Was_a novel

by Geoff Ryman

  “And I’ll turn the hose on you.”

  “No,” said Frances. She loved washing the car and being hosed down in the heat. Janie reached forward and scratched the top of Frances’s head. It was a familiar game.

  “Don’t,” said Frances and pretended to slap her hand away. Janie did it again. Frances squealed. “Don’t!”

  Her father turned the key in the car and it started the first time, with a low rumble and a delicious smell of gas fumes. The Buick pulled away, with Frances giggling as both sisters tickled her from behind.

  Daddy always drove quickly, to get the air moving. Suddenly the car roared and shot forward. It sped along Antelope Avenue, a current of air pouring in through the open window. Frances stood up on the seat to feel the wind on her face. The wind seemed to make her eyes shake. She saw the low flat buildings shivering past them, out to where Lancaster straggled to an end. It was late afternoon, and the shadows were long. The hills seemed to have more shape in the low slanting light, their clefts and gullies full of blue shadow, their blue crags kissed pink. The high desert looked more gentle, less bleak and blasted.

  “Daddy, be careful!” said Mary Jane.

  Frances realized something was wrong.

  The car was going faster and faster, and Frances’s father had a strange, set expression on his face, and his eyes looked gray and blank. He looked angry. Frances giggled to make him turn to her with his eyes that could be so gentle. He didn’t. Frances began to sing—that almost always worked. But her father kept staring ahead and his face stayed grim, and the car kept roaring forward.

  A jackrabbit suddenly darted across the road. He father blinked and tried to swerve, and the car skidded around on the sand and gravel that had blown onto the road. Mary Jane screamed. The car turned tight around in the middle of the road. Thrown sideways, Frances was lifted up and hurled onto her father’s lap. The car stopped.

  Silence and sudden settling heat. Frances could feel her father. He was shaking. He put his hands on her head, as if trying to cushion it. “Sorry, girls,” he murmured. He helped Frances sit up and started up the car again. It coughed and shuddered. Very slowly, carefully, he turned the car around in a wide arc, back into its lane, back toward the town.

  Frances stood up on the seat again. “Faster, Daddy, faster!” she said. Wordlessly, looking ahead, her father reached out and gently made her sit. The car moved slowly home.

  One side of Antelope Avenue was lined with telephone poles, the other with tamarisk trees that made long, cool shadows. A woman walked under them. The car slowed and stopped, and Frank Gumm wound the window down, prepared, as he must be, to talk a spell. He always said if you were in business, you had to set and talk a spell with folks. Frances thought it meant he talked magic.

  They didn’t know the woman. She looked quizzical as the car crept up to her. Frances’s father stuck his head out of the window and said loudly, too soon, to reassure her, “Hello, Mrs. Story, I don’t believe we’ve met.” He leaned out of the window, resting his arms on the sill of the car door. “I’m Frank Gumm.”

  “Oh,” she said, surprised. “Hello, Mr. Gumm. Pleased to meet you.” Her eyes flickered over him. Mr. Gumm was wearing a sporty checked cap and sporty checked jacket that didn’t quite match, and without doubt was also wearing golf trousers with long checked socks up to the knees. “How did you know it was me?” she asked.

  Frank Gumm grinned widely. “Just a process of elimination, Mrs. Story. Mrs. Abbot tells me you haven’t been to see the show and you’re one of the few folks around here I haven’t spoken to yet. Can I offer you some free tickets?”

  Definitely sporty, Mrs. Story seemed to think. A plump little man done up to look like he plays golf. “Well, I hardly . . .”

  “These are my little girls, Mary Jane, my oldest, and Virginia—we all call her Jinny—and Baby Frances. They’re the ones who do all the work.”

  Mrs. Story still looked uncertain. Frances thought she would pep her up.

  “Howdy, Mrs. Story. I like your hat!” In fact she did. It was a nice felt cloche like Mom wore.

  “Frances,” murmured Janie, embarrassed.

  “Well, thank you, honey,” said Mrs. Story.

  “It’s a good, clean family show, Mrs. Story,” smiled Frank. “And it’s the coolest spot in the valley. When it’s one hundred degrees out here, it’s seventy inside my movie house.”

  “Well, it is hot, Mr. Gumm, I won’t deny.”

  “Now you just do me a favor and take two of these, Mrs. Story. Good for any night of the week, just come and visit and take in the show when there’s something on you want to see.”

  The tickets were held out.

  “Well . . .” Mrs. Story took them. “Thank you very much, Mr. Gumm.”

  “Terrible name, isn’t it? Frank Gumm. Just remember. Honest and sticky.”

  “Daddy, don’t say that,” said Janie, wincing.

  “I’m sure I will remember, Mr. Gumm,” said Mrs. Story, looking at the tickets.

  “And say hello to Mrs. Abbot for me.”

  “Will do. Thank you for the tickets.”

  “Goodbye Mrs. Story!” Frances shouted as the car pulled away, and was flung back into the seat.

  Frank Gumm kept smiling, looking in his rearview mirror, until Mrs. Story was well behind them. The smile fell then. “She’ll be pleased enough when she sees you girls sing,” he murmured. He chewed the tip of his thumbnail.

  He stuck out his arm to signal and turned onto Cedar Avenue. They passed the grammar school. Whenever he stopped grinning, Frank Gumm looked worried. “The summer’s almost over,” he told his girls. “Janie, Jinny, you’ll be starting school again here soon.”

  “I won’t,” said Baby Gumm.

  “Ho-ho, no,” said Frank Gumm, darkly. “No, your mother has other plans for you, Baby.”

  “Where did Mama go today?” asked Janie.

  Frank Gumm didn’t answer. He didn’t say anything else until the car slid to a stop outside their new house.

  It was painted white, two-story, on the corner across from the school. Grandmother Milne was on the steps waiting for them.

  “Now come along, Frances, your mother wants you straight upstairs to wash. Mary Jane and Virginia, help me please to set the table.” She said nothing to Frank. He helped Frances down from the car, and walked with her. She held on to his finger.

  “I’ll be downstairs, Baby,” he murmured to Frances. “You run upstairs and have your bath and get all pretty for the show. Saturday night tonight.”

  Grandmother Milne held the door open with one hand, and took charge of Frances with another. But Frances stood her ground, in the hallway, turning to her father.

  “Afterward can I show you my ballet steps?” she asked.

  Her father smiled his huge, too-wide grin.

  “Sure, Baby. I’ll be here,” he whispered.

  “Come on then, Granny, let’s get this over with,” said Frances with a theatrical sigh.

  “Cute as a button,” grunted Grandmother Milne. “Knows it too.”

  Her daddy was left behind in the hall.

  Upstairs, her mother was waiting. She knelt down in front of Frances to kiss her, as if coming back from Los Angeles were like returning from an even longer journey. “Hiya, Baby,” she said, smelling of makeup and lipstick and perfume. She was slightly damp with the heat. Honest and sticky. “Good picture?” Mama asked.

  “Oh yes, it was about a man running around the skyscrapers.”

  “Many people there?” Her mother’s face was crossed with concern.

  “No,” said Frances in a small voice.

  “Well, early days yet,” said her mother, her voice wavering.

  “There were two boys talking to Daddy, but they didn’t look very nice.”
r />   Mrs. Gumm went very still. “Were there? What wasn’t nice about them?”

  “They looked funny,” said Frances, watching her mother. She had meant to cheer her up by telling her about people who had come to the show. “He says they come every Saturday.”

  “I bet they do,” said her mother. She started playing with her daughter’s hair, rubbing it between her fingers. “You’re as dusty as a welcome mat,” she said, with a sudden wrench of emotion. “Honestly, this place! You need a brush just to walk down the street.”

  Then she kissed her daughter, hard, on the cheek, and stayed there, on her knees for a full moment. Then she pulled back. She was trying to be cheerful, but Frances could see that she wasn’t. “How about a bath?”

  “Will it be cold?” Frances asked.

  “Yes, Baby, nice and cold,” said her mother, and stood up.

  Frances skipped toward the bathroom. The bathtub was already full, and Frances held her arms over her head, dancing to have the dusty little dress pulled off. There were two kinds of clothes: ordinary clothes, which usually had once been her sisters’, and show clothes. Show clothes were nicer, but scratched more and were specially made.

  The gray little dress was hoisted off. “Janie and Jinny start school soon,” said Frances, under its momentary shelter.

  “Yes, Baby. Seventh and Fifth grade, if you can credit it.” Mrs. Gumm shook her head as she folded the dress. Frances shook her head too, at the unattainable heights of seventh grade.

  “How long before I’m in the seventh grade?” she asked. It was the summit of her ambition.

  “Oh, years and years yet,” said Mrs. Gumm, leaning over and testing the bathwater with her plump hands.

  “How old will I be then?”

  “Oh, about thirteen.”

  “And will I go to school just like Janie?”

  “Maybe,” said Mrs. Gumm.

  “Daddy says you’ve got some other plans for me.”

  “Did he?” said Mrs. Gumm briskly and looked at her daughter.

  “Yes,” said Frances, pleased, because the plans meant that she was someone special. She tried to hug her mother again, but her mother swept her up and put her in the cool water.

  “Oooooooo!” said Frances, squirming with the shock and with delight.

  “Don’t splash, Baby.”

  “It’s nice and cool.” Frances slid down under the water. She liked to hold her breath underwater. She felt the edge of the water close in over her bobbed and dusty hair. Her mother lifted her back up.

  “Are you going to wash my hair?”

  “Yes, honey.”

  “With ‘poo?” asked Frances and giggled because it sounded rude.

  “Yes,” said her mother. “See?” Her mother held up a bottle of baby shampoo. She poured shampoo onto her hands. “Now turn around. Close your eyes.”

  Frances loved having her head rubbed and she loved the smell of the shampoo and the feel of her mother’s hands working it up into a lather.

  “Did your father say what the plans were?” her mother asked.

  “No. Are you gonna tell me?” Frances asked.

  “Well. You won’t be starting school for a while yet. So I thought we could drive you into Los Angeles from time to time for special lessons.”

  “Singing and dancing?” asked Frances, her eyes screwed shut. She kicked her legs to show that she was pleased.

  She had done the right thing. Her mother laughed. “Singing, dancing, anything you like, Baby.” Rubbing the lather and the hair together.

  “Is that why you were in Los Angeles today?” Frances asked.

  The hands stopped.

  “Yes,” said her mother, not sounding pleased any longer.

  “Oh, boy. That’s going to be fun,” said Frances, to make her happy again. But her mother said nothing else. They had lived in Los Angeles for a while. Frances remembered it, as if in a dream, a little low brown house with red tiles on top. “It’s Spanish,” her father had said, trying to make them happy. But Mama hadn’t liked it. Maybe her mama didn’t like Los Angeles.

  The hands began to work again. Afterward there would be the big woolly towel and running cool and naked into the bedroom to dress.

  Downstairs the piano began to play, and her sisters to sing. Eyes shut, lather slipping down her face, Frances began to breathe out the words with them.

  You didn’t eat in show clothes, of course. You got to wear a soft white shirt and shorts. Frances hopped down the stairs. She went gerump, like a frog.

  “Daddy,” she said at the bottom of the stairs. “I’m a frog, Daddy.”

  “Good Lord, Ethel. Do you see? There’s a frog in the living room.”

  Ethel Gumm was following her daughter down the steps.

  “Well, it must be feeling good because it’s just had a nice cool swim,” said Frances’s mother. She smiled at her child and then walked on, toward the kitchen.

  “A wet little frog,” said Jinny, and began to thump a bit harder on the piano.

  Nobody can be louder than me, thought Frances.

  “Gerump!” she shouted, hopping. “Gerump! Gerump!”

  “Frances,” said Jinny, a warning rising in her voice, “I’m trying to practice.”

  “Let’s see how high the frog can jump,” her daddy said. He bent over and picked her up.

  “Bounce,” he said and let her feet touch the ground and swooped her up again. “Bouncy . . . bouncy . . . bouncy!”

  Each bounce was higher. Frances was bounced across the hallway, out of the living room and into the dining room. Her father picked her up, as high as he could, all the way up to the ceiling.

  “It’s a flying frog!” he exclaimed.

  “Don’t!” giggled Francis. “No.”

  Janie came in, carrying plates. She looked tired, circles under her eyes, tired and unhappy, and she took no notice of either of them.

  “I’m flying, Janie!” called Frances. Janie turned and gave her a flicker of a worn, dim smile and then went back into the kitchen. Grandmother Milne came out, carrying a vegetable dish. “Don’t make the child giddy before dinner,” Grandma said.

  Frances was lowered to the floor. Sssssh, Daddy went with his finger on his lips to show they should both be quiet.

  Ssssssh, went Frances back.

  “Are you going to show me your ballet steps?” he whispered.

  Frances nodded yes. She pushed her daddy back toward the wall, to get him out of the way. Then she held her arms out straight and ran, not quite on tiptoe but very quickly, scuttling across the dining room floor.

  “Very good,” said her father.

  Sssssssh, said Frances, finger on lips.

  He pretended to go “Ooops!” and covered his mouth with his hand.

  Sssssh, Frances reminded him again.

  Sssssh, he said back. She did her ballet steps, running back across the room again.

  The kitchen door swung open. “Supper’s on the table,” said Grandmother Milne. Frances could only see her long brown skirt, under the table.

  “Daddy, be quiet,” said Frances, now that it was all right to talk again. She marched to her chair and climbed up onto it, hoisting a leg across it, and then rolling over. She did not sit on the chair but, rather, knelt. The table was at her chest height, and the knife and fork were huge, but Frances was proud of her ability to eat with them by herself. She made a point of being very adult at the table. Jinny came in carrying a pitcher of water, then Janie, Grandma, and Mama next to her. Daddy sat at the end of the table away from Mama, away from everybody, it seemed.

  “All right, Frances,” said her mother.

  “For what we are about to receive,” said Frances, eyes closed with devotion, “may the good Lord make us truly thankful. A
men.”

  The food was served mostly in silence. Grandma Milne spoke twice. “Frank. This is yours,” she said, holding out a plate of chicken and mashed potatoes, stretching toward him. She looked only at his hand as he took it, to make sure none of the food was spilled. “Virginia,” she asked, “are you hungry?”

  “No, Grandma,” said Virginia.

  “It’s the heat,” said her mother. “Jinny, you must try to eat something.” She nodded to Grandmother, and a heaping plateful was served. Frances was next. She ate well. She always ate well. Chicken and gravy and mashed potatoes.

  “Don’t stir it so, Frances,” said her mother.

  Frances had forgotten how to eat mashed potatoes. She knew you were supposed to pile them on your fork, somehow, but they kept slipping off.

  “Frances, you’re making a mess,” said her mother, and reached forward to help her eat.

  “Uuuuhhhh!” said Frances in protest. She tried again. The fork was too big to get into her mouth.

  “Take less, Baby, just with the tip of the fork.”

  Frances scowled and thought about what that could mean. It’s like dancing, she told herself. You step with your hands. Tap is done with the toes. So I eat tippy-toe.

  Delicately she picked up a fluffy piece of potato on the end of the prongs and twisted the fork around, so that just the tip could go into her mouth.

  “That’s better. Good girl. See?” Her mother was pleased.

  Frances knew they all depended on her. She knew that without her, none of them would talk to each other. They only talked when there was company, or a show, or when Baby Frances did something to make them all laugh. It all came down to her.

  Supper was cleared up in a hurry. Mother went up first to bathe and change. Jinny went to help Grandma wash up. Janie and Daddy played with Frances.

  They played a game of catch with Loopy. Loopy was a hand puppet, and there was a certain thrill of cruelty in throwing him about the room. Whenever Janie caught him, she put him on and pretended to make him hide behind Daddy’s back.