By The Sea, Book Three: Laura (4 page)

"Enough for you to stop your caterwauling
about money," he said, returning her tone.

She dragged the brush over her hair more
vigorously. "I have not been caterwauling."

"You could've fooled me." He sat down
heavily in an oak armchair and began pulling off his shoes.

Suddenly she exploded, unable to hide her
feelings after all. "I resent this!" she cried in injured,
Midwestern tones. You make it sound as if all I care about is
money!"

He looked at her, a little bleary-eyed.
"Ain't it?"

"No, it
ain't,"
she said, spitting
the despised word back in his face. "I care about our son."

"And I don't?"

"I don't see how. You encourage him to be
reckless and to flaunt the law—look how you were about the
yawl-boat. You don't care if he can read or write—you tease him
when I'm giving him his lessons. You think it's cute when he tries
to imitate your foul language—"

Here Sam objected, but Laura interrupted
him. "Oh, don't deny it. I've seen you chide him for swearing, then
turn around and exchange grins with your brother. What you want is
a chip off the old block, and if it weren't for me that's exactly
what you'd get: an illiterate, ill-mannered, brazen little
hellion."

"Whereas
with
you," he drawled, "what
I'll be getting is a little wimp of a boy who's afraid to box his
own shadow. How dandy."

In a tone of deadly reflection Laura said,
"Naturally I can see where you'd begrudge someone who can write his
name without having to think about it first."

Sam winced, as if he'd grabbed a rose by its
thorns, and replied, "Tragic, ain't it? You ran away from farmers
that was beneath you, only to end up with a seaman what's equally
so."

Laura pulled her hair back, binding it with
a ribbon. "None of that is true, and you know it," she said without
looking at him. You're ... fine the way you are, but I want more
for Neil." She gave her husband a pleading look. "Don't you see,
Sam? Neil is so bright, so eager to learn, so—oh, never mind," she
said, embarrassed and suddenly tired of it all. "You're too drunk
to understand me."

"No, ma'am, I am not."

Sam had the ability to will himself into a
sober state. The effort cost him, of course; it made him
belligerent. "I know what you're getting at," he said in a low and
dangerous voice, just like I know why you married me. I was your
ticket out of the cornfields, and I could give you a son. You
wanted adventure, and that's what you got. You needed a child; you
got that too. But there's one other thing you want
and
need,
and I know—I always know—what it is."

When she didn't reply, he deliberately
unzipped his pants and let them drop to the floor. It was not easy
for a man to hold onto his dignity in the act of untrousering; Sam
Powers managed to project not only dignity, but erotic menace as
well. He was not a subtle man. The look he gave Laura was almost a
carbon copy of the one he'd burned into her on the docks of New
York nine years before. The lines had deepened in his sun-bronzed
face, but his eyes blazed with the same primal confidence as they
had on the day they met. That was what she could not defeat in him;
it was his essential strength.

And she was not sure, after all, whether she
could bear to see that strength diminished. Sam was right. He knew
what she wanted and needed—never so much as now. Why else would her
heart be pounding in her breast like a kettledrum, her cheeks
flushing and tingling like a virgin's? When they fought, they made
love: it was as simple as that. It had got to the point lately
where she thought they fought in order to make love; the marital
bond was not enough to motivate them. Sometimes she hated herself
for letting herself be goaded into sex; sometimes she didn't.

Tonight she didn't. Whether it was the
sultry night air, or the full moon, or her husband's intense
satisfaction at being invited to sail with the best in the world,
or just simple biological need (she was "due" in a couple of days),
they made love with an urgency that rocked them both. Laura stifled
her cries, half in pain, while Sam drove into her again and again,
until he collapsed on her breast with a shuddering moan that tore
at her soul.

Sam reported for duty to Commodore
Vanderbilt and the
Rainbow
group on the next day, and Laura
went aft to their cabin and cried. She wasn't sure why, exactly,
but she remained there, subdued and downhearted, for the next three
hours as she worked her way through a pile of mending. She was
disappointed at having to stay trapped in one harbor for so long,
of course. And she was wistfully envious of the compliment to her
husband's skills as a mechanic and a seaman.

She lived in a man's world, and in a general
way she was frustrated by her inability to control the direction of
her life. And Neil's life too: Laura was beginning to feel strongly
that he should be in school with other boys his age

But there was something else: she was
ashamed of her attraction to a man so carnal.

What they had done the day before struck her
as almost coarse. She had felt enslaved during the actual sex, but
since then she'd been filled with regret. Where was the love? The
deep affection between a man and his wife approaching a decade
together? What they shared wasn't even passion; it was simple,
animal need.

I'm becoming like him,
she realized.
Crude, unimaginative, plodding. He'll never change—never aspire.
He mocks my education, won't let me read aloud to him, and the only
time he pays attention to his appearance is when he's stepping out
with his pals for the evening.

She sighed again and surveyed her own
carelessly thrown-on clothing: a heavy serge skirt and a man's
shirt, loose-cut and good for climbing, rowing, and all the other
brawny movements that were part of living aboard a boat. When she
was twenty it gave her a thrill to flaunt convention by wearing
practical rather than pretty clothes. But now she saw her style of
dress as yet more evidence that her brain was turning into
porridge
.

I haven't pulled him up
, she
realized, dejected.
He's pulled me down.

She'd been on the water for eight years now,
and the last four of them had been full of drudgery. They hadn't
traveled as far as she'd hoped; the last winter had been crushingly
severe; and Neil was becoming more unhappy every day. The boat was
an endless circuit of sanding, scrubbing, caulking and—when they
could afford it—painting. A coastal schooner was the most
unprofitable way imaginable to move cargo, and for years there had
been little cargo to move.

Where had the dream gone?

****

"Good news," said Sam at supper on board the
Virginia
as he flattened a baked potato on his plate with
the palm of his hand. "We can tie up the
Virginia
to a dock
for the next few weeks; you won't have to be coming and going in
the yawl-boat. I expect you'll like that," he added.

Laura picked up his napkin and handed it to
him.

"I see it, girl," he said, annoyed.

Billy and Neil exchanged smiles; it was back
to normal at the supper table.

"The dockage is free, of course," Sam
continued, slathering his potato with oleomargarine.

"How did you manage that?" asked Laura.

He shrugged. "One of the
Rainbow
crew
knows someone who knows someone. We'll move the
Virginia
tomorrow morning before the wind comes up. You'll have to keep an
eye on her, though; put out a breast hook if it blows from the
north. I don't want her bashing up against the dock."

"Good Lord, Sam, you act as if I don't own
half interest in the
Virginia.
I'm not a hired hand, you
know," she said, smiling because they'd been kept apart for a week
while he trained, and she did miss him.

"That's as may be. Just keep a weather eye,
is all I say. I'll be out on the Sound, practicin'. It's not as
though I can excuse myself from the company and fly back under my
own wings to help you."

When they were first married Sam and Laura
used to joke about the
Virginia
as if she were a well-loved
but troublesome offspring who had to be watched every minute. Later
Laura's maternal instincts became naturally centered on her son,
and she came to regard the boat as simply a constant source of
worry. But Sam's tender attitude toward the
Virginia
had not
changed. To him the schooner would forever be a lovely, strong, but
rather dim-witted child. Laura was often jealous of the boat,
sometimes for her own account, sometimes for Neil's.

But Laura was nothing if she was not
diligent. "That boat is as safe with me as if it were an uncut
diamond locked in a bank vault," she said with her chin set.

"It's true, Dad," chimed in Neil. "Billy
says Mama's practically as strong as he is and a lot smarter about
the boat, don't you, Bill?"

Billy, blond and gentle, nodded vigorously
and added, "I ain't the only one. Ask anyone on Long Wharf.
Everyone knows about Laura."

Laura colored and said, "I guess you mean
that as a compliment. Now—if you boys have had your fill of
America's Cup gossip and can stop talking nonsense, maybe you'll
take the time to listen: isn't that a school of snappers I hear
circling the
Virginia?"

Neil's eyes opened wide. "By gosh, it is!
Get our poles, Bill! I'll bring my dory around!" Neil made a dash
for the companionway while his boy-uncle charged forward toward the
forecastle.

An amiable reflective silence followed. Then
Laura laid her knife and fork across her empty plate as if she were
dining at the Ritz—as if she would not be pumping saltwater shortly
from a leaky hand pump in the galley to wash the dishes with—and
said in a soft voice, "It's warm tonight. Why don't we have our
coffee on the quarter-deck?"

"Ay," said Sam, instantly responding to the
invitation in her voice. "And bring what's left of the brandy. A
bit of a celebration is in order, I'd say."

They settled in on the starboard side of the
wheel, Sam with his arm around his wife. "Pretty frock," he said in
a quiet voice. "New?"

"For me, anyway," Laura answered. She'd
found the dress, a cool cotton summer print, in a second-hand shop
on Broadway. She stuck out one leg in front of her. "Like my
sandals? On sale, forty-nine cents."

"Hmn, not the most practical footwear. So
what ye you been up to, girl, besides spending my money? You well
know what
I've
been at—pushups and sail practice. Damn if
them fellers don't know how to take all the fun out of sailing. I
never figured it'd be like this, somehow."

"Like what?"

"Like—work. You sign up figurin' to go
racing in one of the biggest, fastest boats in the world, and it
ends up you feel damn near like you're workin' in a ditch. Same
damn thing every damn day: changing jibs, setting spinnakers,
tacking and jibing, round and round and round the same buoys.
'Course, the money's good, and the crew are good Maine men. No
doubt things will turn exciting when the final trial races begin on
the twenty-second; it should be hot and heavy between us and
Yankee
over who gets to defend the Cup. But for now—well,
there's not enough romance in it."

"Romance!" cried Laura, amused. "Since when
do you care about romance? I suppose there's more romance in
hauling freight?

He buried his face in the curve of her
shoulder. "I'd say so," he said, nuzzling her. "For one thing, it's
your own boat. You're lord of the sea—until she decides to kick
your ass, leastways. No meshing gears with a couple dozen men—is
that new perfume? What was I sayin'? Ayuh. Romance ... there's lots
of it on the
Virginia ...."

In the deepening twilight he kissed her, a
kiss rich with yearning and simple desire. Laura was young, a
woman, with needs of her own; she could not resist. He expected her
not to resist.

Still, she went through the motions. When he
said, "Let's go below," she answered faintly, "The boys will be
back any time .... How will it look?"

"They know better than to knock on our door.
And I don't give a damned hoot, anyway. You're my wife," he said,
kissing the little hollow at the base of her throat.

"Neil's at an impressionable age ... he'll
be embarrassed ... everything embarrasses him nowadays ...."

"Long as he don't walk in on us, he'll be
fine. My folks used a blanket for a wall ... didn't bother me none
...."

Laura resisted a little while longer, afraid
of herself, afraid for Neil, but Sam pressed and finally they went
below. When they made love it was not with the abandon of the week
earlier; Laura was far too much on her guard. Sam, too, seemed a
little restrained. Afterward he told her that they would have to
get to know one another all over again.

"Every week it'll be like starting over. I
reckon it'll keep the marriage fresh," he said contentedly, folding
his arms behind his head as he lay on his back, stretched out and
relaxed.

Laura was already scrambling for her
clothes, afraid that Neil might arrive. "Are you just going to lie
there naked?" she said, wondering. "You know Neil will want to show
off his catch."

"I can see fine without pants," Sam said
amiably.

"You're hopeless!" she said. "You have
absolutely no natural modesty."

"Modesty ain't natural."

She scooped up his trousers and tossed them
over his crotch. "If I have to dress you like a baby, I will," she
threatened.

"Geezuz, girl, you never let up. It's like
you're in your change of life."

"I feel as if we're all in a change of life.
Neil will never be a baby again, and I'll never be naive, and even
you—well,
you.
Who can say about you?" she asked with a
smile of good-natured exasperation.