The Dress (26 page)

Already on her feet, she hurried back to the apartment to collect her book and her pencils, deciding she would spend the afternoon lying in the park, coming up with new ideas to wow the ladies of New York. She and Joy would continue with their plans to open a couture salon. Joy's husband was a busy man, as well as an impulsive idiot. Frank would forget her within days and in any case, he could easily be avoided. There was no way Honor Conlon was going to let some man get in the way of her dreams. Thank goodness, she thought as she walked up the steps to the brownstone, she had seen sense in time.

She opened the front door and saw him straight away, standing in the shadows under the stairs. Waiting.

‘Honor,' he said moving towards her.

He looked dishevelled, shirt loose, unshaven, and irresistible.

Honor did not hesitate, but ran straight up the stairs, her heart banging against her chest, saying, ‘I don't want to see you; get away from me.'

He followed and stood close behind her as she fumbled with her door key. As her shaking hands struggled to steady themselves in the lock, Frank put his hands over hers, then took the key from her and turned it. They stood chest to chest, next to the opened door.

Honor looked up into his face and said, ‘I can't do this Frank, it's not right,' but she did not move away.

He leaned against her, until they both stumbled back into the apartment and fell against the wall, in a passionate kiss.

Both weak with longing, all finer feelings melted in the heat of their desire.

Powerless.

*

One night, not even a full night, that was all Honor had allowed herself to spend with Frank. Unable to help themselves, they had fallen onto and into each other, driven by forces of nature that seemed to pull Honor back to the bogs and the wild mountain landscapes of her home. Afterwards, as they lay wrapped around each other in her small bed, she knew that this feeling, this craving she had, this love she could feel rising in the pit of her stomach to a sobbing crescendo of want, would never let her go. She looked across at the clock and saw that it was 7 p.m. He had been in her bed for five hours.

‘You had better go,' she said.

‘I'm staying,' Frank said, his voice tender but firm. Even though she had not known him before, he felt so familiar to her; his voice sounded like home. But they had met once, he told her, when she was a baby.

‘No,' she said, ‘you can't do that –
we
can't do that. We have to stop this now, before it starts.'

‘It's too late, it started the moment I laid eyes on you,' he said. His face was certain, confident; there was no guilt, no regret. Frank Fitzpatrick was right where he wanted to be.

‘I love you, Honor.'

When he said those words, it seemed to Honor that her heart was suddenly cut loose from its mooring and began to float inside her, like some expanding balloon ready to explode in her chest; she had to grab onto it, hold it back, or it would lead her to places she did not want to go.

Honor knew that what they were doing was wrong, but when she looked at Frank she was overcome with a slow, soft emotion, that was somewhere between pity and desire. Frank was a powerful, wealthy man; yet here, naked, in her bed, he was just the boy who her father had rescued from his violent father, a lonely child reared on a diet of rage and meagre love, knocking on her door, looking for solace and a safe haven. Frank was a strong beautiful man and she longed to lie there forever and get lost in her desire for him; beyond that again there was the serendipity of how they had met. Two souls reared in the wilderness of the west coast of Ireland, both had made new lives, but in meeting one another, had opened up the door to home.

Frank said he loved her yet men said things like that all the time, just to get women to sleep with them. She wanted him, she felt compelled to be with him, but was that love? Whatever it was, Honor knew it was wrong. Aside from this being a terrible betrayal of Joy, it was a betrayal of everything she believed herself to be. She had already gravely sinned against God and herself, acted against every good judgement, every decent act her parents had ever taught her. This madness had to end; she would not be the cheap harlot who destroyed a marriage.

Honor untangled herself, grabbed a sheet to cover her body and said, ‘Regardless of how you feel, this has been a terrible mistake. Please leave. Now.'

She wouldn't use his name. Hearing her own harsh words, she felt sickened by them, but she looked into his face with such a hardened determination that Frank's resolution wavered.

‘I want you to leave, now. Please.'

He shook his head.

‘I don't love you. I don't feel the same way. I need to you go home.'

‘I know that's not true, Honor, I know this is happening very fast, but I have never felt surer of anything in my life. I know you feel it too. Let's talk this out, let's make a plan...'

She wanted to talk to him, reason things out, but knew that he would just try to persuade her to be with him. For a moment she considered it; then behind him, on the bedside locker, she saw a piece of fabric, a rejected piece of embroidery from The Dress, which her friend had fashioned into a small perfumed pillow. A piece of recreational foolishness that Joy had sewn for her, as a token. Joy had hurriedly presented it to her the night of the party, with no ceremony, simply taking it out of her purse before she thought better of it, saying, ‘A small homage, from moi to toi.'

Caught up in the rush of getting ready, Honor had simply flung it on the locker. Now, Joy's husband's naked elbow was almost touching it.

‘Get out!' she shouted. ‘Now!'

Shocked, Frank reached for his clothes and began getting dressed.

‘I'll go, then,' he said. ‘This has all been a surprise, I understand that. You're thinking of Joy. You're a good woman, Honor.'

Honor closed her eyes and said, ‘Just leave.'

Once dressed, he wavered briefly in front of her, hoping for a kiss, reassurance – the small boy again looking for a shred of hope, a promise of love.

‘I'll call you later,' he said. ‘We'll sort this out.'

The moment the door closed, Honor did not stop to consider his offer, did not allow herself even the most fleeting moment of regret. She worked through the night, packing up the apartment, then, in the morning, she got dressed and walked across town to Breton's studio.

Her old boss had read about The Dress in the paper; she was the talk of New York. He offered her a generous salary, to work under her own name, out of his studio. The readiness with which he made the offer made Honor realize that this was also a betrayal of Joy. Joy was responsible for Honor's name becoming established overnight. They had talked about opening a couture atelier together. However, she would get over it. She would think Honor was a bitch (she was right about that) and deride her name, but she would keep her husband and Honor knew that was the most important thing. Joy loved Frank, above all else. She would be angry, hurt, upset, but would find some other hobby to amuse herself; she would never find another Frank.

Neither would Honor, but she had her work to fall back on, so she threw herself into it. Breton allowed her to move into a loft room above the atelier where she was quite comfortable and had the solitude to work around the clock.

Within days, word spread and within three months, her slate of clients commissioning elaborate evening dresses meant Breton had to employ six more atelier staff to meet the demand. Honor kept herself too busy to think about anything, other than the job in hand. She was too busy to be happy, too busy to be pleased with herself, too busy to be proud of what she was achieving. Honor stayed still, at the centre of the whirlwind of her own life, not allowing herself the emotional luxury of engaging with the work and money and achievement, lest she be dragged into the potential maelstrom of betrayal and hurt and loss that had brought her here.

Until one day, while she was in the middle of fitting the toile on a wealthy banker's wife, she had to rush to the toilet to be sick. The worried client called in Colette, who finished the fitting and took Honor aside. This was the second time she had vomited like this at work, and she had missed two periods.

‘When was the last time you bled?' Colette asked her.

‘Seven, maybe eight weeks?' Honor reluctantly admitted.

‘I know a woman,' Colette said. ‘She's a trained nurse; I'll get you her number.'

Throughout the conversation, neither of them said the word ‘pregnant' because that would make it real, and if the situation became real then there would be a choice to be made. The following day Honor locked the office door and telephoned the number Colette had given her. The woman said she had time that very afternoon.

‘The quicker we get this done, the better,' she said. ‘How far gone are you?'

‘I'm not sure,' Honor said, shaking now with the reality of what was happening. There was a baby growing inside her. Frank's baby. Stop. Don't think about it. ‘Two, maybe three months?'

‘Well, which is it?' the woman said. ‘A month can make a big difference, when it comes to dealing with these things. Best get in to me so we can have a look, anyway. Sooner the better – get it over and done with.' Then she gave Honor an address in Brooklyn.

Colette took over her work while Honor gathered up her things, left the studio and headed down towards the subway. She felt shaky and light-headed; she could feel it whispering inside her, this baby. Her mother had only produced one child, Honor. They had waited years and called her ‘our miracle'. No more had come after her. Children were supposed to be a gift, not a penance, but this felt like punishment for the terrible thing that she and Frank had done. She had betrayed and she should pay, with the shame and hardship of motherhood out of wedlock, a destroyed career, the lifelong purgatory of being a parent to an unwanted child. Was this any better, though, killing the gift of fertility which God had proffered so meagrely to her mother? Honor had never thought she wanted a child, but then, she had never been particularly desperate for a man, until she met Frank. She did not want this baby, but she did not want to destroy it either. As she stood on the sidewalk, baulking at taking a step closer to her fate by descending the stairs, she felt the bile rise in her stomach again and leaned over onto the road to be sick. There was nothing in her stomach, but as she was retching, a man came and put his arm around her shoulder.

It was Frank.

Honor began crying, with the shame of being sick on the street, the pain in her gullet and the terrible truth of what was happening to her body.

‘What are you doing here?' she sobbed.

‘I am never far away, Honor. I'm always nearby. I know you want me to keep my distance, but I couldn't leave you like this. We need to get you to a hospital, you're not well, you're...'

Then before she could change her mind, without stopping to consider the consequences, Honor suddenly said, ‘I'm pregnant, with your child.'

He left the note on the Eileen Gray side table, where he knew she would find it as soon as she came into the room.

Joy's arms were weighed down with Bloomingdale's bags; she had been out shopping, trying to cheer herself up with ridiculous purchases: stockings, the same pair of wide-bottomed pants in three different colours, make-up, perfume, a ludicrous hat she knew she would never wear. Things had been awful between her and Frank in the few months since the party. Her expectation that he would notice all the effort she'd made with The Dress seemed ludicrous now, in the face of the distance between them. Frank was constantly distracted with work and barely ever at home. When he did come home for meals, he was surly and silent and made sure he came to bed hours after she did, so that she was already asleep.

When Joy had found out about that deceiving bitch, Honor, opening up her own label out of Breton's studio, Frank had offered her no support whatsoever, in fact if anything, he had seemed to withdraw from her even more. Joy felt so alone and depressed that she had started allowing herself one small tipple every afternoon and another before she went to bed. She kept it to just the two; she needed something to keep her going, something to look forward to, to make the dullness of her days more bearable. And her days were dull now. She couldn't face her contemporaries. She couldn't bear to hear about Honor's latest creation from the lips of her new clientele. Joy was still too angry; it was all still too raw. Now that the party and The Dress were behind her, now that Honor was gone, taking her ambitions to open a couture house with her, Joy found she had nothing to do except shop.

She called out for Jones to make her some coffee, then laid down her shopping bags and tore open the small sealed envelope. It was Frank's writing and on his office stationery. Probably telling her he was going away for a few days – again. Too angry with her, for some unnamed reason, to telephone. Still, a handwritten note was better than communicating through his secretary, Nina.

Dear Joy,

I'm in love with Honor and I am leaving you. We are planning to get married. Let's try to make this divorce as quick and painless as we can. My lawyers will be in touch with yours.

Frank

Joy read the note several times, trying to take it in. Her head told her it was a joke, a mistake, but a sharp whisper in her heart feared it might be true. She read the note once, twice, then with her jacket still on and her handbag still crooked in her arm, Joy went through to Frank's dressing room, where she saw that he had, indeed, taken a large suitcase, clothes and some of his shaving gear from the bathroom. In her shock, Joy noticed that he had left his particular brand of shaving cream behind and briefly worried he might get a rash. Remembering he was not simply away on a business trip, she reached behind the toilet rolls in the hidden utilities cabinet, pulled out the medicinal bottle of whisky and took a swig to settle herself.