I arrived alone. Julianne didn’t get to the hotel in time. More problems at work, she said, without elaborating. She’s coming separately with Dirk and the chairman, Eugene Franklin. A hundred or more of her colleagues are here, being fed and watered by waiters, who move across the mosaic floor with silver trays of champagne. The men are dressed in black tie (far more fashionable than mine) and the women look svelte in cocktail dresses with plunging necklines, daring backs and high heels. They are professional couples, venture capitalists, bankers and accountants. In the eighties they were ‘masters of the universe’ now they make do with mastering corporations and conglomerates.
I should be drinking orange juice but can’t find one. I guess one glass of champagne won’t hurt. I don’t go to many parties. Late nights and alcohol are on my list of things to avoid. Mr Parkinson might turn up. He might seize my left arm in mid-mouthful or mid-sip and leave me frozen like one of the stuffed primates on the second floor.
Julianne should be here by now. Rising on my toes, I look for her over the heads. I see a beautiful woman at the bottom of the stairs, in a flowing silk gown that swoops in elegant folds down to the small of her back and between her breasts. For a moment I don’t recognise her. It’s Julianne. I haven’t seen the gown before. I wish I had bought it for her.
Someone stumbles in to me, spilling her champagne.
‘It’s these bloody heels,’ she explains, apologetically, offering me a napkin.
Tall, reed-thin and well on the way to being drunk, she dangles a champagne flute between her fingers.
‘You’re obviously an other half,’ she says.
‘Pardon?’
‘Someone’s husband,’ she explains.
‘How can you tell?’
‘You look lost. I’m Felicity, by the way. People call me Flip.’
She offers me two fingers to shake. I’m still trying to make eye contact with Julianne.
‘I’m Joe.’
‘Mr Joe.’
‘Joe O’Loughlin.’
Her eyes widen in surprise. ‘So you’re the mysterious husband. I thought Julianne wore a fake wedding ring.’
‘Who has a fake wedding ring?’ interrupts a smaller, top-heavy woman.
‘Nobody. This is Julianne’s husband.’
‘Really?’
‘Why would she wear a fake wedding ring?’ I ask.
Flip plucks another glass of champagne from a passing waiter.
‘To ward off unwelcome suitors, of course, but it doesn’t always work. Some men see it as a challenge.’
The small woman giggles and her decolletage quakes. She’s so short that I can’t look at her face without feeling that I’m staring at her cleavage.
Julianne is talking to several men at the bottom of the stairs. They must be important because lesser mortals are hovering on the periphery, nervous about joining the conversation. A tall dark-haired man whispers something in Julianne’s ear. His hand brushes her spine and rests in the small of her back.
‘You must be very proud of her,’ says Flip.
‘Yes.’
‘You live in Cornwall, don’t you?’
‘Somerset.’
‘Julianne doesn’t really strike me as a country girl.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘She’s so glamorous. I’m surprised you let her stray so far from home.’
The man talking to Julianne has made her laugh. She closes her eyes and the tip of her tongue wets the centre of her lips.
‘Who’s that she’s with?’ I ask.
‘Oh, that’s Dirk Cresswell. Have you met him?’
‘No.’
Dirk’s hand has slipped lower, trailing over the silk as it falls over Julianne’s buttocks. At the same time his eyes seem to fix on the neckline of her gown.
‘Perhaps you had better go and rescue her,’ laughs Flip.
I’m already moving that way, squeezing between shoulders and elbows, apologising and trying not to spill my champagne. I pause and polish off the contents.
Someone has mounted the staircase and is tapping a spoon loudly against his glass, summoning quiet. He’s older and authoritative. It must be the chairman, Eugene Franklin. Conversations fade. The audience is silent.
‘Thank you,’ he says, apologising for the interruption. ‘We all know why we’re here tonight.’
‘To get drunk,’ someone heckles.
‘In due course, yes,’ answers Eugene, ‘but the reason you’re drinking Bollinger at the company’s expense is because this is our birthday. The Franklin Equity Group is ten years old.’
This raises a cheer.
‘Now it’s evident from some of the “bling” on display that it has been a very successful ten years and confirmation that I’m paying you all far too much money.’
Julianne laughs along with the rest of the crowd, gazing at Eugene Franklin expectantly.
‘Before we enjoy ourselves too much I wish to thank a few people,’ he says. ‘Today we secured the biggest deal in this company’s history. It is a deal that many of you have been working on for nearly five years and it will guarantee we have a very merry Christmas come bonus time.
‘Now, you all know Dirk Cresswell. Like Dirk, I too was once young and handsome. I was also a ladies’ man until I came to realise that there are some things more important than sex.’ He pauses. ‘They’re called wives. I’ve had two of them.’
Someone shouts from the floor, ‘Dirk’s had dozens of wives- just none of his own.’
Eugene Franklin laughs along with the rest of them.
‘I want to personally thank Dirk for clinching our biggest deal. And I also want to thank the woman who helped him, the beautiful, talented and (another pause) multilingual Julianne O’Loughlin.’
Amid the applause and whistles, there are nudges and winks. Dirk and Julianne are summoned onto the staircase. She steps forward like a blushing bride, accepting the praise. Glasses are raised. A toast is given.
There’s no way of reaching her now. She’s caught in a public lovefest. Instead, I slip backward through the crowd and linger on the edge of the party.
My mobile phone is vibrating. Charlie’s mobile. I cup the phone to my ear, pressing the green button.
‘Hello,’ says Darcy, expecting my daughter. I can barely hear her over the noise.
‘Don’t hang up.’
She hesitates.
‘And don’t blame Charlie. I guessed.’
‘I want you to stop calling me and leaving messages.’
‘I just want to know you’re all right.’
‘I’m fine. Stop calling.’ My voice mailbox is being used up. It costs me money to collect your messages.’
Turning left past the cloakroom, I find an alcove beneath a set of stone stairs.
‘Just tell me where you are.’
‘No.’
‘Where are you living?’
‘With a friend.’
‘In London?’
‘Do you ever stop asking questions?’
‘I feel responsible-’
‘You’re not! OK? You’re not responsible. I’m old enough to look after myself. I got a job. I’m earning money. I’m going to dance.’
I tell her about Gideon Tyler. He could be the man she spoke to on the train when she came to London for her audition. The police need her to look at his photograph.
She contemplates what to do. ‘You won’t try to trick me?’
‘No.’
‘And you’ll stop calling me.’
‘As often.’
She ponders for a little longer. ‘OK. I’ll call you tomorrow. I have to go back to work now.’
‘Where are you working?’
‘You promised.’
‘OK. No questions.’
I wander back to the party, finding another drink and then another. I listen on the edges of conversations as men exchange views on the share market, the strength of the US dollar and ticket prices at Twickenham. Their wives and partners are more i
nterested in private school fees and where they’re going to ski this winter.
Julianne’s arms slip around my waist.
‘Where have you been?’ she asks.
‘Around.’
‘You haven’t been hiding.’
‘No. Darcy called.’
Her eyes cloud momentarily, but she chases any doubts away.
‘Is she all right?’
‘She says so. She’s in London.’
‘Where is she staying?’
‘I don’t know.’
Julianne brushes her hands over her hips, smoothing her gown.
‘I love your dress. It’s stunning.’
‘Thank you.’
‘When did you get it?’
‘In Rome.’
‘You didn’t tell me.’
‘It was my bonus.’
‘Dirk bought it for you?’
‘He saw me admiring it. I didn’t know he was going to buy it. He surprised me.’
‘A bonus for what?’
‘Pardon?’
‘You said it was a bonus.’
‘Oh, yes, for all the long hours. We worked so hard. I’m exhausted.’
She doesn’t seem to notice how hot it’s become in here and how difficult it is to breathe.
She takes my hand. ‘I want you to meet Dirk. I’ve told him how clever you are.’
I’m being led through the crowd. Bodies simply part. Dirk and Eugene are chatting to colleagues beneath the jaws of a dinosaur that looks ready to eat them. We wait and listen. Every one of Dirk’s utterances is a statement of personal principle: opinionated, loud and dogmatic. There’s a lull. Julianne fills it.
‘Dirk, this is Joe, my husband. Joe this is Dirk Cresswell.’
He has a fearsome grip; a finger crushing, show-me-the-whites-of-your-eyes sort of handshake. I try to match it. He smiles.
‘Do you work in finance, Joe?’ he asks.
I shake my head.
‘Very wise. What do you do? Oh, that’s right, I remember Jules mentioning that you were a shrink.’
I glance towards Julianne. Eugene Franklin has asked her something and she’s no longer listening.
Dirk suddenly turns his back to me. Not completely. A shoulder.
Others in the circle are more interesting or easier to impress. I feel like a footman, standing cap in hand, waiting to be dismissed.
A waiter passes with a tray of canapes. Dirk comments on the foie gras, which isn’t bad, he says, but he’s had better at a little restaurant in Montparnasse, a favourite of Hemingway’s.
‘It tastes pretty good if you come from Somerset,’ I say.
‘Yes,’ answers Dirk. ‘Thankfully, we’re not all from Somerset.’
It gets a laugh. I want to put a kink in his perfectly straight nose with my fist. He carries on talking about Paris in a voice full of privilege and bravado that cuts right through me and reminds me of everything I hate about bullies.
I drift away looking for another drink. I meet up with Flip again, who introduces me to her boyfriend, who’s a dealer.
‘Shares, not drugs,’ he says.
I wonder how many times he’s used that line.
By now I’ve passed from the tipsy state to being grimly drunk. I shouldn’t be drinking at all, but every time I contemplate switching to mineral water, I find another champagne flute in my hand.
Just before midnight I go looking for Julianne. I’m drunk. I want to leave. She’s not on the dance floor or beneath the dinosaur. I walk up the staircase and peer into dark corners. It’s crazy, I know, but I keep expecting to find her with Dirk’s tongue in her mouth and his hands in her dress. Surprisingly, I don’t feel angry or bitter. This is the materialisation of a certainty that has been with me for weeks.
I walk outside the main doors. There she is, backed up against a stone pillar. Dirk is in front of her with one hand braced against the stone cutting off her escape.
He spies me approaching. ‘Speak of the devil. Having a good time?’
‘Yes, thank you.’ I turn to Julianne. ‘Where have you been?’
‘I was looking for you. Dirk thought he saw you coming outside.’
‘No.’
Dirk’s hand slips down, touching her shoulder.
‘Please take your hand off her,’ I say, unable to recognise my own voice.
Julianne’s eyes go wide.
Dirk grins. ‘You seem to have the wrong end of the stick, my friend.’
Julianne tries to laugh it off. ‘Come on, Joe, I think it’s time to go. I’ll get my coat.’
She ducks under his arm. Dirk looks at me with a mixture of pity and triumph.
‘Too much champagne, my friend. It happens to the best of us.’
‘I’m not your friend. Don’t touch my wife again.’
‘My apologies,’ he says. ‘I’m a very tactile person.’ He holds up his hands as though producing the evidence. ‘Sorry if there’s been a misunderstanding.’
‘There is no misunderstanding,’ I reply. ‘I know what you’re doing. So does everyone else here. You want to sleep with my wife. Maybe you already have. And then you’ll swagger off and brag about it to your clubster mates on golfing weekends to the Algarve or shooting weekends in Scotland.
‘You’re “Mr Hole in One”. You’re “Dead-Eye Dirk”. You flirt with other men’s wives and then take them to dinner at Sketch and back to a little boutique hotel in London which has matching robes and an oversized bath with a spa.
‘You try to impress them by name-dropping- first names only of course: Nigella and Charles, Madonna and Guy, Victoria and Davidbecause you think it’s going to make you more attractive to these women, but underneath that sun-bed tan and sixty-quid haircut you’re an overpaid glorified salesman, who can’t even sell himself.’
A crowd is being sucked inwards, unable to resist a playground fight where someone has taken on the school bully. Julianne comes rushing back, pushing through onlookers, knowing something terrible is afoot. She says my name. She begs me to shut up and tugs at my arm, but it’s too late.
‘You see, I know your type, Dirk. I know your shabby superior smile and condescending attitude towards waiters and tradesmen and shopgirls. You use sarcasm and overweening formality to gloss over the fact that you have no real influence or power.
‘So you try to make up for this by taking away what other men have. You tell yourself it’s the challenge that excites you; the chase, but the truth is you can’t hold onto a woman for more than a few weeks because pretty quickly they work out that you’re a pretentious, stuck-up, self-centred bastard and then you’re fucked.’
‘Please, Joe, don’t say any more. Please shut up.’
‘I notice things, Dirk, little details about people. Take you, for example. Your fingernails are flat and yellowing. It’s a sign of an iron deficiency. Maybe your kidneys aren’t working properly. If I were you I’d go easy on the Viagra for a while until I got myself checked out.’
52
By the time I reach the hotel room Julianne has locked herself in the bathroom. I tap on the door.
‘Go away.’
‘Please open up.’
‘No.’
I press my ear to a wooden panel and imagine I hear the faint silky slithering of her gown. She might be kneeling, pressing her ear against the door, opposite mine.
‘Why do you do it, Joe? Whenever I’m happy you do something to mess it up.’
I take a deep breath. ‘I found a receipt from Italy. You threw it away.’
She doesn’t respond.
‘It was for room service. Breakfast. Champagne, bacon, eggs, pancakes… more food than you could ever eat.’
‘You went through my receipts?’
‘I found it.’
‘You went through the rubbish- spying on me.’
‘I wasn’t spying. I know what you normally have for breakfast. Fresh fruit. Yoghurt. Bircher muesli…’
My certainty and loneliness are now so intense they seem
perfectly matched. I’m drunk. I’m trembling. I’m remembering the events of the night.
‘I saw the way Dirk looked at you. He couldn’t keep his hands off you. And I heard the snide comments and the whispers. Everyone in that room thinks he’s sleeping with you.’
‘And you do too! You think I’m fucking Dirk. You think I ordered breakfast after we fucked all night?’
She hasn’t denied it yet. She hasn’t explained.
‘Why didn’t you tell me about the dress?’
‘He only gave it to me yesterday.’
‘Was the lingerie also a bonus… a present from him?’
She doesn’t answer. I press my ear harder to the door and wait. I hear her sigh and move away. A tap is turned on. I wait. My knees are stiff. I feel a coppery taste in my mouth, a hangover in the making.
Finally she speaks, ‘I want you to think very carefully before you ask me the question, Joe.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You want to know if I fucked Dirk? Ask me. But when you do, remember what’s going to die. Trust. Nothing can bring it back, Joe. I want you to understand that.’
The door opens. I step back. Julianne has wrapped a white towelling robe around her and cinched it tightly at the waist. Without meeting my eyes, she walks to the bed and lies down, facing away from me. The mattress springs barely move under her weight.
Her dress is lying on the bathroom floor. I fight the urge to pick it up and run it through my fingers, to rip it into shreds and flush it away.
‘I’m not going to ask,’ I say.
‘But you still think it. You think I’ve been unfaithful.’
‘I’m not sure.’
She falls silent. The sadness is suffocating.
‘It was a joke,’ she whispers. ‘We worked really late to close the deal, tying up the loose ends. I crashed. Exhausted. It was too late to call London so I emailed Eugene with the news. He didn’t get the message until he arrived at the office. He told his secretary to call my hotel and order me a champagne breakfast. She didn’t know what to order so he said: “Order the whole damn menu”.
‘I was asleep. Room service knocked on my door. There were three trolleys of food. I rang the kitchen and said there must be a mistake. They told me my company had ordered me breakfast.
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