The Dress by Kate Kerrigan Page B

fit for company this evening.’
    Jones coughed lightly and said, ‘Very good, sir, I’ll prepare a cold plate for you and leave it in the kitchen before I leave.’
    When Jones left the room, Joy stopped sobbing and she began to shudder with sheer rage. She rose up and, flinging her arms out like a swan taking flight, she screamed, ‘How dare you speak to me like that in front of Jones?!’
    Frank poured himself another whisky, then held the bottle out to his wife.
    â€˜Here,’ he said, ‘why don’t you drink it from the neck, dear? Be an honest drunk, at least.’
    Joy looked at the bottle then focused, haltingly, on his face.
    â€˜I am not drunk,’ she said. ‘How dare you speak to me like that? I have had one cocktail, Frank, one small cocktail at six o’clock, on New Year’s Eve. Is that such a reckless act? Really?’ Then she shook her head with a mixture of shock and embarrassment and added, ‘Frank, I don’t know why you do this, but I am really getting sick of you constantly insinuating that I’m drunk.’
    She wasn’t ‘drunk’, that was true. She was still lucid and at this stage it was easy for them both to believe that he was exaggerating her faults. But Frank could tell from the almost imperceptible sway of her body, the timbre of her voice, and the softness in her eyes, that she had about four cocktails in her. One of them a double. Even as his mind searched for a clever way to tell her this, he became incensed, with himself as much as with her. Was this the man he was now? A man who counted the number of cocktails his wife had taken?
    â€˜Really, this ludicrous fantasy you entertain about me having a drink problem, Frank? I know you’ve got my interests at heart but, well, it’s demeaning, and frankly, darling, a complete and utter lie .’
    For a long time it had been easier for Frank to go along with Joy. To imagine that what she said was true, that it was all in his mind. Perhaps he was paranoid and all this was just a sly kickback to his childhood. The smell of alcohol on his father’s breath as he roared out some insult, the bottle of expensive whisky in his father’s pocket while his mother wept over the empty food cupboards. Maybe, Frank told himself, he was too sensitive to other people’s drinking habits?
    He took a deep slug from the neck of the bottle and, as he did so, Joy reached over, put her hand on his arm in a gesture of tender understanding and said, ‘You’re working too hard, Frank. Look at you, you’re so tense. You need to relax. I’ll run you a bath; your evening clothes are all laid out for you. Why don’t we take our time getting ready tonight? There’s no rush. Jones said he’s left us some food, so we can eat here then arrive at the Plaza late and just stay for an hour.’
    She paused and her eyes pleaded with him. She seemed sober. Maybe he had been wrong about the number of cocktails.
    â€˜Please? Darling? Let’s not fight, not tonight?’
    In his mind Frank conceded that sounded OK. Joy was making sense. He was working too hard. A bath, a cold plate and one hour at a party didn’t sound too bad. Frank didn’t want to fight either. He had fought growing up, he fought at work; Frank just wanted to relax and be with his wife.
    â€˜OK,’ he said.
    Joy grinned and clapped her hands. When she did that she looked beautiful again. The Joy he had fallen in love with. The mind of a sophisticated woman in the body of an unblemished girl – a glorious contradiction.
    She ran and kissed him.
    â€˜OK, OK,’ he said, reluctantly laughing. He unbuttoned his shirt as he walked towards the bedroom. Joy wouldn’t want to get her hair messed up but hey, it was New Year’s Eve and she was always a knockout, even when her hair was half-down.
    He turned to take her hand and saw she was behind the bar again, fixing up a