Cancel All Our Vows (15 page)

“Well,” Jane said uncertainly, “I don’t think I know exactly what you mean, but doesn’t
everybody
feel that way at some time or another?”

“Could be. How about hubby? Bright guy?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Ever hear the same general thing from him?”

“A long time ago, I guess. We had some crazy ideas. We were kids. I started going with him when I was fifteen. The depression was a pretty real thing then. We had a vague idea of going someplace in the world that was full of … superstition and poverty and disease and … doing what we could. Changing the world a little as much as we could. But that was a long time ago.”

“What happened?”

She laughed and it had a slightly flat sound in the sunlight. “Oh, you have to earn a living. You take a job you don’t really want, and then you have kids and you have to get ahead in the job as best you can.”

“Is he happy?”

“Fletch loves his job. And I guess he’s proud of his home and his family. We belong to nice clubs and we have good friends. It’s a good life, Sam.”

“That’s what I want to know,” he said, turning onto his side, leaning on one elbow. “
Is
it a good life, or do you get to a point where it turns into just a hell of a lot of compromises, and it doesn’t seem to mean a hell of a lot? It’s this, I guess. Should a man have a real sense of dedication, or can he get along without it, and make his buck with the least possible fuss?”

“The way you talk you’re trying to make our life sound … oh, sort of silly and pointless. But it isn’t, you see. I can’t talk this way very well. Maybe I don’t think this way often enough. But always there have been men and women and they’ve lived together and they’ve had children. And isn’t that the point of the whole thing? A sort of a unit, and you’re together. And that’s enough. I’ve met some of those people, those strange people with some kind of a mission. They’re always a little weird. And they make
me uncomfortable. And don’t try to tell me it’s guilt that makes me uncomfortable, either.”

“Okay, Jane. Try this for size, then. Five more years, and your kids will be out of the nest. You’ll still be a young woman with a lot of spunk. So what do you do? Bridge? Red Cross Drive? Social work? Friend husband will be plugging away for another twenty years at least.”

“I’ll find something to keep me busy.”

“And out of mischief?” Will it be something satisfying? I mean all that is just another phase of the same problem, isn’t it?”

“Sam, now you’re making me uncomfortable. I just asked you what you were going to do with yourself after you’re through school.”

“One more thing, honey, and then I’ll shut up. I’m afraid that if I turn into a nice steady insurance agent or something, I’ll stick it out for fifteen years or so and then blow my top. Either that or pop off from a heart attack, or nurse an ulcer, and don’t tell me all the heart jobs and ulcer jobs don’t come from that sort of tension you get when you don’t like your work.”

“Fletch loves his work. I told you that.”

“I wasn’t talking about your Fletch. I was talking about me. You know, I think I’ll be a soldier of fortune. I’ll be a general in some banana republic and take the midnight plane out with the Presidente’s daughter and the Inca emeralds. Then I’ll turn up in Persia, only I guess they don’t call it that any more, and I’ll sell the Presidente’s daughter to some roving Bedouin tribe and as they ride off on their camels into the sunset, I’ll chuckle heartily. Later the Presidente’s daughter will turn up in a Paul Bowles novel, and a 20th Century-Fox agent will find her and give her a screen contract, and I’ll turn up again to collect the usual agent’s commission. You know, a guy could make a career out of just turning up at the dramatic moment. I’ll be the poor girl’s Errol Flynn.” He stood up quickly, hooked his toes over the edge of the dock, gave her a broad wink, and went off in a flat racing dive.

She sat and watched him swim out, thankful that her sense of proportion had returned. He was a spectacular male, but basically just a kid, and of no danger to her. He
had stirred her physically, but that was the end of it. The lake was utterly still in the afternoon heat. She sat cross-legged, her elbows on her knees, chin on her hands, watching him swim out. Darn him. First he makes me uncomfortable one way and then another way. Fletch is happy. He gets moody. That’s just the way he is. Maybe he’s seemed a little further away this year, but it’s probably the office. He’s good at his job and he knows it. He’s not a crusader, for goodness sake. And neither is Sam Rice. Sam is just in a phase. It’s part of growing up. God, I was going to be Florence Nightingale, junior. A dim ward, and me rustling in starch, and laying my cool hand on the fevered brows of the wounded, while I could hear cannon in the distance. Kid stuff. Dreams. Self-dramatization. You get over that. I got over that dream fast the time I went with Daddy when he didn’t want me to go. That boy, screaming and screaming, and oh the blood and the smell. I’m where I belong. Wife and mother. It sounds so dull when you fill out a form and have to write housewife. But it’s good. The kids and the love and the fun. It’s what you’re after. A lot of people miss. We didn’t. Those Corbans. They missed. You can see it. Contempt when she looks at him. She doesn’t know how much it shows. Or maybe she doesn’t care. Those hills are the right misty blue. That’s what I wanted, but when I got the drapes home they were just too damn blue. They’ve faded and maybe they’ll fade more and be right for the room. Fletch, we’re being childish today. Our day to be childish. Our year, maybe, to have a little trouble. Like that second year we were married. And the year after the war when he was so irritable. Trouble ends and we’re always closer. God, if this heat doesn’t end my golf is going to be shot. The kids should be back by now. Dink will get tennis at the camp. She needs work on her backhand. She could be good, really good, starting so early. I know she lets Judge beat her every once in a while. Is he going to swim all the way across the lake? No, he’s floating out there. I’m baked. I’ll swim out to him. It doesn’t mean anything now and he knows it. We’re friends now. A grin like a little kid, and then all of a sudden so serious. He’s quick. He picks things up. I wonder what sort of family he came from.

She dived from the dock and slanted up through the green water, and swam out toward Sam Rice, swam with a slow effortless crawl, gliding like an otter through the clear blue water of Lake Vernon.

Chapter Nine

When the moon came up out of the east, full and golden as a lantern, it turned the last of the lingering grey dusk to night. Only a few coals were left to glow in the grey bed of ash in the outdoor fireplace. Someone far down the lake was singing. Jane sat alone on the dock, dangling her legs, huddled and miserable. Hank was in his usual form, loud and lewd by turns. She could not hear some whispered comment he made, but she heard Dolly and Martha’s scandalized laughter.

Martha came down the dock and squatted beside her. “I got hold of Hud all right. Dolly and Hank say there’s plenty of room. And Hank says that Fletch must be coming out or he would have phoned. So let’s do this. It’s after nine and the kids are bushed, so let’s drop them in the sack. If Fletch gets here too late, your kids can stay overnight and Hud and I will bring them down in time tomorrow. We have to be at your place around three, so we’ll drop them off on our way home to change, say about one thirty or two. Of course, if Fletch gets here before they cork off, you can take them back with you. But there is plenty of room.”

Jane stood up. “Okay, Martha. Let’s put them to bed. Where are they going to be?”

“Girls in the bunk room and boys upstairs. Your glass empty? So’s mine. Let’s take a break for a refill.”

They walked up by the big picnic table beside the house and Hank, under the light of the yellow mosquito bulb, jovially mixed them drinks. Every once in a while Jane would listen for the sound of the car, for the sound of Fletch’s arrival. She knew she had drunk more than usual, had drunk enough to, under normal circumstances, give
her an infuriating attack of giggles. But Fletch’s continued lateness left her with a hard core of sobriety. All the drinks had done was to make her lips feel numbed, her legs a bit uncertain.

She helped Martha round up the children and then, with dire threats about going to sleep and not yammering all night, they got them assorted in the proper beds with a single blanket apiece and another handy, and turned out the lights. As they left they could hear the whispering start.

Jane stood out in the night and drained the glass. Ice clinked against her teeth. She was still in her swim suit. The night breeze was turning a bit chill. She shuddered violently.

Steve Lincoln came over to her, looming wide in the night. “Jane, we’re trying to drum up some business. They got a little band in the pavilion at the end of the lake. Come on.”

“Thanks, Steve, but I don’t think …”

“Break down,” Sam said, close beside her, startling her. He moved like a big cat. “I square dance like a fool. While I was learning I used to throw my women right through the side of the hall.”

“No thanks, Sam. I’m expecting Fletch any minute. I want to be here.”

“Well … okay. Sorry.” Steve said and they went away into the night. She heard their low voices and then they laughed together. Jane made herself a fresh drink and took it out to the end of the dock. She tensed as she heard a car motor, and then realized that it was the young people leaving for the dance. She sat on the dock again and Hank came down a bit later to lower himself awkwardly beside her.

He said, “It is one damn beautiful night, isn’t it? I love this place.”

“It’s pretty here, Hank.”

“Why so sad, sugar? Tell old Hank all your troubles.”

“Don’t paw me, for God’s sake!”

“Well, I’m certainly sorry,” he said with drunken dignity. “I really am. I had no idea that a little gesshure of af-

He started to get up and she turned and put her hand on his shoulder and forced him down. “I’m sorry, Hank. I didn’t mean to snap. I’m just all …” She stopped, unhappily aware that she was very close to tears, and that if she started it would turn out to be a sodden crying jag.

“I accept your aplo … apology,” Hank said stiffly. “See what you mean. Husbands are bad things. Give you a rough time. Ask old Dolly. She’s been over the jumps. Man … a man gets a little restless. Artificial situation. Know what I mean?”

“Not exactly. What’s artificial?”

“The whole thing, baby. Woman’s monogamous, man is polygamous. Got to bust out every once in a while. Hey! You ever see a pasture where they got as many bulls as they have cows?” He gave a hard grunt of laughter and smacked her on the back. It stung and it nearly knocked her off the dock.

“Hey, take it easy!”

“Me and Dolly, we been married a long time. To us you two are just … just a pair of kids. We both love you both. I guess you know that, huh? We just love you both like the dickens. And I’m not being sloppy either. Finest pair of young people in Minidoka, bar none. Swell kids. What was I saying?”

“About man being polygamous, I think.”

“Well, baby, you just use your head. That’s all you got to do. Use your head. If ole Fletch takes off, you just remember it’s man’s nature, that’s all. He’ll come back like a kid been in the jam. Women make a mistake. Toss the old bastard out for good. That’s no way to do. Spoils everything. Little piece of tail isn’t that important. Sure, make him suffer a little, but don’t bust up the happy home. Dolly tossed me out once. Right in the winter, by God. Got drunk for a week. Came around and it was snowing and blowing and she wouldn’t let me in. Nossir. Through for keeps. All on account of a little tramp who got ideas and called her up. I’m there in the snow and the cold and I’m crying. Me, crying. And I’m tight, see. I had to go, so I go over to a big snowdrift, and while I’m going, I write in the snow, you know what I mean. Hank loves Dolly, I write. Crooked letters, but you could read it. She turns on
the porch light and comes out to see what the hell I’m doing. Had the damnedest case of hysterics you ever saw, and pretty soon I’m inside and we’re hanging onto each other and both crying. Nossir, busting up a home is bad business.”

Jane said, “I don’t want to seem dull, but why the lecture? Just because Fletch happens to be late. Do you happen to think he’s been running around?”

“Me? I don’t know a thing. I was saying to Dolly how we love you kids. And you’re glooming around, so I guess that maybe that’s what it is, him not being here and all.”

She patted his hand and made her voice bright. “Now don’t worry about us, Hank. We’re fine. He’s just late and I know he couldn’t help it, and I’m gloomy because it’s Saturday night and I miss him. That’s all, really.”

“Well, I’m sure glad about that, baby. You two never been mixed up in all that yak yak down in the city. Nice clean kids. Hey, knock that off and I’ll build you a good one. Peace offering.” He reached out and snapped the rim of her glass. It rang sweetly. “Hear that? Dolly bought ’em. Danish or something. Four bucks a copy and we bought two dozen and I think we got seven left.”

She knew she should not have another, but alcohol had wedged caution down into a part of her mind where she could ignore it.