Cancel All Our Vows (10 page)

“It’s against the law to sit on that there railing, girl.”

She turned a bit further, so he could see her face. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” She swung her legs over and slid down onto the sidewalk, dusting the seat of her slacks with her hands. “I couldn’t sleep so I wandered down here, Officer.”

“What’s your name and address?”

She told him, and his manner changed a bit. “Lady, this isn’t such a healthy part of town, not since the war. You want we should give you a lift home? That sun’ll be up in another couple minutes.”

“If it wouldn’t be too much trouble, Officer.”

“Glad to do it. Today’s going to be another boomer.”

The sun was coming up as she got out in front of the house and thanked them. The color was brass, and the early heat was beginning to slant against the stone sides of the city. They waited until she unlocked the front door, turned and waved at them. Then the grey car with its gold decal on the door moved softly down the street, grey as what was left of dawn, and almost as silent.

She made coffee and sat at the kitchen table and drank it. Whenever she was up this early she found herself thinking of her father, remembering another world.

Things would be going pretty well. And slowly his usual good cheer would fade away, change by degrees into irritability, into moroseness. And he would complain about the job of the moment.

She and Josh would know when it was due, almost to the day. A loud clap of the big calloused hands. “Kids, let’s get out of this crumby town. There’s nothing here. It’s dead. Let’s pack up and hit the road.”

Then, on the highway, with the car loaded heavy on its springs, the three of them would sing, and there would be a black heat mirage on the highway far ahead. She could remember the good chill taste of the orange pop when they made stops, the way he always wanted to turn down side roads, his outraged and fluent protests when an old tire would let go.

Those were the good days because you had no doubt that all the rest of life was going to be just as wide and fine and free. Life was going to taste like that first gulp of iced
pop, was going to look like a desert sunrise, was going to feel like a party dress, slick and nice against your skin. You were going to grow up and live in a house all redwood and glass and decorator’s colors, with a round bed, and a French maid, and a convertible the color of your eyes, and a dark lover-husband, strong as bulls, sensitive as artists, who would make you want to faint when he touched you, and handsome children and laughter and moonlight parties and …

She could go no further. She could stay no longer with that lost child of the wandering years. She pressed the heels of her hands tightly against her eyes until she saw green and blue pinwheels of flame.

“Bitch,” she called that child of long ago. “Simple, inane, trusting little empty-headed bitch. Why didn’t you die then … with all the rest of them.…”

Chapter Six

Jane felt rested and festive when she awoke at nine, Saturday morning. She glanced at the clock. The hair at the nape of her neck was damp with sweat. This day was going to be another killer. She lay there, permitting herself the Saturday luxury of drifting aimlessly up out of sleep. Fletch was purring softly. She looked over and saw that he had kicked his sheet off in the night.

The kids made some kind of unidentifiable thumping noise and she cocked her head to listen as she sat up. It was not repeated. She sat on the edge of the bed and shoved her feet into her slippers, wishing that it was a cool Saturday. In this weather golf was uninviting, tennis was impossible. Maybe it would be a good day to go up to the lake. Bust in on Dolly and Hank Dimbrough. Their kids were about the same age. And it would be fun to try the skis again behind the big fast Chris-Craft. They could take drinks along. Fletch always seemed to enjoy Hank.

She padded into the bathroom in her old slippers, kicked them off and stepped into the shower, pulling the glass door closed. She kept her hair out of the spray, soaped abundantly and kept the water as hot as she could stand it for a long time. By then the bathroom was too steamy to get dry in, so she went into the bedroom and scrubbed herself vigorously with one of the harsh towels. She tied her blonde hair back with a scrap of yarn, put on a crisp white play suit and sandals, and glanced fondly at Fletch before going to the kitchen.

Judge and Dink had fixed their own breakfast and they began begging permission to leave for the pool. Jane said, “You better wait until your father gets up. I don’t think he wants you going off to that public pool. He didn’t like it
because I let you go yesterday.” She felt a little qualm of guilt at passing the buck to Fletch.

“Aw, poo!” Judge said in a snarly voice.

“Easy there, my friend,” Jane said.

“
Everybody
goes, Mother,” Dink said

“Now you two find something to do and stop pestering me. Maybe we’ll all go to the lake this afternoon.”

“Can I try the water skis this time? Can I?” Dink demanded. “Judge tried them and he fell off every time.”

“That’s no crime. Your father fell off too.”

“That’s because he was a little crocked,” Judge said.

Jane whirled to face him. “Judson Wyant! What a way to talk!”

“Well, it was true, wasn’t it? If a thing is true, is it wrong to say it? Is it?”

“Now run along. Don’t bother me, and remember, don’t bother your father until he’s had his second cup of coffee. Turn on the sprinklers, Judge. I don’t think the sun is high enough yet to scorch the grass.”

They went off, with Dink insisting hotly that she’d be able to stand up on the water skis and ride fine, just like mother did.

Summer camp started for both of them on the fifth of July and lasted until the twenty-first of August. A week from today they’d be driving the kids to camp. Their two small trunks were in the utility room, filled with the items listed on the camp literature. Just one more week to endure the restless energy of the little monsters. That Laura Corban was lucky. She got hers off early, and was able to park them with relatives at that. I guess we seem to have a sort of inhuman attitude toward kids these days. Then, it isn’t like it was generations ago. Gadgets do everything now. Kids had chores then, and knew the importance of those chores. Chores, these days, are just make-work, and the kids know it and resent it if you start to pile on needless work. Thank God they at least keep their rooms picked up now. That was more than a moral victory. And they weren’t really bratty, like Sue’s kids. Always demanding the center of attention, screaming and throwing tantrums, so that you actually hated to go over to their house, it could be so embarrassing and so exhausting.

She sang in her small true voice as she measured the coffee. She decided it would be too hot and buggy on the terrace, so she set the table in the nook. It was odd how the memory of the quarrel would drift across her mind, like a small cloud cutting out the sunlight. And then she would remember how it had all ended, and the cloud would be gone. Certainly there was nothing to fear from poor little Laura Corban. In a way she was quite pathetic. It must be wearing, married to that dull man. She guessed that if she were married to Ellis Corban, she’d get a little on that weird side too.

She turned, smiling, when she recognized Fletch’s step. But her smile faded a bit when she saw how he was dressed.

“ ’Morning, darling. You going to the office today?”

“There’s a report I want to finish before the Monday meeting. It will be quiet down there this morning.”

“Will it take you long?”

He sat down and unfolded the morning paper she had put at his place. “Not too long, I hope. Why?”

“It looks like another of those days. I thought we might go out to the lake. Dolly was disappointed that we didn’t come out last weekend.”

“Oh, Christ! I get sick of being patronized by Hank Dimbrough.”

She felt her cheeks flush at the sharp tone of his voice. But, recognizing his morning mood, she compressed her lips and turned back to the stove. She heard the hard snap as he pulled the folds out of the morning paper, and then he mumbled something about “… and his goddamn Chris-Craft.”

Despite her warning, the children came roaring in before he had touched his first cup of coffee. He said good morning to them in a dangerously level voice.

Dink said, “Today can I try the water skis? Can I? Judge tried them last time and Dotty Dimbrough does it and she’s only ten and I’m eleven.”

Judge started to say something and then changed his mind. Fletcher looked at them and Jane saw the expression on his face and saw both the children instinctively move back a half step and stand closer together.

Fletcher folded his paper and laid it down. “In the first place, it is considered common courtesy to respond in kind when someone says good morning to you. In the second place, don’t come through the house like a herd of buffalo. In the third place,
if
we should go to the lake, which is highly doubtful, and if there should be any water skiing, neither of you is going to do any. Is that clear? Now go to your rooms.”

The children left silently. Jane heard Dink’s muffled sob as she went through the door.

“Aw, Fletch!” Jane said in a tone the children couldn’t overhear. “That was awfully rough, darling.”

“They need a good lesson in manners, those two.”

“Not
that
kind of a lesson.”

He stared at her. “Just what kind of a lesson do you have in mind?”

“Well … fairness, at least. I mean they’ve been up for hours and they’ve been terribly quiet and good, and I told them about going to the lake to take their minds off going to that pool again.”

“They’re
not
going to that pool.”

“What would you like them to do? Stay nicely in their rooms all day? You want to give them sleeping pills? Darn it, Fletch, be reasonable.”

“Do you want them to get polio?”

“Now you’re trying to get difficult.”

He finished his cup of coffee and stood up. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“Don’t you want your second cup?”

He kissed her lightly on the cheek. “No thanks. See you.”

He went out and she watched from the living room window while he backed the car out. He turned down the street without waving or looking back. The small cloud had drifted into the center of her mind, and the world was darkened. She hoped he would be contrite enough to phone. And suddenly she became more angry than when he had been the most unpleasant. Just exactly what sort of a little king did he think he was? She walked quickly to the phone before she could change her mind. She phoned Martha Rogers and said, “Martha, dear? Jane. It looks
like another stinker of a day and Fletch has gone to the office with the car. I can’t phone him there because it’s Saturday and the switchboard doesn’t work. How about you and I and the three kids going out to call on Dolly Dimbrough and taking a dip in the lake? I can leave a note for Fletch. Hud has to work on Saturdays, doesn’t he?”

“Hey, not so fast, woman! Are you sure the Dimbroughs won’t have company?”

“What if they do? It’s a big lake.”

“Well … then okay. I’ll put beer in that cooler thing. It will take me twenty minutes to get ready and get over there. But let’s not sponge lunch. They’ve got a good little restaurant up there this year, you know.”

Jane hurried and told the children. They cheered up at once and scrambled to get suits and towels. She opened her own drawer and hesitated over the new suit, then decided to take it, as a gesture of defiance. It was made of two scant panels for front and back, and laced up the sides with black. She put it, and sun lotion and dark glasses and cigarettes and a towel, in her beach bag.

Martha Rogers honked in front and the children ran out to get in. Just as she was closing the door Jane heard the phone start to ring. She stood still for a moment and bit her lip. Then she slammed the door a bit harder than necessary and walked down to the car with her head high.

The three children were in the back. Martha’s girl was named Joanna and she was twelve. She and Dink started whispering and giggling at once, while Judge maintained an aloof and haughty male calm.

Martha Rogers said, “Jane Wyant, how on earth do you do it? In that play suit you look about eighteen.”

“A clean life, kid. Gawd, is that lake going to taste good.”

Lake Vernon was only eighteen miles north of town. The last three miles were over a narrow, winding dirt road. It was a small pretty lake surrounded by gentle hills. There were about twenty-five camps ringing the lake and the one belonging to the Dimbroughs was the most impressive. Before the war Hank Dimbrough had been the owner of a rather small automobile agency. During the war he had branched out into machine tools, and later into
scrap. The standard word around Minidoka was, “Ole Hank made himself a pile, boy.” He still maintained the agency, but he was seldom there.

They went down the drive and Martha said, “Good! No strangers.”

They piled out and hammered on the door. The cars were there, but there was no response. They went around the camp and down to the big dock that extended out into the lake. Tanned forms were prone and supine on the weathered boards. Children splashed around in the shallows. Far out on the blue water a slim girl was being towed on the water skis.