Cold is the Sea (22 page)

But for the better part of a week now, Peggy had not called. Laura was beginning to hope the careful speech she had planned might not be necessary. She hated the idea, had finally nerved herself to do it. There was no way out of it. She just had to tell Peggy that she simply could not discuss the subject of Keith's possible retirement anymore. Merely saying this would be sure to offend the woman, possibly have repercussions on Keith's
relationship with Rich also, but this she would have to risk. “Look,” she would say, “I've told you all I can tell you. It's Keith's future, and yours. No one can make this decision for him.” She would enlarge on this theme briefly, then conclude, “Please don't ask me about it anymore. Keith would resent it, I'm sure, if he knew, and so might Rich. And please don't talk to Rich over Keith's head. Rich would be furious if I did anything like that, and it must be the same with Keith!”

This morning, however, after a gap of five days, there had come the usual telephone call. Could Peggy stop in on the way over or back from her doctor in New London? This in itself was a variation; she had never mentioned a civilian doctor before. Perhaps she was seeing a private psychiatrist. Most Navy wives, Peggy included—up to now, at least—went to the infirmary in the base on the Groton side of the Thames River for ordinary ailments. Until now, Peggy had cited a shopping visit across the river, or a sick friend whose existence Laura had begun to doubt. Or maybe she had been seeing a “psych” all along, and only now was coming a little closer to telling the truth. If so, perhaps he was doing her some good.

Instead of offering morning coffee, as had been her habit, Laura changed the signals by inviting Peggy to a cup of tea in the late afternoon. Rich's return automatically would put an end to the visit. Now they were sitting in the Richardsons' small living room, a pot of tea and some cookies on the low coffee table between them.

“Keith's been gone three weeks,” Peggy was saying as she replaced her cup on its saucer, “and already it seems like a year. I don't think I'll ever get used to having him away at sea like this.”

“You know the old Navy story, don't you?” Laura said. She was determined to keep the conversation light. “It's a fair deal if you're happy half the time. So in the Navy you get a sure thing, because your husband is at sea half the time. One way or the other, you can't miss.”

“It's all right for the men,” Peggy said, after a pause barely long enough to acknowledge the ancient joke. “They're so wrapped up in their boats they can't think of anything else. It's the ones who have to stay home who suffer. The wives and kids.”

Laura recognized her inability to deflect the direction of her
guest's thought. Different pattern or not, Peggy was the same. With an inward sigh, she decided her next half hour would be dedicated to providing what solace she could. Perhaps that really was what Peggy needed. The speech, perhaps, could wait. The necessity to prepare for Rich's return home would give her an excuse gracefully to extricate herself. “Nothing is perfect, Peggy,” she said. “At least our husbands have an exciting life and we share some of it. Just living in the same old place and doing the same thing over and over again for years can be pretty dull, too. I've read somewhere that there are far fewer divorces in the Navy than anywhere else, for example.”

“But that's not the point. The point is that some people are ambitious, and that's fine. The Navy needs them. They go to the Naval Academy, and then they're in. They get promoted, and when they're admirals they're in charge. But people like Keith don't have a chance. He'll never be an admiral. He'll be lucky if he makes captain!”

“That's ridiculous, Peggy!” The flat statement would do no good. It got out before Laura could stop it. As she said the words, Laura knew she had already failed her earlier resolve. This was not the way she had planned to begin that speech.

“That's all right for you to say, Laura. Your man is an Annapolis graduate. They look out for each other. Keith's always going to be an outsider.”

“Are you trying to say you think Rich or anyone else in the Navy would count four years of undergraduate study at Annapolis as more important than the many more years of service since?” Laura put down her tea, leaned forward. There was no help for it. Maybe going over it one more time would do some good. Anyway, it would be mercifully short. “I happen to know Rich thinks Keith is tops. You've heard him say so, too. Many times. Keith can go as far as anyone else in the Navy. It's really up to him, his ability I mean, and you, because you're his wife and have a greater effect on him than anyone else.”

“I know you believe it's all fair, Laura, but I've heard different from a lot of people.”

“What sort of people? In the Navy?”

“Sure. In the Navy and out of it. In the sub force, too.”

“The people who count aren't saying that.”

“Are you kidding?” Peggy's eyes were turned unblinkingly on
Laura. “If you mean the admirals running the Navy, of course not. But they're not the whole Navy anyhow. There's a lot more of it out there, a lot more than some of those admirals ever heard of. You learn a lot from just listening to those others.” Peggy's whole expression was triumphant. She had found her entry point. When Laura did not immediately reply, she pressed her advantage. “I'm not saying this kind of thing doesn't affect the Annapolis boys, too. Ever hear of the Green Bowlers?”

“Sure,” said Laura, “but that was years ago, before the war, and its importance has been blown up a lot. The membership was secret. That's why there's been so much talk about it.”

“Right, except there's more to it than you think. It's not the only one, anyway. Most of them never did get found out. The whole game was to help each other, the other members of their own private little club, I mean. What I'm saying is that with in-groups like these looking out for each other inside the big Annapolis in-group, how can Keith ever make out when he's not in any of the groups at all?”

“Look, Peggy, if you want Keith to retire from the Navy, that's your business. Yours and Keith's. I can't help, either way.” Laura's impatience showed in her voice and manner. It must have given Peggy exactly the opening she had been waiting for.

“Joan. Joan Lastrada. She helped Rich. Didn't she, Laura? He knew her pretty well during the war, you know. She was in some kind of intelligence work then. Now she's with Admiral Brighting. Didn't Rich tell you he'd seen her there?” There was a silence in Laura's mind, a blockage in the conversation process. There was a full tick in time before the words fell into place and conscious reaction was possible.

Peggy's large, innocent eyes were turned full on. Laura saw the pupils dilate. There was the breath of unknown danger. Fight for control. Show nothing. Keep her own pupils from dilating. Another tick and tock of time. “Oh, sure. Joan was a wartime romance of Rich's, before we were married, but of course I've never asked about her. He'd lost sight of her entirely, and then she turned up in Brighting's office. But why bring her up? She can't help Keith with this problem.”

“No, but you could. That's what I mean.” There was something furtive, veiled, in Peggy's expression. Her eyes were hidden now, her hands—the manicured fingers suddenly
resembled red talons; perhaps she was pressing them together with greater than usual force—clenched together in her lap.

Danger. Treacherous path ahead. Caution flags flying. Forget what you'd decided to say. Don't make any positive statements. Ask questions. At least, asking a question doesn't commit anything. “What do you mean, Peggy?” Smooth, that's it. Stay cool. This is a fencing match.

“It's just—you know—he thinks so much of Rich. I'm sure the only reason he's still in the Navy today is because of Rich. He wants to be like him. Probably he wants me to be like you, too, though he's not said so.”

“I've already told you how much Rich thinks of Keith. But what does this have to do with me?” Laura was genuinely puzzled.

“Maybe Rich could talk to Keith when he comes back from this trip and explain how the Navy really works. Keith will believe it, then. He'll have his twenty years this month. He should retire while he's still young.” Peggy's eyes were lifted, bored into Laura's. “We women have to stick together,” she almost whispered.

The words were distinct, and they were said with deliberation. Suddenly Laura realized she knew nothing whatsoever about the mind behind Peggy's too smooth face and studied demeanor. Peggy had controlled the conversation, driven it in the direction she wanted, and there was a clear hint of some kind of a threat behind her sudden words. Why had she brought up Joan so unexpectedly?

Laura had never told Rich how much she really knew, how well she actually understood the forces driving Joan, Rich and Jim Bledsoe, her first husband, during those tense war years. He had never discussed that phase of it, had never mentioned Joan. It was one of those basic understandings between men and women that have existed since the beginning. Intuitively, Laura knew his reticence was at least partly because of Jim, just as hers was. She would never forget how hard it had been to keep silent after that busybody wife of a senior officer, shortly after she and Rich had been married, told her that Joan had been involved with both of them.

Thankfully, she had managed it, and Rich had never suspected.
Then, a few years later, she had got on a train alone in New Haven and found herself by chance sitting alongside Joan, of all people. There had been some strangeness at first, but that passed, and Laura evermore treasured that fortuitous, completely private, encounter. Years, prejudices and misconceptions had fallen away, and although their paths had not crossed again, she knew it sufficed for both of them for all time.

Not so with Peggy Leone. More properly, just the reverse. Something was wrong with her, with her thinking. Laura was secure with Rich, had always been. Why had Peggy brought up Joan? What lay behind her strange words about women sticking together? How much did she know or imagine of Joan's wartime romance with Rich? Did she know there had also been an affair with Jim? What was she saying now?

“. . . thought a lot of Captain Blunt to name his son after him—why do some people say it's because of his guilty conscience? I don't see anything for Rich to feel guilty about. People ought to be forgetting those old rumors after all these years. . . .”

Something congealed within Laura. “What are you talking about, Peggy?” Her voice was deeper than usual, nearly throaty. Of course she had heard the rumors about Blunt's death aboard the
Eel
. There were always rumors when something unusual happened to people. Blunt had been Rich's idol as a young naval officer. During Rich's first years of submarine service in the
Octopus
, then later when Rich commanded the
S-16
and the
Walrus
, and finally when he was given the
Eel
, Blunt had been strongly supportive. Rich had told her all about it. Then, during the latter stages of the war, Blunt had inexplicably changed. He had behaved irrationally, endangered the
Eel
during a near disastrous depth charging, had hurt his neck and then had suddenly died while inactively sitting in the wardroom during a furiously fought surface gun action. The
Eel
had brought his body back to Pearl Harbor, and the autopsy disclosed a brain tumor, aggravated by the injury and the stress of combat. The neck injury itself had been ruled out as the proximate cause of death, but there were those who said the Navy might have been covering up the true cause. Someone aboard the
Eel
might have done something to him during that terrible depth charging. Perhaps even Rich.

“Of course, I don't believe a word of it, Laura. Nobody could who knows Rich even a little bit. But I thought you ought to know what they're saying. . . .” Peggy's voice was pitched low, barely audible. “Most people won't tell you this sort of thing,” she said. “That's why a good friend . . . that's why I felt I had to . . .” again she let her voice trail off.

Beware the bearer of evil rumor under the guise of friendship! There lies the quicksand! Peggy herself might have revived that old story. But why? What does she want? If she wants my help in her campaign to get Keith out of the Navy, this is not the way to go about it. I'll not help her after this. All I want is just to get her out of here. Far away from here. Maybe that's it. Get her out of New London, out of the Navy, that is, and Keith too, of course. But that's stupid. She's a stupid woman. This conversation is insane. Maybe she's not right in the head. I'm the wife of her husband's senior officer. I don't have to listen to this drivel. Especially day after day, as I have. How to turn her around without activating her implicit threat? How to stop her without risking the intensification of rumor, the spreading, even the creation, of destructive, titillating gossip? Can she have the slightest idea of how harmful this could be to Rich, at this time of all times, with an admiral's selection board in the offing?

She must. Obviously, she must. This must be her game. But it won't hurt much if it comes only from Peggy. More people than I must know her for what she's turned out to be. Cool head. Don't show that it stings. Play it down. Don't let her see how she has suddenly scared you. Don't give her anything she can use. What to say?

“Don't worry yourself about any of that idle talk, Peggy. Rich and I have heard it all, and so has the rest of the Navy. It doesn't amount to anything. Commodore Blunt's death” (for some obscure reason she felt his title should be attached to his name) “grieved Rich deeply. That's why he decided to bring him back to Pearl instead of burying him at sea the usual way.” That's enough. Now get off the subject. “And don't concern yourself about Joan Lastrada, either. She's a fine person, and a good friend of both of ours.” Enough of that subject, too. There's sufficient truth in what she knows or guesses to keep the gossip mills grinding endlessly. Even Rich doesn't know what I know,
and I may never tell him. “But I can't influence Rich's official Navy actions, about Keith or anything else. He wouldn't let me if I tried. What Keith does is only his business, and yours, of course.” Best hand her this placebo. “He'll have plenty of chances to talk all this over with Rich if he wants to after the
Cushing
gets back from this trip. Keith will have to bring it up, though. Rich sure won't. He feels very strongly about this sort of thing. If Keith wants to talk about it, he'll tell him the very best he knows and thinks. But it will be up to Keith.”