Once upon a time, arriving home at dawn felt like a victory over the dark forces of the night. When you're young (code for "without kids"), sleep equals either boredom or depression. It's a chore - something you do if Ross Kemp is on the telly or it's your turn to clean the kitchen. I've survived for months reading the post at the end of a long day and night. Opening bills became the last thing I did before going to bed, not the first chore of the new day. Waking up meant watching the Six O'Clock News, ordering a takeaway and getting ready to go out again. "I'll sleep when I'm dead!" is the regimental motif of da party people.
Sadly, it's now been well over a year since I last heard the dawn chorus over the rattling of my front-door keys. Not that long, I know, considering that the bleach for my roots will soon need to be mixed with Grecian 2000. But long enough to be surprised by post-midnight life when a book launch was the excuse to catch up with my favourite, nocturnally naughty friends.
Real nights on the town (as opposed to cosy dinners or business drinks) never, ever include food. And true to form, this night, the drinking began in earnest at a bar at around 7.30. By 9pm, a crowd of us had already gatecrashed two launch parties. The first was full of grown-ups - that is, people actually invited to the event on the basis that: a) they knew the author being honoured or b) they knew his/her work. True to form, the guys I was drinking with made straight for the complimentary champagne. I didn't. I paused for thought, and the thought was: "We shouldn't be doing this - it's really rude." How bourgeois is that? The invited guests were mostly in suits; we were mostly in denim, and stood out like Britney Spears fans at a Charlotte Church gig.
On the stairs, my friends, all nearly 40, were giggling like teenagers, clutching half a dozen flutes of champagne and shouting into mobiles. A few feet away sober types, authors no more than four years older than us, were talking about books and publishing.
Standing between the two groups, wavering between alcohol poisoning and adulthood, reminded me of being 18. Your mates are all cool, sure. But you know in your heart of hearts that it's almost time to get a job and a life. Summer is over and you're not going to be cool yourself for much longer. It felt like another milestone on my personal race from cradle to grave. First there was the teenage tearaway who didn't listen to anyone else. Then the twentysomething who didn't care about anyone else. Now, there's the thirtysomething who suddenly cares about offending someone she's never met and about taking booze from a complimentary bar that's all tax-deductible and counts as a business expense for whoever's paying for it all anyway.
There were another two bars still to go. In the first, a Sadie-and-Jude-type hangout in Soho, I turned down the offer of a double Jack Daniel's and Coke for the first time in anyone's living memory. "Are you all right?" asked a boozing buddy. "Yes," I replied, "but I think I'm getting a bit drunk."
The next morning I woke up without a hangover, but with regrets. Having stumbled home at a pathetic 2.30, I wondered what late-night wonders I had missed. Had the couple in the basement club who were snogging when I left actually gone on to have sex on the bar stool? Had the transvestite saxophonist ever finished her self-indulgent solo? Had my mates managed to have fun after I left? I could only hope not.
I have just found my disco shades, still unused in my handbag. I refuse to throw them away just yet. For those who don't have a pair, they are the must-have accessory for all-night partying. When you open a bar door at 7am and the sunshine blinds and frightens you, you just pull them on and pretend it's still night-time and that you - podgy, getting-on-a-bit you - are still one of the all-night, forever young party people.
