The Birthday Party Read Free Page B

She explained about the torture she felt, day in, day out. How she desperately wanted
     to belong to the team, but how she felt so far from being a team player. He’d found it hard to believe. Coco Rafferty, so
     bright and sexy and confident when she was out with her mates, crippled with doubt?
    But he’d come up with a solution – a very practical one. To go with it, he’d given her a list of strict instructions: she
     must ration her use, not become over dependent, and, above all, must make sure she wiped her nose clean every time she used
     it.
    ‘You’d be amazed how many people come out of the toilet with white around their nostrils,’ he’d said, slipping her a little
     package under the table.
    Coco got it out now and stared at it. She’d never been a big drug user. She and her sisters had always been more than aware
     of the dangers of addiction, whatever the substance.This was just going to be an ice-breaker, to get her over her self-consciousness and give her the confidence to make friends.
     And maybe forget her nerves. Harley hadn’t given her enough to develop any sort of habit, anyway. She would be fine. Lots
     of people she knew were light users. You didn’t become a complete coke-head with a rotting septum overnight.
    Of course, she’d have to take care. There were people all around her just waiting for her to make a wrong move. At least she
     had her own space. She jumped up to make sure her door was locked, then chopped out a line with precision. Not too much. Then
     she brought out a pink straw she’d pinched from the cocktail bar the night before and carefully snipped it into quarters with
     her nail scissors.
    For a moment she hesitated. She thought she could hear a tiny alarm bell in the back of her mind. Think of Dad, she told herself.
     Look how he destroyed himself. Images of that terrible time replayed themselves like a montage. Her mother’s tears. Her father’s
     protestations and empty promises. Rows. Pledges. Shattered hopes. Knowing looks from her classmates; sympathy from her teachers.
     Embarrassment. Lying under the covers praying he would stop … Which he eventually did, but not before he had done a lot of
     damage and ruined one of the most promising acting careers of the twentieth century. Presumably he had started just like this
     – one small drink, to give him confidence. She didn’t know. She had never spoken to him about it. As far as the Rafferty family
     were concerned, those years were ancient history, not to be revisited. A decade and a half of wanton destructiveness had been
     swept under the carpet.
    Raf hadn’t wanted her to act, she knew that. Which was why she had tried several other things before finally going to drama
     school, but in the end she couldn’t shake the desire. He hadn’t stopped her, but he certainly hadn’t encouraged her. Presumably
     he was afraid that she would take the same path ashim, that she would inherit his weakness and his fear and his addiction.
    But she was different. Her father hadn’t been in control. He had let drink take over completely. That wouldn’t happen to her.
     Coco knew exactly what she was doing. This was a calculated risk. Not even a risk, in fact. A tactical move to help her survive.
    She bent her head and snorted up the line carefully.
    Looked in the mirror and checked for evidence.
    Breathed in again deeply and smiled, as the magic powder whooshed into her blood stream.
    Would anyone be able to tell? Shit, would they all look at her and see straight away she was as high as a kite? She’d be sacked
     on the spot. There was zero tolerance on the set, though the producers didn’t go as far as random testing, not least because
     the backlash of someone testing positive would be such an inconvenience. The perpetrator would have to be disciplined, given
     a warning, the press would find out – the press always found out, no matter how confidential these matters were kept.
    For a moment, she panicked. Someone