The Fat Woman's Joke Read Free Page B

which was not quite believable. Phyllis’s cheeks were too pink and Gerry’s smile was too wide. The doorbell, Esther assumed, had put a stop to a scene of either passion or rage. Gerry was a vigorous, noisy man, twice Phyllis’s size. He was a successful civil engineer who had scorned what he considered to be the more effete profession of architecture.
    â€œI hope we’re not early,” said Esther. “We had to come by taxi. We have this new car, you see.” She was kissed first by Phyllis and then by Gerry, who took longer over the embrace than was strictly necessary. Alan pecked Phyllis discreetly, and not without embarrassment, and shook hands with Gerry. When they sat down for their pre-dinner drinks, Gerry could see the flesh of Esther’s thighs swelling over the tops of her stockings. Esther was aware of this but did nothing about it. She looked, this evening, both monumental and magnificent. Her bright eyes flashed and her pale, large face was animated. Beside her, Alan appeared insignificant, although when he was away from her he stood out as a reasonably sized, reasonably endowed man. He had a thin, clever, craggy face and an apparently urban nature. His paunch sat uneasily on a frame not designed for it. He had worked in the same advertising agency for fifteen years, and was now in a position of trust and accorded much automatic respect. His title was “Executive Creative Controller.”
    â€œI know nothing about the insides of cars,” he now said, “except that whenever I buy a new one it goes for a day and then stops. After that it’s garages and guarantees and trouble until I wish I had bought a bicycle instead. I don’t even know why I buy cars. It just seems to happen. I think perhaps I was sold this one by one of my own advertisements. I am a suggestible person.”
    â€œYou take things calmly,” said Gerry. “If I bought a car which so much as faltered, somebody’s head would roll.”
    â€œBut you are a man of passions. I am a cerebral creature.”
    â€œIt’s the British workman,” said Gerry. “No amount of good design these days can counteract the criminal imbecility of the average British worker.”
    â€œOh please, Gerry darling,” cried his wife. “No! My heart sinks when I hear those terrible words ‘these days’ and ‘British workman.’ I know it is going on for a full hour.”
    â€œPhil, please. A man buys a new car. It costs a lot of money. If it breaks down it is only courtesy to give the matter a little attention.”
    He was pouring everyone extremely large drinks—everyone, that is, except his wife.
    â€œWhat about me!” she piped, trembling. “I’se dry.”
    Grudgingly he poured her a small drink, as a husband might pour one for an alcoholic wife. Phyllis very rarely drank to excess. For every bottle of Scotch her husband drank she would sip an inch or so of gin.
    â€œAll this talk of cars,” he said, emboldened by his kindness to her, “I hate it. Don’t you, Esther? It’s such a bore.”
    â€œIf you spend enough money on something you can’t afford to think it’s a bore.”
    â€œYour wife,” said Gerry, with a disparaging look toward his own, “is a highly intelligent woman.”
    Esther wriggled, showing a little more thigh for his benefit. They all drank rather deeply.
    â€œSometimes,” said Alan, “I am afraid that Esther knows everything. At other times I am afraid she doesn’t.”
    â€œWhy? Are you hiding something from her?” asked Phyllis.
    â€œI have nothing to hide from my Esther.”
    â€œYou hide your writing from me. Or try to. You lock it away.”
    â€œWriting?” they cried. “Writing?”
    â€œAlan has been writing a novel in secret. He sent it off to an agent last week. Now we wait. It makes him bad-tempered. Don’t ask me what it’s