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 each day: 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 here 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, 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 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?”

“I’m fine. Fine!” purred the cat, swallowing the whole of the fish with a single drop down his gullet, his whiskers twitching with delight. “As always, the food here is absolutely delicious. My compliments to your chefs. And who is this gentleman?”

“He comes from the Suburbs. Have you heard of it?”

“The Suburbs? I’m not familiar with all the parts of your fascinating land, but I’m sure it is another borough I would have great pleasure in visiting.” He picked up a glass of wine, raised it to his mouth and decorously sipped from it. “Is it far from here?”

“It’s a very long way,” I replied. “And very different. There are cats there, but I’ve never met one dressed as gloriously as you.”

“Indeed, no. Your indigenous Cats seem to have little taste or style, I deem.” He addressed Zitha. “Tell me, has your father reserved a room for me for the night?”

“Of course, Ambassador. The usual ambassadorial suite. We’ve kept you as far away as possible from any Canine guests who might be staying here...”

The Cat shuddered. “That is most thoughtful of you!”

“...And I’m sure you’ll find that it has every luxury you require. However, if you could excuse me, I have another guest to see to!” She smiled apologetically and strode over to the tiger who’d earlier been stretched on the floor but was now leaning unsteadily on the mantelpiece with a glass of wine in one paw and the other struggling to keep himself upright. Zitha floated to his side and chattered to him oblivious of his inebriation.

“So, young man,” asked the Ambassador solicitously, “do you know many of the other guests at this party?”

“Not really,” I admitted. “I was brought here by someone who I appear to have lost. But I have met someone I know. Tudor, he’s called.”

“Tudor?” mused the Cat. “That’s a Mouse name isn’t it?”

“I suppose it must be. Tudor was the Mouse in here just a moment ago...”

“And I daresay he had some very unflattering things to say about Cats. Mice are so Anti-Feline! They have no understanding or appreciation of the Feline cause, and constantly bemoan the fact that to bring civilisation to their so-called motherland it’s been necessary to also bring them the benefits of Feline Government. These Mice are so ungrateful! Do they really believe they’d be better off if they were under the yoke of a Canine Republic?”

“Is that what Mice want?”

“Well, they call it self-determination. But how can Mice be capable of running a country by themselves? They’ve proved to be a damnably unruly and uncooperative lot in the Cat Kingdom. The only way they could possibly take over in what they misguidedly call their ancestral home is by mortgaging themselves to the wealthier Dogs. And I’ve yet to see evidence that Dogs have anything like the standards of good government and tolerance evinced by us felines!”

“Is there some dispute about sovereignty in the Cat Kingdom?” I asked.

The Ambassador mewed. “You could say that!” He picked up another fish and dropped it down his throat. His furry throat convulsed briefly as it descended down his oesophagus. “It’s a fairly meaningless dispute because there really is no case for the land to be anything other than Feline. As has been agreed by the international community which mostly recognises the sovereignty of His Majesty the King. Only the damnable Canine Republics and a few Mouse-sympathisers withhold their recognition, not that it ever prevents them trading with us. After so many years of Feline Diaspora in which Cats have been denied a nation of their own, forced to rely on the open hearth and generosity of northern neighbours, we have at last attained our historical homeland for which our rights by historical primacy cannot be seriously denied. We imagined we would finally see an end to the persecution that has hounded us over the millennia from the Canine scourge, the false accusations of witchcraft and the compulsory sequestering of our hard-earned wealth by whatever complexion of government has envied it. Even now there are those whose claims on our land being so much more recent are judged somehow to be the stronger as a result.”

“Is it only because you’re Cats that some people do not like you?” I wondered, remembering Tudor’s intense dislike.

“I daresay that for most of our enemies it is quite simply that we are Cats they discriminate against us. They call us foul abusive epithets such as Pussy and Moggy. They mock our purring as growls and our tail-wagging as perverse. They are just envious of our arboreal and hunting skills, our nimbleness and adaptability, and our ability to see in the dark. However, that’s not the professed reasons our enemies give for their enmity. Many pretend that it is distaste for our system of government in which the King has prime political power. The Canine Republics in particular oppose our model of government as archaic, arbitrary and unfair. They ask how a Cat can be endowed with the Divine Right to rule. However, surely hereditary government, vested in one trained and tutored from birth in the arts of government, is better than power which falls so arbitrarily into the hands of petty dictators, as in so many of the Canine Republics, who might even have originally taken power by democratic means, but more often in a coup d’état, usually with the unfulfilled pretext of restoring democracy. And few of these petty dictators relinquish power, often bequeathing it to close relatives or their own puppies. Moreover, the Divine Right of the King to rule is bound deeply with the religious practices of feline kind. The King is both the spiritual and temporal leader of the realm. He defends both sovereignty and the faith. No Canine dictator can pretend to responsibilities as grave, however much they may bark on about the Bible and religion.”

“Does the Cat Kingdom get on with the Canine Republics?”

“Not in the slightest. We’re constantly at war with one Dog Republic or another. It’s a great strain on our economy, but the wealth of Cats throughout the world has ensured that this is a fight the Dogs can never win. Whatever the complexion of dog - spaniel, terrier, poodle, collie or whatever - the Dog is too disorganised and stupid to do more than merely harry and unsettle our nation. These Dogs don’t have the political stability or historical traditions to compete with Cats. They dress like undertakers, forever preaching about God and Duty, live lives of unspeakable drabness and are just too incredibly diverse in kind. The Dog is a racial mess. When you look at a Cat, you know it’s a Cat. We’re all about the same shape and size, differing only in details like colour and length of fur. What can be said about an Animal of the mongrel varieties of Chihuahuas, Rottweilers, Pekinese, Daschunds, Doberman Pinschers and bulldogs? They’re just a mess!”

“Who wins these wars with the Canine Republics?”

“Why, us of course. The Cat Kingdom! Who else? As we have always done. As we are destined to always do. It is our right and duty to triumph. It’s not that we have any designs on the land of our neighbours, although we have been reluctantly obliged to occupy some of their land as guarantees of territorial security. We don’t want our nation overrun by a host of poodles, corgis or pit bull terriers. We’re quite happy to leave the Dogs where they are, - and only ask that they display the same magnanimity to us. And to stop going on so much about these accursed Mice. If they’re that enamoured by rodents why don’t they welcome them more in their own territories.”

“Still talking?” asked Zitha who had unexpectedly returned. She had changed yet again: this time into a long black dress with a very high collar and another wide hat. The tiger she’d been talking to had vanished, leaving only a pool of vomit and fish-bones where he’d been slumped. “You must circulate, Ambassador! There are many more guests to see. And you, as well, you must meet a few more guests.”

“Actually I’m waiting for Tudor to return. He said he’d let me stay at his castle.”

“Did he?” laughed Zitha. “That’s jolly generous of him. But I wouldn’t expect him to return while you’re chatting to a Cat. The Mouse probably thinks His Excellency would like to tear him apart for sport or something like that.”

“The Feline reputation for wanton cruelty is much exaggerated,” mewed the Ambassador.

“I’m sure it is,” agreed Zitha. “But if you could excuse us please, Your Excellency, we’ll search for this gentleman’s companion. There are a number of other ambassadors in the main dining room, if you would wish to join them.”

“Thank you for your advice,” the Cat replied, nonetheless remaining around the fish dinners that were laid out for guests, while Zitha led me on out of the drawing room, an arm locked through mine. We passed a veritable scrum of guests milling about outside rooms lit by red lights for which Zitha gave no explanation. We passed a darkened room, where a number of guests lay collapsed on cushions smoking from a large hookah-pipe appended to an ornate glass bowl. We trod over inebriated guests, including the tiger who had somehow negotiated his way along several corridors only to collapse in another stupor with many clothes now inexplicably absent. As we walked, Zitha chatted on about how the weather had been particularly warm recently, but looked like it might soon be on the turn; how she hoped that whoever won the General Election wouldn’t in any way spoil the fun of the Party by excessive taxation; how she wondered at the dietary tastes and dining habits of several guests as we passed a pile of empty snail shells, fish-bones and hay; and how she hoped that I was enjoying her father’s Party.

“Well,” wondered Zitha. “What is it that takes you so far from the Suburbs? We get very few people from that borough coming to this Party.”

I explained to her about my search for the Truth as we walked through a library in which books were stacked high up to the ceiling. “The Truth!” she exclaimed. “We get many guests here with the most bizarre ambitions. Eternal Peace. Love and Death. The Kingdom of God. But never one before with a quest to find the Truth. This is really, I’d have thought, the very last place in the world I’d visit if I were searching for the Truth. I’ve never come across it here. We’ve got everything else you might look for, and I’m sure there are plenty of books in this library on the subject. Not that anyone ever reads them! Did you seriously believe you’d find the Truth at my father’s Party?”

“I don’t really know where to look,” I admitted. “When I was invited here I thought I might find some clues as to its whereabouts.”

“There are certainly a lot of guests here who’d say they could advise you. Some of the best minds in the world come to this Party. That I know! But I can’t believe that even the brainiest or wisest or most widely travelled can really claim to know what the Truth is or where to find it. Quite honestly, I don’t know why anyone would ever bother.”

“Why’s that?”

Zitha paused by a globe of the world standing on a desk. She put a hand on it and theatrically spun it round. The continents and oceans passed by caged in by lines representing latitude, longitude and the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. “Why bother? There are so many much more fun things to do in life. Look at the Party. It’s been going on and on, all in the pursuit of pleasure. And however hard it is pursued, there is yet more pleasure to be found. And aren’t there absolutely loads of people who say that the purpose of life is to find happiness? And, if that’s the case, isn’t there just a fantastic amount of happiness to be found here? Look at everyone! Aren’t they happy? And is there really anything else you’d want in life?”

I looked around at the company which included a very drunken yale chatting to a hippogriff, a couple of aardvarks smoking reefers underneath the collected works of the Marquis de Sade, a canoodling pair of pygmy chimpanzees on the top of a bookcase, a wolf chatting amiably with a protoceratops, and a large hare slumped unconscious on a leather chair. Everyone certainly seemed happy, but I felt sure that this apparent happiness was not the Truth I was looking for.

“Life is for the living!” continued Zitha. “We’re only on this planet for a few years and then we die. It could all end tomorrow. And what regrets we’d all have if we knew on our deathbed there were so many pleasures we’d not indulged in. Culinary delights uneaten. Alcohol unimbibed. Partners denied. Plays, films or video games not enjoyed. How can there be anything more to life than living it to the full? And where can life be enjoyed more to the full than here?”

“I’m sure that there are no pleasures in the world that aren’t catered for at this Party,” I agreed.

“Absolutely right! And the only struggle I think worth making is to find new ways to enjoy them. And to find new exotic and unexplored pleasures. These are the challenges that face every dedicated hedonist. My father struggles night and day, taking the advice of the greatest experts, to provide pleasures for all: however bizarre, perverse, cruel or refined. There is no pleasure he would hesitate to provide: from virtual sex, from blood-sports, from lively and witty conversation, from meditation, to whatever else our insatiable guests may demand. And in this pursuit of pleasure there are undoubtedly victims, but ultimately isn’t their sacrifice worth the greater pleasure of those fortunate enough to be guests at this, the ultimate and eternal Party?”

“Are there casualties amongst the guests, though?” I asked, considering the unhealthy state of several of them, such as the tiger Zitha had been ministering to.

“In any great pursuit there are martyrs to the cause,” mused Zitha, folding her arms and frowning. “Drug Addiction. Venereal Disease. Lethargy. Lung Cancer. Bankruptcy. Insanity. Delusion. Liver Disease. But it’ll all have been worthwhile if the pleasure gained in acquiring these maladies outweighs the long term pain and degradation.”

“I’sooth!” came Tudor’s familiar voice. “Thou’rt being most uncharacteristically philosophical, Zitha. Nay, thou’rt nigh metaphysical in thy discourse!” The Mouse stood by us, supporting his weight on the table where the globe was slowly losing the momentum of its earlier rapid spin.

“It’s the influence of your Suburban friend!” laughed Zitha, as if she’d been discovered doing something she wasn’t permitted. “He’s got the most bizarre notions!”

“’Swounds! I little ken the Suburbs, but ne’er hath I heard it described as the home of metaphysics or high discourse. ’Tis oft spoken as a place bereft of all great thought, immersed only in its own perfection, imposing little on the world beyond and intent only on the provision of amateur dramatics, local history societies and supermarkets.”

“It sounds absolutely bizarre!” mused Zitha. “There are places outside the pages of literature and the situation comedy living room which engross themselves in such things. I thought it was all a myth to make everyone feel jolly smug that their lives were tons more exciting.”

“I know not,” admitted Tudor. “Perchance, young man, thou canst impart details of thy home unto us. Is’t so ‘tis but a land of small concerns and, yea, smaller ambitions?”

“I don’t know how best to describe it,” I admitted. “It’s very different to here. Or anywhere else I’ve visited recently.”

“Mayhap ’tis true!” sniffed the Mouse, scratching his muzzle with a gloved claw. “But now, dearest Zitha, ’tis time, I trow, for mine friend and I to depart. ’Tis as ever with the greatest regret that I do so.”

“And I don’t imagine it’ll be too long till you come back!” giggled the young girl.

“I’sooth!” agreed Tudor, before ushering me through the mass of guests to the main hallway which was far further away than I’d imagined. We passed all conceivable species of guests along opulent corridors, past defunct mediæval armour, Ming vases, tall and imposing portraits of Zitha’s ancestors, videophones, Hogarth cartoons, the heads of slaughtered deer and foxes, velvet curtains and finally the wide expanse of the staircase in the main hallway.

Tudor’s carriage was waiting outside amongst a fleet of Mercedes, Rolls-Royces, Porsches and Bentleys. It was quite modest in comparison, being an open-top horse-drawn carriage, although the armour-covered horses were magnificent and the carriage stout and resplendent.

“’Tis but a few leagues until mine estate!” announced the Mouse as his chauffeur cracked his whip and the horses thundered off away from the mansion house. It was several furlongs until we passed through the garden gates past long avenues bordered by grand statues of all examples of exotic and extinct fauna.