œIt feels like a lifetime ago. You, me and Jem.”
    Ralph thought back briefly to those days and experienced one of those rare moments when a memory leaps out of itself and grows a third dimension and suddenly he could feel the carpet beneath his bare feet, smell the under-rim toilet block in the freshly flushed lavatory just opposite his room, hear Jem cooking in the kitchen, see the fat blooms of a peony in a vase on the dining table. He was wearing long johns and a thermal top. He had all his hair. He was young. He was there. In the moment. And then it was gone.
    â€œWe had a laugh, didn’t we?”
    â€œYeah,” said Smith, “on occasion. I can’t say I was in the same place as you back then. You were, you know, on the brink of stuff. I was just shuffling along, trying to find my way.”
    That’s right, thought Ralph, that’s exactly right. At the time it had seemed as if Smith was the sorted one. He had the City career, the flat, the Thomas Pink shirts, while Ralph just slouched about the house in old underwear, earning enough money to pay for his rent and his Marlboro Lights. But under thesurface there had been a different story: Smith struggling with his career, hopelessly in love with a woman who didn’t know he existed, going out with a girl he didn’t care about, no idea where he was headed. Ralph, on the other hand, had been just a whisper away from his destiny: it was there, in front of him, on a plate; all he had to do was reach out and grab it.
    â€œAnd look at us now,” he said, “bloody fortysomething, and you, the Reiki, I mean, I still cannot believe that you touch people for a living.”
    â€œHa, well, I don’t, that’s the whole point. It’s all about energy . Not flesh. Not bones. I don’t actually touch anyone.”
    Ralph laughed. “Yeah,” he said, “except for their hard-earned dollars.”
    â€œWell, yes, there is that.” Smith smiled. “But it works, you know. Believe it or not, I am actually really good at what I do.”
    Ralph smiled and shook his head. “Christ,” he said, “who’d have thought it?”
    â€œYes, indeed. You a dad. Me a hippie. Heh.”
    They both sat for a moment in contemplative silence, until Ralph realized that the silence had passed through contemplation and into awkwardness and then it struck him that he and Smith had never had so little in common.
    â€œCome on,” he said to Smith, draining the diluted dregs of his cocktail from the bottom of the glass, “let’s get some more drinks in. I’ve got a bit of a thirst on.”
    â€œWhat? In LA? You know that’ll never do,” teased Smith.
    â€œFuck it,” said Ralph, “let’s show LA how to