The Future Homemakers of America

12

We found a back road with tarmac for Kath’s first lesson.

I said, ‘Now. Hold the gas pedal right there and listen to the engine. Bring your shift pedal up real slow, and keep listening, till you hear the sound changing, then just hold it there. You feel how it’s ready to move? Y’understand what I mean? Okay, let’s roll. Gently now. Just give the gas pedal a gentle squeeze.’

I gave her an hour and she was away.

Kath Pharaoh was a natural-born driver. I’d taught a few. My big sister, Connie, didn’t know her right from her left; and a girl on the base at Carswell, a New York City girl, never used anything but the subway, suddenly found herself with the whole of Texas outside her door. But I never seen anybody take to it like Kath. I just hoped she wouldn’t ask me to teach John too. There was something about that smile of his gave me the creeps. Sometimes when I went to pick her up he’d be round the side, skinning a rabbit or fixing up his traps. He’d smile and smile, like he was real excited to see visitors, specially if Gayle had come along for the ride. She was a pretty little thing and he’d keep sneaking a look at her.

All through the spring of ‘52 I saw Kath twice a week at least and she’d drive me around. She was so thrilled, specially when any of those Jexes and Gotobeds’d seen her. She’d give them some regal kinda wave, and then she’d turn and give me her new Pepsodent grin. One time, when it came on to rain, we stopped and picked up a woman trudging along with heavy bags.

‘Look at poor old Annie gitting drenched,’ Kath said. ‘Can we give her a ride?’

It was a proud moment for her, leaning out of her window, shouting, ‘Jump in the back, Annie, and I’ll drop you near your door.’

She climbed in and perched there, steaming, like a wet dog.

Kath said, ‘You all right there, Annie? Soon have you home. Once you can drive a motor, you wonder how you ever went on without it.’

Not that our passenger had asked. She didn’t say a word, and when Kath stopped, outside one of those crouched-down houses, she just got out and went. Never a goodbye or a thank-you.

I said, ‘Who’d you say she was?’

‘Annie,’ she said. ‘She was Annie Jex, then she married Harold Howgego. Their boy Colin was took prisoner in the last lot; Japs got him. You should have seen him when they sent him home. I’ve seen more flesh on a sparrow. Now, he married a girl from Lynn, and her mother was a Jex, only not the same lot, of course. Annie was one of the Waplode Jexes, and her mother was a Pargeter.’

She killed me, reeling them off. I said, ‘I think you just invent these names.’

‘Why?’ she said. ‘Don’t your lot have Howgegos? I didn’t think there was anything you didn’t have.’

‘Howgegos!’ I said ‘What kind of name is that, anyway? I think you lie in bed at night and dream them up.’

She laughed. ‘No I don’t,’ she said. ‘But I have thought up what name I’d have if I was to be a film star. I’d be Loretta. Loretta Jayne-with-a-Y Pharaoh.’

Kath always put me in a good mood. Didn’t matter how much it blew or rained or if I couldn’t make it, after I’d promised we’d go driving, I never heard a word of discontent from her. It was like having a puppy-dog around, always wagging its tail. She was just as happy to come out to play or curl up in her basket and wait.

I said, ‘Okay, Loretta Jayne, are you gonna turn this car round nice and neat? Can you do it in three?’

‘Piece of cake.’

I said, ‘You think you’ll ever get your own wheels?’

‘When we come up on the Treble Chance,’ she said. ‘First thing I’d do is get the electric light brought in. If we had the electric light, I could see to do a bit of sewing. Then I’d buy a motor and a new wringer. And I’d pay you back, for all your juice I’ve been using up. I’d come to America and take you out for a slap-up tea.’

13

None of us had been seeing much of Lois, apart from Betty, who had near enough adopted little Sandie.

‘Lois is a restless soul,’ Betty said to us one time. ‘She’s one of those girls derives no pleasure from a shelf of home-made preserves or a stack of nice ironed sheets, so she may as well go out and commune with nature…’

Audrey spluttered her coffee all over us. ‘Commune with nature? That’s a ten-dollar word for anything Lois might get up to.’

Betty turned pink.

‘I don’t care what she does,’ she said. ‘Point I’m making is, she’s a girl who can’t be cooped up inside four walls. You know what she’s like when she gets a mood on her. If I can babysit I’m probably sparing the poor child getting the rough side of her tongue. Heck, Sandie toddles around after me, got her own little duster and pan, just like Deana used to do. She’s no trouble at all.’

I walked with Audrey to the PX.

I said, ‘You have any idea what Lois is up to? Driving off the base all the time.’ She sure seemed to have got over her fear of getting scalped out there.

‘Don’t ask,’ she said. ‘Don’t tempt me. The germ of gossip may be likened unto a cancer. Gospel according to the CO’s wife, Chapter One, Verse One. All I’ll say is, I never would have taken Lois Moon for such a outdoors kind of girl. Kath ever say anything to you?’

I said, ‘Such as?’

‘’Bout Lois up there visiting all the time?’

Far as I could make out, it was just speculation. I was with the CO’s wife all the way on the dangers of idle talk. Made no sense to me, what a girl like Lois’d be doing with a eel-trapper always looked like he’d got a dirty secret, the way he smiled, always fiddling with his fingers and pacing around. I wasn’t convinced John Pharaoh was playing with a full deck of cards. Still, I was afraid for Kath. She was such a trusting soul. And I was missing Lois, too. We never hung out any more. Never had any laughs. When friend husband is gone for days on end, you need somebody, help you take up the slack.

Audrey was at the Wives’ Club all hours. She loved bridge afternoons and setting up rosters for Red Cross Clothes Closet, and all that stuff. She was always on Gayle’s case to get involved. Said if she wanted Okey to get ahead she had to be seen playing her part too. But Gayle hated the Club. The one time she tried it she was taken to one side and told officers wives don’t chew gum. She never went back.

There couldn’t have been two girls less suited to be neighbours than Audrey and Gayle. And when Benedetto died of his injuries, they had a real ruckus. Gayle said it was plain cruel, the way his widow got three weeks’ notice to clear the post.

Audrey said, ‘Oh, Gayle, grow up why don’t you? You know how many E-5s are waiting to get on base? You can’t have the DW of a deceased sitting around, occupying quarters. Hell, she’s not even military any more.’

For a whole week they managed not to speak to each other, even though their houses were joined together. Then just when I hoped the Easter Bunny might deliver a little love and forgiveness, Carol Benedetto hanged herself. They found her in her quarters. The place was all scrubbed out and shipshape ready for the final inspection. Just scuff marks on the wall where her feet had scrabbled, at the end. When Gayle heard, she went on a bender. I found her down in her broke-back cottage, still in her robe, and I’d say she’d been drinking all morning.

‘I want to go home,’ she said. ‘I wanna go home, see my kid brothers. Get a little house in Boomer. I want Okey. Can you get Okey for me?’

But Okey was at the pad, and when a man’s standing the alert, he can’t be reached, don’t matter if the sky fell in. I put her to bed and as soon as she was asleep I went round to ask Lois to sit with her, while I put Vern’s shirts through the washer. Course, Lois wasn’t home. Good old Herb was there, feeding Sandie on grilled cheese.

‘Hey, c’mon in,’ he said. ‘See what I’m making for her birthday.’

He was carving a long piece of wood. ‘See?’ he said. ‘It’s a African geeraffe. She always loved them dopey-looking creatures. What’you think?’

I guess when he stood it up it did have a kinda animal shape to it.

I said, ‘She’ll be thrilled, Herb. You happen to know what time she’ll be home?’

‘Couldn’t say,’ he said. ‘She likes to drive around some when I’m here to watch Sandie. Get out and about, looking for wishing-wells and newborn lambs and stuff.’

Sandie’d finished her sandwich and was starting on the wood chippings so I left Herb to clean up.

‘Peggy,’ he called after me. ‘Don’t forget now. The geeraffe is a secret.’

14

Audrey and Betty were just coming out from the OWC. They’d been helping set up an Easter candy trail for the kids.

‘Time for a truce, Aud,’ I said. ‘This Benedetto business has hit Gayle real hard. I’m afraid she’s cracking up.’

Betty said, ‘I have a good nourishing soup at home. I’ll go fetch some. That girl needs a mother.’

Audrey said, ‘Yeah, and I’ll come straight down, see Gayle. Maybe I was a little hard on her. You didn’t tell anybody else?’

I said, ‘Tell anybody else what?’

She lowered her voice. ‘Why, that she’s drinking, of course. What we have here is a damage-limitation situation. Wife starts to run off the rails, there goes a man’s career and Okey’s good troop.’

Seemed to me the main thing was to make sure Gayle didn’t come to any harm.

‘Well,’ I said, ‘while we’re on the subject of problem wives, Lois is out on the loose again. Herb’s home playing Mr Mom.’

‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘I’ve been thinking about that too.’

Gayle was still on the bed, where I’d left her. Audrey climbed in beside her, gave her a hug.

‘Baby,’ she said, ‘I’m sorry I yelled at you. Can we make up? Be friends as well as neighbours?’

Gayle didn’t look too good. Far as she was concerned I think the room was still spinning.

‘Now listen,’ Audrey said. ‘I understand how you’re feeling. I mean, it’s a real tragedy about Carol Benedetto, but you know, maybe she would have done it wherever she was. Or maybe they should have sent her home sooner than three weeks. You ever think of that? Maybe the military has got it right, forcing people to pick theirselves up and get on with the rest of their lives. Hm? And as for us, we’re wives of the 96th. Whatever turns up we got to do our bit, keep the military machine humming ’cause those Soviets sure aren’t gonna give us any compassionate leave.’

Gayle just lay there listening.

‘Now, you take my advice,’ Aud said, ‘you’ll close your eyes and play possum, ’cause Betty just pulled upside with a thermos of that ham-bone soup of hers.’

That raised a groggy smile.

We left Betty coaxing spoonfuls of broth into her.

I said, ‘She’ll be okay.’

Audrey said, ‘She better be. Now. You wanna try and do something about the Lois situation?’

We went in her car.

She said, ‘I couldn’t give a damn about Lois, you understand? But if Kath Pharaoh finds out, she could make waves. It could get back to the CO, and we don’t want that kind of trouble in the squadron.’

I said, ‘It’s Herb I feel sorry for.’

‘Him too,’ she said. ‘You think you’d be able to keep Kath under control, if it came to it?’

I said, ‘Me?’

‘Well, she’s your friend,’ she said. ‘You think you could keep her quiet?’

I said, ‘Somebody set their cap at your Lance, would you keep quiet?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘And so would you. We have our careers to think of.’

First I knew I had a career.

She said, ‘You think she meets him at his house? I don’t think so. What if Kath came home?’

Just beyond the railroad crossing there was an old piece of hardstand, used to have a gas pump on it. She parked there.

‘Let’s walk a little,’ she said.

So we walked where a path was worn, along a ridge, up above the fields. The sun was shining. There was a warm breeze just riffling through the grass and not a sound except for birds singing.

‘There’s a lapwing,’ she said. ‘Hear him? Pee-wit, pee-wit.’

I said, ‘Do we have a plan?’

‘Well,’ she said, ‘let’s see if we can see her car.’

‘And then what?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I’d just like her to know we’ve had her in our sights. Give her a jolt. Then maybe she’ll come to her senses. Quit running around. I don’t see what else we can do, short of getting her seen to by a veterinarian.’

‘Okay,’ I said, ‘and how do we happen to be walking out here ourselves? We sure as hell can’t say we’re on our way someplace.’

‘We’re getting a breath of spring air, Peggy,’ she said. ‘We’re communing with nature. Oh look. Stop. Don’t move. See what I see? In the field? Way over, nearly in the middle?’

They were up on their hind legs, ears pricked, slugging it out like prize-fighters.

I said, ‘Jeez, I never seen conies that size before. I didn’t think they had anything in this place bigger’n we’ve got back home.’

‘They’re not conies,’ she said. ‘They’re jack hares, and they’re boxing. That’s what they do in the spring. It’s a sign the sap is well and truly rising.’

At the end of the ridge we could see across to Blackdyke Drove. No sign of anybody at Kath’s. I knew for a fact she was beet-hoeing.

Aud said, ‘Let’s go as far as the willows over there. They run right down to the water. She could be there. Getting a lesson on eels.’

We carried on along the track. Every step I took, I wished more and more I’d minded my own business. I was feeling like a guilty party myself, sneaking around, trying to catch a person doing wrong. I never noticed the tyre marks. I think Audrey did though. I seem to remember she suddenly picked up the pace.

We were right past the old tractor shed before I saw the trunk of Lo’s old Chevy poking out. Then there was John Pharaoh, staring right at us outta the rear windowshield, but not really seeing us, his being otherwise engaged. Me and Audrey were rooted to the spot. Then he must have said something ’cause the door opened and Lois scrambled out with her nylons round her ankles. Her hair was all mussed up too. She was trying to push it out of her eyes.

I turned and ran. But Audrey stood her ground. Then I heard Lois start up. ‘What the hell is your game?’ she yelled.

‘What’s our game?’ Audrey shouted back. ‘Well, that’s pretty rich!’

‘Can’t keep your long nose outta anything, can you, Rudman? Tell you what, you are a sick woman. And you…’ That was me. ‘…I never took you for a snoop. I thought you were my friend.’

I kept running. Audrey walked back in her own good time.

We had to clean the earth off our sneakers before we could get back into the car. I didn’t feel too good.

I said, ‘Jeez, Aud, now I wish we never had gone.’

‘Me too,’ she said. ‘It’s made me feel horny as hell, and Lance is standing the duty the next three nights. Still, mission accomplished. We marked her card. Saved the honour of the squadron.’

15

‘Fuck the squadron,’ Lois said. Using a word like that in front of her child. I had gone round to see her. Try to explain things, mend a few fences, but she wasn’t ready yet.

Saturday I picked Kath up and we drove to Downham. They had a cute little market there, sold eggs and stuff, laid out on tables under canvas canopies. Potatoes covered in dirt and all kinds of rabbit-food greenery. I wouldn’t have touched any of it for fear of disease, but it was fun to go look.

Kath said, ‘You’re quiet, Peg. You all right?’

I said, ‘I’m okay. Things on my mind.’

‘Have you?’ she said.

She was buying something called roe. It comes from a fish. There were seabirds sitting in a line along a roof. ‘Look at that,’ she said. ‘Must be bad weather coming in. You sure you don’t want any roe? That’s smashing on a bit of buttered toast.’

We walked on.

I said, ‘Friend of mine has been playing around. You know what I mean? Married woman. And I don’t want to see her go ruin her life.’

‘Well,’ she said, ‘I don’t see what you can do. I think I’ll get a bit of celery while I’m here.’

I said, ‘Her husband ever finds out, or the other wife, I don’t like to think. If I had that done to me, Vern ever played away, I’d kill him.’

‘But that’s different with men,’ she said. ‘That’s in their nature. They can’t hardly stop theirselves, what I’ve seen of it. That’s like trying to keep a tomcat from straying.’

I said, ‘Like hell it’s different. A man stands up and makes his vows, he oughta keep to them.’

My heart was pounding.

She said, ‘I agree. But how do you get them to do it? That’s the question. You can’t be watching them every minute.’

I was lost for words.

‘I tell you what,’ she said. ‘I always say to John Pharaoh, “Be good, and if you can’t be good, be careful. You bring trouble to my door, I shall get you spayded. Then you’ll be sorry.” Oh, there’s May Gotobed. Can we give her a ride home?’

I reported to Audrey, soon as I could.

I said, ‘I am in shock. I’m sure Kath don’t know what’s been going on, but then, I’m not sure how much she’d care, if she found out. She has some highly unusual ideas about husbands, I must say.’

‘Mm,’ Audrey said. ‘So we keep Lois under surveillance. And when she’s had time to cool down, I think I’ll make a gesture of reconciliation. I think I’ll invite her to join the Reading Circle I’m starting up. First book we’re gonna read is The Good Earth.

I said, ‘Yeah. I’m sure Lois wouldn’t miss that for the world.’

16

A letter come from Mom Dewey. Crystal’d had her picture took at school, looked real cute, so of course I’d sent one to his folks and one to mine.

‘Dear Vern’, she wrote,

I put Crystal on the ledge in the front kitchen, pride of place, and everybody that has seen her has remarked what a angelic face she has, spitting image of yourself aged five. We have had our troubles, your father brought in some grade ewes and some wethers, Romneys and Blue Faces, five got loose, got pasture bloat so bad they were goners, another one swallowed a French letter, excuse my language, and I’d sure like to know how one of them things got on Bolster Graze. If there’s a way to die young, you can depend on a sheep to find it. Good money thrown after bad. I had my way we’d sell up, open a yarn store in Skowhegan. Norton Beebe, you’ll remember Norton, pumped gas down in Palmyra, had a sister with a withered leg, he got killed out in Korea, he was in the infantry, National Guard, darned if I understand what this war is all about. I just give thanks that you’re not out there, risking your neck. Best regards to your wife. Your loving mother, Clementine Dewey.