David snorted. ‘I feel like I’m being squeezed into my funeral suit by the undertaker.’
Juliet wrinkled her button nose. ‘Certainly smells that way. But if you will hire a suit instead of buying one like a real human, you’re going to have to put up with years of sweat and wine spills.’
‘I can’t afford a bespoke three-piece from Gieves like Pog.’
‘Not for long, sweetie. Soon you’ll be ruling the universe with all those other thrusting young investment execs.’
David shrugged. ‘Maybe.’
Juliet looked at him with surprise. ‘Maybe? I thought you’d sewn up a grad position with Annabel’s father?’
‘Yes, well that’s the problem, isn’t it? The job’s one thing, but it comes with . . . strings.’
Juliet raised her eyebrows over her wine glass. ‘Everything not so rosy in the Garden of Eden? Do tell. I did notice you didn’t stay at Annabel’s last night.’
David turned away to look in the mirror again. That suit, clinging to him like . . . He closed his eyes, but all he could see was Annabel with her arms around him, pulling him down, down, like he was drowning.
‘I just wanted a night in my own bed,’ he said, not making eye contact. ‘You know, tonight’s going to be a big one, isn’t it? We’ll probably be up until dawn, so I wanted to get some beauty sleep.’
‘Take more than that,’ said Juliet, shoving him out of the way and adjusting her own dress in the mirror.
David looked at her with appreciation, glad that she wasn’t pushing the point. That was why Juliet was such a good friend: she knew what he needed, respected it. Annabel would never have let it go, niggling, whining, wheedling it out of him. David sighed. She was a decent enough girl, he supposed. Most people would consider her a catch. She was pretty, connected, rich, the ‘right sort’: all the boxes were ticked. And yes, she had even provided him with his first opportunity in the City, via her father, for which he supposed he should be grateful. But the truth was, she was starting to get on his nerves.
They had started dating in the second year. Annabel was his first real girlfriend after the frenzy of partying and shagging that was a common pattern for public schoolboys suddenly freed from the constraints of a red-brick adolescent prison: he’d been like a greyhound let out of the trap, chasing any rabbit that caught his eye. Not that it hadn’t been fun, but he had been glad to settle down with Annabel, or at least do couply things like dinner parties and little mini breaks; all that running around with a new girl every weekend was beginning to wear him out.
‘Another drink?’ asked Juliet, waving the champagne bottle.
‘Don’t see why not,’ said David, holding out his glass. ‘Plan to get completely ratted tonight. Last hurrah and all that.’
Juliet gave him a sideways look. ‘Don’t tell me you’re getting all nostalgic already. You’ve spent the last three years slagging off Oxford.’
David laughed. ‘Very true, but it’s not Oxford I dislike; it’s the people. All those red-faced twats with their stupid dining clubs and their ancient little cliques.’
‘I think you’re describing Max there,’ smiled Juliet.
‘Yes, I think I am. But there are worse specimens than Maximilian Quinn out there. At least Max has the decency to admit that he’s an overprivileged nob and to revel in the role. And at least he’s funny. I’m talking about the ones who live in their shiny Oxford bubble, the ones who treat everyone outside it as a servant or a plaything.’
‘Well, get used to that, honey pie,’ said Juliet. ‘Those are the exact people you’re going to be working with at Annabel’s daddy’s firm. And don’t delude yourself that you’re not in the bubble too, because you are.’
She was right, of course; she always was. David could rely on Juliet to give it to him straight, however uncomfortable it was. And he knew that part of his dissatisfaction with Annabel was that she belonged to that world, and that staying with her was funnelling him into it too. Sometimes he wondered if that was what he really wanted. Although he loved the down-to-earth easiness of their housemate Amy Shepherd, he still adored hanging out with Max. He couldn’t actually remember when he’d first become friends with Max; it had been somewhere in that blurry first couple of terms of boarding school. Max, like David, was not a typical Harrovian, from money and privilege. Their parents were successful for sure, but they were first-generation successful, not families who had made their fortunes from land and industry in centuries gone by.
The two ambitious boys had stuck together, and had both got into Oxford, where Max had helped David move into the grandest college circles, getting invited to the best parties, attracting the prettiest girls, and somehow getting someone else to foot the bill for the lot. He’d even introduced David to Annabel, who had subsequently secured him an extremely plum job at her father’s bank, a job that paid almost twice as much as the other offers he’d managed to land on the milk round.
‘Well I for one am going to miss all this,’ said Juliet, gesturing towards the stained ceiling and the curling wallpaper. ‘They say school is supposed to be the best years of your life, but as you know, they were pretty shitty for me, while uni has been a blast, much of the time anyway. And you know what? I think we’re all going to look back on this and remember it as pretty special.’
‘You soppy old romantic,’ said David, snatching up the bottle. ‘Here, have another drink before you get all teary.’
‘Not likely,’ chuckled Juliet. ‘Weeping’s just a waste of good mascara.’
David nodded thoughtfully. Actually he couldn’t remember a time when Juliet had ever been emotional, not even in the bad old days of boarding school – her alma mater Beddington specialising in cold showers, hockey before dawn and a strict ‘no boys’ policy. He’d first met her on the smart public school circuit that revolved around London and the Home Counties: house parties, teen balls and point-to-point racing. Juliet had been vivacious and self-assured even then, and David didn’t mind admitting she had been his first crush. Beddington and Harrow were fifty miles apart, but the two of them had kept in touch via a series of letters, monthly reams of banter and confidences, so it had been no coincidence that they had ended up living together at Oxford.
‘Earth to David,’ said Juliet, clapping her hands, snapping him out of his reverie. ‘I asked you if we were going to be stuck with her.’
‘Stuck with who?’
‘It’s whom, numbskull. Didn’t they teach you anything at school?’
‘How to wank without making a sound.’