The Future Homemakers of America (11 page)

‘My word!’ Audrey said. ‘Aren't you the avenging angel? I hope you don't have any ideas about reporting this? It wouldn't look good, you know. It wouldn't look good at all.’

26

It was Lois's last day. She was all packed and ready for the transport, couldn't wait to get back to the city, even though it'd be like a hothouse. I was meant to be going over to Kath's, let her drive to Smeeth.

Betty said, ‘Lois, honey, why don't you go along for the ride? Let me have a last little time with Sandie, I'm gonna miss her so.’

I said, ‘Betty, this girl's got a long enough trip ahead of her. Why'd she want to come out driving with me?’

But it was too late. Lo had already decided she liked the idea.

When we got to Kath's, she got outta the car, rubbing her back, saying she couldn't get comfortable, didn't matter which way she sat.

‘I'll stay here, Peg,’ she said. ‘I'll wait here, till you and Kath get back. Maybe take a walk down to the eel reach. I think I just need a little exercise.’

I didn't care to think what kinda exercise she might have in mind. I just said, ‘Lois!’ Tried to give it a warning tone. I couldn't say more in front of Kath.

‘Yes, Peggy?’ she said, so insolent.

What was I supposed to do? She was a grown woman. I wasn't her keeper. Anyway, there was no sign of John Pharaoh anywhere about.

I said, ‘Well, stay here. Bring a chair out in the sunshine. And don't go wandering off near that water. You fall in, I'll have Herb to answer to.’

‘Yes, Mommy,’ she said, in a stupid baby voice.

Kath said, ‘Help yourself to a glass of pop, Lois, if you get dry. Make yourself at home.’

Kath wanted to go to Dr Lowe's surgery.

I said, ‘You feeling okay?’

‘Yes, thank you,’ she said.

We got to Smeeth, she pulled up outside a public house there, called the Flying Dutchman.

I said, ‘Where's the doctor's office?’

‘In the snug,’ she said. That was the deal in Smeeth. The doctor came once a week and hung his shingle outside the pub.

I was planning on staying in the car, reading my murder mystery.

‘No, you'll have to come in with me,’ she said. ‘I'm not sitting in an ale house on my own.’

There were three waiting ahead of Kath, two Jexes and a Gotobed, sitting in a little bar with the smell of that dark English beer. The doctor was just the other side of a partition, asking somebody to hold their breath and then let it out slow. We could hear every word that was said.

Kath said, ‘That's Thad Chaplin in there now. His mother had nine girls. Just kept on going till she got Thad. Can't think why. He's always had a bad chest.’

I kept my head in my book. I figured that was my best hope of Kath falling silent.

‘What you here for, Lilian?’ she said. But Lilian didn't seem like she wanted to tell.

‘Makes no difference,’ Kath whispered to me. ‘We shall hear soon enough.’

‘Kath,’ I said, ‘I'll be right outside when you're done.’

27

She was happy, driving home with all the windows down. The doctor had given her muscle rub for where she claimed she had a stiff neck.

‘We've got the National Health now, you know,’ she said. ‘We don't have to pay. We can be poorly as ‘often as we like now.’

I said, ‘The doctor give you anything reduce the size of your ears?’

She laughed. ‘Why,’ she said, ‘that's a good morning out. Nice little drive. Get a bit of gossip. Lilian's got trouble with her waterworks. Hilda's got ulcerated veins. I tell you what, when you go back home to Yankeeland, I shall have, to walk down there.’

The door to the house was open. It usually Was.

‘This heat,’ she said. ‘I don't know about you, but I'm parched. Come on in. I've got a bottle of dandelion-and-burdock fizzy pop or Tizer.’

Something was wrong. The oilcloth was pulled halfway off the table and the teapot and a cup lay smashed on the floor. There was no sign of Lois.

‘Now what?’ she said. ‘John Pharaoh! Now what have you gone and done? Look at my teapot. That's in pieces. Look at it, Peg. That's in smithereens. I'll have his hide.’

She must have heard something outside because she turned on her heel and pushed past me. I followed her, round the other side of the house, where he kept his traps, and there they were. Lois, with that high colour she got so easy. He had her pinned up against the back wall, looked like some kinda spear he had in his hands, evil-looking prongs on the end, pressing right up against her belly.

His head was jerking around, spittle flying outta his mouth, and Lois had her eyes closed. I believe she was preparing to meet her maker.

Kath grabbed John from behind, pulled him off balance. Then she pushed him away from Lois with the shaft of the spear.

‘Drop that now, John Pharaoh,’ she said. ‘Drop it or I'll give you what for.’ She had gotten herself between him and Lois. ‘Get her out of here,’ she said to me. ‘Now leave go of this glave, John. Leave go of it. You don't behave yourself, you'll have to be took away and locked up.’

Lois ran for the car. ‘That's right,’ Kath called after her. ‘You clear off out of here. You must have done something, get him all worked up like this.’

He'd allowed her to take the spear outta his hands, but he still had a wild-eyed look about him. I didn't want to leave her there alone with him, but I sure didn't want to stay neither.

I said, ‘Kath?’

‘Just get her out of my sight,’ she said. ‘Go on. Clear off, the both of you.’

Last thing I saw as I looked back was Kath pushing John into the house. She had the eel-glave in her hand. She looked like she was in charge. His head was down and he had a kinda defeated look about him. Except for his hands. I could see them, twitching, twitching.

I drove back to Drampton. Lois didn't speak. Neither did I. I felt sick to my heart. I didn't even look at her till we were parked outside Betty's.

‘Pair of throwbacks,’ she said. ‘My God, what a pair!’ She was pretending to laugh it off, but she was shaken, I could tell.

I said, ‘You should never have gone there. You knew he might show up.’

Crystal come running out with Deana Gillis. ‘We made a Farewell for you,’ she said to Lo. ‘We made cake and everything.’

Then they ran back in, to tell Betty the guest of honour had arrived.

I said, ‘You sure do like to make the big exit, don't you. You afraid folks might forget you, if you just go nice and quiet? What happened? You ask him for one last roll in the hay?’

‘Peggy,’ she said, ‘I swear, I couldn't have rode in that car another minute, and I was just minding my own business, sitting out on the grass in the sunshine, when he come along and started in on me. He's some kinda crazy.’

I said, ‘Well, it's a pity you didn't work that out sooner. I mean, if me and Kath hadn't turned up when we did, I reckon you'd have been skewered, you and that poor child you're carrying. You ever think of that? You ever think of poor Herb? You ever consider Kath?’

She started getting outta the car. ‘Hell, Peggy,’ she said, ‘how's it feel to be so goddarned perfect?’

Betty was at the door in her sweetheart apron. She was carrying Sandie on her hip, smiling and waving. Little did she know what Lois was hissing at me under her breath.

‘You and the Pie-Crust Queen there, and Mrs Audrey “when we get to be Captains” Rudman. The whole lotta you just drive me nuts.’

She slammed her door. I slammed mine. Then we went into Betty's and sat around drinking coffee, like nothing had happened. I kept thinking of Kath, though, on her own out there with that madman. It was all right for Lois. She was gonna climb aboard that transport and leave all her troubles behind.

There were gifts for the baby. Cute little things Gayle had knitted and a kinda rag doll Betty had made for Sandie. Real neat. Betty was so clever with her hands.

Lo was fooling around. She sang ‘I'll Be Seeing You’, close harmony with Gayle, and we drank her good health in Canadian Club. Wished her a happy landing and a baby with a small head.

Everyone was sad to see her go. Even me. Darned if I could say why.

28

Four weeks passed by and I didn't see Kath. I wanted to go up there, straighten things out between us, but I was scared he'd be there, waiting to skewer any callers. The eels were finished for the year, so Vern had stopped going too — and I never dared tell him what had happened that day. He ever found out, Herb'd have heard about it. Hell, there could have been a lynching.

Month of September, Vern was flying night sorties so I hardly seen him. Suited me. We didn't talk much any more. He was doing things he couldn't tell me, top secret, he reckoned, and even when he wasn't, I hated all that jock stuff, talking like bad things could never happen to him up there, like he was untouchable, or if they did, that he had what it took to get himself outta trouble. I guess that's the kinda arrogance it took to climb into one of those death traps every day. Didn't make good pillow talk, though.

And me, I just didn't have anything much to say. Never went anywhere. Hardly did anything. Lorene Bass's cosmetics party. Bake Sale at the OWC. That was my action-packed life. With Lois gone, there weren't too many laughs neither.

Then one day I smelled that sickly old sugar-beet smell and I knew the harvest had started. Only time of the year John Pharaoh was in paid employment, far as I knew, so I figured there was a good chance I could see Kath without running into him.

There'd been a hard frost, first one of the fall. But I could see her, as I come along the drove, sitting outside the door in that red wind-breaker Lois gave her, working at something. Soon as she heard the car, she jumped to her feet.

‘I thought you'd gone,’ she said.

I said, ‘I wouldn't have gone without saying goodbye.’

‘No … well …’ she said, ‘I spoke very harsh to you last time … when we had the upset …’

I said, ‘Hey! It's forgotten.’

‘No, but I shouldn't have done it,’ she said, ‘after all your kindness. It was copper-knob I was mad at. Not you.’

I said, ‘Let's just forget it ever happened.’

‘I'll make a brew,’ she said. ‘Only I'm sitting out here, ‘cause I'm peeling these onions. I'm making piccalilli, go with the eels. But do you get that smell in the counterpane you can't shift it anyhow.’

I said, ‘How're things with you?’

She knew what I meant. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘right as ninepence.’

Then she said, ‘Copper-knob had that little baby yet?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Not till Christmas-time. And now we've got another one on the way. Betty's expecting.’

She thought about that for a minute. ‘You'd have thought she'd have been more careful,’ she said.

But Betty was thrilled. She'd been on at Ed about it, ever since Sherry was born. Kidded him she'd found out a sure way of getting a boy next time, douching with baking powder or somesuch.

‘I swear,’ Lois had said, when Betty was trying to explain how it worked, ‘she's a one-off. She's the only woman I ever met found a way of combining sex and baking. Keep your eye on her, Peg. She sounds like Vern's dream woman.’

Kath finished putting the pickles in brine and we went out driving, just like old times. She took a turn behind the wheel and we went all around, Smeeth, Beck Warren, Brakey, so she could give all the peasants her royal wave, show them she couldn't only drive, she could do it one-handed.

She slowed right down when we got to May Gotobed's. There was laundry hanging on a line, must have been out all night, sheets and skivvies frozen like boards.

Kath laughed. ‘Look at her drawers, all frez,’ she said. ‘They look like they're made out of wood.’ There was no sign of May. She said, ‘She only hangs them out to show them off. She thinks owning a pair of bloomers makes her a cut above.’

We drove on. ‘I don't know why she bothers,’ she said. ‘That only makes for extra washing and I know for a fact she never had none till she went into service.’

I said, ‘Are you telling me there are women round here don't wear undies?’

‘Too stifling,’ she said.

We passed one of the little trains hauling beets up to the factory.

‘John working?’ I said.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘He's on the unloading at Mayday. He had a bit of a setback, you know, after that business with the glave. I thought he might not be straight in time for the campaign, then we'd have been in a fix. We'd have missed that money. But he's pulled through. I made him stay on the bed, nice and quiet, and he's pulled through.

‘Peggy,’ she said, ‘I hope you won't take this amiss …’ She hesitated. ‘Do you think,’ she said, ‘there could have been a bit of carrying on, with copper-knob and John Pharaoh?’

You can think a thing over many times and still have no idea how you'll answer the question, if ever it's asked. I said, ‘Do you think so?’

‘I asked first,’ she said. ‘Do I turn along Hiss Drove, we can come up along the back, go and call on Audrey and little Gayle?’

They called it Hiss Drove on account there was river otters along there, cute little things, and if you were real careful and quiet you could see them playing in the mud. Audrey had showed me one time. But if they caught wind of you, they'd start hissing and whistling — like sounding the alarm, I suppose.

Eventually I said, ‘I don't know, Kath. Lois is a law unto herself. As for John, well … you'd know better than anyone.’

She nodded.

I said, ‘Whatever, she's gone. She won't be back.’

She parked nice and tidy, outside Audrey and Gayle's place.

Gayle come bouncing out. ‘You hear?’ she said ‘We're going home! Okey's got orders. Wichita, Kansas. November fifteenth. Vern heard anything yet? Lance didn't.’

There was more to that than met the eye.

29

They all got orders, excepting Lance. He made Captain, so him and Audrey moved into quarters on base, some ways down from us, or up from us, in a manner of speaking, farther away from the whine of the jets.

‘Farther away from the scraping of cheap flatware,’ as Lois wrote me. ‘Six weeks to go and I'm about the size of King Kong. Irene reckons they'll have to knock down a wall to get me out of here. I told her not to worry. My waters go, like they did with Sandie, they'll take the whole building with them.’