Time and Tide

by Thomas Fleming

  "Is that a serious proposal or a publicity stunt?"

  "What the hell do you mean by that?"

  "You want to prove to everyone in this filthy place that you haven't been made a fool of. You've satisfied yourself of the relative virtue of your English slut."

  "Jesus Christ. You make me wonder if there might be something to the story."

  "What if there were? You don't have your brand on me, Mr. West."

  "Do you realize what I said several lines back?"

  "You made some offhand reference to marrying me. As if it was something you might do one of these days, after you get a haircut."

  "You've gotten terribly temperamental."

  "I've always been temperamental. Now I've got something to be temperamental about. I have been starved, ostracized and now slandered on your behalf. And your answer is 'I'll many you.' I am not thrilled. I am not moved. I am not impressed. I'm mad as hell."

  "So am I."

  "You don't act it. Or is that what you do when you get mad — get married?"

  "I'm sorry. I meant it. I'm not thinking very straight. I came home hoping for a minimum of hassle. The job I've got out there is all hassle. About twenty hours a day." He started to weep. "I'm sorry, Gwen."

  "Oh, Joey. What a selfish bitch I am. We'll go away someplace quiet. No more parties. No more Hollywood. We'll rest. I didn't realize how much you needed rest."

  Halfway to the bottom of the bottle. Halfway to the bottom of his life. Arthur McKay poured himself another drink. What would happen when he got to the bottom? He did not know and he did not care. While his ship was being repaired and his crew was pursuing happiness elsewhere, he was voyaging across loneliness. That was a captain's fate. Loneliness. He accepted it.

  You will come at last to a sea so wide you cannot see the further shore.

  Was he there? Was this the point where all those who came with you turn back? Father, son, friend, gone. Nothing left but his women, and the one who promised to make the journey with him has turned back. His daughter's love was a consolation, but she had her own journey to make. He did not blame Rita for abandoning him. He was a romantic fool. He had driven her out of his life with his fantasy of the perfect woman, his dark lady.

  A sound. Was it a cry? A sob? Was it Rita? He blundered around the house calling her name. Suddenly he saw him standing in the center of the living room. Incongruous place to encounter the dead. It was his house, really. He had sold a part of his soul for it. Sold it to the mammon of iniquity, in the person of Clinch Meade, in return for some pieces of silver influence.

  Win Kemble stood in the center of the living room in the moonlight. Blood streamed from his right eye. It was exactly as Lucy had described finding him. He had put the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. Blood had gushed from his eye.

  Those psychiatrists in Kansas, the Menningers, said the way a man killed himself was very significant. It revealed what was devouring his soul. What did a gun in the mouth signify? A hatred of all the lies the mouth had spoken in all the years of playing a part the soul detested?

  Arthur McKay sat down in a chair and regarded the ghost of his friend. Whether he existed inside or outside his head, he did not know or care. He did not try to find out. He only knew one thing. He was not afraid of him.

  "You were wrong, Win," McKay said. "It isn't all illusion. It isn't meaningless. A ship is real. A crew is real. Shipmate is a word that means something. War is terrible but real. Courage is real. Honor is real. History is real."

  The ghost's face contorted. McKay could not tell whether it was rage or grief.

  "There's something beyond loneliness. Something I believe in even if I can't reach it, thanks to you. It goes by a lot of names — marriage, friendship, fatherhood. It's more important than politics or war, and maybe it's more powerful too."

  Something struck him in the face. The whiskey bottled slipped from his hand. Captain McKay toppled to the rug.

  The Army transport plane came down through a fine mist that left Seattle and everything around it looking like a world seen underwater. Frank Flanagan braced himself in his bucket seat while the co-pilot and the pilot argued about the location of the airport. They finally found it and came roaring in, pursuit plane style.

  Exhausted from three days of sitting up on such planes or in dusty hangars waiting for them, Flanagan hunched into his blue peacoat and straggled into the rain. His week at home in the Bronx had been dismal. His father stared out the window. His mother chattered about the jobs he could get but wouldn't try for, his sisters mooed over Frank Sinatra and other crooners. Father Callow called three times, but he refused to speak to him.

  Flanagan's mother told him he had changed and not for the better. He told her she was responsible for the depressed man in the living room. Her endless demands for new dresses, coats, furniture were the reason why he had looked the other way while, hoods ran numbers and set up bookie parlors all over his precinct. She wept with rage and denounced him as a worse than worthless son.

  The next morning he tried to apologize, to put some of the blame where it was also due, on Uncle Barney and his cronies in Tammany Hall. But, it was too late. He saw he would never be his mother's darling again.

  No one seemed to give a damn about the war. Everyone was already talking about what they were going to do afterward. As if the Japs had already rolled over and surrendered. He spent his time reading Irish poetry and the newspapers, which told of more ships burning off Okinawa as the kamikazes continued to swarm.

  Now he was going to see Martha Johnson. Why, he did not know. He was a glutton for punishment. It had been an impulse thing. He was planning to go back to San Pedro, where Boats Homewood had rented an apartment for the homeless members of F Division. Suddenly there was a plane leaving for Seattle and he got on it.

  Martha did not sound thrilled to hear from him. "Frank? You're here in town? Sure. Come on out."

  The house overlooking Puget Sound was a shock. It was no longer neat or charming. Pieces of clothing and empty glasses and ten-day-old newspapers were strewn all over the living room. Martha greeted him with a faded smile and a big wet kiss. The shrewd cool woman had vanished. She was wearing a wrinkled kimono and she had not combed her hair in a week.

  "Oh, Frank. It's so swell to see you."

  "Swell to see you too," he lied.

  She got out a bottle of bourbon and poured him half a glass. "Let's drink to Jack," she said. "That's all I've been doing for the last six months."

  He, was appalled, but he did not know what to do or say. He drank to Jack.

  "The whole thing's just convinced me I'm born unlucky," she said, slurring her words. "I mean, first I draw a son of a bitch for a father and a drunk for a mother, and then I finally get a terrific guy to love me and what happens? He gets killed by a dumb Jap who's busy crashing his plane. How's that for luck?"

  "Lousy," Flanagan agreed.

  They drank and he listened to an endless eulogy of Jack. His charm, his looks, his wit, his brains. Above all his love. How when he finally discovered love, he surrendered to it. He had the courage to admit it. Martha got out some of Jack's letters and read from them.

  Around midnight, Flanagan was drunk enough to say anything. Martha started looking for Jack's first letter, the one in which he admitted his love.

  "I wrote that," Flanagan said.

  "What?" Martha said.

  "I wrote it. I wrote them all."

  He started reciting passages from the first letter and from others she had not read aloud.

  "He read them to the guys in main forward before he mailed them. He called them classy bullshit. He didn't love you. He didn't love anybody."

  "I don't believe you."

  "It's the truth. You told me the truth about Teresa and now I'm telling you the truth about Jack. He was no damn good. He was a liar and a bastard and a thief. Why the fuck are you drinking yourself to death over him?"

  "You son of a bitch! You're making this up!"

&nbs
p; "I wish I was."

  He told her about the wallets and fountain pens and gold and silver chains and bracelets in Jack's locker. He told her about the women in Australia and in Hawaii. He told her how Jack used to laugh about having her on the string.

  Martha smashed him in the face. He saw it coming but he did not try to duck. "You lying bastard," she screamed. "He was your shipmate. You pretended to like him. Now you tell these lies about him when he's dead and can't defend himself. Even if they're true, you're worse than he ever was."

  "I didn't pretend to like him. I loved him. I loved him almost as much as you did. But he was no damn good."

  Tears streamed down his face. "We're going back out there, and this time the kamikazes will finish us. We've run out of luck. I can feel it in my gut — the way Jack felt it before it happened to him. Boats Homewood feels it too. I want to do one thing right before that happens."

  No longer drunk but utterly bewildered, Martha sat down in a chair on the other side of the littered room. She started crying too.

  "Oh, Frank," she said, "we're so fucked up."

  He sprang across the room and seized her by the arms and shook her so hard he almost broke her neck. "You're not fucked up. You're the straightest, bravest, kindest, most intelligent woman I've ever seen. If it wasn't for Jack I'd—"

  He was roaring this into her face. She put her hand over his mouth before he could say that he loved her but could never touch her because of Jack. It gave him just enough time to realize Jack was gone. He was gone into the deepest deep, the darkest dark. Frank Flanagan was still alive. So was Martha Johnson.

  He kissed her long and hard. She began kissing him back.

  He was a whore, Harold Semple thought. Nothing but a whore. But whores who duck kamikazes day and night deserve to have some fun.

  He was back in Mort Lyman's spectacular master bedroom in Beverly Hills. Mort served him breakfast in bed and again assured him he had a future in the movies. He talked on the phone to Louella Parsons and other big names in Hollywood. A lot of the conversation, Harold realized, was about Lieutenant West. Mort was chuckling about a story in the newspapers about the lieutenant's girl, Ina Severn.

  It made Harold brood. He still adored Lieutenant West. It did not seem right that West, who had probably been under more strain during the kamikaze attacks than anyone else on the Jefferson City, should have such a rotten homecoming.

  But what could Harold do about it? Should he sacrifice his movie career for Lieutenant West?

  At that moment, Harold heard Edna talking to him. Poor dear sweet Edna, who was lying in the cemetery on Keramaretto. She still talked common sense to Harold, even though she was dead. It was enough to make you believe in God.

  Harold darling, Edna said, you're going to have a marvelous career at something, but it isn't in the movies. Your career will be fabulous in the annals of private heartbreak and stupendous romance. Just because we're different doesn't mean we can ignore all the moral rules.

  "You know what I'd love?" Harold said. "I'd love you to take my picture. Doing something spectacular. The way you take the starlets."

  Mort was in a benevolent mood. The silk sheets, the lacy peignors, the lack of kamikazes had made Harold very passionate. "Sure," he said.

  Harold decided to dress up as Betty Boop. He smeared on lipstick and selected a black wig. He blew up a penis-shaped balloon and put it between his legs. Mort thought it was hilarious. He clicked away. "Now one of us together," Harold cooed.

  Mort set the camera and joined him, pretending the balloon belonged to him, while Harold was bending over, boop-boopa-dooping himself silly. Afterward, Mort developed the pictures. He shook his head over the one with him in it. "That goes in the fire," he said.

  But he did not dispose of it immediately. Harold distracted him with an offer he could not refuse, even though it made him late for work. A half hour after Mort rushed out the door, Harold also departed — with the picture. He studied it carefully and decided no one would ever recognize him. Then he mailed it with a note.

  Dear Lieutenant West:

  I was outraged by the recent story in Louella Parsons' column. I happen to know the guy who gave it to her. I thought you'd like to have this picture of him. Maybe you can use it to good advantage.

  A friend who admires your heroism.

  Moonlight poured through the palm trees. Arthur McKay was making love to Rita in the lush grass of Kalakaua House. Woman, he thought, this was woman as the gateway, woman as the guardian of the spirit house of the soul.

  A hand gripped his shoulder. He sat up in the disordered bed to find a very different woman confronting him in the daylight. It was still Rita, but she looked more inclined to shoot him between the eyes than welcome him into her arms.

  "Mildred Meade called me. She said you were here with Lucy. Where is she? I'm going to tear that sanctimonious bitch to pieces. I should have done it long ago."

  "There's no one here but me, Rita. Waiting for you."

  "Waiting for me. The place smells like a cheap saloon. You're doing your usual act. Pathetic Arthur. So is she, telling you how sorry you should feel for yourself. Except now she can go all the way with the consolation."

  "She's still in Hawaii, Rita. Mildred knows that. Lucy's dispensing pity to guys who need it more than me. I can't compete with the amputees, the blind, the brain-damaged. That's what ruined our romance."

  "Don't try to be amusing," Rita raged.

  "I'm not, really."

  "She isn't here?"

  "No. Just me. Your husband, Rita."

  Slowly, sadly, Rita sank down on the edge of the bed. She had gotten fat again. Somehow that made her more endearing. "I still love you, Rita. I think you still love me."

  She shook her head, fighting tears.

  "We haven't lost Sammy, Rita. He belongs only to us now. No one else. The Marines, his friends, his classmates will gradually forget him. But we won't. It's something we can't share with anyone else. All by itself it's a reason for staying together."

  She shook her head again, although she could no longer stop the tears.

  "Even if he were still alive, I'd want to be your husband. I know who I am now, Rita. I have no doubts, no reservations. I'm a Navy man. The captain of the Jefferson City. Your husband. I won't be complete until you say yes to the third part of that proposition. I wouldn't be the first two without you."

  Rita was sobbing now. The bed shook with her grief. "Oh, Arthur, Arthur," she said. "How could everything go so wrong?"

  "If you mean how is it we didn't get what we thought we wanted — I don't know. I don't think anyone ever gets more than a small part of that. The crazy thing is — when you stop to think about it — you find out how unimportant so much of it was. It's amazing how grateful you become for the things you do get."

  "I won't I'll never be happy again for the rest of my life."

  "Yes you will. Before the end of this month out here, you'll be happy. And so will I."

  He sat beside her on the bed and kissed her gently on the lips. A comrade's kiss. Passion could wait for happiness to return. It would not be the old violent happiness, shot through with wild hopes and desperate denials. That was the happiness of youth. The happiness of age was different — a blend of memory and acceptance in which love was still the vital force.

  "You know what we're going to do first?"

  "What?"

  "Make love in my cabin."

  For the first time the captain was in command of his wife, his soul, his life.

  "This is crazy," Martha Johnson said, drawing the blinds to let the July sunshine pour into the room. "I still, feel like I'm robbing the cradle."

  "You say that once more," Frank Flanagan said, "and you're going to get a fat lip."

  Hands on her hips, not wearing a stitch, she still managed to look defiant. "Don't threaten me, sailorboy."

  He dragged her back into the bed and kissed her violently. His hand wandered until it found a very important part of her and
her breath came faster and faster. "Christ," she said. "I'm going to be late for work again."

  The first morning, when he awoke in bed with Martha, Flanagan had been assailed by guilt. What right did he have to steal the rest of Jack's life? He had stolen his job, his place in Boats Homewood's affections, now he was taking his woman.

  Jack, he had whispered, starting a dialogue with the dead like so many other people on the Jefferson City, I'll make it up to you. I'll really try to love her.

  Someone was banging on the door and yelling, "Western Union." Martha finally put on a robe and answered him.

  "For you," she said. "From Uncle Samuel. Why the hell did you give them an address?"

  "Because I couldn't get an emergency leave to see my sick sister without it," he said.

  YOU ARE HEREBY ORDERED TO REPORT TO TERMINAL ISLAND NAVY BASE IMMEDIATELY. JEFFERSON CITY WILL SAIL FOR THE WESTERN PACIFIC IN 48 HOURS.

  "God damn it," Flanagan said. "They told us we wouldn't sail until the end of July. They must have moved up the date of the invasion."

  She heard the sadness in his voice. He had told her about the kamikazes. About the rumor that the Japanese had six thousand of them waiting on the home islands. Martha reached for the telephone.

  "What are you doing?"

  "Calling the shipyard. I just got sick."

  She delivered the message and came back to bed. A line from Yeats caromed through Flanagan's mind. Hearts are not had as a gift but hearts are earned/By those who are not entirely beautiful.

  It was incredible, how much he loved her. A lot of it was the freedom, the boldness, with which she gave herself to him. Everything about her body, from her small coned breasts to her full hard thighs, was right. But her absolute honesty, her courage, were equally important.

  "They tell us every rivet we drive is an act of patriotism," Martha said, putting her arms around him. "But I've got something more patriotic to do for the rest of the day."

  "I don't like the smell of the whole thing," Arthur McKay said.

  "It could be a good sign. King may have changed his mind about you," Rita said.

  His look silenced her. In the last month he thought they had gotten beyond worrying about Ernest J. King's opinion of him. But Rita would never stop hoping against hope. It was an inescapable part of that combative spirit she had inherited from her sailor ancestors.