The Dress (19 page)

‘In that case I'll have another one,' Lily said. ‘Hell, make it two,' she added, as she grabbed and drained the glass that the barman had just put down in front of Sally.

‘Ladies. Glad to see you are enjoying my hospitality.' Jack Scott's voice made them jump out of their skins.

Maybe it was because her system was fizzing with jetlag or maybe it was the second Crown Colony (they really were quite strong) but Lily was suddenly furious with Jack for (a) sneaking up on them and (b) assuming they were robbing cocktails off him (which they were, but all the same... ).

‘How dare you assume that this delicious drink,' she said, picking up the third cocktail glass, ‘is on a room tab and not on my...'

‘Ouch, easy tiger,' was the last thing Lily heard before she felt her knees wobble and she collapsed to the ground.

When she woke up she was lying on a sun lounger with a man's jacket over her chest. Jack was on the lounger next to her smoking a cigar.

‘What happened?'

‘You passed out.'

‘Oh my God...'

‘Don't worry, you weren't that drunk. I persuaded the staff it was just jetlag jitters and not to call an ambulance.'

Lily tried to sit up but her body felt like lead. She was exhausted.

‘Thanks,' she said. ‘What time is it?'

‘You've only been out for about five minutes.'

‘Where are...'

‘The others are inside getting drunk on my room tab – I carried you out here.'

Lily laughed. ‘You carried me?'

‘What?' Jack said slightly offended. ‘You think I've never lifted a girl onto a bed before?'

‘I doubt you've ever had to get one this drunk.'

‘Is that a compliment?'

‘Not really, I said she'd need to be drunk.'

‘So how drunk would you have to be to go to bed with me? Hypothetically speaking.'

Lily turned to face him and let his jacket slip slightly from her shoulders. His arms were bare and brown, and the blond hairs on them were standing up slightly; the evening chill or another kind of excitement?

‘Oh, I'd say I'd have to be
pretty
drunk, but not so drunk as I couldn't walk out when I wanted to.'

‘You wouldn't want to walk out,' he said.

‘Oh?' she said. Lily found she was grinning. Even though she shouldn't be flirting like this. Certainly not with notorious Jack Scott. Jetlag or South Beach or Raleigh Martini Bar cocktails or probably a combination of all three were making her feel reckless. ‘So, what would I want to do, Mr Scott?'

Jack looked at her and smiled. It was not his usual broad Hollywood grin but softer; his grey-blue eyes glittered with mischief and he paused. For a moment Lily felt an embarrassed flush of fear, thinking he was going to lean over and touch her bare shoulder. But he said, ‘You'd want to
run
...'

It was a deliberate tease.

‘I never run,' she said, ‘from anything.'

‘Oh,' he said, ‘I think you do.'

Then before she could ask what he meant he leaned over and pulled his jacket up over her shoulder.

‘You rest there and I'll send Sally out with another cocktail.' Then as he was leaving he said, ‘Unless you want me to carry you up to bed?'

Lily smiled charmingly, although inside she felt something closer to a peculiar laughing joy.

‘No,' she said, ‘but thanks for the offer.'

Lily leaned back on the lounger, drew Jack's jacket up to her chest like a duvet and looked across at the perfect scene in front of her. As she closed her eyes and descended into the deep sleep of the seriously jetlagged, Lily thought she saw the figure of Joy Fitzpatrick in her glimmering dress floating across the mirrored top of the Raleigh pool at midnight.

New York, 1959

‘Do you really think this party is a good idea, Joy?'

The Fitzpatricks were having breakfast in their dining room. Jones was serving them pancakes. The butler was relieved that Joy was so occupied with this party that she had stopped taking such a keen interest in domestic matters. With his mistress not drinking, life in their household had gone back, in many ways, to how it had been when the Fitzpatricks first got married. Frank was working, Joy was buying clothes and being a society hostess and he was left to run their home in peace. The Fitzpatricks ate together, each evening; Joy pre-arranged the menu twice a week, and listed any purchases or specialist jobs that needed to be done around the apartment, like dry-cleaning the curtains or polishing the hardwood floors.

The same peaceful order had come back. No more wondering what state Joy would be in when he put his key in the lock. No more living under the black cloud of Frank's silent rage, as his boss struggled to stay polite. The only thing that was missing, now, in the Fitzpatricks' marriage, was the love. Jones felt sad about that. He had enjoyed those early days. Their flighty, flirtatious banter over the breakfast table, as they waited for him to step into the larder, so they could kiss, half knowing he could hear them. Just being in the presence of such happiness and hope had been uplifting. They still sat at the same table, at the same time and ate the same food as they did then. They even spoke many of the same words – ‘Have a great day', ‘Speak to you later' – but the love was gone. All that was left in their marriage was Joy's neediness and Frank's sense of duty. Jones knew all about answering the call for need and duty himself; they were enough to keep you in a job, but not in a marriage.

Joy had kept Jones and Frank abreast of all her plans. It was to be a sit down dinner at the Waldorf, so there were menus to choose, flowers to order, invitations to be drafted then sent, and seating arrangements to be made. She had tried to involve Frank, asking him to compile the guest list with her and help out with the job of choosing a band, but her husband was being impossibly surly about the whole thing.

That morning, for some reason, he seemed to be trying to persuade her to call the whole thing off.

‘After all, it's not a twenty-first, Joy, you're
thirty
...'

Frank knew that he had said the wrong thing, but instead of feeling sorry, he just seemed to get more annoyed. He walked over to the bar and threw a measure of scotch into his morning coffee. Frank had instructed Jones to reinstate the bar a few weeks before, saying Joy's flower arranging station was ridiculous and adding that she would have to get used to being around drink like every civilized person. Joy was hurt by the implication that she was an alcoholic and by his refusal to help with her party, but then, almost everything Frank said hurt her these days.

Joy still clung to the belief that the party would change everything. When he saw the magnificent dress and how beautiful she looked in it, his heart would melt. When Frank understood what a fortune she had put into the dress, that she was sacrificing her inheritance for him, he would see how much she loved him and everything would go back to how it was. Frank would love her again, she was certain of it.

With the pressure of the impending party and a stocked bar beckoning to her from the corner of her drawing room, Joy found it easier to decamp to Honor's apartment during the day. She had a telephone installed there so that she could organize the party and oversee work on the dress at the same time. For some reason, this infuriated Frank, although he seemed at a loss to explain why.

‘Thirty is not so old, Frank, and besides, the whole thing is arranged now.' As her husband threw back his coffee Joy felt a sort of longing tighten across her chest. For her husband's affection or the scotch, or both.

‘What time will I tell Jones to fix dinner for? I'll be with Honor until six, at least...'

Frank snapped, ‘I don't know why you are spending all your time with that woman.'

Joy felt defensive and hurt, but kept her voice steady. There was no point in arguing with Frank, when he got like this. In any case, if they did fight, there was nowhere for her to hide – no bottle in which to drown the wound of his words afterwards.

‘She is not simply ‘that woman', darling. She is a very talented designer who I am sponsoring and she also happens to be a lovely friend.'

‘Well, I don't like it and I don't like her.'

Frank was being impossibly hurtful. What was wrong with him? What was wrong with her that, despite everything, she still could not seem to make her husband love her?

‘But you've never met Honor, darling. You'd like her, I'm sure you would; she's Irish. Why don't I invite her round...'

Frank got flustered then and said it wasn't right, his wife being out during the day; he wanted her here at home, to look after him. It was all most unlike him.

His hand faltered over the scotch as if he wanted to have another, but then he grabbed his coat quickly and ran out of the door.

Joy told herself that Frank was under a great deal of pressure at work and resolved to leave the apartment after him in the mornings and make sure she was home before him at night. She would be careful not to mention either the dress or the party, any more than she had to.

After he left, Joy put on a Chanel two piece and asked Jones to book her a car to take her to her bank on Wall Street.

Once inside, the manager accompanied her to the vault and left her alone. Joy opened the box of her mother's gems: her inheritance. There were four long strings of the finest Japanese pearls, two of them antique; a large Chopard diamond choker with matching earrings; several breathtakingly intricate and expensive brooches by Van Cleef; and then a handful of assorted diamonds and gems that her mother had bought purely as investments.

‘I don't trust bankers,' her mother had said, ‘or stockbrokers, or men who move money around. Real gems never lose their value and they never go out of style.'

Joy had known, more or less, what was in the box, but had only looked inside once before, when removing the Chopard diamonds to wear on her wedding day. She had expected to feel something more, some sentiment for her mother, a feeling of power perhaps, or at least awe at the glittering gems. But all Joy felt was that these riches meant nothing to her. They were what stood between her depending on her husband and his believing that she needed him. Otherwise they were useless. Jewels had never made her happy. Drink made her happy. It was time she put them to some use.

Joy studied the jewels for a few seconds, then tipped the whole lot into her Kelly bag, and placed the empty box back in the vault.

‘Are you sure about this,' her bank manager said.

Joy gave him a withering look and said, ‘Of course I am sure.'

The banker knew she was emptying her fortune. He had seen dozens of women do the same, nearly always to give to some ruthless cad. He hoped to God that Joy Fitzpatrick knew what she was doing, because she was a pretty young thing and a good customer. However, it wasn't his job to interfere, and spoilt rich women like her were impossible to reason with, anyway.

The snow was abating and, as she left the bank, Joy could almost smell spring in the air. The bag was heavy with the weight of her fortune. Joy felt adrenaline pump through her system and she walked faster, her heart banging against her chest. Although Joy knew that what she was about to do was madness, she found herself grinning, as she walked up 5th towards 72nd and took the right hand turn towards Honor's brownstone. This, she decided, was what freedom felt like.

*

The Carrickmacross lace for the bodice overlay had arrived the day before, a few weeks ahead of time. Joy had rung the Irish convent almost daily, putting pressure on the nuns to deliver. In truth, she had been shocked at how much money they were demanding for their labour. In her naïveté, Joy had imagined these religious women would work voluntarily, while rich customers paid for the raw material and transport and perhaps made a small donation.

Honor laughed like a drain when Joy told her this.

‘Nuns may be a lot of things, Joy, but they're certainly not cheap.'

She explained that they were paying, not only for the sisters' skilled labour but also for their creativity and their purity.

‘They put genuine love into their work, and love doesn't come cheap. The Carrickmacross nuns tell stories through their lace. They take the finest details of love and nature and put them into your work. Their lives are so simple: eat, pray, sew; they have no other story except for what they invent for their lace. When you commission them, you are buying a piece of their soul.'

‘I am not sure I want a piece of some grumpy old nun's soul on my dress,' Joy said.

Honor laughed, replying, ‘Wait and see.'

When the lace arrived, in a simple brown postal package, Honor carefully moved back the tissue paper and placed the delicate material on the back of Joy's hand. It was like gossamer, so fragile that Joy was afraid it might melt into her skin.

‘Will it be strong enough for you to work with?' Joy whispered, afraid the very sound of her voice might break it.

‘Trust me,' Honor said, ‘it might look as if it's made from butterfly wings, but actually it's unbreakable,' and she stretched the fabric tight between her fingers, making Joy cry out.

‘Don't worry. Making lace is a delicate, precise process but once it's made, nothing can break it. As I said, it contains soul, and let's face it, there's nothing tougher than the soul of an old nun.'

With the dressmaking process really gathering steam, Honor worked day and night, embroidering the intricate panels she planned to sew into the fairy tale train. Each one was more opulent and detailed than the next and shaded with crystals and sequins. While the longer sections of the skirt could be machine sewn, most of the seams had to be to be done by hand. Honor did not know how she was going to get it all done in time – however, she was determined not to buy in any labour. This was to be entirely her dress, hers and Joy's. The longer she worked on the dress, the more she came to appreciate that Joy's input was essential.