Joy

by Jonathan Lee

  What a lovely meal, Jessica said, at which point I sent her back to the office.

  I drank some wine, looked at him, yawned. I knew I’d win this little mano-a-mano showdown, so it had already stopped being fun. Me and the Big D, we’d had a prior tussle on the Thursday before Joy’s fall and I’d emerged with a top-spec tennis racket as my trophy. You know, I try to imagine him and Joy talking, what they ever had to say, and instead my mind always presents me with a picture of her alone, on my sofa, skirt hitched, body delicately twisted, long fingers shielding her breasts. The last time we had sex, years ago now, she writhed under me, aggressive with pleasure. She never failed to surprise…

  Where was I? Oh yes.

  Listen Dennis, I said, barely summoning the energy to talk, you’re the boss here, and in the spirit of evaporating the awkwardness between us, I’m going to tackle the elephant in the room. I know, Dennis. I know you know.

  You’re talking about the affair, he said. The one you had with my wife.

  I told him, You’re a smart man, Dennis, I’ve always been conscious of that. So tell me. How did you finally get it out of her?

  What do you mean, finally?

  The Thursday before she fell, I said. Or the Friday itself. Whenever it was she told you.

  I took a sip of wine – nice aroma of grilled almond – and noticed him smiling.

  She didn’t tell me about the affair on the Thursday, he said. Or on the Friday.

  Tuesday, Wednesday, what’s a weekday between friends?

  It may well have been a Wednesday, he said.

  Well there you go, I said.

  But a Wednesday that was, well, yes, over four years ago.

  What? I said. My pile of mute rice was going soggy. It had held until now, a perfect white temple, but I could see the foundations succumbing to the sauce.

  Yes, he went on, looking bigger in his chair. There’s been no need to discuss it of late, because we already discussed it all, exhaustively, in 2006.

  I told him, I’m not sure I catch your drift.

  Waste not want not, he said, shovelling a forkful of my meal into his face. Is it pork, or chicken?

  I asked him whether he was seriously pretending he’d known about the affair for years, and his response was simply to nod and chew.

  I swallowed. She told you…at what stage?

  Oh, he said, almost casual, after we’d been married several months. Yes, we had a good chat, got everything out in the proverbial open. All of it, even the fact you two had been carrying on straight after our honeymoon. But then, it was never going to be a conventional marriage, was it? I married her when she was pregnant and, anyway, I knew she was too young and beautiful for the thing to be conventional.

  But, I said, you and I have bumped into each other over the years, many times. We’ve…shaken hands.

  Rather firmly, no?

  Dennis’s fingers were fussing around the stem of his glass, as if shuffling invisible cards. The image stands out randomly in my mind, a small clear detail in a long-buried memory, and yet it was today, this lunchtime, hardly any time ago at all.

  He caught my gaze and said, very carefully, I got upset when Joy aborted my unborn child. I thought I’d stay upset forever. But then she told me all about the affair with you, and I realised I shouldn’t have been upset about the abortion at all.

  I asked him why. He wanted me to ask him and I did.

  And he replied, with a half-stifled yawn, Because it transpired it was your dead baby they’d sucked out, not mine.

  I felt suddenly gluten-tongued.

  Golly-gosh, he said. You did know that it was yours, didn’t you?

  He said this to me in his teacherly tone, enjoying dispensing a lesson.

  She said it was yours, I whispered.

  Oh dear, he said, standing up. Sounds like all kinds of things are outside the scope of your expertise, doesn’t it?

  And with that he walked out. Walked out. Walked…he…off he went…

  What?

  No. I mean yes. I mean why not.

  Expensive, you know.

  This water. I’m on the Associate Sundries Committee. It’s designer.

  Yes.

  Yes I feel fine, more or less. More or less totally fine. After Dennis walked out of the restaurant, I continued to drink, alone. I’ve had a few drinks today. Alone. But I like to drink alone. Don’t you? Solitude. It asks no favours. Gives no surprises.

  Betrayal. That’s the word I’d use. It nags at my teeth, I have to say. I could taste it as I left the Icarus, and I could still taste it downstairs, in our lobby full of glass, shapely ankles, shiny shoes. A fuzzy layer of betrayal. How could she tell him the child was mine, tell him and not tell me?

  Leaving the lift, my head began to hurt. The light felt lurid and false, like a film set some technician had made bright. I caught my reflection in two panels of closing chrome. Its shine and precision startled me.

  In this dazed state the first person I saw was, alas, Barbara. She told me my eyes looked puffy, like a chameleon’s.

  And then, as I desperately sought the quiet of my office and the rubber bands that would relax me, Charles Jestingford ushered me into his room.

  Take a seat, he instructed. I’ve got a Project Unoaked Chardonnay call in ten minutes, but we must touch base. No, please, go all the way. Make yourself comfortable.

  The seat was actually a walnut chaise longue of the kind your lot like. He had it installed at the same time as the whiteboard. Such eccentricities are permitted in the truly senior.

  Listen, Peter, he said, as I lay on the chaise longue, listening. He was somewhere behind me, and every time I shifted my weight to see him he would move once more out of view. I wanted to do this over coffee but…how are you bearing up? You and Joy, I gather you were close?

  When I gave no reply, thinking how this was becoming a back-foot sort of day, he asked me about Dennis. Said he’d been phoning a fair bit. Charles was pleased. Thought it was important Dennis should feel able to come in and talk to whoever he wanted. Not just to you, Doctor Odd – though Charles was talking about keeping you on, the obvious addition to our in-house gym and GP and dentist, he said, and a permanent fixture in some stateside multinationals – but Joy’s colleagues, friends. He said it wasn’t the time to speak of such things as PR angles and reputation management, but that the legal press were asking questions. What were Joy’s hours like, and so on. And anything I could do to facilitate a smooth relationship between the firm and Joy’s husband would, he said, be looked upon favourably. As would any assistance in keeping up the morale of the team as a whole, letting them know it was personal issues that caused her problems.

  Not sure I understand, I said. But I understood perfectly. I am constantly quick to comprehend. It was one of those sentences that fills a gap, nothing more.

  I don’t quite know what Charles said next, but the memorable bit was this. He said, If I’m completely frank with you, Peter, I think we made something of a mistake. It should have been you that we made up. Joy is very talented. But, man to man, you know what it’s like. You were an exceptional candidate, but the team could only put forward one new partner this year, and the diversity initiative meant that it needed to be a woman.

  I thought you were a big supporter of hers? I said. A mentor.

  He remained silent. Of all the dark office arts, silence is the most powerful.

  It’s funny, he said. Some people are threatened by good-looking, clever, wealthy white males. There are vendettas against us. A woman loses her nephew and becomes a heroine for merely turning up to work afterwards. What can you do? I should like to discuss it with you at some point, the cult of the spirited female, the bland black man, the obligatory Asian.

  He came into view, rummaged in his desk drawer for an exercise book, and pushed designer specs up his nose. Then,
with a few parting words, he went off for his call.

  I lay there a minute or two, then took myself back out into the corridor. A small crowd had formed around Olivia Sullivan, enjoying a glimpse of her snug bloused breasts.

  Is it true you were in Charles’s office? said Tiny Tony O.

  Is it true you were in with Charlie? said Green.

  Summoned by Charles? asked Brown.

  Made redundant? said Black.

  That’s what they said, though perhaps not in that order, and I fled down the fire escape, which is generally referred to as the Five O’Clock Chute on account of its clandestine convenience for those rare precious things: early exits. I stood in the cold, with the BlackBerry for company.

  I called my mother. This was about fifteen minutes ago, that I called her.

  I need that phone number, I announced. Christine’s parents’ number, I need it now.

  She said she’d been meaning to dig it out for me, but had got caught up thinking about the faulty light bulb and my troubles, so I explained again that my life is trouble-free. I earn one hundred and five thousand pounds a year, base. I live in a converted mansion block in an up-and-coming part of Holloway. My cleaner has the necessary work permits.

  If you’d really like to speak to Janet and Stephen, she said, they’re here now.

  They are? I said.

  Yes darling, she replied. They say they haven’t seen Christine since that business with Joy Stephens happened. I think you’d better come over. If you’re not too busy, you know, dealing with your other difficulties.

  Beg your pardon, Doctor Odd?

  Yes. They say Christine isn’t with them.

  Well, after Mother relayed that confusing news I went inside, to look in the mirror. Then I picked up my briefcase, told Jessica not to bother with that note. Oh and then, before coming here to see you – I despise people who break appointments – I took a black marker pen from the whiteboard in Charles Jestingford’s office, and carried it into the kitchen, surprisingly heavy in my hand. I counted the number of complimentary bananas remaining on the work surface. Fourteen. And I stood there for a few minutes, workers coming and going around me, to write a word on the skin of each fruit. All this before laying out the bananas in a kind of yellowed smile in front of the coffee machine, putting the words in order.

  When they were all arranged the message read something like – this was it – Charles is a cunt Charles is a cunt Charles is a cunt cunt cunt.

  You’ve gone awfully quiet, Doctor Odd.

  Rash? Really? Well I’m in a rash sort of mood.

  Yes. Yes, I’m heading to Mother’s now, to work out what all this fuss is about.

  No need to say that. It’ll all be fine.

  No, no, I’m not shaking. If I am it’ll be the caffeine. Late nights on Poultry.

  If Christine’s not staying with them, she’ll be with a friend. I am not concerned. It has been a strange day but it’s about to get better. I have a good feeling. Time to reconcile things with the wife. Once I’ve explained my side – about Joy, the mistakes – it’ll all be fine.

  4.42 p.m.

  AS PETER struts out of her office cursing, tail swinging, not affording Joy a moment to explain the parameters and depth of Dennis’s knowledge about the affair (or the way he has held it over her since, demanding sexual adventures of his own), she starts to feel feverish. The spasms in her legs, tired from the day’s exercise, share a rhythm with the swelling pain in her head as she hands Barbara an envelope and tells her to courier it to this address – no, second thoughts, post – not mentioning that the destination is the unofficial HQ for the Meat Musketeers. Being a whistleblower, a defector, holds a shiver of danger; it’s a way, she sees, of being alive. She approaches Alfredo – needs to discuss some bath oils that are being purchased to mark Barbara’s fortieth year at Hanger’s – and feels her hot pressurised headache as a kind of lightness, a lightening: its intensity blots out huge swathes of the everyday; her usual troubles are newly ignorable. Alfredo keeps beside his mouse and its mat a mirror to facilitate regular hair-combing and she catches herself in the glass, cheeks a clammy pink that could pass for health, her own reflection insincere at the edges, blurry, smudge marks from his hair-gelled hands, perhaps, or is her post-crash eye trouble getting worse? Feels like that time she tried hallucinogens on an island in Thailand and got the sense an aerial in her mind had been re-rigged to tilt and whirr, sending thought signals spinning in all directions, sensory perceptions arriving with random clarity. Hard to hear Alfredo; too many fringe transmissions about flash floods and flu, minor monologues being performed nearby, the aerial with its free-associative motions increasing the sense of fullness in her brain.

  The fire escape corkscrews down around its own faint shadow and Joy begins to move with it, blood swaying, temporary pass slung around her neck. She cannot bear another death cab so she’ll get back to the Heath via Tube, that’s what she’ll do, speed-walk although she’s feeling pretty queasy to the hardware shop at the intersection of Moorfields and New Something Street, buy a nice sharp knife, get the escalator down into the warm dark Moorgate underworld before the rush of City workers go bar-crawling into places for the happy and sad. Her handbag in the cab. Her purse, Oyster card. Should have scrambled for these things, but instinct made her reach only for the suicide note, took her through the glass and down the street, and now evening is already settling over the City like a mood and there are more headlights making flawed cones of colour on the road than before and ooooh really feeling kind of drugged and dreamy, the headache more like a big numb nothing now, curling round her ears like cheap steel specs. Specs? There’s someone else’s voice inside her own, a foreign signal, gets her thinking of…yes, that half-busted car radio on childhood trips, picking up different voices in different towns, and she’s feeling more or less than human now, maybe a chameleon sneaking down a tree trunk somewhere warm, what would that be like, to mess with your colours and be whoever you wanted to be, everyone or no one, falling in love with a fellow lizard, a lizard who blends in with a branch, a branch that could be another chameleon, making you half suspect your best friend is sucking him off but maybe it really is just a branch, or maybe they’re innocently drinking from a cool dewy leaf, and you’d never really know who you were and, even if you did, who knows, you could get creative with your scales and reinvent yourself in one cold-blooded beat of a long tensile tail. Paranoid lusty lizard! You’d be in all kinds of thermal worlds at once, a serpent with no certainties peeling off your skin in a cheap slutty striptease, licking out at an amber-green apple that could always be the bulbous nub of something sinister. Pretty dizzy with spots of all colours in her eyes but she’ll get herself down this fire escape, back to the trees in the Heath; will get herself back somehow, probably enough loose change in this jacket for something sharp and a travel pass, the Heath is where she’ll go, never one to abandon a plan, in her head the cathartic truth’s supposed to happen on the Heath – Hollywood revelations, deathbed conversions, the flipbook of key moments in your life played out to Last Judgement jazz or a low-fi lullaby – because you’ve just got to hope death doesn’t let you down, down, down. We all expect something from the Big D – the big what? – even if it’s hell, we all expect an overwhelming something, something more than a slack whimpering lack of life, a nice Hitchcock-thriller-type moment where in the last reel you get to relive your former trauma and fall into a kind of peace, each crisis unfolded and explained, reasoned and redeemed.

  Like a long rambling passage from her husband’s published papers the staircase goes on and on, without a clear point or purpose, until she hears familiar diction from below.

  ‘Amazing thing, isn’t it?’ – a throat full of Friday mischief – ‘A little roll of fine-cut tobacco. A twenty-first-century stick to kick-start pleasure.’

  She sees Charles on the bottom step, smoking. Mental Brian too, muttering so
mething just the wrong side of sane. They see her and she…no, too late to turn away.

  ‘Joy, my dear,’ Charles says, ‘where do you think you’re off to? Only a few minutes till the big speech.’

  ‘Few minutes until the big speech,’ Brian adds.

  ‘She’s probably having her last cheeky fag as a Senior Associate. Am I right?’

  Her dry tongue licks out sticky ums, empty ahhs.

  ‘You missed the partners’ mini-meeting,’ Charles says. ‘The pastryfest. No matter. Not much of interest beyond the baked goods and the fact we’re laying off five further paralegals. Though Brian here did give a rather lovely soliloquy on work allocation.’

  She thinks she sees Charles wink, though the tremor could be in her own eye.

  ‘Too kind,’ Brian says, ‘too kind.’

  ‘Now, Joy, with regret I’m not sure you have time for that last salaried cigarette after all. It’s full steam ahead to equity and it was decided at our utterly butterly meeting a moment ago that I should be the one to introduce you to the masses. With back-room support from Brian, naturally.’

  ‘Naturally,’ says Brian, ‘naturally.’

  ‘Old Brian’s an expert in back-room support. Loves nothing more than to bash the back doors in and come up on a problem area hard and fast, isn’t that right, Brian? We’re expecting a lot of well-wishers from all across the office to be there to welcome you into the partnership – we never used to do any kind of thing to mark the day, can you believe it? – so I’ve told Julie to forget the idea of holding it in the lecture theatre. I’ve had her send a chubby-fingered email telling people to crowd into the ground-floor function space. The caterers are redirecting the flow of bubbly as we speak. We’re going to have you, and those two double-barrelled Corporate chaps who are being made up, address your fans from the second-floor viewing platform.’

  ‘If the Health and Safety boys cause a fuss,’ Brian says, ‘I’ll dum-de-dah go to war on them. Go to war.’