The Birthday Party

A Haunting Story of Love, Regret and the Choices That Shape a Life

At fifteen, Teddy Alderton’s world is shattered by a traumatic encounter with renowned businesswoman Hazel Fields and the unexplained disappearance of his childhood sweetheart, Katie. Three years later, university life in Liverpool offers the promise of a fresh start, but a new relationship with Alicia Reynolds cannot silence the questions and memories that continue to follow him.

When Teddy is reunited with Hazel on his thirtieth birthday, long-buried memories force him to reconsider the decisions, relationships and missed opportunities that have defined his life. With Katie still missing, the past remains impossible to escape.

The Birthday Party by Chris Vobe is an intimate, reflective novel exploring love, trauma, family, politics, relationships and the search for meaning in a rootless existence.

Discover The Birthday Party and follow Teddy’s journey through memory, loss and the consequences of the past.

Excerpt from the book

Hors d'oeuvre

More than anything else in his life, he remembered the kiss.

He wasn’t sure what to make of it at first, though he would learn in time. It had seemed an anathema to him; that he should be standing there, in her office, his back pressed awkwardly against the obsidian filing cabinet she’d stationed at the exact mid-point of the dividing wall. A chrome handle dug into his flesh, his reedy, wafer-like frame a substandard assembly of skin and bone that had barely managed to withstand the bruises and contusions of the kind so many of his peers had batted away with irreverence.

The blinds were closed, naturally; she’d had the foresight to ensure that no one would bear witness to what he later came to recognise as the moment of his unravelling.

His senses were momentarily assaulted. Waves of disparate sensations, most of them entirely unexpected, swept through his too-slight form like breakers across the shoreline, each one dissipating as quickly as it arrived, an eager successor trailing lasciviously in its wake. He registered the press of her palm against his shoulder, the slight application of force locking him in place, devoid of sufficient power so as to be considered restraint. He tasted the thin film of acidity that coated her lips, barely perceptible as the deceivingly dry exterior of her mouth gave way to a smooth, moist texture the instant they parted. Her tongue burrowed through his defences, forced open his orifice, wrapped itself around his own. She was hungry – eager even – to exchange spittle and saliva; to bask in the voracious nest of desires which, until the very last second, she’d kept concealed beneath her cool, forbidding self. Until that day, there had been no outward sign, no indication that this would be the destination to which she would eventually lead them. During their earlier exchanges, she had concealed effortlessly that which she had buried feverishly within. Or had she? They’d always conversed willingly and agreeably; in more crowded spaces, they would perhaps have locked eyes fleetingly across the room, but nothing more than that. The space between them had seemed, at least to his mind, vast and impenetrable; a desert devoid of emotion which he would never in his wildest imaginings have attempted to cross. Hadn’t it? She had been his teacher, his mentor, her status grounded and solidified through the lessons she had imparted to him. He had thought himself nothing more than her willing protégé. Until now.

He’d found her attractive, yes, but only in the vaguest, barely acknowledged sense. The way anyone might harbour a sense of quiet admiration for someone altogether unattainable.