The Dress (4 page)

In the changing rooms, he brushed down his dusty trousers and polished John's shoes which, although a size too small, gave him a respectable enough demeanour to secure him an apprenticeship, as a carpenter in a workshop, on the Northside.

When the boss asked him his name, Francis said ‘Frank'. It made him sound older and came out so naturally that it didn't feel like a lie. He was somebody else now, somebody new.

Frank worked hard, he was single-minded and diligent, he barely drank, or socialized with the other apprentices. He got the cheapest digs he could find and saved all of his money, so that after five long years, he had his passage to America.

Standing at the front of the ship, the young man watched the Dublin mountains recede. Beyond them were the hills and boglands of Mayo and he was waving goodbye to the whole damn lot of them. With the wind whipping across his face, blowing up under the new coat he'd bought to carry him across the world in style, Frank Fitzpatrick felt free.

As soon as he arrived in Manhattan, Frank went straight to an Irish bar near the docks, which he'd been told about in Dublin. He ordered a whisky and asked the barman, straight out, did he know a Donal Hegarty? From Bangor?

The man behind the bar opened his mouth to laugh, then seeing the serious expression on the young man's face, decided against it. The kid looked like he meant business. Young Francis Fitzpatrick was on a mission now. These were going to be difficult times for him and he would need all the help he could get from his only remaining relative, his mother's brother.

‘Would that be Bangor, County Mayo?'

Frank nodded. New York was a big place, but it had the same number of Irishmen in it as Dublin, where everyone seemed to know each other, and if they didn't know where to find a man, they knew a man who would.

‘I know a man called Donal from Bangor, all right. You won't find him in any bar in New York, though. He's been banned from all of them.'

Frank found his uncle queuing for soup in the Bronx. A broken man, a useless drunk, he tried to tap his nephew for what he had left of his savings. Frank gave him the price of a meal, then left him where he found him and determined to go it alone.

If Dublin was hard, New York was harder, but Frank came to thrive on the challenge of survival. Already running from the failure of his childhood, he became even more driven by what he did not want to be. All around him, Frank saw disillusioned Irishmen, men who had followed the American dream only to be plunged into the Depression, many of them despairing and turning to drink. Francis was determined that would not happen to him and vowed to be the very opposite. He pushed himself to the top of every employment queue. He saved every penny of the small wages he earned, sleeping rough through the spring, summer and fall, and in homeless hostels during the harsh winters. He foraged food from the garbage bins of the wealthier houses he worked in and stuffed all of his cash in a cushion which he kept next to his face. Frank never feared thieves.

One night a heavy-set, dangerous bum tried to steal his money. Frank had invested so much in his dream of being a success in America that he knew he could kill any man who tried to take it away from him. Enraged, Frank threatened to see him off with a beating like the one he had given his own father. The bum recognized determination and desperation when he saw them, knew the danger they spelt and ran off.

Frank's hard work and talent, as a casual carpenter, eventually got him noticed by a landlord, who put him to work as a building superintendent in a rambling, shabby brownstone in the Bronx. The landlord was a drinker and when he complained to Frank about people not paying their rents and the hard time he was having himself, Frank knew his big moment had come. He invested in a cheap suit, went to the bank and persuaded the manager to give him a small mortgage. The times were changing; there was hope on the horizon. Frank got the landlord drunk and persuaded him to sell him the Bronx brownstone for a song, using his cushion-savings cash as a down payment.

With that single building, Frank's property empire began. Ten years later, the boy from Bangor had a portfolio of rental properties on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and stakes in a Boston hotel and a steel-mining business. He had an office block in town, with a secretary and an accounts department. He lived in an apartment on Fifth Avenue. When he wanted female company, it was easily found in the bars and clubs of Manhattan. The journey from gutter to Fifth had taught Frank how to charm, as well as work, so that the angry Irish schoolboy had become a successful, urbane New York businessman: Frank Fitzpatrick. Frank had created the perfect life for himself. People didn't pity him anymore, they envied him. Although there was still one thing missing...'

‘You need to get yourself a wife...' Victor Truman had said to him one night. Victor was his main investor, an old-monied hog from the Upper West Side. They were sitting in a booth at the Stork Club, surrounded by the trappings of rich men: a lobster dinner, whisky sours and compliant showgirls.

‘No man should be without a wife,' Victor said, quickly shoving his cigar into his mouth and catching it between his teeth, as he reached for the bottom of a passing waitress and gave it a pinch, hard enough to tame a dog. ‘Ain't that right, honey?'

‘It surely is, Mr Truman,' the girl laughed. Victor, sensing Frank's disapproval, said, ‘The problem with all these cheap floozies,' and he swept his hand around to indicate another passing waitress, ‘is that they'll bleed you dry and you get nothing in return, except maybe a piece of action, and you've got to ask yourself, Frank: what's a piece of action worth to you?'

Frank nodded, although he was insulted by the implication. He found it impossible to think of women in those crass terms. Many of the women he had been with could arguably have been described as floozies, but he respected them, even though he had not felt inclined to marry any of them. Frank had broken a few hearts, but nobody had ever broken his.

‘A good wife can be an asset,' Victor continued. ‘She will entertain for you, keep the house nice and believe me, if you're firm from the start, she'll work to a budget. A wife will make you look good, Frank. You should get one. Come to our New Year's Eve bash. Norah knows all the ladies, she'll fix you up.'

And so it was that Frank found himself in a large suite at the Plaza, on New Year's Eve, 1950.

Frank had not been expecting to fall in love that night, even though he had noticed her as soon as he walked into the party. The long white neck seemed too delicate to hold the collar of fat pearls at its base, her hair was caught up in a tightly-wrapped bun, and she was casually waving a lit cigarette. Even from behind she cut a compelling figure. The mere fall of her slim shoulders, the curve of her tiny waist, conveyed a grace and presence that had him walking across the room towards her, until she turned. Then he was stopped in his tracks.

The young woman had an almost frightening beauty. Her high cheek-bones seemed carved from some exquisite alabaster and her painted red lips were shaped in a perfect, symmetrical pout. However, it was her eyes – two dark pools of immeasurable depth – that held him. She had a look of knowing that transcended her sultry beauty. Although she was a complete stranger, her fathomless gaze seemed to say that she recognized him, recognized the vein of sadness which, despite his great success, still ran through the core of Francis Fitzpatrick.

Frank did not seek out an introduction, he would not have presumed, but Victor's wife, Norah, must have noticed him staring because before he knew what was happening, he was being introduced after all.

‘This is Joy Rogerson,' Norah said.

Frank took the pale, delicate hand in his and tried his best to retain his composure. But as he looked into the girl's deep, sad eyes, Frank knew that, despite the great distance he had travelled, despite the efforts he had made to chase away the vulnerable boy and become the strong, capable man that he was today, Frank Fitzpatrick had utterly lost himself.

Joy Rogerson knew what a privileged position her family held in the world and yet, even as a small child, she'd always felt somewhat estranged from it.

The Rogersons were an old Protestant family. Joy was their only child and had grown up always feeling nervous of people and uncertain of her place in the world. Her father was distant, always off somewhere doing business, and her mother, Ruth Rogerson, was a plain woman who relied upon jewellery to create her glamour. Her everyday style (always haute couture,
only
Paris) was markedly severe, seeming to draw attention to her plainness rather than camouflage it. At every black-tie occasion out would come the Tiffany diamonds or the antique pearls and the whole room would be agog. Men would flirt with her, women would envy her and, for that night, Ruth Rogerson would sparkle. Before she left the house on these evenings she would call her young daughter in to see her. Joy could smell the Chanel No. 5 and one or two early cocktails. Her mother always held out her hands and asked, ‘Am I beautiful, Joy?'

‘Yes, Mother,' Joy would say, automatically, not really knowing or understanding what beauty was, unaware that she had it herself in abundance.

Ruth would let out a tight bitter laugh and say, ‘No, I am
not
beautiful, Joy, but the diamonds are, and when the eye is dazzled, the heart cannot always see. Beauty and wealth are a woman's
only
assets, Joy. Remember that and be smart with them.'

When her parents left, Joy would run to the window to watch them get into the car, her father waiting, while the chauffeur lifted her mother's long fur cape and tucked it in beside her. Joy came to understand that adult life was an endless round of chauffeured car rides and perfumed parties.

Joy had always been astonishingly beautiful. When she was out with her nanny, even strangers would stop and say, ‘What a lovely child.' By the time she came out as a debutante the whole of their social set agreed that Joy Rogerson was the most beautiful girl in New York. Joy came to understand that beauty was her destiny, her gift, yet she could not see it in herself. All she saw, all she had ever seen when she looked in a mirror, was her own fear, the reflection of her large eyes pleading back at her like a beggar looking for money from a stranger. Although she knew it was her greatest, in fact aside from money, her only asset, Joy Rogerson hated her own face.

On the night of New Year's Eve, 1950, Joy was twenty-one and just back from the season in London. After an unremarkable academic career and a stint in a Swiss finishing school, Joy had come into her own during her season in Europe. Ruth had trusted Joy with a substantial clothing allowance and Joy had discovered she had a passion and penchant for commissioning stylish clothes. She was even listed in the
London Times
society pages as one of the best-dressed debutantes in London that year. This gave her confidence its first boost.

The second boost came from the champagne. Joy had her first drink, a glass of pink sparkling champagne, at her coming out party in The Savoy of London. The moment she felt the bubbles whizz down her throat and fizz through her bloodstream Joy felt herself turn into a better version of herself. Her vision seemed crisper, her words wittier. Activities that had felt awkward in finishing school – dancing, knowing the correct cutlery to use at an English table, offering a compliment to a man – all flowed out of her more easily. With a little champagne inside her, Joy felt relaxed and at ease, as if she had somehow arrived in her body for the first time. The titled boys, known as ‘Debs Delights' were positively crawling after Joy that year in London. She had money and beauty and wit and she found the British were more discerning than American boys her age. She could have taken her pick. Instead, she returned to New York and, while her parents were wintering on the West Coast, found herself alone at Norah and Victor Truman's party.

She had not been expecting much of the Trumans' staid, Plaza-suite party. Norah's blunt matchmaking attempts were embarrassingly obvious and invariably off the mark, her tongue constantly acerbic, but only occasionally witty.

‘This is Frank Fitzpatrick,' Norah said, adding in a stage whisper, ‘He's Irish and a little old for you, but he's also
terribly
rich... and clever, I believe.'

Joy thought she had never seen such a magnificent man. He had thick black hair that was slightly longer than it should have been, barely tamed into a businessman's parting. He had broad shoulders and his jaw was already darkening with tomorrow's shadow. The man's eyes were so blue and piercing that she found them almost impossible to look into.

‘Why do you look so sad, when your name is Joy?' His eyes held hers.

Although her knees were shaking, Joy took a deep drag on her cigarette and deliberately stared back before answering, ‘How did an Irishman get into
this
party... and in such a cheap suit?'

‘Well, perhaps the Trumans just took pity on poor Paddy and embraced me so that I wouldn't have to spend New Year's Eve selling oranges on the streets of New York.'

‘You don't look like a man that would inspire pity – despite the atrocious tailoring.'

‘I'll have you know this suit was very expensive.'

‘Did no one tell you? Money can't buy taste.'

‘I thought in America money could buy you everything?'

Joy deliberately paused before answering and arched a perfectly shaped eyebrow. ‘Not quite
everything
...'

‘I see,' he said, trying not to laugh. ‘In which case, aren't you going to ask me how rich I am?'

‘I'm not remotely interested in money,' she replied, taking a drag on her cigarette. ‘It comes from having too much of it, my father says.'

‘I thought Americans believed you could never be too rich.'

‘Oh, certainly you can! Overt wealth can be insufferably common if it's not used with taste.'