The Christmas Party Read Online Free PDF Page A

have stayed at home while you roamed the offices of the world.’ Kirsten had trained as a teacher and, at one point, had a nice post in a primary school and quite a promising future. She’d enjoyed her job and been good at it. ‘All I’ve got to show for my career is, somewhere in among all the packing cases that have moved across continents with us, a cardboard box full of the sweetest letters from my pupils.’
    ‘That’s nice though.’
    She’d loved children then. Adored them. It was their open curiosity and capacity for learning that filled her with enthusiasm. Now she didn’t see any children, other than to pass them in the street, from one end of the year to the next. They didn’t even broach the subject of having their own family any more. With Tyler it had always been next year when he earned more, next year when he’d reached this or that level, next year when it was quieter at work, next year when they’d stopped travelling. And, of course, next year never came. Then suddenly she’d turned forty and she felt that ‘next year’ had passed her by. Tyler earned more, reached the next level, got busier and busier and travelled endlessly. But many people in this situation still managed to have children. For Tyler it felt as if Fossil Oil was all the family he needed, but perhaps it wasn’t enough for her.
    ‘If it hadn’t been for Fossil, I could have done a lot of things. I could have forged myself a successful career. I might have made headteacher. I could have found some friends, had a normal life. Whatever that might be.’
    ‘Hindsight is a wonderful gift, Kirsten. We’re still young. Relatively. It’s not too late to do those things, if that’s what you want.’
    ‘I wanted to be with you.’ It was what wives did, wasn’t it? Sacrificed themselves on the altar of their husband’s career. How very foolish it sounded now. Here she was, a decade later, relying on Tyler for her income, for her life. ‘I know no one outside of the beauty salon and the gym. I thought about throwing a party at home this Christmas and then realised that, beyond the employees of Fossil Oil, I don’t actually know anyone who I could invite.’
    Tyler went to speak.
    She held up a hand.
    ‘Don’t say we can invite Lance and Melissa. That’s exactly what I mean.’
    This was the only time they’d actually spent two consecutive Christmases in the same country. The last ten years had been marked by fleeting acquaintances and empty hours. The only people she had long-term relationships with were the women in the Relocations Department at Fossil Oil who engineered her tediously regular home moves.
    ‘We’ve spent so little time in one place and have always lived in rented homes that it makes me feel like some sort of nomad.’
    ‘Look at this place,’ Tyler said, holding out his arms. ‘It’s stunning. People would cut off both their arms to live somewhere like this.’
    ‘We’ve had some beautiful homes, of course. I can’t deny that. It’s always someone else’s choice of furniture though, never my own.’
    This place
was
amazing: a four-bedroom Georgian townhouse in Hampstead. Handy for both the London office and the M1. It was all chandeliers and original windows in a quiet, leafy street, slap bang in the middle of a conservation area. No one could argue with its pedigree.
    ‘I’ve reached a stage in my life where having the biggest or shiniest home on the road just isn’t enough. Nothing in this house is ours. I don’t clean it, don’t decorate it, don’t plant a single flower in the garden. When we move – as we will – there’ll be nothing in it to show that we’ve ever been here. All I do is stare at the four walls.’
    ‘We can move somewhere else,’ Tyler said, frowning. ‘If that’s what you want.’
    ‘No,’ she said. ‘That’s not what I want at all. You’re missing my point entirely.’
    ‘But this is a great place, and you didn’t want to live near the office.’
    Fossil