The Dress (34 page)

As the days passed, Joy started really to get to grips with her alcoholism. ‘It's the demon,' Dolores warned. ‘There's folks who drink too much and then stop. Once they stop drinking alcohol, they feel better and their alcohol problem goes away. Then there's folks, like us, who, even when we stop, still crave the crazy; it's not the alcohol that makes alcoholism a problem – it's the ‘ism'.'

Joy's craving for drink didn't leave her but she came to recognize the whisper of her ‘ism imp' and was able to drown it out with reason. With the help of her friends in AA and by working through the programme they set out for her, Joy began to embrace her simple life, and one day at a time, manage and tame the thirsty beast of her addiction. The greyness of life without drink lifted and became replaced by colourful friendships and the challenge of living her life, one day at a time.

‘Do you have everything you need, here?' Dolly asked, when she called around to Joy's apartment one evening to collect her for the meeting. It had been eight weeks to the day since they had met and they were both excited about collecting Joy's two-month sobriety chip.

Joy was perplexed by the question and asked, ‘How do you mean?'

Dolores looked around her, then back at Joy, apologetically and said, ‘Sorry, I didn't mean to pry, it's just I thought you might want to brighten the place up a bit more? You know, given how well you seem in yourself.'

Joy looked around her apartment, a rather drab rental, in a brownstone, belonging to her ex-husband. The curtains were paper-thin, the wallpaper was peeling off in the kitchen and the rug, while it was clean, had seen better days. It was, in truth, as far away as Joy could imagine from the plush, designer glamour of their Fifth Avenue home. She had cleaned it up somewhat, since moving in, but Dolores was right, it still looked kind of grim. Joy had not minded that so much. In truth, she had barely noticed. She had everything she needed, shelter, food, kind people to help her, but Dolores had been talking about something else. Joy had not bothered to do anything with the apartment, because it was only her living there. The designer furniture, the silk drapes, the bespoke bedroom furnishings, they were, in part, a glamorous cover-up for the destitution she had felt inside. She didn't need to do that, anymore, to paper over the cracks with glamour and glitz; Joy was getting well, from the inside out. However, Dolores was right. Her apartment had a depressing, somewhat destitute air that did not reflect the contentment Joy was starting to feel in this new, simple, sober life of hers.

‘Where would I start?' Joy said.

It seemed crazy, that a woman whose New York apartment had been considered one of America's most glamorous homes, was asking interiors advice from an ex-hooker from Brooklyn, but Joy still felt lost. Sobriety was like being born again; without drink to hold her up, Joy had to relearn how to do everything, including, especially, just being herself. This process of pulling herself back from beyond the brink of ruin, it was almost as if she had forgotten how to do all the things that had become second nature to her, one of which was decorating. Although, fixing up a bad rental, on a modest budget, was very different from decorating a palatial apartment with unlimited money.

‘A lick of paint might be a good place, honey. Why don't we ask Dan to help out? He's pretty good with a paintbrush.'

Joy was surprised to feel herself getting a little kick when Dolores mentioned Dan's name. The two of them had become close friends in the last few weeks, going off for coffee after meetings, when she wasn't with Dolores studying the steps.

Tonight, after the meeting, they were working on Steps 8 and 9 – Joy's list of people she had harmed. Joy had already identified Frank, Jones and Honor and was dreading writing her apology letters to them. She did not know how she would endure the humiliation of it, but Dolores had told her it had to be done, and the quicker the better.

‘The sooner you take full responsibility for your actions when you were drinking, the sooner you can put it all behind you.'

As was their habit, the two women found a corner of the smoky room, after the meeting was over, to talk through the work Joy had done on herself and discuss the following week's steps. Dolores always kept their chat to an hour and was uncompromising in her instructions.

‘If you work the programme to the letter, you will be a recovered alcoholic in four more weeks and need never drink again. But you mustn't skimp, Joy; you must be brave and do everything, exactly as the
Big Book
says. It's simple but, as I keep saying, that don't make it
easy
.'

Dolores took out a pen and paper and made Joy draft her letters to Honor and Frank right there and then.

To Frank, she apologized for being a lousy wife, for embarrassing him, for not putting his needs before her own and for all the hardship and worry she knew he had endured being married to, as she was now able to describe herself, ‘a drunk'.

However, when Joy started the letter to Honor, she could not think of a single thing she had done to wrong that woman. She had never even drunk in front of her!

‘Think about it over the next few days,' Dolly said. ‘You'll come up with something.'

‘But I didn't treat that woman with anything but kindness,' Joy said.

‘Well, you sure as hell hate her now,' Dolores reminded her, ‘and hating-on somebody is just as bad in the eyes of the Lord as doing them wrong. Besides, when we hate, we hurt, lady. You've got to let go of the hate, Joy, for your own sake too.'

By the time she and Dolores had finished, Joy was emotionally exhausted and boy, did she feel like a drink!

Dan was waiting for her outside, smoking and talking with his own sponsee. Each of the more experienced members took on the task of being sharing partner to new members, giving them instruction after meetings. In four weeks' time, when Joy had been twelve weeks sober and completed the twelve steps, she would be expected to do the same.

‘How did eight and nine go for you?' Dan asked, when Joy came out.

‘Not too good, Dan. Frank was OK but why I have to apologize to Honor is still a mystery to me. Sorry I let you steal my husband, you conniving bitch?'

Dan shrugged and smiled.

‘Yeah, I know – take responsibility,' she said. ‘Dolly put me straight. It was all my fault and I've got to be nice but, goddammit, Dan, I hate that woman.'

Dan laughed. ‘Goddammit, woman, you're starting to sound like me. I know what you mean, though; it nearly killed me, writing to my ex-wife. I hurt the woman, sure, but my God, she made me pay. Haven't seen my kids since the day she kicked me out seven years ago and she fixed herself up another husband pretty quick.'

‘It wasn't Frank – I gave him an awful time, I know that, but she manipulated him, and me. She was my friend,' Joy said, building up a head of steam. ‘I did so much for her, she shouldn't have betrayed me like that. Frank would never have left me, if it wasn't for her. Things would never have come to this...'

‘Well, I'm glad they did,' Dan said, ‘because I'd never have met you, if he hadn't.'

Joy suspected Dan was sweet on her, but he wouldn't make an approach until she had the twelve-week programme under her belt. Dan shuffled then and added, as a qualifier, ‘And you should be, too, because you mightn't have got sober, if they hadn't pushed you to rock bottom.'

‘I guess so,' Joy said, and it was then that it hit her.

Joy had spent her life guessing at being happy. She had been rich and beautiful, married to a dashing charismatic man, envied by every woman she knew and yet she had only ever been able to pretend at being content.

Why do you look so sad, when your name is Joy?

Frank had been attracted by her sadness, mesmerized by the air of tragic fragility that she covered up with her wit, social sophistication and, of course, drink.

Honor had known her for who she was; she had liked, maybe even loved her, for the ordinary person she knew existed, beyond the socialite façade. That was what she had always wanted, Joy realized; now and here, in Alcoholics Anonymous, she had found that. People who accepted her for the vulnerable, flawed person she was and, not only that, were helping her create a new life for herself.

She clicked a finger at her new friend Dan and he lit a cigarette off his own and handed it over to her.

As she stood on the doorstep of Mission Hall, with a man in a bad suit, smoking a cheap cigarette, Joy dug down into herself, to the place that always frightened her, the empty black hole, and she realized that it was not the bottomless pit she had always feared. There was something there, after all; something warm and substantial was growing there. Joy wasn't afraid, anymore, in fact she felt... happy.

She had found Joy.

Frank could barely contain his own grief the night that Honor lost the baby, but contain it he did. There was no room for unseemly emotions in circumstances like that, certainly not for a man. There were no words to describe how he felt. Bereft? Cheated? It was the feeling that a rock had fallen from the sky and flattened his whole life, just as it seemed to be coming right.

When the anger came, he had a word for it, although he chose not to admit to it.

Frank was angry at everyone. At God, for first sending this baby and enabling him to marry Honor, then turning it into a cruel joke, by taking the baby away. Another dirty cosmic prank, like luring him into marrying a drunk disguised as a beautiful woman, to taunt him after the misery his wretched alcoholic father had put him through.

He was angry with Joy, furious at her for trying to destroy their wedding. Frank was determined to believe that the stress of her ugly scene had caused Honor's miscarriage. When Honor refused to go along with this theory, he was angry with her – although he was careful to hide it – and angrier still when she blamed herself.

Mostly, Frank was angry at himself, for not being able to make his wife's pain go away, but also for the fact that, after all the efforts he had made, he was still unhappy. Having escaped from his unhappy first marriage, Frank now seemed to be living in the centre of yet another tragic situation.

‘Forget it and move on,' the doctors had told him, but Frank found he could not. Crucially, neither could Honor.

His rosy-cheeked, homely Irish wife was turning thin and wan and empty of joy and spirit. She had not returned to work in six weeks and spent her days sitting in the apartment, staring out the window across to Central Park.

‘The only cure is another baby,' they had said, but Honor was adamant she did not want to try for another baby. Not yet, maybe not ever, that's what she said. Frank was angry with her about that, too, but he kept his counsel. He knew that, in time, Honor would come around. She would have to come around. It wasn't normal for a woman to not want a child.

In the meantime, he met with Breton, to talk about Honor going back to work. Frank did not want his wife to be working, but equally, he could see how desperately unhappy she was, sitting around the house all day, listless and depressed. To keep herself somewhat busy, Honor was also doing all the cooking and cleaning, making the loyal Jones all but redundant and unnerving him terribly.

After six weeks of Honor not working, Breton called Frank and said that, if his wife did not revive relationships with her clientele, shortly her name would become redundant. It was the men's decision and ultimately their responsibility to ensure that Honor got back to work.

The Frenchman approached this problem with his usual dramatic aplomb.

‘Your wife is a creative person,' he exclaimed. ‘An artist. Her work is what she needs right now. Beauty! Design! These are the things that will save her from this malaise – not you, my friend. She needs to make some pretty dresses, fashion will be her cure! Of course, she is a woman and she must and will become a mother, but first, we must make her remember what a magnificent designer she is. We must remind her of her finest hour.'

Frank had already had Jones remove Joy's dress from their apartment, months ago, after receiving an anxious phone call from Breton, worried that the jealous ex-wife might try to destroy the masterpiece.

‘Honor is too sweet to admit it,' he said to Frank, ‘but her success as a designer rests on that dress – you must try and get it back from Joy.'

Jones had delivered The Dress to Breton's studio, where he had hidden it away from Honor, not wanting to rock the boat before she got married. Breton knew that Honor felt bad about Joy, although he could not imagine why. He was delighted to have the talented young designer back under his wing and dreaded to think what disaster would have befallen her, if Joy had gone ahead with her rumoured plans to start up in competition with him. With The Dress safely in his care, there was no hope of that happening now and he would keep it safe for Honor, until such time as she needed it.

He could see that time was now. So, with Frank's financing, Breton went ahead and opened the ‘Honor Fitzpatrick' salon.

*

‘I have something to show you,' Frank said. ‘Get dressed up and I'll take the car around.'

Frank had been great, really, very patient with her, in the weeks since losing the baby. However, Honor sensed her ennui was now getting on his nerves. Her husband was trying to find a way of telling her it was time to move on.

‘Where are we going?' she said.

‘It's a surprise.'

‘I don't like surprises,' she said, instantly regretting the curt tone of her voice.

‘Well, you'll like this one,' Frank said, his voice more firm than playful. ‘I am taking you to a wonderful new boutique.'

Honor went to the dressing room and flicked through her modest wardrobe. Frank had been trying to encourage her to fill it up, but she had no appetite for pretty things, never had, when it came to wearing them herself, anyway. She picked out a green cotton dress, brushed her hair back from her face, secured it at the nape of her neck in a loose bun, then applied some red lipstick.