In one corner of the room he could see his wife holding court, a group of admirers hanging on her every word as she joshed and twinkled and giggled. She looked absolutely stunning, he had to admit, in the eau-de-nil silk slip with coffee-coloured lace trim she’d picked up at Sandra’s vintage store. She’d set her blonde hair in pin curls against her head, topped off with a coffee-coloured lace headband.

Come on, he tried to snap himself out of it as the strong liquor warmed his veins. Your wife is bloody gorgeous, and it’s not her fault you can’t get a fucking break.

He’d finally come up with what he thought was a brilliant idea for his screenplay, but so far all his tentative enquiries had drawn blanks. Early days, mate, early days, he told himself.

‘DAMIAN!’ a huge voice bellowed in his ear. ‘MY MAN!’

‘Lars!’ Damian looked around with relief. At last, somebody he could call a friend of his own. ‘Am I glad to see you. But …’ He started laughing now. ‘What the fuck are you wearing?’

‘Don’t you fanshy me?’ Lars did a little shimmy in his floor-length gold lamé bias-cut frock. ‘I wash thinking I would be a gangster, and then I thought, No, more fun to be a moll. The chicksh have all the fun these days, my friend, do they not?’ He was glassy-eyed and slurring a bit and Damian could tell he was more than a little pissed already. The Romanian girl who’d ‘loved the banker more than the man’ had a lot to answer for, he reflected.

‘Never a truer word said. But where on earth did you find something like that to fit you?’

‘Many specialist transvestite shops in NYC, my friend.’

Damian started laughing again. Lars really did look magnificent in a platinum-blonde Mae West wig, with long satin gloves, long beads and long cigarette holder. His cheeks were rouged, his lips scarlet, his eyes adorned with enormous, spider-like false lashes.

‘And did they do your face at the tranny shop too?’

Lars roared with laughter. ‘What do you think, my friend? That that is a shkill I learned at Merrill Lynch? Yesh, they did my fashe. And now I must drink.’

He poured himself a drink from the teapot, downed it in one, then poured himself another.

‘And now I musht say hello to your beautiful wife.’

‘In that case, come with me.’

They weaved their way through the crowds to where Poppy was now chatting to Marty and Eleanor.

‘Lars!’ Eleanor threw up her arms, beaming. She looked fabulous in a Louise Brooks black wig and scarlet dress made entirely of feathers, with a matching scarlet pout.

‘Wow,’ said Marty amiably. ‘I don’t know which of you three girls is the most gorgeous.’

Poppy smiled. Her boss was a good sort.

‘So glad you could come,’ she said, reaching up for a hug. ‘You look fantastic!’

‘You too, babe, you too,’ said Lars, picking her up and twirling her round and round like a rag doll. Damian tried not to feel hurt that Lars had once picked him up like a rag doll. Just snap out of it, you tit.