At twelve noon on Christmas Eve, all office parties officially begin. Tom hated the ritual and each year vowed to break away as soon as he had had the obligatory drink with those above and those below his station at the bank, and each year the spirit of the vow succumbed to the weakness of the flesh. But this season, for sentimental reasons, he didn’t mind the false camaraderie inspired by booze which always arose at these affairs between executive vice presidents and lowly mail clerks. He didn’t mind the flirting secretaries and the instantaneous friendliness of junior executives. He didn’t mind because he knew that in a few short weeks he would never see any of them again and he had suddenly realized they were not, after all, a bad lot.
So he joked with his boss, kissed his secretary and patted the ass of a junior executive whose ass he had long wanted to pat. For the first time in his career at the bank Tom got into the spirit of “office Christianity” and arrived home, slightly aglow, about four in the afternoon. He showered as usual, put on his robe and sat in his living room surrounded by dozens of brochures, collected from as many travel agencies, on the city of London. Tonight was Dicky and Amy’s Christmas Eve party, a big annual event, and then those two would be off to Palm Beach to officially open the season, or so Amy liked to think, with their big annual New Year’s Eve party.
“Well, fuck them,” Tom thought as he changed his mind for the tenth time in a week and decided not to go to the Culvers’ gala. He was sure he had been invited as odd man, and he was sure the odd lady he was intended to amuse was his bridge partner, Nancy Maron. When Amy found something she thought worked, she stuck with it.
But Tom liked Nancy. She wasn’t a bad sort and could be, he suspected, a lot of fun. “Well, maybe I will go.”
He began to examine his brochures which made London look like a cross between Eden and Shangri-La. Surely the city must have some bad aspects and even if it had only half as many as New York it was in a lot of trouble. As he looked at the gaily colored photos he knew that travel brochures were not what he needed. He wanted concrete information on London, not a vacationer’s guidebook to castles and cathedrals. Tom wondered if he could get into banking there and grinned at the thought. He didn’t know a shilling from a pound from a quid. What the hell was a quid? Yes, he would certainly take the London banking world by storm.
And then, quite suddenly, the feeling that something was wrong came over him. He had seen something that had not registered on his brain at the time, but now it came back to him and he was damned if he could remember what it was. Did he have his wallet when he came in? He went to the bedroom and there it was, in the leather caddy he always put it in when he got home. His keys were beside it. Where else could they be? He had used them to get into the apartment. He went to the kitchen; the oven was off and all the gas jets were closed as was the refrigerator door. But he had seen something. What the hell was it? He started back to the living room, stopped, and with a flutter under his breast returned to the kitchen.
It wasn’t something he had seen. It was something he had not seen. The bottle of champagne was gone. Had someone broken in and taken it? Nonsense…why would anyone want to break into an apartment and take nothing but a bottle of champagne? True, Tom didn’t own anything of great value but he did always keep a hundred dollars in cash buried under his clean shirts. He went back to his bedroom and opened the dresser drawer. Five twenties, right where they should be. Any thief worth his salt would have sniffed them out in two minutes. No, no one had broken into the apartment.
Someone had entered it with a key and then locked the door behind them when they left and that someone was Nicky Three.
“Well, fuck him, too,” Tom shouted. A lousy bottle of not very good champagne and he had to sneak in like a thief to get it back.
“Fuck him in spades,” he shouted even louder. “And he still has my key. I want my fucking key.”
Tom lit a cigarette — he hadn’t had one since Nicky left — and puffed furiously on it. “I should have flushed that cheap wine down the toilet, that’s what I should have done. And why the hell didn’t he take his goddamned robe and undershorts? What does he think this is, a fucking hotel?”
After the explosion, and hating himself for even entertaining the hope, Tom opened the refrigerator. It was there…the bottle of champagne, properly on its side, cooling, and next to it a similar bottle but with a label that bespoke the very best in imported French champagne.
“Holy shit,” the roaring lion whimpered like a mouse.
Tom sat and waited. What he wanted to do was dance, or sing, or get drunk, but under the circumstances all he could do was sit and wait. Nicky had been there and he obviously intended to come back. It could mean everything or nothing. Tom lit another cigarette and looked at his watch. It was six o’clock.
An hour later it was, of all things, seven o’clock, and still no Nicky. Tom decided to make a positive move. He took off his robe and got into a pair of jeans and a shirt.
By seven-thirty he felt certain that Nicky was playing some macabre game and had no intention of showing up. Tom went back to his “fuck him” attitude, built himself a bourbon and soda and changed his mind, for the twelfth time, about going to the Culvers’.
Now, he was going. He should be there no later than nine but all he had to do was change his clothes and jump into a cab. That would take no more than a half hour. He sipped his drink and lit another cigarette.
It began to snow. His tree, moving gently in the winter wind, turned white before his eyes. From the street below the sound of sleigh bells drifted into the apartment. Tom, well into his bourbon and not fully recovered from the ones he had had earlier in the day, began to cry. A real old-fashioned crying jag. “No one should be alone on Christmas Eve. Shit…no one should ever be alone. I wonder if Nancy would marry me. If she lives in the Culvers’ apartment building she must be rich. I’ll ask her tonight. Engaged at the Culvers’ Christmas party in New York and married at the Culvers’ New Year’s party in Palm Beach. It should make all the society columns.”
The dream was interrupted by the sound of a lock bolt being turned with a key.
“A guy could get lung cancer waiting for you.”
Nicky, his hair and raincoat wet, appeared in the doorway. “You didn’t have to wait.”
“How the hell can I leave when some creep comes in and out of the place juggling champagne bottles as soon as I’m gone.”
“You could have changed the lock.”
“You could have returned the fucking key.”
Nicky walked into the room and Tom stood up. They came face to face and each hesitated a brief second before their arms encircled each other as their bodies locked in a tight grip. Two tall, lean figures swaying in the center of the room as they laughed and cried and swore, all at the same time. Tom kissed Nicky’s lips and cheeks and hair. He squeezed Nicky’s shoulders and back and behind. “I can’t believe you’re really here.”
“I’ll be black and blue before you’re convinced.”
“Christ, you’re all wet.”
“That’s apt to happen to a person who’s just walked twenty blocks in a snowstorm.”
“Don’t be a smart ass. Change your clothes and I’ll fix us a drink. The champagne?”
“That’s just what I want.”
“The good stuff or the cheap?”
“Let’s save the good one for midnight.”
An hour later it was as if they had never been apart. They sat in the snug room, the snow falling outside and the television tuned to a station which, as it did every Christmas Eve, showed nothing but a Yule log burning in a fireplace as carolers filled the soundtrack.
Nicky related the events of the past two days. “She left me some money, not much, about five thousand bucks. I think it was all she had.” It sounded like a lot to Tom whose savings account was just about that much but had taken years to accumulate. “The apartment was rented furnished so all I have to do is pack Aunt Marie’s things and ship them to her.”
“And then?”
Nicky shrugged. “Sink or swim, I guess, and you know how well I swim.”
“Before you start swimming you have to have a place to live. Have you thought about that?”
“I could get a small studio for under five hundred a month.” It was more a question than a statement.
“You could also win a lottery for a million bucks but I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for either. You’re going to live right here.”
Nicky, even if he had wanted to, could not hide the relief Tom’s words offered. For the first time since entering the apartment he relaxed completely, his body almost sagging before Tom’s eyes. “You know I want you with me, Nicky.”
“I know and…well, I’m sorry I walked out like I did.”
“You never gave me a chance to explain.”
“I was sorry the minute I did it.”
“Then why the hell didn’t you come back?”
“Pride. What else?”
“Do you know I walked up and down West End Avenue, looking for you, until I was almost arrested for loitering?”
Nicky laughed. “I’m glad.”
“About that picture.”
“Not now, Tommy…look…it’s almost midnight, open the other bottle.”
Tom got out two crystal glasses and filled them with the Moet. “You know, this is the first Christmas I feel like…” Tom hesitated, looking for the right word.
“Like you belong?”
“Yeah, exactly. How did you know?”
“Because I feel the same way.”
“Merry Christmas, Nicky.”
“Merry Christmas, Tom.”
§ § § §
Tom Bradshaw was no longer alone in the world, alone in his room, alone in his bed. They lay side by side, listening to each other breathe as if the sound was as miraculous as the holiday they had just celebrated. “This is the first night I’ve ever spent without my aunt and uncle.”
“And you’re the first person to ever spend the night in this bed. Besides me, that is.”
“Bullshit.” Nicky could now say the word without a trace of embarrassment in his voice.
“Would I lie to you?”
“You would.”
“If it wasn’t Christmas I would toss your ass out in the snow.”
“Christmas — and I don’t have a present for you.”
“I’ll accept the Mott as the best Christmas gift I ever got.”
“And what are you giving me?”
Tom took Nicky’s hand in his and answered, “The best Christmas gift you’ve ever had…me.”
“Santa Claus would never approve.”
“What does he know about love?”
London — 1956
Alexis met Erica at Heathrow amid a crowd bundled in great coats and mufflers. The frigid temperature was all that prevented the lead-gray sky from unloading its burden of snow over half of England but the shivering Londoners knew it was only a matter of time before the predicted blizzard would whitewash the city and its suburbs.
“You look very big, my dear, but healthy,” Alexis greeted her.
“And you look like the bastard you are.”
Neither exchanged another word during the long drive from the airport to Alexis’s country home. The only words he uttered in the car were, “We have arrived, Mrs. Hall,” as he steered the car through an iron gate and up a drive that led to an old Tudor house.
Alexis’s sisters, Tatiana and Marie, showed Erica to a comfortable room. “If you want anything all you need do is pull the cord.”
The one called Marie spoke and indicated an ornate bell pull near the large bed. “My sister or I will come at once.” There was an air about these two women which reminded Erica of their brother and the mystique she associated with him. But Alexis worked and moved about modern London. His sisters spoke and acted like characters from a turn-of-the-century play. Theirs was a look and manner Erica thought had died with the first shot fired in the first world war.
“Have you always lived here?” Erica asked the women.
“For a very long time,” Marie answered. “With my mother and father and another sister, Olga.”
“Did Olga marry?”
“No,” Marie told her, “she died of an illness several years ago. Our parents are also now dead.”
The snow began to fall at dusk and Erica began her labor before dawn. Shortly after a local midwife came to attend her. “When will the doctor come?” Erica wanted to know.
“There’ll be no doctor, dearie, but you needn’t fear, I’ve delivered more young’uns than half the swells on Harley Street.”
Erica’s scream rang through the old house. “I hate him. I hate him. I hate him.”
It was close to midnight when the midwife entered the dimly lit parlor where the women and Alexis, called from London, were seated. She wiped her sweating forehead with the back of her hand as she announced, “It’s all over. Mum and babies doing very well, indeed.”
Alexis jumped out of his chair. “A boy?” he asked anxiously.
“Babies?” Tatiana cried.
“Yes to both of you. Two boys if you please and both as healthy an’ pink as the Lord knows how to make ‘em.”
Alexis ran out of the room, pulling the midwife with him.
“Easy, sir,” she protested, “I’ve had a hard time, I’ve had.”
Erica was sound asleep, an infant nestled under each arm.
“Which was the first born?” Alexis demanded.
“The one on the right, sir. You see, I put a string on his tiny wrist. I know my job, sir.”
The room was deathly still. Alexis moved toward the bed and carefully took the infant in his hands and lifted him high in the air.
“Careful, sir,” the midwife cautioned. “You don’t want to wake him now, what with his mum just getting her bit of peace.”
Alexis did not hear the woman. He stared at the infant for a long time and then whispered, “Nicholas. Nicholas, my son. Nicholas the Third.” The infant began to scream.
Erica tried to ignore the two tots who fed at her breast but her efforts were in vain. She grew to love them more every day. The boys’ aunts, Tatiana and Marie, were constantly in and out of Erica’s room, doting on the new babies as much, if not more, as did their mother and Erica was grateful for their company and compliments.
The children had brought joy into the old Tudor house. “They are identical,” Tatiana said. “If it were not for the string on his wrist I would not know Nicky.”
“Why is he called Nicholas?” Erica asked.
“We must buy two bracelets,” Marie continued as if Erica had not spoken. “One gold and one silver. Two tiny, delicate bracelets.”
“Why is he called Nicholas?” Erica repeated.
“It is an old family name,” Marie answered and then, as if the question had recalled a nagging thought, she blurted, “You must not hate Alexis. If you knew the truth, you would understand.”
“What is the truth?” Erica asked.
“She has said too much already,” Tatiana answered for her sister.
Erica turned her back on the women and stared at the white landscape outside her window. “They are as crazy as he is,” she thought.
The following weekend Alexis arrived from London with an armful of presents for the twins and an exquisite diamond and sapphire pin, in the shape of the sign Gemini, for Erica. “It’s beautiful, Alexis, and appropriate.”
“You see, I am a normal new father.”
“And I am a typical new mother.”
Erica had been thinking about this moment all week. She had rehearsed what she would say but she had not planned on performing this soon. She wanted more time to win Alexis’s sympathy and understanding but seeing him now, with all those presents for two infants who wouldn’t be able to enjoy them for months and months, he looked so happy and, as he had just said himself, normal.
And the gift he had given her! He could not refuse her anything at this moment.
“I am sure you are, my dear.” Alexis refused to meet her gaze.
“I want to keep the children.” She could hear her heart beat as she spoke the words.
“That is not possible, Erica.” His tone was not threatening and Erica took courage from this. “We made a bargain, remember?”
“You used me, Alexis, and now you must have some pity on me. I am their mother and I can’t bear even the thought of having to give them up. Please try to understand.”
“I do understand, but it is not possible.” His voice was hesitant.
He was afraid and Erica knew it.
She took a deep breath and said as calmly as possible. “If you don’t let me have them I will expose them and you to the world.”
Alexis smiled his sad smile. “So now it is you who threaten me.”
“You told me once that without an heir your life was meaningless. Now you have two heirs and therefore twice as much reason to live. You’re hiding something, Alexis. Marie as much as told me that today. She spoke about a truth she could not reveal. Now a scandal would hurt you as much as me. Perhaps more.”
Alexis moved to the window and pretended to look out at the rapidly darkening winter sky. “Marie is foolish and you are still an over-imaginative child. A scandal would also hurt them,” he said, indicating the crib where the two boys slept. “Have you thought of that?’
“They are young, they will survive.”
“So the mother of my sons is a fighter. Good…I am glad.” He left the window and moved across the room to the crib. His eyes reflected the activity going on in his mind. “Can we strike another bargain, Erica?” he said, looking at the sleeping infants and not at her.
“My father once told me the history of the civilized world could be related in terms of bargains.”
“A very smart man, the Ambassador.” He turned from the crib to face Erica. “There are two children and two of us. You have read Dumas?”
Erica was shocked. “We are talking about human life, not romantic novels.”
“When you wanted to abort you were talking about human life, too, my dear.”
Erica avoided his gaze. As intended, she had no answer for this. “Think, Erica, a public scandal would solve nothing. Neither of us would emerge a winner.” Now he came to her and touched her arm. “I never wanted to be cruel to you, my dear. Please believe that. And what I am suggesting now is just and fair. I will keep Nicky. The other is yours. Believe me, it is the only way.”
§ § § §
Two months later Mr. and Mrs. Anthony Hall and their son, Eric, returned to the United States to make their permanent home in New York.