It Started With Paris

by Cathy Kelly

  Bridgeport Woollen Mills had been only a small family business before Howard had taken the reins when his father, always referred to as Poor Paidin, due to a fondness for hard liquor, had suffered a major heart attack at the races. The liquor and losing a hefty sum to the bookies had no doubt contributed to his early demise, and people had wondered what would happen to the mill then.

  Howard had happened.

  Twenty-three, and fresh from college, he’d been about to head to the US for a masters in business studies, but cancelled his plans after his father’s death. He upended the business, changed everything it was possible to change – including a few things that people didn’t think could be changed – and then set off to do business with huge luxury stores who’d never heard of the tiny mill on the south coast with its wools in soft peaty colours. Howard Desmond had dazzled them all.

  The buyer at Saks hadn’t known she’d like a range of wheaten throws in softest wools with vanilla velvet edging. The man in Tokyo had said he was only interested in a few scarves, but somehow ended up ordering a complete lifestyle package encompassing cushions, blankets and whisper-thin wall hangings.

  It was partly down to business acumen, partly down to a savvy business sense that made other people believe that Howard knew the inside track. He had a way of telling them things that implied he knew much more than he was saying, but that he was letting them in on the action because they were his friends.

  The final part of the equation was the way he looked: though he had a short, stout alcoholic for a father, and a rather hard-faced mother, Howard had somehow turned out to be a shade under six feet, with a head of leonine hair and the good looks of his mother’s favourite movie star, Leslie Howard.

  Doris Desmond had chosen the name of her only child as an act of defiance – Paidin wanted his son called Patrick, after him. The priest had wanted a saint’s name. Doris’s own sister had said that a child without a saint’s name was asking for trouble.

  ‘And you have enough of that, Doris,’ she’d said meaningfully.

  ‘He can be Howard Patrick. It’s a lucky name,’ Doris said, asking her husband to go over to the priest’s house with a good bottle of whiskey and hoping that he’d make it there without breaking into the bottle.

  Paidin had brightened at the thought of luck. Luck ruled in the turf accountants.

  Luck made Howard grow up to resemble his famous namesake, to his mother’s joy. But her greatest joy was that Howard’s run of good luck had continued through the years.

  Doris was a tough woman, and Birdie had grown to dread her visits, but even the thought that her mother-in-law would be staying at Vineyard Manor for Katy’s wedding couldn’t upset her these days. There was too much to be happy about.

  She looked at her watch. She had to be in the church hall at nine for a meeting with a group of women who organised events every year for local charities – ones for children, people in need, and animals.

  The weather continued to be wintry, despite it being March, so the church hall would be cold as the tundra. Having already spent too long putting out bird feed and breaking the ice on the bird bath, she would have to hurry to get ready if she was going to be there on time. Not that there was much to Birdie’s toilette: a shower, a quick spritz of whatever eau de cologne was at the forefront of her dressing table, then it was just a matter of slipping into her usual loose indigo cords, a floral blouse, a cardigan and flat shoes, and pinning up her hair.

  Howard was still grumbling about her clothes. It seemed to have become a sticking point for him. He’d left a glossy magazine on the coffee table, opened to show a double-page feature on successful men’s wives. She knew that if she’d been included in the big group picture, she would have looked as if she’d wandered into the wrong photo shoot: anxious expression, shabbily dressed, eccentric. Her beauty seemed to have faded to nothing, perhaps because she had never believed in it. Such things were for other people, not her. But she was starting to feel anxious about finding an outfit to please Howard at the wedding.

  Shaking herself, she hurried downstairs. She’d given Thumper his breakfast, but now her blasted phone was missing again. Retrace your steps, she reminded herself.

  Last night, Howard had been home late – some work thing – so she’d sat on the couch in the kitchen with Thumper asleep beside her and watched a documentary about the mysterious migration of whales.

  Could the phone be on the couch?

  Instead, Birdie found the iPhone Howard reserved for US calls under the cushion of the armchair where he liked to sit at night for a Scotch and soda. Her husband was so organised, and yet he was careless with his possessions, rather in the manner of a medieval king waiting for people to return things to him.

  She hoped there was nothing he’d missed, no important calls.

  Thumper at her heels, she picked up the kitchen phone and rang Howard’s office line. But Roberta, his executive assistant, didn’t start till nine. She stuck the iPhone in her pocket, hoping that would remind her to call back later.

  Abandoning all hope of finding her own mobile, she pulled on her warm coat. As she did so, Howard’s iPhone pinged with a message. Frowning, because her own mobile was ancient and iPhones terrified her, she pulled it out of her pocket and slipped on her glasses to look at the screen. She could only see part of the message.

  Hi sexy, loved last night. Call me if you want to meet tomorrow.

  Hands shaking, she scrolled down to see the rest of it.

  Love you so much and thank you for my present. Nxx

  Somewhere deep inside Birdie, a fierce pain took hold. Her gut, she realised in an unreal way. Her gut was reacting to the text. Her gut before her brain. She’d read that there were more nerve endings in the gut than in any other part of the body apart from the brain.

  Her brain must have been asleep for a long time and was slow to register stuff. But her gut knew what this meant.

  She sat down on the couch and stared at the message again. She looked, but there were no other texts in the history with N’s number. All carefully erased to remove the evidence. You could wipe out entire series of messages, Katy had told her one day, showing off her new iPhone and explaining how it worked.

  Handy, that.

  It was like dominoes falling in a line: Howard’s careful eating plan, the increase in the number of business trips he was taking, the designer clothes from Dublin – something he’d only got into over the last few years. When they’d first married, he hadn’t noticed what he’d worn. As long as it was clean and serviceable, it would do.

  Birdie had been the one who’d bought him decent shirts and suits, found ties that matched, steered him in the direction of the best shoe shops. Howard had been too fiercely involved in turning Bridgeport Woollen Mills into an empire to worry about his clothes, but eventually he saw the method in her madness.

  ‘That grey Italian jacket went down very well in Milan,’ he’d told her, before reciting proudly all the shops that would now stock Bridgeport’s luxury goods.

  Then, a few years ago, he’d shocked her and Katy by suddenly becoming interested in fashion.

  ‘Is that a Paul Smith shirt?’ Katy had asked one night at dinner.

  ‘Think so,’ said Howard, unconcerned.

  Katy had giggled. ‘Dad, you’re becoming cool in your old age,’ she’d teased.

  Birdie had joined in the good humour: ‘Your dad has always been cool, Katy.’

  Untrue. Just Birdie sticking up for him – something he never did for her.

  She left the phone on the counter and ran upstairs, Thumper happily following her. In the master bedroom, she opened her husband’s wardrobe and rifled through his clothes.

  The designer names mocked her: Armani and Ermenegildo Zegna suits, some Brioni ones, which Birdie had a faint idea cost thousands. Calvin Klein socks, silk boxers with French names, ties labelled with a litany of designers she’d never heard of.

  These were not clothes her husband would have bought himse
lf. These were things he’d had bought for him by the stylist, Nadine, who came twice a year and had never appeared even slightly in awe of Howard. She bossed him around, joked with him and generally smiled, Birdie realised too late, with the confidence of a woman who was sleeping with her client.

  Nadine. In her early thirties, fashionable beyond belief, possessor of short, modern hair of the type Howard hated. Or perhaps he didn’t.

  Birdie didn’t stop to cry. She was too numb. Instead, she carefully shut the wardrobe door and went to her husband’s study, his sanctum. She and Morag were forbidden to so much as hoover in there, and once a month, Howard polished and organised it himself.

  ‘I can leave plans out on the desk and I never lose a document that way,’ he’d told Birdie, who knew better than to be offended.

  There were no papers on the mahogany desk now. Nothing laid out, just a faint sprinkling of dust.

  With a methodical mindset that Birdie had forgotten she possessed, she opened drawers and cabinets. In a box tucked in the bottom desk drawer were photos of Nadine gazing up at someone from a swimming pool; others of her perfect body in a bikini on a sunlounger.

  One with a man’s hand on her leg, the hand of a man who wore a Patek Philippe watch, Howard’s watch, in fact.

  Thumper was bored at this point and hoisted himself up into his master’s plaid armchair to watch proceedings. Under normal circumstances Birdie would have shrieked at him to get off, as Howard would notice the dog hair and go mad at the thought of it clinging to his precious trousers.

  But today wasn’t normal. Still numb, she continued her search in a box file with Credit Cards written on the spine.

  Howard’s private credit card. Reading the list of purchases reminded her of that one occasion she’d flicked through the Financial Times ‘How to Spend It’ feature.

  These purchases were not trinkets. He’d bought jewels that cost thousands, a car, spa trips in glamorous hotels – the hotel bills themselves were no doubt on his business account; even while taking his girlfriend away, he was careful to arrange it so that he could write off business bills against tax.

  With great effort, because her limbs felt leaden, Birdie put all the files carefully away. Then she enticed Thumper from the room, shut the door and headed to the couch in the kitchen where she spent so much time. She might sit there with Thumper’s solid body beside her: sit and think.

  She’d known for years that Howard’s heart didn’t leap with joy when he saw her. She’d witnessed this behaviour in other couples, people they knew who still, unaccountably, seemed delighted with each other despite marriages as old as the Ark. She’d accepted that this was not her lot, and yet she had still believed that her husband loved her. Not wild, passionate, crazy love, but love all the same.

  The removal of that love felt like the cornerstone of her world disintegrating.

  She was not loved after all, not cared for.

  In fact, she was barely tolerated. An object of amusement with her funny clothes and her occasional attempts to dress in an up-to-date manner from her mail-order catalogues.

  She had no hatred for the fashionable Nadine, who would, no doubt, move on. But Howard had betrayed her utterly. It wasn’t the sex. It was letting her go on believing that their marriage meant something.

  If he’d come to her and told it was over, she could deal with that. She could live with honesty and courage, no matter how much it hurt. But this – this facade … this was like an assassin’s bullet.

  Somewhere in the fog of her brain, Birdie heard the house phone.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Desmond,’ said Roberta, her husband’s assistant. ‘Mr Desmond was looking for his US phone. Says he’s expecting an important call.’

  Roberta must know what was going on, Birdie realised suddenly. She sounded anxious about the phone’s whereabouts, and not because of any important international calls.

  ‘I haven’t seen it,’ said Birdie, who never lied.

  And lying to lovely Roberta, whom she liked so much. Did she know where Howard was when he wasn’t spending his nights with Birdie? Of course she did.

  Other people knew that Birdie and Howard’s life had been a lie, and stupid Birdie was the only one who hadn’t.

  ‘I’ll phone and we’ll see where it is,’ said Roberta.

  ‘Yes,’ replied Birdie dully. ‘I’ll listen out.’ The phone was in Howard’s study, where she’d left it. Too far for Roberta to hear it over a phone line.

  She stood half in the kitchen, covered the phone’s receiver with her hand and heard the distant sound of her husband’s distinctive ringtone. Trumpets. Only Howard, people would say at dinner parties when it rang.

  ‘No,’ said Birdie. ‘Can’t hear it. He might have it in the office. I’ll look later, Roberta, but I have to race off. I’ve a meeting.’

  Birdie drove in the direction of the church hall but found she couldn’t bring herself to go in – she might cry in front of everyone. Instead, she parked and walked blindly down the main street until she found herself outside a clothes shop with a lively coral dress on the window mannequin. The outfit looked so vivid, so alive, before she knew it she’d been drawn into the shop, enticed by the notion that the coral dress would transform its wearer into someone happy, smiling, carefree.

  Feeling as if she was sleepwalking, Birdie slowly moved through the shop, running her fingers lightly along the clothes. She’d never been in here before. This was the poshest and most chic boutique in Bridgeport, the place where many of Howard’s friends’ wives bought their clothes. Birdie had heard them discussing the fabulous selection of dresses at dinners and parties, while she hung back, silent and invisible. If they deigned to notice her at all, it was only to dismiss her; it was obvious she had no interest in her appearance. Birdie had four evening outfits that she rotated, never deviating from them.

  It wasn’t as if she needed anything new.

  ‘Mrs Desmond, hello!’ said Lucinda, the shop owner, moving forward hastily.

  Everyone in town knew Birdie Desmond, wife of the owner of the Bridgeport Woollen Mills.

  ‘Could be a very valuable customer. Rolling in cash,’ as Lucinda had whispered to her assistant manager moments before, when she’d seen Birdie gazing in the window. ‘Don’t think she’s into clothes – she’s never so much as set foot in here – but she certainly has the money to indulge.’

  ‘Mrs Desmond, have you seen our new autumn looks?’

  Within minutes, Birdie was in the biggest changing room, with the coral dress and a selection of other garments hanging from the hooks on the wall.

  ‘Tell me if you need me, Mrs Desmond,’ said Lucinda happily from the other side of the curtain.

  Birdie whipped off her catalogue-bought sweater, wincing at the sight of her greying bra and pale skin. She’d never put on weight, had remained birdlike for sure, but time had wrought havoc in other ways. Her skin was crêped and wrinkled, her small breasts drooped. Had those wrinkles driven Howard away?

  Or had it been something else? Her in general?

  Once, she’d been what he wanted – or had she merely been what had suited him best at the time? Like the pinstripe suits he’d abandoned for the latest Italian designs. Was she like those old garments: surplus to requirements, destined to be left untouched in a corner of the wardrobe for ever more?

  ‘Mr Desmond rang,’ said Morag when she got home.

  Morag never called Howard by his given name; it was always ‘Mr Desmond’. Birdie wasn’t sure whether Howard had demanded this; she’d been too embarrassed to ask Morag. The two women had become friends over the years; they talked, laughed and discussed all manner of things. Birdie wouldn’t have been able to cope if she’d thought Howard had been uppity with her dear Morag.

  Morag’s eyes widened at the sight of the Couture & Co. bags hanging from Birdie’s arms.

  ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Birdie!’ she gasped. ‘Did you buy the shop?’

  ‘Sort of,’ said Birdie miserably.

&
nbsp; ‘Give us a look.’

  They went into the kitchen where Morag took a few of the bags and peered into them. She pulled out the coral dress in amazement. ‘Are you going on a trip?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ said Birdie. ‘I just walked into the shop.’

  ‘Ah,’ agreed Morag knowingly. ‘I’ve heard about your woman in that shop. Once you’re in, you’re like a fly in the spider’s web. She won’t let you out the door till you’ve spent every ha’penny you own and some you don’t. It’s the wedding, isn’t it? My aunt was just the same with her daughter. You get caught up in overhauling everything because you don’t want to let them down, do you? These things are lovely, Birdie, but are you sure they’re you?’

  She was examining a little chiffon shirt designed to be worn with a tiny camisole underneath. It was a silky cream and would look lovely on Katy but was probably far too young for Birdie.

  ‘She definitely saw you coming,’ Morag pronounced.

  It was only seeing the little Tupperware container of buns on a kitchen counter that made Birdie remember she’d promised to visit Dolores today.

  ‘Oh, Morag,’ she said anxiously, ‘I was supposed to go up to the Hummingbird this morning to see Dolores Martin. I’d completely forgotten.’

  ‘It’s only eleven forty now,’ said Morag, consulting her watch. ‘Go early this afternoon, once they’ve had lunch. Or don’t go at all. Have a lie-down. You look tired. One of the committee phoned, by the way, wondering where you’d got to this morning. I said you had a headache.’ She looked shrewdly at Birdie.

  ‘I do a bit,’ said Birdie, wondering where the morning had gone. ‘I might lie down after all.’ Since the horror of finding out about Howard’s other life, it was as if time was melting in her head. It couldn’t be only a few hours since she’d discovered the text message, could it?

  ‘I’ll make you some nice tea before you go upstairs,’ Morag said. It upset her to see Birdie so distressed. No doubt Bloody Howard had been on at the poor woman to smarten herself up or something equally stupid and it had sent Birdie into a spiral of worry, forgetting all her morning plans.