Cancel All Our Vows

by John D. MacDonald

  She saw Ellis become increasingly nervous on the terrace as they awaited the arrival of the Wyants. She sat and sipped her drink and wondered what on earth she was doing here with this man who smiled too broadly and uncertainly at waiters—and at nothing at all.… She rubbed the rim of her glass with one fingertip and played a child’s game. I shall grant your wish, Princess. How would you like him to go, Princess? All at once, with a little puff of evil-smelling smoke? Or just steadily melting, so that at last nothing is left but the Cheshire mustache, and with one final twitch that will go too.

  “What are you grinning at?” Ellis demanded crossly.

  “I’m practicing my best smile, darling. And you better put yours on too, and tie the ends neatly. Because here they come. Like a refrigerator ad, with automatic defroster. The new lumpen-proletariat of the preferred stock issue. A Viking virgin dressed by Saks, escorted by her big brother-husband, smelling of Russian leather that comes in manly bottles. And …”

  Ellis had bounded up, welcoming smile in place, and out of the corner of his mouth he said, “Stop babbling, dammit!”

  They came and the usual words were said and she sat there pretending she was a robot. Very cleverly designed. The Rent-a-Wife service. Replace in Kompact Kontainer when not in use. Plug into any AC outlet. It walks, it talks, it moves its eyes. Take one home tonight. Go to your nearest …

  And she turned her head and looked squarely into the sharply inquisitive pale grey eyes of a stranger who was calling himself Fletcher Wyant. And those eyes, which had a tantalizing familiarity, seemed to look down into hers and see a little shadow box where a woman stood nude in a flood of sonorous music. The eyes saw too much and knew too much.

  And suddenly good intentions were forgotten and she became a slat-thin kid again, climbing to the tallest branch of the live oak to sway there in the wind, to impress the boy who had moved into the tourist cabin next door. She said things she knew were inane, and from far back in her mind she watched the effect of her words and actions on the three of them.

  She watched Jane bristle, and stake out her claim.

  And yet, it made little difference. The directionless tendrils of the green vine had found target. She knew he was brutal, and sensitive, and inquisitive, and that he felt that same oddness of being out of the proper time and place as she did.

  It had been inevitable that it would happen, somewhere, somehow, soon.

  Having it happen this way merely made it more complicated. More improbable, and, strangely, more inevitable.

  In some half-understood way, she knew that she and Fletcher Wyant sat with two strangers—two remarkably unimportant strangers.

  Chapter Four

  Fletcher was quite aware of how Laura Corban, after her brief flash of life, retreated into an odd passivity during the next two rounds of drinks. Ellis talked about its being a vacation for them with the kids off at the Cape for the summer.

  “Healthiest place in the world for them,” he said proudly.

  The last of the sun was gone and the long June twilight stretched across the fairway. The dogged players were trickling in, adding up the scores, bickering about the bets as they headed for the locker rooms.

  The women excused themselves and went off. Ellis hitched his chair closer to Fletcher and said, “Look, old man, I hope you won’t think I’m sounding disloyal to Laura if I tell you something I think you ought to understand.”

  “Go right ahead,” Fletcher said, hoping his pained embarrassment didn’t show.

  “Well … she is odd in a lot of ways. Reads a lot. Likes to be alone. Gets a lot of weird ideas. And she doesn’t mind saying them right out Really, underneath, she’s damn grateful that you put us up for membership here.” He laughed a bit too jovially. “I’m always trying to soothe the feelings that Laura goes around ruffling up. Odd girl. Just don’t pay too much attention to her notions, old man.”

  “I think she’s a charming woman,” Fletcher said, a little too coldly.

  Ellis Corban’s eyebrows slid up and froze in position. “Eh! Oh … well, that’s fine. That’s wonderful. Good God, it wasn’t like this over at Tuplan and Hauser. Maybe I didn’t give you the whole story on why I wasn’t happy there. I know we men don’t like to admit it, but the little woman has a lot of influence on how well you get along in a firm. I mean there’s a lot of little ways she can help. Well, I’m not saying this against Laura, you understand, because she’s one in a million, but she just doesn’t seem to be interested in doing those little things. She says they bore her. She says it’s all a lot of nonsense, and they hire me, not her. But the really progressive firms feel that they’re hiring the wife as well. Hiring a partnership, you might say. The beginning of the end at Tuplan and Hauser was when I finally got Laura to go to a party of just company people. I never should have risked it. She monopolized the dinner conversation. Lot of damn lies about her background. Kept talking through her nose. Do you know, Fletch, she actually convinced those people that she has two brothers with pinheads who travel with a side show. Got her home and she rolled around on the floor, just yelping with laughter. The next day in the office I could actually feel the tension. If I’d been a different sort of man I’d have thrashed her within an inch of her life when I got her home. But … I suppose I shouldn’t sound as if I were complaining. She doesn’t do that sort of thing anywhere near as much as she used to a few years ago. She’s a lot quieter now. But I just thought you ought to know, and ought to tell Jane, that Laura makes absolutely no effort to … to be liked.”

  “It’s refreshing, Ellis, in a way.”

  “Well, of course, you’re looking at it from a different angle. Jane is a big help to you, I know. She tries, you see. But understand, I’m not talking Laura down. I wouldn’t trade her for anything in the world. She keeps life pretty … interesting.” Corban dabbed at his forehead with his handkerchief and smiled a bit wanly in the fading light.

  When Laura and Jane came back Fletcher was pleased to see them talking and smiling at each other, and he was glad to see Jane pause by one table and introduce Laura to old friends.

  As Laura sat down she smiled sweetly at Ellis and said, “Get your apologies all made, dear?”

  “What does he have to apologize for?” Jane asked.

  “For me. He always does. It seems to make him feel better. As though he were expiating some sin. Ellis, my boy, we’ll have to go into that some day. Or right now. Lie down on the floor and relax and tell us all about your sins. I bet they’re all tired little grey sins.”

  “Please, darling,” he said.

  “Oh oh,” said Jane in a low voice. “Comes slow death. Don’t look at him and maybe he’ll go away. He’s a dentist. Dr. Frike. Premium bore of the club. And a fondler. I went to him once. Never again. Even while filling a tooth he managed to take a reading in Braille.”

  “I have a system,” Laura said. “When I get pinched, I pinch right back, and then look at them like this.”

  Fletcher half choked on his drink as he saw the expression of vacuous idiocy that came over her face. Jane said, in an awed tone, “Good Lord, that ought to give them pause.” She took a quick sidelong glance. “Out of luck. Here he comes.”

  Dr. Frike was a vast lean bony old man with a peculiarly rigid way of holding his chest out and his shoulders back. He always made Fletcher think of an upended coffin. He spoke inanities in a loud firm voice, using an explosive Hah! as punctuation.

  “Well, Fletcher! And Jane, my dear. Hah! I suppose this charming couple are the new members I’ve heard so much about? Hah!”

  Fletcher and Ellis got up and Fletcher performed the introductions. “Always glad to see nice young people coming in. Hah! Now you young men just sit down and I’ll walk around here. No, don’t get me a chair. I can only stay a moment.”

  He took up a position between Jane and Laura, and put one lean old hand on Jane’s shoulder and one on Laura’s, squeezing in slow nervous rhythm.

  He beamed down at Laura. “Hah! And how d
o you find our little community club?”

  She looked up at him. “Why, you just drive south out of town and here it is.” She paused for effect, then said, explosively, “Hah!”

  The lean fingers stopped their nervous movements. Fletcher risked a quick glance in Jane’s direction. He was glad it was getting dark. The squeezing began again. “My dear, I’m afraid you misunderstood me, or perhaps you were making a joke. Hah!”

  “Well, if you mean do I like it here, Dr. Frike, I guess I do, because everybody is just so gosh darn friendly, you know. Hah!”

  Jane made a muted strangling noise. The doctor once again began the finger exercises. Laura looked at the hand on her shoulder, and Fletcher could hear her sigh. Suddenly she laid her cheek against his hand, then turned her face quickly and began to kiss the back of the doctor’s hand, making loud kissing noises. Dr. Frike snatched his hand away as though he had burned it

  “And I do so love to be surrounded by real honest-to-goodness friendly people, don’t you, Doctor?”

  He said, “Well … it’s a small club … I mean everybody knows … Say, I must be getting along. Pleasure to meet you. Always a pleasure … to meet new members.” He turned with the slow dignity of one of the larger water birds and walked away, unconsciously rubbing the back of his hand.

  Jane borrowed Fletcher’s handkerchief and made snorting noises into it as soon as Doctor Frike was out of earshot. Laura sat, completely expressionless.

  Ellis said in a low intense tone, “Maybe you ought to realize that we’re new here. Maybe you ought to stop and think once in a while. Maybe …”

  “It doesn’t matter at all,” Fletcher said quickly. “That old bird is a pest. If she hadn’t done that he’d have been here for an hour.”

  Jane said, with difficulty, “Worth … price of admission. God! Never forget the way … jumped. He’ll spend the rest … evening down in the cellar with the … slot machines.”

  Laura sat erect. “Slots? Have we got slots here?”

  “Now dear,” Ellis said.

  She turned to Fletcher. “Ellis has a mathematical mind. He keeps telling me that if you put eight thousand quarters in, you will get two thousand back, or something like that. I adore slots. Can I borrow him as a guide, Jane? It distresses Ellis to see money going into a hole. And that will give Ellis a chance to bring you up to date on the Laura problem.”

  “Go right ahead, you two,” Jane said, recovering quite quickly from her speech and breathing difficulties.

  Fletcher followed Laura across the terrace and into the club. He said, “Hold it while I get some change in the bar.”

  “Here. I’ve got some money.”

  “My treat.”

  “No sir. If I hit a jackpot you’ll want half. I’ll lose my own.”

  She gave him a ten. He went into the bar and changed all of it into quarters, took them back and gave her half, along with a five dollar bill from his wallet. He led her back to the stairway. “The machines are in bad repute in these here parts. So we have to keep them in the cellar. They’re too profitable to give up. They just about support the club. They don’t hit often, I’m warning you.”

  She looked back up over her shoulder at him. “Who wants to hit? I just like pulling the damn handle.”

  The machines were in a damp, brightly lighted little room near the furnaces. Two college boys and their dates were going partners on one of the dime machines. Laura made a beeline for the quarter machine.

  She said, “Look. You’ve got some quarters, haven’t you? Same number I have? Good. We’ll put in five apiece. I’ll take my turn first. Keep your own winnings and keep them separate. When the stake is gone, we’ll see who did the best. Winner gets an extra five on the side. Okay?”

  “All right with me.”

  He moved to one side, leaned his shoulder against the cement wall, the wall against which the machine was placed. He watched her. She was flushed and avid. She gave the handle a good hard yank each time.

  On the third pull a win chinked into the scoop. She left it there. She hit again on her fifth coin, then counted the winnings intently. “Twelve here. Twelve for five. Not bad. Your turn.”

  He took her place. He pulled the handle lazily. “Nice job on the doctor.”

  “Poo, Fletcher. That was an expurgated effort. He was able to walk away.”

  “Rough kid, eh?”

  “Not particularly. I wonder what it is that gets into the skulls of old men and makes them believe that they are utterly irresistible to all womanhood. It must be some little twist in the civilization we’re living in. Somebody, somehow, is giving them the wrong steer.”

  “Not the civilization we’re living in. Any era, I’d guess. Right back to the old bull ape, kingpin of the ape clan. You see, he’s usually the oldest and the toughest, and so he has all the lady apes he wants. I think Frike just goes along with a sort of primordial instinct. The fact that it doesn’t work any more is no help to him. He has to keep kidding himself.”

  “Hold it! You just put in your sixth. Don’t pull the handle. Here’s one of my quarters. My turn now. You didn’t win a thing.”

  She was silent and intent as she played her second five quarters. She won three on the last one. He took her place.

  She said, “Aren’t you a little out of character too, Fletcher?”

  He looked at her as he pulled the handle. The college kids were going noisily up the stairs and they were alone in the small room.

  “I don’t remember making any passes.”

  “I don’t mean that. That was nice, that ape comparison. Where did you read it?”

  “I didn’t. I was just talking.”

  “You’re supposed to be able to talk creatively about debentures and stock issues and reserves for contingencies. All the rest of your conversation is supposed to be either anecdotal, or a rehash of something you read somewhere.”

  He yanked the handle viciously. “Sweet Jesus, that line of chatter makes me goddamn sick. You’re in business, so you’re supposed to be an intellectual moron.” He stared at the spinning wheels as he spoke. “All the little elfin bastards that never met a payroll always stick a character in their novel known as the Dull American Businessman. All the oh-so-sensitive and suffering artistes think there’s nothing quite so crass as a dirty old profit-seeking businessman. It’s sick-making. The dullest item I ever tried to talk to was a concert pianist. And the second dullest was a neurosurgeon, for God’s sake. Maybe it started with Babbitt. I don’t know. I do know that the quickest, brightest kids in the country go into business. And they don’t stop growing mentally once they’re in business.”

  “Like Ellis?” she asked softly.

  “Hell, Ellis is one of those one-sided people they’re talking about when they depict the businessman as being a … Wait a minute. You tricked me into that. Let’s play fair.”

  “All right. Fair, Fletcher. I was needling you to see how you’d jump.”

  He grinned, a bit shamefaced. “I jumped.”

  “You did. Now I wonder where all that defensive strength came from. Care if I guess? Don’t put that one in. That makes six.”

  He stepped aside. “Okay, guess.”

  “You got hot because there are a lot of things you want to do, a lot of things you want to read. And there doesn’t seem to be time, and so you feel guilty about it.”

  He thought it over while she played her five coins in rapid order. “All right. I’ll give you that point.”

  “When are you going to make time, Fletcher?”

  “God only knows.”

  “If you never make time for those things, then in a few years those so-called ‘elfin bastards’ are going to be right about you, aren’t they?”

  “Women aren’t supposed to be logical.”

  “Great little old combination we have here, Fletcher. Logical woman and intellectual businessman. We ought to be putting this on tape, wouldn’t you say?”

  “A weird conversation and you’re a strange item.�
�

  “Part of it’s a pose. I try hard to be strange. Speaking of strange, I had a strange feeling when I caught you staring so hard at me up there when you first came.”

  “I was staring. Is that so strange?”

  She looked at him quite solemnly. “You had the look of a man who is looking hard for something. He doesn’t know exactly what it is, so he won’t know when he finds it.”

  “Maybe he knows already.”

  “That isn’t worthy of you. That’s a Randalora Club, Minidoka type conversational pass and I resent it.”

  “It was an automatic reflex. Around here you’re supposed to say things like that. Makes you gallant The ladies love it.”

  “This lady was being serious and … concerned. Are you looking for something?”

  “I don’t know. This is … a funny year for me. I keep losing track of myself, and wondering where the hell I’ve been, and where I might be going.”

  She shut her fingers hard on his wrist. “And a funny, greedy feeling? As if the world is a big table all covered with food, and you’ve lost your appetite, but still you want to eat, and can’t?”

  “You’ve been reading my mail.”

  She released his wrist. “That’s another cheap, pointless remark. Some sort of a defense, I guess.”

  “It could be a defense against you. I have a yen, Laura. Closely allied, perhaps, with the rape instinct. But I’m not pursuing same any further. Not in the market, thank you.”

  “Implying that I am?” she demanded, her voice rising.

  “I’ll rephrase it. We’re both in the market for something, and we don’t know what, but this isn’t it.”

  “Jane is sweet.”

  “Apropos of what?”

  “I don’t know. Sweetness. Which I am not. Ellis, the humorless wretch, keeps imploring me to be sweeter to people. I always ask why. That usually stumps him for a few minutes. If I keep on asking, it usually turns out that he wants me to be sweet so he can be president of General Motors. And I refuse to pimp for a corporation.”