by Maeve Binchy
Frank had said that you diminished everything by trailing one life and one set of memories with you. Better far to live whatever life you were living at the moment to the full with no connecting links.
So a wife could not be brought unawares to the house of a mistress.
Similarly when the Quigleys entertained as they always did at Christmas Miss East would be said to be out of town. They met on common ground all right, like at his father-in-law’s, but the conversation was always about work. Frank was literally able to divorce himself from the other side of their life together and talk guiltlessly about plans and projects. He got none of the sense of illicit excitement that he knew others felt about an extra-marital affair. He knew that Joy felt the same. She must have felt the same. After all it was she who had laid down the ground rules.
Joy had been to the forefront in saying they would have no sense of over-responsibility to each other. She was not going to suffer the agonies of the typical Other Woman, she had assured him. There would be no image of poor Joy sitting alone with a sandwich on Christmas Day listening to ‘Jingle Bells’ on the radio. No, she was thirty when she met him and she had lived ten years more or less alone. She had a hundred places to go for Christmas, and would spend no time feeling abandoned. They would take the time they could have without destroying either their careers or their plans for the future. She was free as the air to go where she pleased without consulting him. If a trip to the States came up she would take it, and he could find other ways of filling those afternoon hours until she returned.
It had been idyllic … yes, a real afternoon idyll over three years. In summertime they often sat and drank cold white wine and peeled each other pears and peaches in the warm walled garden. In winter, they sat on the thick rich carpet beside the fire and watched pictures in the flames. At no time did they ever say what a pity that they couldn’t get away together for a week, for a holiday or for a lifetime. Renata’s name was never mentioned between them. Nor was David, the name of the man in the advertising agency who had great hopes of the lovely Joy East and sent her large bouquets of flowers. Sometimes she went out with him at weekends but so great was the sense of independence between Frank and Joy that Frank never asked whether they slept together or if David’s attentions were in any way a threat to his own position. He assumed that David had been kept at arm’s length with a convincing story about work and not wishing to get involved.
Frank had listened to the stories of colleagues, men who had as they put it had a little fun, played around a bit, thought they had a good thing going. Always and in every case there had been some disastrous turnabout of events. And it was invariably obvious and predictable to the outsider but never to the man involved. Frank examined his own relationship with Joy as minutely as he would have examined a contract or a proposition put to him in his office. If there were any flaws, then he couldn’t see them. Not until the Christmas party at Palazzo last year, which was when the trouble had begun. And even then it had been small and insignificant. At first.
It was all very clearly etched on his mind. Supermarkets found it hard to have Christmas parties like other firms did since they were literally serving the public all hours. But Frank was ever mindful of the importance of some kind of ceremony and group loyalty, particularly at a festive time.
Frank had persuaded Carlo to have the party on the Sunday before Christmas each year, it would be a lunchtime party with Carlo as Santa Claus for the kiddies. Wives and children all came, there were small gifts for everyone and paper hats, and because it was a family day out the usual office party nonsense didn’t happen with young secretaries being sick behind the filing cabinets and older managers making fools of themselves doing a striptease.
Renata had always loved it and was very good with the children, organizing games, and paper streamers. Every year for as long as he could remember Frank’s father-in-law had looked fondly at his daughter and said that she was so wonderful with the bambinos, wasn’t it a pity that there were no bambinos of their own. Every year Frank had shrugged and said that the ways of the Lord were strange.
‘It’s not for lack of loving,’ he would say regularly, and Carlo would nod gravely and suggest that perhaps Frank should eat more steaks, a lot of red meat never did a man any harm. Every year with patience and a smile fixed easily on his face. It was a small price to pay, it was not intended as humiliation, it wasn’t received as such. Frank took it as an old man’s affectionate and perhaps tactlessly expressed regret. It was one of the few areas where he humoured Carlo Palazzo. In business they spoke as equals, always.
But last Christmas the party had been different. Joy East was usually in charge of decorating the big warehouse where they had the festivities. Not the actual work of pinning crepe up on the walls and laying out the trestles with the sausage rolls and mince pies of course, but with organizing a colour scheme, providing huge paper ornaments, or giant sunflowers as she had done one year. Arranging someone to make mighty bells out of silver paper. Seeing to it that a big green baize-covered table full of gifts be arranged for Santa Claus Carlo and that the photographer from the local and sometimes even national papers be present. Together Frank and Joy had organized a huge Christmas calendar that would have the name of every employee on it. It cost practically nothing to print and yet everyone who worked in Palazzo took it home proudly to keep for the next year. It sometimes changed their mind if they were thinking of leaving. It was hard to leave a place where you were so highly thought of as family that they put your name among the names of board members and senior managers on the calendar.
Last Christmas Joy said she was going to be away in the time before the party. There was this packaging fair she really had to go to. It was important, she needed new ideas.
‘But that’s on every year at this time and you don’t go,’ Frank had complained.
‘Are you telling me what I can do and can’t do?’ Her voice had been steely.
‘Of course not. It’s just that it’s become such a tradition … your ideas for the Christmas party … always. Long before you and I … always.’
‘And you thought that it would always be so … long after you and I?’
‘What is this, Joy? If you’re trying to say something say it.’ He had been brusque to cover his shock.
‘Oh I’m never trying to say anything, I assure you. I really assure you of that. Either I say it or I don’t say it, there’s no question of trying to say anything.’
He had looked at her sharply, her voice had sounded slurred when she was repeating the word ‘assure’. It was unthinkable that Joy East had been drinking, drinking in the middle of the day. He put the suspicion out of his mind.
‘That’s good then,’ he had said with false joviality, ‘because I’m the same. If I want to say something I say it, we’re two of a kind, Joy.’
She had smiled at him oddly, he thought.
When she returned from the packaging fair they met as had been arranged at her house. One of the many things that made it all so safe was that Joy really did work from home with a small bright studio filled with light, and Frank did have legitimate reason to call on her. But even better her house was very near the offices of the firm of accountants they used as tax advisers. Frank had even more legitimate reason to visit them regularly. If his car was ever seen in the area he was well covered.
Joy said she hadn’t done much at the packaging fair, it was Mickey Mouse stuff.
‘Then why did you go?’ Frank had asked, irritated.
He had been responsible for finding other people to take over Joy’s work preparing the hall for the party and nobody had anything like her flair.
‘For a change, for a rest, for some time off,’ she had said, considering her words.
‘Jesus, I never think a trade fair is a rest,’ he had said.
‘It is if you hardly leave your room in the hotel.’
‘And what did you do in your room in the hotel that was so important?’ His voice was cold.
‘I never said it was important. Now did I?’
‘No.’
‘It wasn’t at all important what I did in my room, I read the catalogues, I had room service, I had a lot of nice cold white wine. Oh, and I had a nice Scotsman, head of a stationery firm. But nothing at all important.’
Frank’s face had gone white but he was still in control. ‘Is this meant to hurt me?’ he asked.
‘But how could it, we’re two of a kind, you’ve often said it. You have your life with your wife, I have my life with the odd ship that passes in the night. Nothing hurtful there.’
They were lying in her bed. Frank reached out for a cigarette from the slim case on the bedside table.
‘I usually prefer you not to smoke here, it does sort of linger in the curtains,’ Joy said.
‘I usually don’t need to smoke here, but the things you’re saying sort of linger in my mind and make me anxious,’ he said, lighting up.
‘Ah, it is all a game, isn’t it?’ Joy said perfectly amicably. ‘I thought about this a long time while I was away. What you and I have is not love, not one of those great passions that make people do foolish things … it’s just a game. Like tennis, one person serves, the other returns it …’
‘It’s much more than a game …’ he began.
‘Or like chess.’ Joy was dreamy now. ‘One person makes a crafty move and then the other responds to it with something even craftier.’
‘You know very well what we have, there’s no point in finding fancy words for it. We love each other … but we have set limits to this love, you and I. And we admire each other and we’re happy together.’
‘It’s a game,’ she repeated.
‘Well, people who go out to play a game of golf or squash or chess together are friends, Joy, for God’s sake, you don’t decide to spend a day with someone you don’t like. Use this example if it gives you pleasure, keep saying game game game. But it doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t change anything. We’re just the same. You and I.’
‘Oh you are playing it well.’ She laughed admiringly. ‘Trying to diffuse it all, asking no questions about whether there really was a Scotsman or not. I think you’d be a very dangerous adversary in a game.’
He put out his cigarette and reached for her again, he held her close to him and spoke into her long shiny hair with its stripes of gold among the brown and its smell of lemony shampoo.
‘Well so would you … a terrifying adversary. Isn’t it just as well that we’re the best of friends and the best of lovers and not enemies at all?’
But he had spoken more cheerfully than he felt, and her body had not been responsive to him. She had a half smile that was disturbing and had nothing at all to do with any pleasure which she might or might not have been feeling.
At the party Joy was dressed in a dazzling navy and white dress. The gleaming white collar was cut low into her cleavage revealing a lot of breast and expensive lace-trimmed brassiere. Her hair seemed to shine out like gold and copper. She looked ten years younger than thirty-three, she looked like a young beautiful girl on the prowl. Frank watched her with alarm as she moved through the crowds of Palazzo employees. This time there was no doubt about it, she had been drinking. And well before she arrived at the party.
Frank felt a cold knot of nervousness in his stomach. Joy sober he could cope with easily, but she was an unknown quantity drunk. His father’s terrible and unpredictable rages flashed before him suddenly. He remembered the time that the entire dinner had been thrown into the fire in a fit of temper … nearly forty years ago but as clear as yesterday. And what had always stuck in Frank’s mind was that his father had not intended to do it, he had wanted to eat his dinner as he told them over and over all night. It had given Frank a fear of drunks, he drank very little himself and he scanned his managers and sales force for signs of the bottle. It was the feeling that you couldn’t rely on someone who was so dangerous. They would probably be all right but you couldn’t be sure. He looked at the flashing smile and the low neckline of Joy East as she cruised around the room ever refilling her glass at the trestle tables, and he felt not at all sure that the day would end all right.
Her first target was Carlo, struggling offstage into his Santa outfit.
‘Wonderful, Mr Palazzo,’ she said. ‘Wonderful, you go out and knock them dead, tell them what Santa will put in their wage packets if they’re good little girls and boys and work like good little ants.’
Carlo looked puzzled. Frank acted quickly to draw her away.
‘Joy, where are the tubs for the children? Please?’ His voice was urgent.
She came up close to him and he saw her eyes were not focusing properly.
‘Where are the tubs?’ she asked. ‘The tubs are being presided over by your wife. The saintly Renata. Santa Renata.’ Her face broke into a big smile. ‘That would be a nice song … Santa Renata …’ She sang it to the tune of ‘Santa Lucia’, and seemed pleased with it so sang it a little louder. Frank moved slightly away. He had to get her out. Soon.
At that very moment Renata appeared to explain that the pink wrapping paper was on the gifts for girls and the blue for boys. One year her father had given the girls horrible monsters and spiders and the boys comb and mirror sets. This time they were taking no chances.
‘That’s right, Renata, take no chances,’ Joy said.
Renata looked at her startled. Never had she seen Joy East looking like this.
‘You look … very smart … very elegant,’ Renata said.
‘Thank you, Renata, grazie, grazie mille,’ Joy said, bowing flamboyantly.
‘I have not seen you wear clothes like this and look so full of life before …’ Renata spoke quietly but with a little awe in her voice. She fingered the edge of her expensive but very muted woollen jacket. It had probably cost four times as much as the striking garment that Joy was wearing but Renata looked like a bird of little plumage, dark hair, sallow skin and designer suit in lilac and pink colours with a braid of lilac-coloured suede at the edge of the jacket, nothing to catch the eye. Nothing at all.
Joy looked at Renata steadily.
‘I’ll tell you why I look so different, I have a man. A man in my life. That’s what makes all the difference.’
Joy smiled around her, delighted with the attention from Nico Palazzo who was Carlo’s brother, and from Desmond Doyle and a group of senior management who were all in the circle. Renata smiled too, but uncertainly. She didn’t know quite what response she was meant to make and her eyes raked the group as if to find Frank who would know what to say.
Frank stood with the feeling that the ice in his stomach had broken and he was now awash with icy water. There was nothing he could do. It was the sense of powerlessness that made him feel almost faint.
‘Was I telling you about this man, Frank?’ Joy asked roguishly. ‘You see me only as a career woman … but there’s room for love and passion as well.’
‘I’m sure there is.’
Frank spoke as if he were patting down a mad dog. Even if he had no connection with Joy they would have expected him to be like this. Soothing, distant, and eventually making his escape. They must all see now what condition she was in, they must have noticed. Was it only because he knew her so intimately, had traced every feature of her face and body for three years with his hands that he realized she was out of control? Everyone around seemed to be treating it all as normal Christmas high spirits. If he could stop her just now, before she said anything else, then all might not be lost.
Joy was aware she had an audience and was enjoying it. She put on a little-girl voice that he had never heard her use before. She looked very silly, he thought quite dispassionately, in her sober state she would be the first to criticize any other woman with an assumed lisping voice.
‘But it’s forbidden in this company to love anyone except Palazzo. Isn’t that right? We all love Palazzo, we must have no other love.’
They laughed, even Nico laughed, they we
re taking it as good-natured banter.
‘Oh yes, first love the company, then other loves,’ Nico said.
‘It’s infidelity to love anyone else better,’ Desmond Doyle said, laughing.
Frank flashed him a grateful look, poor Desmond his old pal from those long-ago days in Ireland was helping him inadvertently, he was taking the heat off. Maybe he could be encouraged to say more.
‘Well, you’ve never been unfaithful, Desmond,’ Frank said, loosening his collar. ‘You’re certainly a long and loyal Palazzo man.’ He felt sick in his stomach after he said it, remembering suddenly the time that Desmond had been allowed to go after the rationalization and how he had to fight hard to get him reinstated. But Desmond didn’t seem to see the irony. Desmond was about to answer with something cheerful when the voice of Joy East cut in again.
‘No one should be married except to the company. When you join Palazzo you must marry the place, marry Palazzo. Very hard to do. Very hard. Except for you, Frank. You managed it all right, didn’t you? You really did marry a Palazzo!’
Even Nico who was very slow must have realized by now that something was wrong. Frank had to move quickly. But he must not appear to be rattled. He must take it indulgently as anyone would take the public idiocy of a normally exemplary colleague.
