The grandfather clock in the corner struck midnight almost an hour ago and I am on my last legs.
The school carol service is tomorrow lunchtime when my two daughters break up; I need to finish my Christmas shopping and I’m working until the 24th.
But I am the victim of an upper middle-class Ancient Mariner. A woman in a sequinned dress has been speaking at me for at least the last 45 minutes. And the trouble is, I can tell from the speed of the sentences, the way she’s repeating herself and the slightly glazed look in her eyes, that she’s enjoying an entirely different party to me.
Yes, her evening involves large amounts of cocaine. Welcome to the Cotswolds where – if you know the ‘right’ people – every Christmas is white.
We live in an idyllic place. Honey-coloured stone houses nestle in undulating emerald hills, with great sweeps of gravelled driveway leading up to large front doors in muted Farrow and Ball greens and blues. The women are clad in cashmere and Lululemon and organic vegetables are delivered weekly.
But behind the keratin hair treatments and the manicured box hedges is an underbelly of cocaine use that is as everyday as a dog walk or a morning green juice.
When we moved here seven years ago, I was astonished to learn that there were copious amounts of class-A drugs cutting through the school run and the breathwork classes.
I’m not naive. I know that drugs have always been prevalent among the wealthy and that cocaine in particular brings a bit of zing to the weekend, or the monotony of waiting for husbands to get back from the City. And yet I had no idea quite how many middle-aged women have taken up the habit, nor how regularly they do it.
If you think it’s just the odd party, then think again. I have seen mothers sneaking off to take drugs at lunch parties, during children’s tea (those large pantries come in handy!) and even at school events.
Cocaine isn’t like alcohol. You can’t smell it and generally people aren’t weaving around or speaking incoherently after taking it. Those who are partaking think of it as a sneaky hidden vice, something clever to get you through dull-as-ditch-water social events and stay up late through the fun ones. And never more so than at Christmas.
At a school carol service a couple of years ago, I sat and watched the woman in front of me twitching, and even gurning slightly, as the lessons were read out.
I saw her afterwards as we drank watered-down mulled wine, ate mince pies and bought over-priced scented candles made by another mother. She was talking in a ridiculously animated fashion, but you could probably only tell what was really going on if you recognised the signs.
It all seems so pathetic to me. Sure, I thought this kind of performance quite cool and subversive in my early 20s, but now I’m in my mid-40s, I think it a reckless, wasteful thing to do.
Quite honestly, I despise those who take drugs. We all have responsibilities now and – most importantly – children. If the shenanigans I’ve seen were played out on a council estate, social services would be called in. But because it’s among the wealthy and the privileged, it’s seen as sexy, hedonistic – and acceptable.
My husband and I are less moneyed than our partying neighbours, but we are both private school-educated and have successful jobs; he is in property and I’m an accountant.
Back in the late Noughties we partied as hard as anyone. I enjoyed the rebelliousness of it, sloping off to the loos in giggling pairs, and I loved the delicious acrid taste as that first line trickled down the back of my throat, bringing with it a whoosh of energy and confidence.
But I won’t forget the mornings after, either – the self-loathing, the headaches, the bloating and the exhaustion.
By the time we got married in 2012, both in our early thirties, we had firmly kicked cocaine to the touchline and so had most of our London friends.
Imagine my surprise when we moved to the country a few years later and found the partying was as intense as you’d find in any Fulham gathering a decade previously. I’m no prude, and I’ve nothing against Mummy’s wine-time, but Mummy’s drug-time was quite the eye-opener.
It first became apparent that some women were fuelled by more than home-made protein bars when I was invited to a school mum’s birthday lunch a few months after our move.
I was tentatively making friends and she was very much one of the alphas, complete with aristocratic husband, glamorous friends staying at the weekends, beautiful clothes and the most incredible Cotswold stone manor house.
I felt honoured to be there, and very shy, as I walked into her massive kitchen. Yet after delectable poached salmon, our hostess vanished for a few minutes with one of the other mothers. On returning, another bottle of white wine was opened, and they seemed far chattier.
As the afternoon went on, it became increasingly obvious most of them were taking cocaine. I had to do the school run later so I sipped half a glass of wine for hours, feeling increasingly gauche as the conversations around me grew louder. When I left at five everyone else looked as though they were settling in for the evening.
That opened my eyes, and I realised there was a whole social group which was renowned for not getting much sleep from Friday to Sunday.
The close friends I made were like me and worked during the week – a lawyer, a GP and a teacher, none of whom had any interest in drugs. We all agreed it wasn’t worth risking our jobs in these days of social media; it would only take one #greatnightout and a picture of us next to a pile of white powder to be unemployed. Or worse.
But we were all invited to dinner parties where after chocolate fondant the ‘real’ pudding would be brought out.
I sometimes felt boring saying no, but a London friend had a heart attack aged 40 from cocaine use. It simply didn’t appeal any more. And watching 40 and even 50-year-olds sweating, chuntering and gurning didn’t exactly make me feel I was missing out.
It got to the point where around midnight, when the party would rack up – literally – a few notches, my husband and I would slip away and enjoy a full night of peaceful sleep.
Now, if you asked them, none of these slender, beautifully-coiffed women and their florid husbands would consider themselves to be in the throes of addiction. There’s no harm in a bit of fun, after all?
The stuff is obtained from well-spoken people in the local pub or ‘my man’ in one of the larger towns.
But, as I recall from my party days, cocaine can easily move from being fun to being a problem. I think cocaine is always used to fill a hole. That white powder is the soft scream of those whose lives are seemingly perfect but in fact lack something fundamental and fulfilling.
What’s more, what’s pure Scott Fitzgerald or Jilly Cooper glam at 3am is quite different when you’re in the village shop the next day, buying Diet Coke, sniffing inelegantly, your skin grey and dingy from the previous night’s proclivities.
And how about sex? Cocaine does, after all, lower inhibitions. I went to a party in a beautiful barn a couple of years ago. It was gorgeously decorated with fire pits dotted outside and a cocktail bar. My husband and I left, as was our wont, at midnight when the music got faster and voices speeded up alongside.
The next day the rumour mill was buzzing that a married couple (not to each other) had gone missing for quite some time and come back looking rather dishevelled.
What I find most disturbing is that children are never immune to parental behaviour. Now they’re older, they’re well aware of what their parents are up to, and I’d personally be worried that they’re following in their footsteps.
Friends in a neighbouring village boast about how close they are to their sons, who are in their twenties. They all take drugs together at the weekend. What great family bonding that must be.
I wouldn’t say I hate the festive season spent among the glossy posse, but in addition to all the meal prep and the present buying, I’m steeling myself for being bored senseless by those who can’t enjoy a night out without chemical help.
Let it snow, let it snow – but only if it comes from the actual sky.
