Cancel All Our Vows

by John D. MacDonald

  “Don’t start again, for God’s sake. Look, honey, I’m beginning to get a hint of what the hell you’re talking about. Haven’t you ever cheated before?”

  “Nobody ever had me before. Except Fletch. Nobody.”

  He was silent for some seconds and then he said, “Sweet Jesus!” His voice was full of awe. “I thought you were … well, just trying to give that impression. You know. A standard line. Not at all unusual.”

  She was quite suddenly aware that his arm was still around her shoulders, that he was sitting there, holding her calmly, twisting words around, turning it inside out so that it was somehow going to end up all her fault, her fault entirely.

  She twisted away from him, hating him with a sudden frightful violence. “You … you filthy bastard!” she said. Her voice broke.

  “Now wait a minute! Ease up. So I figured you wrong. God … I mean how would I figure you? That suit came off without a murmur.”

  “You knew I was drunk. You knew just what to do, didn’t you? You knew exactly how to do it, too. Before I knew what was happening. That’s the way you did it. It was filthy. It’s rape, that’s what it is.”

  He stood up slowly. His voice was angry. “Okay. Call the cops. Dear Officer. Gee, I was stupid. I took off her suit and I was so stupid I thought she was willing. How did I know she was so drunk she thought it was her old mammy undressing her for bed?”

  “I fought. I hit you. You can’t deny that.”

  “I wouldn’t want to deny that, dearie. Lumps I got.”

  “You did it to me, and you’ve spoiled everything for me,” she said, trying to hurt him, and yet make him understand at the same time.

  “Come sit on the end of the dock and have one of the last two cigarettes and cool off, for God’s sake.”

  “I don’t want to be anywhere near you. Just looking at you makes me want to be sick again. You’re so darn smart. What did your friend call you? Wolf, wasn’t it? Sure, you know everything about women. Why did you think I was hitting you? Sadistic pleasure?”

  “Come on and sit on the dock.”

  “Don’t touch me. I can get up myself.” They walked out to the end of the dock. She accepted one of the cigarettes.

  He sat down too close to her and she moved away. He said, “To answer your question, lady, by the time you started clubbing me with that glass, I was in a state of mind where you might just as well have been using a handful of feathers.”

  “Then it was your fault.”

  “Janey, look.”

  “Don’t call me Janey.”

  “Mrs. Wyant, then. Look. It happened. It’s done. I believe what you say …”

  “Oh, thanks!”

  “I believe what you say, and if it’s any use to you, I’m sorry it happened. But all this yakking about whose fault it is isn’t going to help you.”

  “What do you mean, help me?”

  “Are you going to run to your husband yelling rape? So this is the first time you ever cheated.”

  “The first and the last.”

  “Okay, okay. The point is, you’re making too much of a whing-ding out of it just because it is the first. I’m looking at you. You don’t look any different. It doesn’t show. Don’t be so stupid and try any dramatic confessions or accusations. He’ll hate you either way. Just keep your very pretty mouth shut and forget it.”

  “You can forget things like this because they don’t mean anything to you. With you it’s like … shaking hands. You can’t understand how much it means to me, how much it ruins everything, because you’re too damn coarse and callous to understand.”

  “So maybe I feel some responsibility. So maybe I want to see you get out of this without taking a beating. Go off half-cocked and it’ll blow your happy home all to hell, and once you stop trying to kick me around, you’ll know I’m right.”

  “What am I going to do?” she said in a barely audible tone.

  “I told you. Just shut up about it. Your conscience shouldn’t hurt any. Lord, you were less co-operative than anything I ever saw in my life. It doesn’t show on you any more than it does on those gals who take their fun on the side as a regular diet.”

  “If I had a gun in my hand, I’d kill you. I mean it.”

  “I’m glad you haven’t, because you probably would, and all my friends tell me I’m a nice guy, so it would be a tragic loss to the world at large. And I’ll go along with your hating my guts as long as we both shall live. It doesn’t rankle. I certainly will not talk. You can count on that. I learned that early. If I don’t talk and you don’t talk, what proof is there? I ask you? If you can’t carry it off all the way and he gets a little suspicious, deny everything until hell freezes over.”

  “Do … you really think I can get away with it?”

  “Jane, you’re a backward type. Good Lord, what kind of a world have you grown up in? And you look so sophisticated. That’s what kills me.”

  “I … wish I looked like a mud fence so you’d never noticed me. I wish there was a clock I could turn back to before it happened. Even if I do get away with it, nothing will ever really be the same again. Not really.”

  “How middle-class can morality get?”

  “Smart talk. Words. What have you got to offer a wife? And what will she give you? Like shaking hands. That’s what it is with you kids. God, how I wish you were dead!”

  “I’m just a handy object to hate. That’s fine with me. Go right ahead. Blame me all the way down the line. But for your own sake, never mention this to anyone. Understand? No dear friends. They all talk, sooner or later.”

  In the stillness she heard the thud of a car door behind the camp and her heart stopped.

  “That’s … that’s Fletch, Sam. He came too … soon. I’m not ready to face him.”

  “Stand up and face the moonlight. Let me get a look at you.”

  “You’ve got no reason to …”

  “I’ll help you carry it off. I’ll do what I can. Maybe I owe you that and maybe I don’t. But I don’t want your loving husband hunting me with buckshot either.”

  “I’m not going to thank you, because all this is your fault.”

  “Sure, sure. I think the eyes are a little red. Swimming could do that. Stay out of strong lights. Now I’ll be clean-cut American youth in action. Loaded with respect and veneration. Come on. You’re fine. I’m leaving here in another week and you won’t ever have to see me again. That make you happy?”

  “Extremely.”

  “Stay mad at me and maybe you’ll handle the husband problem better.”

  She followed him along the dock toward the shore. Her body felt sore and used. She thought of Judge and Dink, asleep not over a hundred feet from where it had happened. She looked at the slant of moonlight on Sam’s brown powerful shoulders, and she relived the terror of the fight and then the hopelessness of submission. He had done it. He had ruined every damn thing in the whole world. He had made her feel rotten inside, filthy-sick.

  She dreaded the moment when she would have to look into Fletcher’s eyes, and she wished that this dark walk toward the camp would last forever, even if it did mean spending forever in the company of this young, arrogant, brutal stud.

  Hank still snored on the swing. She saw, through the windows, Dolly and Martha at the card table, smiling up at Fletch. He stood looking down at them, and he seemed to be a bit rumpled, a bit pale, his expression showing uncertainty.

  Chapter Ten

  The usher had been concerned about him and had awakened him in the dark movie to find out if he was ill. It had taken him a long embarrassing few moments to realize where he was. He reassured the usher. Liquor was a stale taste in his mouth. Both legs had gone to sleep. On the colored screen an army with banners was on the march, and the sound track was brassy and triumphant. He worked his legs and feet and felt the slow electric prickle of returning circulation. He walked heavily out through the lobby. The street shocked him. It was full night. A thick, hot summer Saturday night, with the young girls para
ding in their thin dresses. Sleep had left him with a dazed, far-away feeling. He could not shut his hands tightly enough.

  He looked at the clock in the ticket booth, above the head of a girl with hair the color of new pennies. It was ten minutes of ten. No small wonder that the usher had awakened him. He had gone in sometime before four. His big body was cramped. His shoulders ached and his hips felt as if he had been beaten.

  He was forced to grin wryly at himself. Lord, Jane would be livid with rage. There was no time to go home and freshen up. His car was parked up beyond the Downtown Club. The night had brought no coolness to the city. Sweat pasted his shirt to his back and he took his jacket off as he walked, pausing outside the club to slip into it again. He went to the men’s room, stripped to his waist, used one of the clean hand towels to sponge his body. The cool water against his face helped quite a bit. He dampened his dark hair, combed it down with his fingers. His lightweight suit was badly wrinkled from the long sleep in the movie.

  Back in the lobby he debated calling the Dimbrough number at the lake, then decided against it. He’d said he’d call if he wasn’t coming, so he would be expected. But too late to get one of Hank’s steaks. According to Hank’s immutable routine, he would be passed out by now. As he got in the car he remembered a drive-in on the way up to the lake, one that stayed open until after midnight. Now that sleep was out of his system, he felt hungry.

  Traffic was much lighter than he had anticipated. He was able to make fair time. There were three other cars at the drive-in. There was a big speaker which blasted juke box music out across the parking area. A girl in slacks took his order for hamburg, milk shake and cigarettes. Her face had a grey tired look in the floodlights, and she walked heavily on her heels as she went back to put in the order, her buttocks jouncing in the tight slacks, her shoulders slumped.

  When the hamburg came at long last, it was lukewarm. The milk shake had the consistency of mud. He ate too quickly, turned on his lights. When the girl did not come, he blatted the car horn in irritation. She walked out looking angry, and snatched the tray off the car, turning it so she could see the amount of the tip. She mumbled thanks and he drove on, grateful as the cooler air came into the heated car as the road climbed.

  The food he had gulped sat in a greasy wad in his middle. It now seemed extraordinarily silly to have stayed in Minidoka when he could have been up at the lake. The half-quarrel seemed banal and pointless. A Saturday shot completely to hell. Well, part of it was the damn miserable heat. Made people jump at each other’s throats. Jane didn’t deserve that kind of treatment. And, the way it had come out, he had merely punished himself. She’d had a fine cool day at the lake with the kids. He drove, worried about how she’d greet him. If it was with that impassive, cool politeness, he would be in for a bad time. Outright indignation would be better. Something dark and furry streaked across the road, and he wrenched the wheel and missed it and cursed heartily.

  When he thought he should start looking for the Lake Vernon turnoff, he saw it flash by. He went up the road, turned around in a farm drive and came back. His headlights illuminated the long tunnel of the dirt road under the overhanging trees. The springs rocked the car over lumps in the road. He found the Dimbrough sign and turned down their drive toward the lake shore. He came around the last bend and his headlights swept across the back of the camp. He turned off the lights and motor and got out and chunked the door shut. The lake breeze felt good as it touched his face. There was a dim light in the back entryway. He went in and down the short hall to the cluttered kitchen and through into the living room. Dolly and Martha were in the middle of one of their viciously competitive card games.

  “Who pays?” he asked.

  Dolly looked up from her hand. “Well, so it came at last! Greetings, stranger. That rattling sound you hear is Hank sleeping it off in the moonlight. Had anything to eat, Fletch?”

  “Yes, thanks. Where’s Hud, Martha?”

  “He’s coming out in the morning to get me, plus the kids, yours and mine. They’re all bedded down.”

  “Isn’t that kind of a nuisance, Dolly?” Fletcher asked.

  “No. They’re good kids. Honey, you have a familiar guilty look. You’re about to catch hell from your bride.”

  “I thought so. Couldn’t be helped though. Call of duty. Where is she?”

  “Out swimming in the moonlight with a very attractive young man, and it serves you right, my friend.”

  The screen door opened and Jane came in wearing a swim suit he hadn’t seen on her before. Her blonde hair had been wet and it was beginning to dry. The damp suit displayed every line of her body, just a bit too flamboyantly, Fletcher decided. A very big husky young man followed her in. A young man with a pleasant open face, a brown butch haircut, a relaxed manner. Fletcher typed him at once as both pleasant and able. A good kid to hire. Sales end, or public relations. But most of his attention was on Jane, trying to find out how she was going to react. He saw at once that she had been crying, and that made him feel guilty for having thought of her day at the lake as being pleasant. She was almost expressionless, and she seemed to be walking with an uncertain shyness. He guessed that it was the suit that bothered her. And no wonder.

  “Hi, Fletch darling,” she said. Her voice puzzled him. It sounded both blithe and uncertain, and did not match the woodenness of her expression.

  “Sorry it took me so long to finish up, honey,” he said, casually. He put his hand on her shoulder, bent and kissed her cool lips lightly. He felt her tremble. It probably was a bit cool out there in the night wind in a suit that skimpy.

  “Fletch, this is Sam Rice. He’s a friend of Dick’s. You know, Hank’s nephew.”

  “Glad to meet you, sir,” the boy said. His grip was strong, and he had a nice manner. Not too deferential, and yet respectful. “Mrs. Wyant is quite a swimmer.”

  “I gave up racing her a long time ago.”

  “Sam is awfully good on the water skis, darling,” Jane said quickly. “We had a contest and it was a tie.”

  Fletcher still couldn’t figure out how she was going to react when they were alone. She seemed to be wearing her company manners. He looked over at the table and thought Martha was looking at Jane a bit oddly. Probably getting catty ideas about Jane out swimming in the moonlight with this boy, he thought.

  “What are the plans, Jane? Do we wake up the kids and head for home?”

  “Now, Fletcher Wyant, you let those children sleep,” Dolly ordered. “They’re no trouble at all, and Hud and Martha will return them safely tomorrow, you hear?”

  Jane said, “I … I guess that will be all right, Fletch. It’s awfully nice of you, Dolly.”

  “Nonsense! Martha, are you going to take a card, or are you going to sit there like a bump on a log? Make yourself a drink, Fletch.”

  “It’s pretty late. I think we ought to head back. You better change, Jane.”

  “All right. My play suit is still out on the line, I guess.” She went off quickly.

  The card game continued. Fletcher stood and chatted with Sam Rice. “Didn’t you get an All-American mention last fall, Sam?”

  “Just one little one. The competition was rough.”

  “I thought I heard the name before.”

  “I’m up here with Steve Lincoln. He made most of the lists.”

  “Oh sure! Defensive guard. Is he around?”

  “No, he went up to the dance with Dick and Dick’s girl. I was going to go, but I thought I’d rather stay and swim with your wife.”

  “Glad you did. She doesn’t like cards, and Hank doesn’t sound like he’d be much company tonight. I’m grateful to you for keeping Jane entertained, Sam.”

  “It was a pleasure, sir. She’s a lot of fun.”

  Jane came back into the room with her beach bag in her hand. She wore the white play suit and her sandals.

  Dolly said, “Say, you’ll be cold riding in that skimpy thing. I’ll get you something to put on.” She started to get up.


  “No, really, Dolly. I’ll be all right. We have a robe in the back end I can put around my shoulders if I get cold. And thanks for taking the kids. And thank you, Martha, for driving me up. See you tomorrow, hey? Why don’t you and Hank come down, Dolly?”

  “I couldn’t drag Hank away from here on a Sunday. And somebody always shows up. Thanks anyway, dear.”

  Fletch shook hands with Sam and, as he was saying good night to the women, he heard Jane say, “And thank you, Sam. I hope … we’ll see you again sometime.”

  “I hope so too, Jane. Good night.”

  Dolly was melding furiously as they walked out, and Sam was moving a chair over by the table. They let themselves out the back door and got into the car. Fletch backed it around in a quarter circle and then headed up the narrow drive in low. She sat far over on her side of the seat and she did not speak. He did not say anything until he turned out onto the paved road, headed south.

  “Jane, I guess I was a plain damn fool today.”

  “Yes?”

  “I didn’t have to go to the office. I just woke up grouchy. I snapped at the kids and snapped at you, and I’m sorry. Then I was just too damn stubborn to drive up here after I got your note.”

  “What did you do?”

  “This sounds silly. I went to the Downtown Club. It was dead. I had lunch there, a late lunch, and then had a drink, and had another drink in a dive, and went to an air-conditioned movie. I was pooped from not sleeping last night So I fell asleep in the movie and slept in that damn tight little seat for about six hours. I’ve never done anything like that before in my life. The usher woke me up. He thought I was sick or dead.”

  “You … you were asleep … in a movie?”

  “Yes, dammit,” he said miserably, yet feeling the pleasant release of confession.

  She made no sound. He glanced over at her, but he could not see her face. Suddenly she made a small strangled sound, and another. And she began to laugh, gaspingly. He laughed with her and then stopped as he became aware that she had become hysterical.