Midsummer Night, North London

The McDonald’s in Kentish Town had seen some sights, but this was something different. At 6 p.m. an elegant man strode through the automatic doors. Wing-collar shirt, cummerbund and silk bow tie. Expensive shoes: Italian. They made a clipped noise when he walked, much like his vowels when he spoke. He strolled up to the counter and asked to speak to the manager. The server peered around him nervously, looking for a non-existent camera. The manager was dutifully found and propositioned like a comely whore. The gentleman, and there really couldn’t be another word for a man dressed in such a manner, was going to use the upstairs area – usually reserved for children’s parties on Saturday mornings – for a private gathering that evening. His guests were arriving at 7.30 p.m. and the staff were to bring food upstairs (the order had already been courteously written out in fastidious copperplate) at 8 p.m. for them. They were not to be disturbed after that. The gentleman made it very clear that they were to be handsomely recompensed for their efforts, and their silence. No one who worked there was to mention it again and CCTV was to be turned off. The gentleman paid in cash – crisp £50 notes – and gave all the staff, including the poor, poor cleaner, who would have to deal with true horrors tomorrow morning, a nice little tip for all the trouble he was about to cause. A young woman with rippling, flame-coloured hair brought in vase upon vase of flowers. The smell was divine. Not enough to cover the smell of chip fat, burger grease and blocked coronary arteries, but heavenly nonetheless. A butler took case after case of champagne upstairs. And it was champagne, direct from a vineyard in Champagne, not from Tesco. Only plebeians drink supermarket plonk, let alone prosecco. The formal invitation stipulated that the dress code was black tie, photography was strictly prohibited, and it was BYOC (Bring Your Own Coke).

For once Nell wasn’t overdressed; she was, however, uncomfortable. Her feet already hurt from a pair of architecturally complex shoes that she had bought from a pompous boutique in Spitalfields Market. She’d spent a whole month’s food budget on them, but she considered that a win-win. Nell’s dress was an artful creation of pale lilac gauze and twisted embroidery that she had made herself, the effect of which was somewhere between a drowned innocent from a Millais painting and wrath personified. She was a diaphanous, tortured cobweb. In the soft June breeze, Nell delicately floated like a resplendent vision of Hell. She was waiting outside Kentish Town tube station for Alex – nothing earthly could have persuaded her to go to Rupert’s birthday party on her own, and indeed it had taken much poking and prodding, cajoling and coaxing from silver-tongued Alex to induce her to go with him. They were going to go for something strong beforehand, a nip of liquid bravery. The flower seller on the corner of Leighton Road was packing up for the day. Five minutes earlier Nell had enjoyed spectating as a panic-stricken man sprinted from the tube and bought a large bouquet in a frenzy.

‘Anniversary or birthday?’ Nell asked the florist, as she sauntered over and mused over a few bedraggled hydrangeas.

‘Sorry?’ she replied.

‘The bald man just then, he looked like he’d forgotten an important date.’

‘Oh yeah, he said his missus just had a baby at the Royal Free. Wanted some pink flowers.’

‘Ah, how sweet, a gender-conforming baby girl. Did he realise that he’d caught the wrong branch of the Northern Line?’

‘I didn’t have the chance to tell him.’

Nell looked at the leftovers of the florist’s day. The severed head of a luckless ranunculus the colour of a good claret floated in a bucket of water.

‘How much for that one?’

‘You take it, love.’

‘Thank you,’ Nell said, shaking the water from the flower and tucking it into a roll of her hair.

‘Big night?’ the flower seller asked, tacitly acknowledging Nell’s remarkable appearance.

‘I’m going to Satan’s birthday party.’

‘A normal Saturday evening then.’

‘Pretty much. Thank you for the flower,’ said Nell as she turned back to face the tube. She was just in time to see Alex rise from the gaping mouth of the station. He was tall, which she thought was the only important quality a man should possess, but clearly feeling uncomfortable in his penguin get-up. Nell thought it suited him. A shapely young woman gave him a second glance before she unceremoniously tumbled through the barriers.

‘Thou art a sight for mine poor wretch’d eyes,’ he said, kissing Nell on her rosy cheek. They turned up the road and towards the pub.

‘You should dress like this more often, you’d get laid all the time,’ she said, holding on to the crook of his arm to steady herself. Her pinkie toes hurt.

‘I have a lot of sex. Specialist stuff too. Deviant things that you don’t casually mention at dinner parties.’

‘Corpses? You need to stop reading Vice. It’s bad for your soul, Alex.’ They stopped at the crossing as a police car hurtled past, siren blaring.

‘Is this pub all right?’

‘As long as they serve spirits.’

‘The spirits of thy vanquished enemies? The damned party starts at 7.30 p.m. I say we should aim for after 8 p.m.,’ Alex said, holding the old saloon door open for her. The pub was a Victorian temple to the English drinking problem, with high ceilings and floral plasterwork. Mismatched chairs and ironic posters. Creaky floorboards and media luvvie clientele.

‘I’m amazed that we’re going at all.’ Nell peered round a column before spotting an empty table near the back and pouncing on it like a lioness after a lame gazelle at a watering hole. ‘I’m not sure how you convinced me.’

‘You share my morbid curiosity,’ Alex said, taking his jacket off. That wasn’t why he was going. It was a test, a field exercise to calculate his chances with Nell now that she was single.

‘What do you think Phlegm will be wearing? I shouldn’t call her that. I’ll say it to her face accidentally-on-purpose.’

‘Clem? Pelts made from the supple skin of tuberculosis-riddled, cockney orphans? Silk woven from the purest evil thoughts of neo-Nazis? Nothing, absolutely nothing, like a witch on her Sabbath? You have to feel sorry for Clemmie though. Imagine dating bloody Rupert for ten years.’

‘I couldn’t imagine it.’

‘The crap he must pull … I’m sure he cheats on her.’

‘I’m sure he does too.’

‘What do you want to drink?’

‘Anything that burns,’ Nell said, watching him try to elbow his way to the bar through a throng of unique individuals all wearing Uniqlo and unanimous disdain for everyone else’s uniformity.

‘Tequila it is,’ Alex yelled, turning back to look at her as he dodged a woman in a stripy turtleneck and a pair of utilitarian shoes. He stopped still for a short moment as he evaded the woman’s flailing arms. To Nell those seconds were an age, as through the window the low-slung sun hovered above his head like a lazy halo. He turned and looked at her in all her glory. ‘You look rather lovely tonight,’ he shouted over the crowd.

Nell didn’t acknowledge the compliment and instead stared at the patterned ceiling, trying to divine some order out of its chaotic design. She felt a buzzing. She opened her bag – a quirky Kate Spade that she’d pillaged from eBay for a song – and took out her phone:

Alex returned with two tequilas and two vodka and lime sodas. ‘A shot each, and then something to take the edge off before we go over the top.’

‘How’s work?’

‘Dull. Lots of spreadsheets.’

‘At least you got seconded somewhere warm. Imagine doing taxes for billionaires somewhere miserable, like London.’ Nell smiled to herself as she flicked her despicable shoes out to the side and admired them. ‘Why are we going tonight?’

‘I’m going for the story. Something hideous will happen. I could write a bestselling novel off the back of it and never have to work again.’

‘They’re both monsters.’

‘And monsters should be slain by heroes. I’ll be your knight errant.’ Alex looked at Nell and began pressing the supposed rationale of his experiment again. ‘This is our old...