The Christmas Party (3 page)

‘Still, nice view,’ he quips and I can see him trying to get a sneaky look up my skirt.

I’ve taken to dressing like a frump since I’ve been working here. I’m usually all polo-neck jumpers and loose-fitting trousers, and I’m already regretting my choice of a skirt today. Any clothes that are remotely tight-fitting seem to push Tyler into overdrive. I wore a blouse once that showed a modicum of cleavage – we’re not talking Holly Willoughby here, just a smidge – but he drooled over me all day. I couldn’t wait to get home and change. Anything that has a hint of lace, even black tights, ankle boots – all of these things start Tyler dribbling. I’m learning fast. I used to have a maths teacher at school who’d go round all the girls, furtively stroking their backs as he pretended to help with a tricky bit of Pythagoras’ Theorem while surreptitiously trying to see who was wearing a bra and who wasn’t. I think it’s scarred me for life. And Tyler Benson just reminds me of him.

One day I’d like to come into work in a bustier, leather miniskirt, fishnet stockings and dominatrix stilettos. I think Tyler would spontaneously self-combust, and that would be an end to that. All I’d have to do was scrape the goo that remained of him from his desk and continue life gloriously ungroped.

Wherever I go, he seems to be right behind me, trying to cop a feel. It’s as tedious as it is intimidating. I spent too many years living with a control freak to let the same thing happen to me at work. Yet here I am, dressing not to please myself but to try to avoid Tyler’s roving eye. Today’s skirt is sensible tweed and down to my knee, but that doesn’t stop my boss from ogling.

I pull it down, embarrassed. He gives me a wink before turning to my colleague. ‘Hello, Karen. Chatting again? Haven’t you got any work to do?’

‘I’m discussing future strategy for outstanding accounts with Louise,’ she counters effortlessly, and I wish I could be so crisp with Tyler.

‘Looks like it,’ he says as he heads to his own office.

‘Tosser,’ Karen mouths and holds up her middle finger to his retreating back.

‘You’ve got Josh Wallace coming to see you,’ I say after him. But his door slams shut.

Karen and I both roll our eyes. I bury myself in decorations again. Would one of my mum’s singing Santas be too much?

‘He married Linda from Lubricants in September.’ Karen gives a wistful little puff of breath.

‘Josh Wallace?’

‘Nooo,’ she says, now annoyed by my lack of attention. ‘Keep up, Louise. Kelvin Smith.’ Karen brushes the end of her tinsel boa across her lips. ‘Mind you, I’ve got my eye on bigger fish. I don’t mind telling you, I wouldn’t say no to Josh Wallace. He’d better watch himself.’

Josh is Tyler’s right-hand man and, as Karen has informed me, one of Fossil Oil’s hottest men.

‘He’s definitely the blue-eyed boy of Fossil. He’s single, sexy and going places. Much like my good self.’ She polishes her nails on her tinsel. ‘If he stays in favour with Tyler – and that’s no mean feat – that man is destined for Great Things.’

And, at that very moment, the man we’re talking about arrives.

‘Hello, ladies,’ he says as he breezes in.

‘Josh.’ Karen flushes and smiles at him in a simpering manner. Her eyelashes go berserk, fluttering like a bat’s wings.

I can see why she finds him attractive. Of course I can – I might be celibate but I’m not blind. Josh Wallace has that rugged, rugby-player handsomeness. Big shoulders, bigger thighs. He looks sharp in his grey business suit and crisp white shirt, but that doesn’t disguise that underneath it he’s all muscle. His hair is fair and is swept back, curling slightly at his collar, totally against the grain of current fashion. His eyes are brown and warm and look compassionate. Certainly in comparison to Tyler Benson’s, anyway. He instantly gets extra Brownie points for not trying to peer up my skirt.

‘The decorations look great,’ he says. ‘They should let you loose on the rest of the offices, Louise.’

‘Thanks.’ I give Karen an I-told-you-so look.

‘Hi,’ he says, turning to my friend. ‘How are you, Karen?’

She pouts slightly. ‘I’m lovely thanks, Josh. How are you?’

‘Good.’

I climb down from my desk and he turns his attention to me once more. ‘I’ve got a meeting with Tyler.’

‘I’ll let him know you’re here.’ I buzz Tyler and inform him.

Josh is always on the road and I haven’t really got to know him properly yet. There have been any number of brisk, businesslike phone calls, but we’ve never had the time to do anything more than exchange polite pleasantries in passing. In the couple of months I’ve been here, I’ve done little more than see him whisking in and out of a meeting, or dashing along a corridor. The man seems to be in perpetual motion. This is the first social event I’ll have been to, so I haven’t seen him at any of the other things that have been organised. To be honest, bowling isn’t my bag.

Sometimes, he pops his head round my office door just to say hello and he seems nice enough. Once, in my first week, he brought me a chocolate-chip muffin from the canteen. What’s not to love? We’ve never found time for a proper chat though. In contrast to my boss, I only hear good things about Josh Wallace.

Karen twiddles her hair again as she coyly asks him, ‘Are you going to the Christmas party then?’

‘Oh, yes.’ Josh claps his hands together. ‘Big night out. Wouldn’t miss it for the world.’

‘Perhaps we can find time to have a drink together?’ Karen suggests.

‘I’d like that,’ he says. ‘What about you, Louise? Up for a drink at the party?’

‘Yes,’ I shrug. ‘Why not?’

Then Tyler flings open his door and comes to slap his deputy on the back.

‘Good to see you, Josh,’ Tyler says, all beaming smiles and bonhomie. ‘Good to see you.’

Josh glances back at us as he’s ushered away. ‘See you later, ladies.’

‘Wow.’ Karen lowers her voice even though they’re both now safely closeted in Tyler’s office. ‘A drink with Josh Wallace on the cards, hey? I haven’t even left the building and reckon I’ve scored.’ She pulls her fist to her waist in a hammer motion. ‘Get in there, girl! Woo-hoo! He is
so
at the top of my Must Have list. I’ve had a
mega
-crush on him for yonks.’

I’ve already come to know that this means about two weeks in Karen’s fickle book of office flirtations.

‘Fit or what?’ She fans herself theatrically. ‘I am
so
going to get me some of that at the Christmas party.’

I laugh. ‘Really?’

‘You just watch me.’

‘I don’t think I’d ever mix business with pleasure. You know what they say: “Don’t get your honey where you get your money.”’

She’s aghast. ‘What miserable bugger said that? There’s nothing better than a little work-based affair.’

‘What happens when it all goes horribly wrong?’ I caution. ‘You’ve got to face them in the office every day. Look what happened to Knicker-Dropper Debbie.’

‘She was playing
way
above her pay grade,’ Karen counters.

‘Don’t do anything too reckless.’

‘Reckless?’ Karen gives me a look. ‘Chance would be a fine thing. If I were a betting woman, I’d have a pound on tonight being as dull as ditchwater.’

Chapter Three

Kirsten was going to make an effort this year. A big effort. She swore it to herself. Again. Yet the truth was that she’d attended far too many of these functions to enjoy them any more. But for Tyler’s sake she’d do her wifely duty and put on a good show.

She always dreaded corporate functions now, and the office parties were the very worst of the worst. They were usually so stilted: the staff couldn’t relax as they felt they should be on their best behaviour with all the bosses around. She could only hope tonight’s Christmas party would be a bit more fun and would get her in the festive mood.

She hated Christmas. It never felt like a time of celebration. For her, it marked the end of another year of her life. A life that, no matter what she did, felt as if it no longer belonged to her.

Kirsten sat in front of her dressing-table mirror. Tonight, she’d pin on a smile and be bright and vivacious. It was something that used to come naturally to her, she thought, and she was determined to find that person again before she lost all sight of her.

She’d been at the salon for hours and as a result she was freshly highlighted in honey blonde and her glossy locks hung in loose curls to her shoulders. Her nails had been sculpted too. A whole day had slipped away, never to be seen again, just on making herself pretty. She hoped it was worth it. Perhaps even Tyler would notice. Though, in fairness to him, he’d been very solicitous in recent months. But that made her anxious too. There was usually a reason for Tyler being attentive to her. And it was never an edifying one.

Picking up her blusher brush, she flicked it over her high cheekbones with studied determination.

‘Are you nearly ready, darling?’ Tyler said as he came in from the adjoining bathroom. He was freshly showered and he rubbed at his damp hair.

She looked at his reflection in her mirror. The white towel, slung low on his hips, accentuated his toned stomach. Despite a surfeit of business lunches and functions like this over the years, he still kept himself in reasonably good shape. He spent hours at the gym. Or, at least, he told her that was where he was going. She did sometimes wonder. He certainly came home from his ‘workouts’ looking flushed in the face and pleased with himself, but sometimes he smelled just a little too fragrant. Not the wholesome scent of shower gel or soap, but a whisper of another woman’s perfume still clinging to him.

He planted a kiss on her shoulder. ‘It’s quite a drive to Wadestone Manor. We should be on the road soon.’

‘Yes, nearly there.’ Kirsten slipped in her diamond earrings. An anniversary present. Or was it birthday?

‘I do love a Christmas party.’ He rubbed his hands together with glee. Tyler was obviously feeling very jolly. ‘It’ll get us in the festive mood.’

‘I want this year to be different,’ Kirsten said.

‘Different?’

It probably wasn’t the best time to raise this, but when was? They never talked to each other any more.

‘You know how it is, Tyler. Because of the stupid way Fossil Oil works, we’ve never been able to put down roots anywhere. We have no friends, no social life. Which means that, invariably, on Christmas Day it’s always just the two of us staring at each other over the dining-room table.’

‘I like it quiet.’

‘I get so bored. I want us to do things. Together.’

Her husband looked slightly worried by the prospect. ‘Like what?’

You’d think after ten years he might know the things she liked. It seemed not. ‘I’d like us to curl up in front of the fire, or go for a long walk in the snow.’

‘How do you know it will snow?’

‘If there is any. We can walk with or without snow. It’s fun. Romantic.’

Despite years of her trying to persuade him otherwise, Tyler felt there was no point in a walk unless he was following a little white ball with a golf club in his hand.

She remembered a time – before Tyler – when those small pleasures had been hers. Country pubs, long walks through rustling autumn leaves, romance, contentment. All when she was young, wide-eyed, filled with optimism and spirit. And with no idea what life would throw at her.

‘All we do is sit unspeaking, watching terrible television.’ Late afternoon, Tyler normally cracked and shut himself away in the study for a few hours, leaving her to the terrible telly until she could no longer stand it. Normally, she couldn’t wait for Christmas Day to end. ‘I don’t want you to work.’

‘Last year was a one-off,’ he insisted. ‘We’d only just arrived back from Paris.’

Ah, yes. A six-month stint in Fossil Oil’s French headquarters. Executive Development. They were big on that.

‘Before this, in one year alone you’ve been posted to the USA, Greece, Belgium
and
France.’

‘It’s excellent experience,’ Tyler reminded her.

‘For you, perhaps,’ she countered. ‘Less so for me.’

The Executive Development Programme was as exhausting as it was unnecessary, in Kirsten’s opinion. Fossil Oil were well known for placing impossible demands on their employees, often relocating them at a moment’s notice for no good reason other than the fact that they could. Even families with schoolage kids were dragged all over the globe for scant reason. Without children, the Bensons were cannon fodder for the corporate machine.

They’d landed back from Paris the week before Christmas. Her husband, keen to get back up to speed in the UK, had spent most of Christmas Day taking phone calls from other Fossil Oil executives who failed to understand the concept of a work/life balance. Kirsten had locked herself in the hall closet and cried, only emerging an hour later with eyes red-rimmed and raw. Tyler hadn’t noticed that either. If Christmas had come round every five years, say, she might have been able to stomach it.

However, this year would be different. That was her solemn vow. This year she’d make an effort. There was no way they could go on like this. Their marriage was teetering on a knife edge and she wanted to do all she could to pull it back from the brink.

‘We should be settled back in England for a while this time,’ Tyler said, his tone placatory.

‘Fingers crossed.’ Though, if she was honest, even England didn’t feel like home any more. Nowhere did. It was as if she was rootless, floating. It was no way to live. ‘It would be nice if you could ease back on your workload, Tyler. It would be good for us to spend some time together. And I don’t just mean sitting watching television. We should concentrate on our relationship—’

‘There’s nothing wrong with our relationship.’

‘—make some friends, perhaps even establish a role in the local community. Perhaps even stay long enough to find out if there is one.’

She turned from the mirror and looked up at him. ‘I’m fortytwo, Tyler. It feels as if I’ve spent the best years of my life trailing after you as you’ve scrambled your way up the corporate ladder with Fossil Oil.’

‘You’ve done all right out of it.’

‘Maybe I should have stayed at home while you roamed the offices of the world.’ Kirsten had trained as a teacher and, at one point, had a nice post in a primary school and quite a promising future. She’d enjoyed her job and been good at it. ‘All I’ve got to show for my career is, somewhere in among all the packing cases that have moved across continents with us, a cardboard box full of the sweetest letters from my pupils.’