Cancel All Our Vows (31 page)

“That’s all right. I’m sorry I shouted.”

“I was just trying to … hurt myself by making you talk about her.”

“I know. It’s a funny thing. I keep wanting you to talk about that kid at the lake.”

“I hated him. I guess I didn’t make that clear to you. I wanted to kill him for … ruining everything for me.”

“It takes two,” he said coldly.

“I know. I found that out today. When I came back here and found that lipstick stain I called him up, still hating him. I met him today, in the woods near the camp.”

He turned to look hard at the half-seen paleness of her face. He felt neither shock nor anger. Just a sickness. “You did it again?”

“I wanted to. I wanted to do anything to get even with you. I told him I had the name and I might as well have the game. There certainly hadn’t been any pleasure in it. I
…wasn’t any good. He sensed right away that I was forcing myself. And he wouldn’t do it.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“It doesn’t make much difference whether you believe it or not, does it? I wish he’d done it. Then I could keep on hating him. I could have kept on thinking that he was all bastard. But he isn’t. And that was a terrible thing to find out.”

“What do you mean?”

“It means that I’ve had to face something. I was building up a little dream for myself. Every time I remembered the lake, it was more like rape. Poor innocent little drunken Janey, taken advantage of, in a classic manner. But today I found out it wasn’t like that.”

“What are you saying?”

“That first I have to be honest with myself. I know I fought at the last possible moment. Fought as hard as I could. But that was pure … animal fear. I led him on. All day. So I can’t blame him. There was a rotten spot in me. Something that wanted another man, and wanted to know what another man would be like.”

He sat still for a long time. He twisted his hand and a knuckle cracked loudly in the silence.

“Wasn’t I enough?”

“Yes. It isn’t that. It’s … wondering, I guess. And the days going, and the years going, and the kids getting big, getting ready to go away. It’s fighting your waistline and watching what’s happening to the skin under your eyes, and thinking of being young again, and maybe trying to find out how to be young again with a young person, like he is. And I guess he sensed that, and he was right. I don’t hate him. You know, I don’t even hate myself any more. I feel a sort of … far-away pity for myself. A woman growing older. A silly damn-fool woman, as if I were … somebody else I was watching.…” She stopped, turned restlessly on the bed, turned half away from him. He thought she was through speaking. She said, slowly, as though it was something painfully learned, “A person like me … maybe thinking of getting old is harder. Somehow. Because, except for my body maybe there isn’t … too much to me. I like being quick and strong and good at things.”

For a moment the urge was strong in him to lie down beside her, to gather her close against him, hold her tight so that the years could not get her, could not get either of them.

Each of them, he knew, had come to a new dark place. She to a place of self-understanding, and bleakness. He to a place of evil spasm, to a golden body that was like a drug.

“Please go,” she said. “I’m going to cry. It’s going to be messy. I don’t want you sitting there listening.”

He shut the door soundlessly behind him. For a time he roamed through the house, ignoring the dulled pain in his ankle. He thought of Laura, alone in the big, old-fashioned house. Her sleep, too, would be like a death. Used body slack on the big bed, like one of those dolls they used to put on beds, with boneless legs which could be tied into absurd knots.

Together they had entered a strange land. Yet the new land had not been as strange to her as to him. They had walked a dark path where fleshy flowers grew tall and still around them, petals open to show the membranous depths. She had said he would come back to her. Said it with deadly confidence. The taste of wild honey, unforgettable.

To get her out of his mind as he prepared for bed, he tried to summon up fury at the thought of Jane riding out to meet her juvenile lover. It didn’t work. He thought of Jane and felt only a protective sadness. Lost wife—something of gold seen from far away—seen, perhaps, through a cleverly concealed slit, where he could crouch in the naked darkness and watch—and not care.

Chapter Eighteen

On Wednesday morning they breakfasted together like strangers who, resenting being seated together in a crowded restaurant, overdo the small polite formalities.

“The paper says there may be thundershowers this evening, or they may hold off until tomorrow,” he said.

“I can’t remember a July that started like this one has.”

“When do you get the kids?”

“I thought I’d drive up tomorrow. Get there after lunch and have a swim and bring them back. Then they’ll be here for Friday, the Fourth, and we planned to drive them to camp Saturday. They’re all packed.”

“I suppose we ought to both go when we take them.”

“I think it would be best.”

“You haven’t said anything to them?”

She looked at him with a touch of anger in her eyes. “Of
course
not! When it comes time to tell them, we both better do it, together.”

“A hard thing to do.”

“It’s better now than it would have been three or four years ago. They’re old enough to understand better.”

“This wouldn’t have happened three or four years ago.”

“I was thinking that too, Fletcher.”

“A different crowd then than we travel with now. Fewer drinks. More fun, somehow.”

“I know.”

“If people were only smart enough to get out before it all blows up in their faces …”

“I was thinking that. You better hurry. You’ll be late.”

“Will you be needing the car?”

“I’d like to have it, if it won’t inconvenience you.”

“Not at all. You set now?”

He backed the car out and she hurried across the yard and got in. As he turned toward the city she said, “I forgot to ask you. How does your ankle feel?”

“Better. That soaking helped, I think.”

“Try to stay off it today as much as you can.”

As they neared the plant she said, “Do you think you’ll want to come home for dinner?”

“Probably better if I eat in town.”

“Whatever you want. But I’d like to know for sure.”

“I’ll eat in town then. I can get a bus to town, and then a taxi home later. You have any special plans?”

“This afternoon I have to help Midge at the booth at the hospital. Because of the other night, I think I better show up.”

He stopped the car and unconsciously turned toward her to kiss her, and caught himself in time, but not in time to keep her from seeing his slip.

“Well … I’ll see you then.”

“Thanks for the car.”

“Perfectly all right.”

After he had crossed the street he looked back and saw her just turning the corner. He went on into the office. Miss Trevin was in and gave him a quick glad smile. “Oh, I’m so glad you’re better, Mr. Wyant.”

“Thank you.”

“I’ve got that first report done. Shall I bring it in?”

“In a few minutes, please.”

He hung up his hat and sat down behind his desk and went to work on two morning’s mail. There was a new tastelessness about his work, but he forced himself to plough along, forced himself to keep going. He checked the report and initialed it for distribution. He dictated answers to some of his mail, told Miss Trevin how to answer the others. She could compose letters indistinguishable in style and phrasing from his. At ten thirty Stanley Forman’s secretary called to ask if Mr. Wyant could step up to Mr. Forman’s office at once.

It gave him a sudden, sagging feeling in the middle. Forman’s call was usually not so peremptory. Mr. Fedder was due for his appointment. He told Miss Trevin to ask Fedder to wait if he arrived before he was back.

Stanley Forman stood at the window, his back to the room. “Close the door and sit down, Fletch.”

Fletcher sat down wondering if it was a good sign to be called Fletch rather than Wyant.

“Didn’t haul you away from something?”

“Nothing important, Stanley.”

Forman let the silence grow and swell. He turned slowly from the window and walked over and sat behind his desk. He picked up a paperweight and shook it and set it down, and they both watched the swirling snow fall on the tiny figure of Santa.

“Self-torture to look at snow during weather like this, isn’t it?” Stanley asked.

“Yes, it is.”

“Fletch, I’m going to be frank.”

“I wish you would.”

“What is the greatest industrial shortage in America?”

Fletcher frowned at him. “I don’t know. A few of the rare metals …”

“Nuts. Rewrite the specs. Use substitutes. Redesign the product if you have to. Our critical shortage is in executive talent, Fletch. That’s why there are men in this country who, if they put themselves on the market, could demand and get up to a half million a year. And they aren’t young men, either. Organized labor is always bleating that no man is worth that much. If it costs that much to replace, the item
is
worth that much. The market price determines the value. Cut-rate executives mean poor management, dwindling profits, eventual bankruptcy.”

“I see what you mean, Stanley. But …”

“Why the shortage? Why aren’t there more men who can take hold? First, you have to have an unusual combination of talents. You have to have a man who never uses emotional reasoning, on himself, and yet can sway others with emotional reasoning to do something that he knows is coldly practical. He has to be big enough to delegate authority, and yet retain the responsibility. He has to be fast on detail work, and yet see the broad picture at all times. He needs creative imagination. And he has to drive himself endlessly, courting ulcers, heart failure and acute nervous
exhaustion. Now, there are more men with these talents than there are men working at it. Know why?”

“I guess not.”

“Because society rewards our good tough able executive with a ninety-something per cent tax bracket. He’s a target for the half-baked witticisms of smart aleck columnists. And when government can’t think of what to do next, it sits on our man’s chest for a while. So our man decides the hell with it. So he buys an orange grove. Or a cattle ranch. And he runs it well, because he can’t run anything poorly, and he sleeps well nights and every time he thinks of the brethren still sweating it out he laughs himself crazy. The ones who stay in industry do so because they love it better than anything in the world. It’s meat and drink for them. A disease, maybe. I’ve got it. I could sell out and retire. And go crazy watching the mess somebody else would make of this place.”

“Why are you telling me all this, Stanley?”

“Because I want you to tell me exactly what the hell is wrong with you. You were coming along. Learning, all the time, how to use more of your capacity. You’re young. I’ve been basing my planning on what you
would
be in a few years. This isn’t crap, Wyant. You’re fading like a bonus rookie and it disappoints the hell out of me and I want to know why.”

“I’ve had … a little personal trouble this past week.”

“Past week, hell. Since March is what I’m talking about. What is it? Wife trouble? Physical examination give you bad news?”

“I don’t know whether I can explain it or not, Stanley. I get these fits of … I suppose you could say despondency. A funny feeling. Like I was missing out on something, and I don’t even know what it is.”

Stanley looked at him with disgust. “For Christ’ sake, are you having a delayed adolescence or something? You want to write poetry in the moonlight?”

“I guess it does sound a little silly.”

“Silly is a fine word. And while you moon around, Fletch, you’re not giving the firm enough return on your salary dollar. That Corban punk you brought in here is
fine for exactly what you intended for him. He’s an oily little bastard. At his operating peak he’s about forty per cent the executive you are—assuming you’re in form. But you’re operating at about twenty-five per cent of capacity, so right now he looks better to me than you do. My loyalty, Fletch, is to the outfit. I can’t afford deadwood. And don’t think I can’t chase your ass out the front door in about nine minutes flat.”

Fletcher felt the quick anger, and then he let it slowly fade away. If Forman wanted it that way, he could have it that way. He sat and did not answer.

“Okay, Fletch. Corban gets your job.”

Fletcher looked at his hand, closed it slowly into a fist. He thought of Ellis’ forced joviality, the cold shrewd small eyes. This time he let the anger come up and fill his throat and roar in his ears.

“All right, Mister Forman. See exactly what the hell that gets you. I can tell you what will happen. You’ll be too busy to keep a checkrein on him and keep his nose in his own business by force if necessary. So he’ll start reaching around with his boy scout knife. He’ll work on the rest of the outfit. You’ll have cliques and plots and so much dirty conniving that the unity—that team feeling that we’ve developed—will fall apart at the seams.” He stood up in his anger. “If you got the sense God gave little red ants you’ll put somebody else in my slot, and if they aren’t smart enough to handle Corban, you’ll boot Corban out along with me. I got him in here, and I can handle him, but you let him run loose and you might as well stick a time bomb under the office. He’d trap this firm into a million dollar loss if he thought he could get a bigger sign on his door. So don’t give me this big time executive crap and in the next breath tell me you can pull that kind of a boner. I got Corban in here so I could milk him, and keep my foot on the back of his neck. You can …”