'Cheer-up, dearie.'
'Mutant!' she said. Her dress was by Cardin, her shoes by Gucci.
She had so much anger she did not know what to do with it, no, not anger – rage. They had made a fool (what a fool, what an idiot) of Bettina Joy.
She walked into the corner pub opposite the railway station. It was the public bar. They made way for her and served her immediately. She ordered a double Scotch, drank it in a gulp, ordered another one and drank that.
Fifty-six men watched her in silence.
'That's it, girly.'
Bettina curled her whole face into such a display of ugly contempt that the whole bar erupted into laughter. She threw money on the bar and left.
Until today life had been nearly perfect. In the three months since Honey Barbara had gone Harry had settled into work, they had all settled into work. Now there was no real reason to come home early, or even come home at all. They had heated soup in an electric jug, drank a little (but not a lot) of white wine. They made toast. Whoever had the time would make the toast, it didn't matter. They changed the name to Joy, Joy & Davis, and that's what they were: a team.
There was such a sense of excitement, of comradeship, and it was nothing (it was everything!) to work till three in the morning, or even, as they'd done on the second Mobil presentation, till dawn. They typed their own reports and bound them. There was nothing they couldn't do: she was good with ads, Harry was good with strategies, and Joel had revealed, finally, that he had a better eye for detail than either of them. Joel wrote the conference reports. He dotted i's and crossed t's with an enthusiasm that sometimes drove her crazy.
Just two weeks ago they had opened a letter and found they had sixteen entries accepted in the New York One Show. Copywriter: Bettina Joy, Art Director: Bettina Joy, etc.
Their profit projection for the calendar year was three hundred thousand dollars.
The New York trade press printed one of Bettina's press releases.
And then, this morning, in that grey dull little room with the wrought-iron balcony, that stale imitation of Paris with its waiting room stinking of meths, she had sat with no more trepidation than at the dentist's while he clipped the x-ray on to the screen and read a report.
'Mrs Joy,' he said, 'have you ever been exposed to petrol over a... '
'Tell me,' she said.
He was tall and handsome and had a slightly roguish eye. She liked him even if she hated his business.
'This is something,' he stopped and looked again. 'This is something we normally only find in people who are exposed to petrol fumes over a very long period. Mechanics, service station attendants... ' he faded away, smiling apologetically at such comparisons.
'Tell me.'
'We'll get another opinion,' he said, 'of course.'
'It's something nasty.'
'Have you been exposed to petrol a lot?' He managed a smile. 'Hardly.' Then, avoiding her eye for a second, using the time to look down at her card: 'It's a malignancy, I'm afraid. A rather nasty one.'
'Yes.' She could be very normal. She would be. In all the times she had imagined this ·scene she had gone to pieces. 'Yes, it's alright. I think I knew.' This was not true. SHE HADN'T KNOWN. SHE HADN'T EVEN GUESSED.
She had to find out the truth.
'It is a particular malignancy normally caused by petrol.'
'Petrol causes cancer?'
He clicked his tongue sadly and pulled his lips back side-ways against his teeth. 'The benzine in petrol, to be precise.'
'You'd think they'd tell people,' she said wryly. She was proud of herself. She had style. They told her she had cancer and she was being sardonic. But he still hadn't told her.
'How long have I got?' she said the cliched words. She said it to have it unsaid. He was going to say, oh, it's not
She tricked him only too well.
'Oh,' he said, 'you could have a
And only when the sentence was finished did he realize what a terrible mistake he had made, for he saw her face collapse and twist; defeat and rage battled with each other for control of her features, but both lost to the sheer force of her will.
'I need more than a year,' she said.
'Mrs Joy... '
'You're ridiculous!' she said. 'I need three years to make it in New York. I can't do it in a year.'
He folded his hands and when they rubbed across each other they sounded dry and papery.
'Why don't they tell people?' she said.
'I'm sorry...?' He fiddled in his drawer where he had a 10-ml ampule of Valium.
'Petrol causes cancer. They were right.'
He was ashamed of himself. He had bungled it. 'Who was right, Mrs Joy?'
'The silly hippy was right. She said petrol causes cancer... '
'There are many carcinogens in common use.'
'Saccharin? PVC? ... '
'Yes,' he said, surprised.
'Well why don't they tell us?'
He filled the hypodermic. 'I'm going to give you a shot of this.'
'What is it?' and her eyes were momentarily bright with hope.
'Valium,' he said, his eyes downcast.
'Forget it,' she said.
'It'll make you feel better.'
'Nothing can make you feel better,' she said, 'when you have been made a fool of.'
Her whole life had been built on bullshit.
Later, Harry was to think that if she had had more time to think it over she would not have done what she did, if Lucy had been home, if Honey Barbara had still been there, if Joel had not been driving out to Krappe and if he had not been lunching with Adrian Clunes.
He was wrong. Her actions were carefully thought out.
He remembered coming back from lunch and staring with disbelief at the torn-up Mobil story boards outside her door.
'What happened?' he asked Joel, who was sitting at his desk.
'Changed her mind.'
'Good,' he remembered saying. Bettina's best work always happened like that, rejecting a good campaign and then doing a brilliant one. 'Good.'
That night they had all meant to go to the Krappe sales convention for 'Sweet-tooth' but Bettina begged off because her ads were not finished. She put a note in Harry's diary saying the time for the Mobil presentation had been put for-ward till eleven, and that she would meet him downstairs in the coffee shop at 10.45.
When Harry came home she was asleep. When Bettina got up Harry was asleep. She must have gone straight to the office.
As the tea lady remembered it, the whole thing had been very light-hearted. Everyone in the boardroom had been very relaxed and it seemed as if they were looking forward to the meeting. She heard Mrs Joy apologize for her husband's absence and Mr Jones, the Marketing Director, had suggested that they postponed the meeting but Mrs Joy had said: 'No, no need. You're stuck with me.'
They had laughed.
Mrs Joy had asked for a strong black coffee and when it was pointed out to her that all the coffee was one strength she asked for two cups. She had looked very smart, in a white linen suit with a large white hat. She did not normally wear hats, the tea lady thought, but it was very attractive, and the Chairman had commented on it.
