Waiting for Wednesday

for doing this.
Although I’m worried that while you’re doing it, my bathroom still
doesn’t have a bath.’
    Josef looked concerned. ‘Yes, Frieda,
I must talk with you. There is a small problem.’
    ‘What problem?’
    ‘More problem with the pipes. But we
talk later. I sort it.’
    ‘You know, I had to have a shower
here,’ said Frieda. ‘While they were preparing for the party. I have to
carry a towel round with me.’ She stopped herself. ‘But it’s good of
you to do this. You’d better come in. Can I get you something to drink?’
    ‘Now we will have juice.’ Josef
tapped the pocket of his coat. Evidently there was a bottle in there. ‘At the end
of the night we will celebrate together.’
    Olivia gave Josef and Stefan a variety of
instructions, constantly adjusted and added to. Meanwhile the doorbell rang
intermittently and young people began to drift in. Frieda stood to one side and watched
the scene, as if it was a piece of theatre or an exotic tribe. Suddenly she saw a face
she recognized and gave a start. ‘Jack! What are you doing here?’
    Jack was training to be a psychotherapist
and Frieda was his supervisor. She knew him well, but seeing him in this context was a
surprise. He, too, seemed taken aback and blushed a deep, unbecoming red. Even by his
own standards, he was wearing bizarre and mismatched clothes – a pink and green hooped
rugby shirt, with an ancient, moth-eaten tuxedo over the top, and baggy brown cords.
    ‘Chloë invited me,’ he said.
‘I thought it might be fun. I didn’t expect to see you, though.’
    ‘I’m on my way out.’
    ‘Is that Josef I can see?’
    ‘He’s the bouncer for the
evening.’
    After a minute or two Josef looked at her,
over Olivia’s shoulder, with a faint smile that was a plea for help. Frieda walked
across the room and tapped Olivia on the arm. ‘Let’s go and get our
meal.’
    ‘I just need to check on a few
things.’
    ‘No, you don’t.’
    Frieda led Olivia, still protesting, into
the hallway, put her coat on for her and pulled her out of the front door. As they went
down the steps, Olivia stared around anxiously. ‘I can’t help feeling that
I’m locking
in
the people I ought to be locking
out
.’
    ‘No,’ said Olivia, to the
waiter. ‘I don’t need to taste it. Just pour it most of the way up. Thanks,
and leave the bottle.’ She picked up the glass. ‘Cheers.’ She took a
gulp. ‘Christ, I needed that. Did you see them all hugging each other as they
arrived? It was as if they’d returned from a round-the-world trip. And as soon as
they’ve finished hugging and shrieking they’re on their mobile phones.
They’re at a party but somehow they instantly need to talk to the people
who’re not at the party or who’re on their way to the party, or maybe
they’re checking whether there’s a better party somewhere else.’ She
took another gulp. ‘They’re probably sending out a general call to the youth
of north London to trash the house.’ She prodded Frieda. ‘At this point
you’re supposed to say, “No, no, it’ll be fine.”’
    ‘It’ll be fine,’ said
Frieda.
    Olivia gesticulated towards the waiter.
‘Why don’t we order lots of little dishes?’ she said. ‘Then we
can just pick at them.’
    ‘You choose.’
    Olivia ordered enough for three or four
hearty eaters and another bottle of wine. ‘I’m a big hypocrite,
really,’ she said, when the waiter had gone. ‘My real worry about a party
like this is that Chloë will do half of what I did when I was her age. Younger than her
age. She’s seventeen. When I think of parties when I was fifteen,
fourteen … It was technically illegal. People could have gone to prison.
I’m sure it was the same with you. David told me one or two things.’
    Frieda’s expression became fixed. She
took a sip of wine but didn’t speak.
    ‘When I think of some of the things I
got up to …’ Olivia continued. ‘At least people weren’t filming
me on their mobile phones and putting it on the Internet. That’s the difference.
When we were teenagers, you could do things and they were done, gone, in the past. Now
they get filmed and sent by phone and put on Facebook. People don’t realize
they’re stuck with their actions for ever. It wasn’t like that with
us.’
    ‘That’s not true,’ said
Frieda. ‘People got hurt. People got pregnant.’
    ‘I wasn’t going to get
pregnant,’ said Olivia. ‘Mummy put me on the Pill at about the time I
learned