Chapter 6

Zest and chatter from mingling party-goers orchestrated with the remote pulsation of a stereo system greeted me when I arrived at the Party. I was already impressed by the expansive gardens estate that surrounded the imposing manor house. There were large ponds full of enormous trout. A tiger with shears was trimming ornamental hedges near the rosebushes. The long neck of a giraffe rose above a maze where he had a distinct advantage in navigating his way out. In such surroundings I imagined a fairly restrained, possibly formal, party and my main anxiety was that I wasn't suitably dressed.

Within moments of entering the massive hallway, I was separated from my grasshopper companion in a confusion of unfamiliar people and totally lost sight of him. I had been too intent on admiring the painted frieze on the vaulted ceiling from which descended an enormous crystal chandelier. A wide staircase wound from the hallway to a balcony along which gathered many other guests of every species holding glasses of wine or champagne in their hands, paws or hooves, and often with cigarettes of various dimensions drooping from their lips or mandibles.

I felt intimidated by this mass of strangers, which included a tiger in finery, a dolphin in a comfortable leather-lined sofa, a megatherium chatting with a comparatively tiny manticore and an archaeopteryx perched high on a hat stand making drunken conversation with a beret. A pig, a wolf and a similar-sized pygmy elephant wearing frock-coats and spats chatted amiably in a circle. I saw a swirl of guests in other rooms amongst wine-bottles and party food, some dancing to a curious amalgamation of techno, baroque and waltz.

As I stood transfixed by perplexity, a young girl, perhaps only fourteen or fifteen years old, descended the staircase. She wore a long floral shoulderless dress with a wide-brimmed hat perched on long curly brown hair. As she walked down, the guests greeted her respectfully as she passed by: some with great flourishes as broad feathered or stiff tall hats were swept by, some with respectful bows and some by simple nods of acknowledgement. I guessed that this child was quite celebrated, but I didn't recognise her from my limited knowledge of society débutantes featured on Suburban television. She approached the foot of the stairs and headed towards me.

"Hello," she greeted me, outstretching a thin ivory-white arm. A single gold bracelet rolled down her wrist as she delicately shook my hand. "My father told me that Sir George had brought along a human to his Party. He also declared that you don't know anyone here. Is that so?"

"Yes, it is," I admitted shyly.

"Well, I had better perform my duty as my father's daughter and one of the Party's hostesses. My name is Zitha, in case you didn't already know, and I shall gladly show you around. The house is very extensive. It's got absolutely acres of space. Even with the hundreds of guests we've always got here, it never feels full. You could easily get lost in the hallways and corridors. I often get lost myself, you know." She chuckled like a child several years younger than she actually was. "I can stray for days on end. People just can't find me! I still find all sorts of rooms I'd never known about before. Rooms with such secrets, you wouldn't believe! Still," she pirouetted round to survey the guests, "where's Sir George?"

In amongst the velociraptors, peacocks, smilodons, elands and moas dressed in such wide diversity it just wasn't possible to distinguish a six foot tall grasshopper. Zitha grinned.

"Well, I'm sure he's found someone to talk to. He's ever so popular, you know! However, I'll introduce you to our guests. This gentleman is a police sergeant, aren't you?"

She addressed a tiger in a blue stiff-collared uniform. "Actually, I'm much more senior than that..." he began, but wasn't allowed to finish as Zitha introduced me in rapid succession to a minotaur who'd made a mint from futures, a salmon in a wheelchair who'd inherited the biggest underwater farm ever, a tapir who wrote ever such difficult poetry, a phoenix big in insurance, a pterodactyl who was ever such a clever professor and many others who, before I'd had the chance to properly greet them or they'd had time to elaborate on Zitha's brief and sweeping descriptions, was superseded by another whose main claim to attention was that he, she or it was next nearest in proximity.

In this way, Zitha breezed me through a succession of large muralled rooms, libraries, hallways and studies each brimming with guests engrossed in wine, drugs and conversation. As we proceeded, I encountered more interesting and fascinating individuals than I would have been exposed to in an entire lifetime in the Suburbs, saw some but not enough of magnificent paintings, statues and furniture, and heard snatches of music generated from sound systems, string quartets, jazz trios and singer-songwriters balanced on stools. In all this, my hostess was a constant provider of chat, inconsequence and distraction, but gave me no opportunity to focus my attention on anything for very long or to fully absorb my surroundings. On the way, I collected and lost glasses of wine and experienced the brief sniff, smoke and inhalation of a curious selection of recreational drugs that Zitha insisted that I had just got to try. It was no wonder that I was in a state of confusion my Suburban life had never prepared me for when Zitha eventually halted in a book-filled study from which the only doors led back out in the direction from which we had come.

"So what do you know about this Party?" wondered Zitha, leaning against an enormous oak fireplace carved with an array of gruesome gargoyles.

"Only what I've just seen," I answered honestly. "Is it your birthday party?"

"Goodness, no!" laughed Zitha. "I wasn't even born when this Party began. It's been going on for absolutely years. It's absolutely world-famous! Are you saying in all honesty that you've never heard of it?"

I delved back in my memory beyond the haze of recent imbibing and inhalation to news stories or magazine articles I might have read. Perhaps things like this were just never considered newsworthy in the Suburbs, though I knew that there were several magazines that reported only the lives of the privileged and famous. "No, I really honestly haven't!" I admitted sadly.

"My father started the Party absolutely ages ago. I think it might have been for his wedding reception, or maybe it was a housewarming party, or perhaps it was just for the sake of it. If it was a wedding party, it hasn't dissuaded my mother divorcing him. My father lavished so much attention and expense on the Party that nobody wanted to leave the following day. Or the next day. Or the day after that. And in this way, it's just gone on and on. And now it's ever so famous. The Eternal Party they call it. And despite people saying that eventually my father will go broke in providing for it, and the money to pay for it has to come from somewhere, it just continues unceasingly. I guess there's had to be some sacrifices. Employees have been laid off or had to take pay cuts. Land has had to be sold. Subsidiaries mortgaged or floated on the stock market. But despite all the dire predictions, the Party goes on. And on. It's a jolly good Party too, don't you think?"

"It's very impressive," I admitted.

"Of course, as time goes by, the guests just demand more and more. There are films showing in the private cinemas my father had to build. There are several dancing rooms. There are orchestras, plays, circuses, duelling, feasting, sex, drugs, poetry readings and soirées galore. The meals provided each and every evening would feed several small countries. The daily bill for alcohol alone is greater than most people's annual income. This Party costs simply thousands and millions of guineas. If my father wasn't so rich, generous and dedicated to the cause of satisfying his guests, it just would never have been possible. And don't you think it's worth it? Have you ever been to a more splendid party in your life?"

"No, I haven't," I admitted.

"Of course, it's a bit excessive to indulge in the Party all the time. I have to go to boarding school all week, and I think my father is quite grateful to get away to do his business in the City and elsewhere. Some people just never leave, and only when they get truly obnoxious or simply disrespectful to the wrong guests are they ever obliged to go."

"Can anyone come to the Party?"

Zitha seemed visibly offended. "Goodness no! Not everyone! We wouldn't want riffraff coming. Where would the guests look if servants were admitted? Or proles. Or peasants. My goodness! Only the truly suitable are ever invited. And their friends, of course. I wouldn't want these priceless carpets covered in working class vomit. I wouldn't like the magnums of champers to be squandered on people lacking taste and refinement. It would be a total waste! Not everyone can properly appreciate the finer things in life."

Zitha then led me out of the study and through more rooms, introducing me to yet more people. We arrived at a drawing room in which a few guests were gathered around a collection of bottles on a table. This room was really no different to any other that we'd been in except that for the first time I saw someone I recognised. The large Mouse carefully pouring a glass of mead into a tumbler, while sniffing the air with his massive nose and whiskers, was undoubtedly Tudor. He raised his head and regarded me amiably.

"Sooth, good morrow, young man," he greeted me warmly. "How dost? 'Tis most curious that we should so meet again but less than one day since!"

"Fabulous!" chuckled Zitha. "You know each other. I don't have to introduce you."

"'Tis verily so! 'Twas at a railway station many leagues distant that we met. This young man hath travelled far from the Suburbs where he doth abide."

"The Suburbs! How absolutely fantastic! You know, I've never been there. I've heard it's a pretty wacky place." Zitha giggled. "But tell me Tudor, are you travelling by train now? That's most terrifically adventurous of you!"

"'Twas not by choice, thou canst be assured," the Mouse remarked, lowering the warm tumbler of mead from his muzzle. "'Tis an adventure in discomfort and indignity. And thee? Thy Party continueth unabated?"

"As ever. And you've always been one of those pessimists who said it just couldn't last forever..."

Tudor laughed indulgently, twitching the muscles of his nose and ears. "'Tis but the way of the world. All things and all events have their season. Winter shalt come nigh ere long, and the Party shalt be a mere memory to all those who have known't."

"So enjoy it while you can!" chortled the girl removing her hat and brushing her fingers through the long dense curls. "We're all going to die in the end, so we might as well get as much pleasure out of life as we possibly can."

"Thou'rt most frivolous..."

"Well, I can't spend forever talking philosophy," Zitha laughed, replacing the hat on her head. "I've got other guests to gossip with. Enjoy!" With that she swept through the assorted guests greeting each of them decorously and briefly. Tudor gazed after her as she departed.

"The Party shalt end one day," he repeated. "All Parties must end. And in but two days from now, the party represented by the Coition Government shalt also come to its end. 'Twill be a sad day for those who have benefited from the too many decades of the chaos, incompetence and corruption that hath so much distinguished the realm. In a land riven by discord and disorganisation, 'tis but the lowlife and the Devil they serve who hath triumphed. Mine dread, however, ist that rather than peace and tranquillity, the General Election shalt result in naught but worse anarchy. We stand perilously nigh to the brink of civilisation's collapse, and 'twill take but the merest nudge for all to fall."

"That is a pessimistic view!"

"Perchance 'tis so. But for too long there hath been overmuch license: Satan and his minions march the land. Vile sins art practised: pornography, blasphemy, paganism and disrespect. Each person in this land believeth that he and he alone hath the knowledge and wisdom to govern this once proud nation, willing to take the real power once the sole possession of Her Maphrodite. The only solution to this nation's great woes must be a return to traditional values and principles once held so dear."

"What are those?" I inquired, having often heard similar opinions voiced in the Suburbs.

"Less license and more respect." He paused to pour himself more mead while the distant rhythm of salsa thundered from several rooms away. A tiger in an expensive suit was collapsed outstretched on the floor with a bottle of wine in one hand, a cigar in the other and vomit stains on his silk shirt. I returned my gaze to Tudor who was holding a raw fish in his red-gloved claws which he was about to drop down his long muzzle. He glanced at me with his large round eyes, and then with a rapid movement of jaws and tongue the whole fish was gulped down his gullet.

He belched appreciatively. "Mine host: he ist the most generous of men! There is naught in the dominion of entertainment or diversion that hath not been relished at this Party. 'Tis oft I return for pleasure and relaxation. Food and drink most plentiful. The company for the most part pleasing and comely. But in all this cornucopia and generosity, which 'twere most ungrateful not to shower praise on't, I fear there ist a moral which reflects the greater waste and irresponsibility of this land. Nevertheless, 'tis by the industry of our host that all this is possible. 'Tis not achieved by theft nor smuggling nor murder. In that 'tis justified. And 'tis a most splendid mansion, i'sooth!"

"Yes, it is," I agreed, ogling the enormous paintings that lined the walls between tall bookcases and alongside the most exquisite leather-covered furniture. There were paintings featuring horses and hounds chasing foxes, dogs tearing birds apart with their jaws, fish being snared in fish-hooks, and gentlemen proudly displaying a shotgun with one hand and a batch of dead pheasants with the other.

"'Tis most civilised," Tudor continued, picking at the salmon canapés and the small sausages on little wooden spears. "But tell me, young man, where goest thou?"

"I'm not absolutely sure. I was escorted here and I haven't decided where to go next."

"Thou'rt a traveller, art thou not? Far from the exotic Suburbs. Dost intend to rest here?"

"I'm not sure. I feel tempted never to leave."

"Hah!" laughed the Mouse, his whiskers and ears twitching madly. "Thou wouldst not be the first to succumb to the easy pleasures of the Party. Many come willingly and few leave, so 'tis said. But it hath been related that although there be great pleasure in the Party there ist but little purpose. Perchance if thou wishest to be enticed away from here, I canst offer thee one night at mine own castle."

"Could you?" I asked, perhaps manifesting my enthusiasm a little too strongly, but as I hadn't had a satisfactory sleep the night before I was attracted to the prospect of sleeping in a comfortable bed. I was also aware that I was unlikely to find the Truth in amongst all this jollity unless, (and the thought slightly unsettled me), this was all the Truth I was ever likely to find.

"'Tis but a humble abode, but I trow 'tis but my duty as a good Christian to extend mine hospitality to thee. I shalt be departing within the hour." Tudor sniffed. "Now, if thou canst but await and forgive my rudeness, I have business to occupy elsewhere. But thou needst not feel abandoned, for here I see again is our hostess, the beauteous Zitha."

Tudor strode out of the drawing room, his long scaly tail and the sheath of his sword trailing behind him. He passed Zitha as she entered and the two briefly exchanged pleasantries. The girl had changed into a green silk blouse, long pearl beads and baggy trousers. She now wore was a small bright blue beret almost totally lost in the abundance of her curls.

"Why hello, you silly Suburbanite," she giggled. "Are you having a good time?"

"Yes, very nice," I assented, sipping from a wine glass.

"Well, don't hesitate to eat anything. Caviar, lemon sole, fresh trout, angel fish, it's all here! Our chefs are amongst the very best, you know. And there are perfect feasts served in the dining rooms later! There are some films showing. Some jolly risqué ones too, I believe! Don't forget, all this is here for your benefit. I'll be most offended if you don't thoroughly indulge yourself."

"Why thank you," I replied, not feeling at all hungry, but nonetheless I politely nibbled on some caviar coated wafers.

Zitha scanned the assorted company. "I see Tudor's abandoned you. I don't like to see a single guest deserted like this. Shall I introduce you to the Cat Ambassador? He's a jolly interesting chap!" She twirled around and gestured towards a Cat, about the same size as me sporting the most flamboyant clothes, adorned with lace and buckles, a sheathed sword like Tudor's hanging from a belt around his waist and carrying a large broad-brimmed hat with an enormous feather in his white gloved paw. His other ungloved paw clutched a large fish whose head he'd already devoured. "How are you, Ambassador?"