Deception and Desire (55 page)

‘I know where you come from, boy – Mill Street. And I don't want the likes of you hanging around my daughter. Understand?'

‘No, sir, I don't understand,' Steve said. ‘ I come from Mill Street, sure, but I don't see …'

‘Do I have to spell it out for you? This is a decent neighbourhood. We're decent folk. Lisa-Marie has been brought up right. I won't see her waste herself on the likes of you.'

Steve's blood was boiling now. He was so angry, so insulted, he wanted to sock the bank teller on the jaw.

‘You always choose your daughter's friends?' he asked. ‘ What about Lisa? Don't she get no say?'

The bank teller's face worked furiously.

‘Don't you talk back at me, son. If I tell you to keep away from Lisa, you'll damned well do it. And she'll keep away from you. I won't have my daughter mixing with poor white trash. So, there won't be any more sneaking off to the lake – understand? She'll spend the rest of the vacation with friends her own class.'

Steve stood his ground. ‘I want to see Lisa.'

‘No way. And I tell you something else, boy. I know what your sort are. One-track minds – and not in your head, either. If you've laid one finger on my Lisa-Marie, or even tried to, I'll have the law on you. Now – get!'

Steve went. The bank teller's last remark had been too close to home for comfort. He could feel the hot flush of anger turning to guilt, feel it colouring up into the roots of his hair. As he turned away he saw the curtains at the front window of the house move. He did not know if it was Lisa-Marie or her mother and he did not want to know. The packet of French letters with two missing seemed to be burning a hole in his pocket. He was fifteen years old and he felt about five, the way he'd used to feel when he'd been caught stealing apples. Except that then it had only been fear, fear of authority, fear of punishment, fear of a beating from his father's belt, and now it was also guilt – and shame.

He knew why Lisa-Marie's father had come down so hard on him and it had nothing to do with the fact that he had been alone with her for most of the week. The man might not have thought twice about that if he had considered Steve more suitable as a boyfriend for his daughter; he might have been concerned about what they had been up to, but not nearly as concerned as he was now. He might have insisted they stay with the group, not go off on their own, but he would not have banned him from seeing her altogether.

Steve burned with indignation and impotent anger. The sense of humiliation was unbelievable. Suppose Lisa-Marie should tell her father what they had done? He couldn't imagine her confessing voluntarily but perhaps the man would beat it out of her. Just because he thought he was better than the folk who lived in Mill Street didn't mean he couldn't wield a belt with the best of them. The thought of Lisa-Marie cringing and crying under the cruel bite of a strip of leather made him angry too – angry and helpless.

The day after that he went to the lake. He went alone because he was by nature a loner, though he could integrate when he had to. He had no wish to confide in any of his friends. His humiliation hurt too much and too deeply.

The crowd were at the lake and Lisa-Marie was with them. His heart began to beat very hard, a drum pounding in his throat. He went over and sat down beside her.

‘Hi, Lisa-Marie.'

She turned away, not looking at him.

‘Lisa … you all right?'

She nodded, still with her head turned away. He felt awkward, at a loss for words.

‘The other night …'

‘I'm sorry about that,' she said. Her voice was choked, her shoulders a rigid line. ‘My father can be … pretty tight when he wants to be.'

‘Yeah. He sure can.'

She turned then and her eyes were suspiciously bright.

‘Was he … real nasty?'

‘Real nasty.' He couldn't stop the indignation rising again. ‘He thinks I'm not good enough for you.'

‘Yeah.' A pause. ‘I'm not supposed to be talking to you, even.'

‘But you are. He's not going to stop us, is he, Lisa?'

‘I don't know.' She let shingle drift through her fingers. ‘He'd kill me if he knew we were together. And if he knew about …'

‘But he doesn't know?' A sharp edge of apprehension.

‘Shit, no! If he knew about that …'

‘I love you, Lisa,' he said desperately. He hadn't wanted to say it when she'd asked him to, now it came out without even thinking about it. ‘And you love me. Don't you?'

‘I guess I have to … now.'

‘And you'll still see me?'

‘I guess so, as long as we're careful.'

‘Oh sure, we'll be careful. He'll never know.'

‘OK.' But she sounded nervous, uncertain.

‘Coming for a walk?'

‘No. Not just now. I'm OK here.'

She stretched out on the shingle. He looked at her, desire mixed in with all the other emotions.

‘Tomorrow then?'

‘Maybe.'

He knew then that it was over. He did not know what the bank teller had said to Lisa but he could guess – the same sort of damning things he had said to Steve himself. Now Lisa-Marie was seeing him through her father's eyes, however hard she tried not to.

Although they were alone a few more times it was never the same. Steve didn't know which hurt most, his heart or his pride. For a while he felt as if he was hurting all over. But as the weeks became months, when the trees around the town turned from green to shades of red and gold so brightly hued and so beautiful the sight of them brought an ache to the throat, his heart began to mend and by the time they had shed their leaves altogether, stretching bare bony fingers to the slate-grey winter sky, he had begun to hate Lisa-Marie for rejecting him for what he was.

Sometimes he lay awake at nights plotting what he would like to do to the Fords to gain his revenge. He thought about pushing petrol-soaked rags through the letter box of their prissy Cape Cod-style house and setting light to them and the visions he conjured up of them standing in the garden sobbing as all their possessions went up in flames gave him a kick of sharp excitement and a glow of satisfaction. Once he went so far as to bring a can of petrol home with him from the garage, and one night when there was no moon he walked over to the house and stood at the gate, fingering the box of matches in his pocket and enjoying the feeling of power that came from knowing that he could destroy not only the house, which would probably go up like a torch, but also Lisa-Marie and her family too. But for some reason he did not do it. It wasn't that he cared if the old man burned to death, trapped in his blazing home; that, he thought carelessly, did not really bother him at all. But even hating her as he now did he found he did not want to endanger Lisa-Marie.

And there was something else. If the Fords died now it would be over, there would be no more plotting of sweet revenge – and Steve did not want it to be over. He wanted to savour it again and again. One day, his chance would come. He would get the old man for sure and through him hurt Lisa-Marie. It was a much more satisfactory solution.

But Old Man Ford's treatment of him engendered more than hatred and the desire for revenge. It also fuelled Steve's determination to break out from the strait-jacket of poverty into which he had been born. One day soon, he promised himself, he would get away from this place where he was known as the son of a mill-hand from the poorest part of town, one day soon he would have a big car and wear silk shirts and suede shoes, one day soon he would have money in his pocket, eat in the best restaurants, date the classiest women. And none of them would look down on him, no father would tell him ever again to ‘ keep away from my daughter' – at least, not for the reason old Ford had done it.

The day Steve left high school he went home and packed his belongings together in a battered hold-all. It did not take long; his belongings were so few. The next day he set out to hitchhike south. He had only a vague idea where he was going but to him the South meant prosperity as well as endless summers. He headed for Florida, taking jobs along the way to earn money to buy food and, sometimes, a room for the night.

When he hit Florida he made for the Keys, getting casual work in the holiday trade, and for a while he forgot all about his ambitions in the pursuit of pleasure. As long as he had a few bucks to jingle in the pocket of his cut-off denims money was of no importance. Living was all that mattered – and living, here in Florida, meant sun, sea and sex. Steve was tall, strongly built and handsome, he was an excellent swimmer and he had the fierce pride that made him stand so tall he was head and shoulders above the rest. The girls who came to the Keys on vacation fell over themselves for his favours and he found he had only to wink and throw out a casual invitation to obtain almost instant gratification. These were the golden eighties, President Reagan was in the White House, promising an end to the crippling conditions of the last years, the future was there for the taking and Steve grabbed his pleasure with both hands. Here it did not matter who he was, no one knew his background, or cared less. Here he could be anything, or anyone, he wanted to be.

Steve worked a little – if you could call it work. He swam and sunbathed and when darkness fell he ate and drank and fooled and made love with the latest in a line of golden girls, all leggy and suntanned in their brief bikinis, all crazy for him.

At first he was ham-fisted, lacking in finesse, but he learned fast and soon his technique matched his promise. Practice makes perfect, they say, and here in Florida he had plenty of practice.

It was not only sexual niceties that Steve learned. Most of the girls he met were from well-to-do families and Steve made sure that the ones he selected for his adventures came from that stratum of society. The girls he consorted with had fathers who owned boats and condominiums, they were businessmen and politicians who had made their money from real estate and textiles, munitions and publishing, and cut their political teeth working for state governors and congressmen. Some of them
were
state governors and congressmen! Knowing this made Steve feel good because by comparison with them old Ford was nothing but a small-town bumpkin puffed up with his own importance.

From these girls Steve learned all about social behaviour. Occasionally he made a bloomer, always quickly forgiven, but on the whole he learned quickly and easily, soaking up like a sponge the way of talking, the way of behaving, the names of drinks and exotic dishes, the way to dress when the necessity arose – and when he could afford to do it. But at the same time he retained the hard edge that came from living on the wrong side of town and an inbred streak of callousness. The combination was a lethal one – and he knew it.

The time came when Steve began to tire of his easy-going and aimless life, unbelievable though it had once seemed. One day an ocean-going yacht owned by an international tycoon berthed nearby and word went around that the master was looking to take on extra crew. Steve, having seen, and taken a fancy to, the tycoon's twenty-year-old daughter, decided to apply, and a week later when the yacht sailed Steve sailed with her.

His job was in the engine room. It was hot, sweaty work, totally lacking in glamour, but there was compensation in the shape of the tycoon's daughter, Mary Jane. She was beautiful, amusing and bored out of her mind with the clean-cut but wimpish college boys she met socially. Soon Steve was visiting her in the luxurious stateroom she referred to, rather incongruously as her ‘cabin', and if her father knew what was going on he chose to turn a blind eye.

After two months' cruising Mary Jane left the yacht to return to her studies and Steve's interest in a life at sea went with her. Perhaps it was time, he thought, to begin making some money of his own, though he did not know, as yet, how he was going to do it. He headed for New York, took a job as a bouncer, found himself an apartment, kept his ear to the ground and began making plans. He was beginning to doubt that he could make his fortune legitimately since he had no qualifications beyond his charm and his sharp wits and no money to back him, and his thoughts were turning to the rich pickings that were there to be had from a life of crime. It was then that fate took a hand.

Though he had not been back to Vermont since the day he had packed his bags and left, Steve had kept in touch with his family, and one day he received news that his mother was sick and not expected to live more than a few months. Steve went home to see her, and the squalor of his former home and the sight of his mother, worn to a pathetic shadow of skin and bone by years of hardship and neglect, reinforced his determination to make some real money and ensure that never again would he be caught in the jaws of grinding poverty.

Talking with his sister late into the night he found himself asking about the Fords. They had moved, she told him – the old man had taken promotion and was now manager of a small town branch of the bank some forty miles south. Lisa-Marie had gone with them but, she thought, had since married.

‘Imagine that old fool a bank manager!' Steve's sister said. ‘They promoted him to get rid of him, I shouldn't wonder. But he's had nothing but trouble. There've been two armed hold-ups, or so I heard. I guess any bank he's in charge of would be an easy touch.'

Steve said nothing but his mind had begun working overtime. To rob a bank was almost a cliché but there could be a lot of profit in it – enough to set him up in a nice little racket like drug-dealing – and the idea of robbing Old Man Ford was an appealing one. Steve discovered all the details he could and on his way back to New York made a detour to the small town where Ford was bank manager to check things out. He was a little wary of being seen and recognised by one of the Fords but it was a risk he was prepared to take. In the event he did not run into any of them, though he checked out not only the bank itself but also the Fords' home, for he had begun to devise a plan that amused him and went some way to satisfying his desire for revenge.