‘Balls! Work is what I want, and work is what I’m going to have! See you tomorrow.’
To me this made sense. How could I go on a golfing trip with Judy on my mind? I wouldn’t give a goddamn if I went around in 110. During my brief stay in the clinic I had got it all worked out.
The egg was broken. Like Humpty Dumpty an egg is never put together again. The sooner I got back to selling diamonds the better it would be for me. I was being terribly sensible. This kind of thing happens all the time, I told myself. People who are loved, died. People who make plans, build castles in the air, even tell real estate agents they are going ahead with the purchase of a ranch house find things go wrong and their plans are blown sky high. It happens every day, I told myself. So who was I to pity myself? I had found my girl, we had made plans, now she was dead. I was thirty-eight years of age. Given reasonable luck, I had another thirty-eight years of life ahead of me. I told myself I had to pick up the pieces, get on with my job and, maybe later, find someone like Judy to marry.
At the back of my mind I knew that this was only stupid thinking. No one could ever replace Judy. She had been my chosen, and from now on any other girl would be judged by Judy’s standards, and that, I knew, would give them an impossible handicap.
Anyway, I returned to the showroom with a strip of plaster to conceal the cut on my forehead. I tried to behave as if nothing had happened. Everyone tried to behave as if nothing had happened. My friends — and I had many — gave an extra squeeze when they shook hands. They were all devastatingly tactful, desperately trying to make it appear that Judy had never existed. My clients were the worst to deal with. They spoke to me in hushed voices, not looking at me, and they fell over themselves to take what I offered instead of haggling happily as they used to do.
Sydney fluttered around me. He seemed determined to keep my mind occupied. He kept buzzing out of his office with designs, asking my opinion — something he had never done before — seemingly to hang on my words, then buzzing back out of sight, only to buzz out again in an hour or so.
The second-in-command in the showroom was Terry Melville, who had served an apprenticeship with Cartier’s of London and had an impressive all-round knowledge of the jewellery trade. He was five years younger than I; a small, lean homo with long silver-dyed hair, dark blue eyes, pinched nostrils and a mouth like a knife cut. Sometime in the past, Sydney had fallen for him and had brought him to Paradise City, but now Sydney was bored with him. Terry hated me as I hated him. He hated my expertise in diamonds, and I hated him for his jealousy, his petty attempts to steal my exclusive clients and his vicious spite. He hated the fact that I wasn’t a queer and, in spite of this, Sydney did so much for me. He and Sydney were always quarrelling. If it wasn’t for Terry’s know-how, and also, maybe, he had something on Sydney, I am sure Sydney would have got rid of him.
When I arrived a few minutes after Sam Goble, the night guard, had opened the shop Terry, who was already at his desk, came over to me.
‘Sorry about it all, Larry,’ he said. ‘It could have been worse — you could have been dead too.’
There was that spiteful, gloating expression in his eyes that made me yearn to hit him. I could tell he was glad this had happened to me.
I nodded and, moving by him, I went to my desk. Jane Barlow, my secretary, plump, distinguished looking and pushing forty-five, came over to give me my mail. We looked at each other. The sadness in her eyes and her attempt at a smile gave me a pang. I touched her hand.
‘It happens, Jane,’ I said. ‘Don’t say anything... there’s nothing to say... thanks for the flowers.’
With Sydney buzzing around me, the clients’ hushed voices and Terry watching me malevolently from his desk, it was a hard day to take, but I took it.
Sydney wanted me to have dinner with him, but I refused. I had to face the loneliness sooner or later, and the sooner the better. For the past two months, Judy and I always had dinner together either at my apartment or at hers; now that had come to a grinding halt. I wondered if I should go to the Country Club, but decided I couldn’t face any more silent sympathy, so I bought a sandwich and sat alone in my apartment, thinking of Judy. Not a bright idea, but this first day had been hard to take. I told myself that in another three or four days my life would become adjusted... but it didn’t.
More than my egg of happiness had broken in the crash. I’m not trying to make excuses. I’m telling you what the head-shrinker finally told me. I had confidence in myself that I could ride this thing out, but there was mind damage as well as the broken egg. We didn’t find this out until later, and the head-shrinker explained this mind damage did account for the way I began to behave.
There is no point in going into details. The fact was that over the next three weeks I deteriorated both mentally and physically. I began to lose interest in the things that had, up to now, been my life: my work, golf, squash, my clothes, meeting people and even money.
The most serious of them all, of course, was my work. I began to make mistakes: little slips at first, then bigger slips as the days went by. I found I didn’t care if Jones wanted a platinum cigarette case with ruby initials for his new mistress. I got him the case, but forgot the initials. I forgot too that Mrs. Van Sligh had particularly requested a gold, calendar watch for her little monster of a nephew, and I sent him the gold watch without the calendar. She came into the shop like a galleon in full sail and slanged Sydney until he nearly burst into tears. This will give you just an idea the way I slipped. In three weeks I made a lot of similar mistakes: call it lack of concentration, call it what you will, but Sydney took the beating and Terry gloated.
Another thing: Judy always supervised my laundry. Now I forgot to change my shirt every day — who cares? I used to have a haircut once a week. For the first time since I can remember I now had fuzz on the nape of my neck... who cares? And so on and so on.
I quit playing golf. Who the hell, except a lunatic, I asked myself, wants to hit a little white ball into the blue and then walk after it? Squash? That was a distant memory.
Three weeks after Judy’s death Sydney came out of his office to where I was sitting staring dully down at my desk and asked me if I could spare him a minute.
‘Just a minute, Larry... no more than a minute.’
I felt a stab of conscience. I had a pile of letters and orders in my In-tray I hadn’t looked at. The time was 15.00, and these letters and orders had been lying in my In-tray since 09.00.
‘I’ve got mail to look at, Sydney,’ I said. ‘Is it important?’
‘Yes.’
I got to my feet. As I did so, I looked across the showroom, where Terry was sitting behind his desk.
He was watching me, a sneering little grin on his handsome face. His In-tray was empty. Whatever else he was, Terry was a worker.
I followed Sydney into his office, and he shut the door as if it were made of egg shells.
‘Sit down, Larry.’
I sat down.
He began to move around his big office like a moth in search of a candle.
To help him out, I said, ‘Something on your mind, Sydney?’
‘You are on my mind.’ He came to an abrupt stop and looked sorrowfully at me. ‘I want you to do me a very special favour.’
‘What is it?’
He began fluttering around the room again.
‘For God’s sake sit down!’ I snapped at him. ‘What is it?’
He shot to his desk and sat down. Taking out his silk handkerchief, he began to mop his face.
‘What is it?’ I repeated.
‘It’s not working out, is it, Larry?’ he said, not looking at me.