Cancel All Our Vows

by John D. MacDonald

  “Who’re you?” he demanded. “Thirsty people?”

  “Nobody here but us chickens.” He recognized Martha’s voice.

  “That you, Hud?”

  “It’s me, you big clown,” Jane said, her voice a bit slurred, but icy. “You’ve had enough to drink.”

  “Darling, every time you tell me that, I have to go make myself another one just to ’xert my independence. You better cut it out or you’ll get me drunk.”

  “Okay, darling. Then please have another drink. I insist.”

  “Better psychology,” he said and sat down heavily on the grass. “Now I’m released from the … from the obligation.”

  “Then go make us one, dear.”

  “Just this minute sat down. Can’t you wait? Anyway, you sound just a wee bit drunky yourself.”

  “And I’m going to get very drunky, darling. I’m going to hoot like owls before I’m through. Martha too. We made a pledge. She’s the best friend I’ve got in the wide world.”

  “No,” said Martha firmly. “You’re a better friend than I am.”

  “Stop the love feast and tell me why the pledge, women. What is driving you to drink?”

  “Offhand, you could say husbands,” Martha said

  “And Bikini suits,” Jane added.

  “And the futility of life, maybe. We girls are hep to futility.”

  Fletcher got up ponderously. “Then you shall have drinks. Let’s see. Something with gin for the Rogers woman. Something with rum for my lady.” He walked off into the night and veered toward the bar. He could barely see the mixings, and knew it was time to move the show indoors. He made three drinks, opening the last fresh bottle of vodka to fix his own. The ginger beer was gone, so he used ginger ale. Seemed to taste just about the same, he decided. Just another splash of vodka. No wonder those characters could do that dance sitting on their heels. He took the girls their drinks, cadged one of Jane’s cigarettes, then carried his drink out into the front yard. He stood with his feet braced and looked off into the valley toward the city. They’d be sleeping in the parks down there tonight. And on roofs.

  Someone suddenly linked an arm in his. He peered down at the pale oval of the upturned face and recognized Laura Corban.

  “I seem to keep losing track of people, dear,” he said. “Where is Ellis?”

  “There’s a news roundup he listens to every Sunday at this time. So he’s out there in the car listening. Is that a copper mug? Spare any?”

  “Sure.” She took the mug in both hands, drinking from it like a child.

  “It’s a little nasty, isn’t it?”

  “No more ginger beer.”

  “Nasty but nice.”

  “And where would Hud be?” he asked, taking the mug back, taking a long drink from it.

  “Oh, he’s fun in small doses. He got a little too funny though, and I tripped him into some bushes at the back end of the yard. What a crash he made! I asked him if he was hurt and he said he was quite comfortable, thank you, and he planned to stay right there indefinitely.”

  “Usual shambles, this party. Worse, I guess. Harry passed out. Oh, Christ!”

  “I think I know what you mean, Fletch.”

  “You do, eh. Smart as whisp … whips, aren’t you?”

  “Now you resent me. All I mean is we don’t seem to be able to have any fun any more. The world has changed, or something. It’s like that circus candy. Big and lovely and pink on a stick and you bite and it’s gone and just a little sick taste in your mouth, too sweet and too little of it.”

  “You seem to have your fun,” he said stiffly.

  “I’m a boat rocker by nature. I like to see the other passengers look alarmed. But if I thought it was really going to tip over, I guess I’d stop and sit down, meek as a bunny. I thought about us Friday night.”

  “Us? How so?”

  “Is there a sip left? Gimme. Yes, us, Fletch. And so have you thought about me so let’s not kid the troops. I didn’t sleep. I walked and sat on one of your silly bridges and looked at your meek little river until the police got nervous about me and brought me home at dawn.”

  “This is no town to wander around in at night, stupid. Our rape statistics are just as impressive as anybody’s.”

  “Don’t change the subject. Us. I’m a little high, I guess. What do you think about us?”

  “We’re lovely people.”

  “We’re lost people. Remember what we found out? About each other? That funny feeling of not belonging anyplace.”

  “We belong right here, baby. Drunk and philosophical. What’s the pitch? You want we should have a quick roll in the hay?”

  “Oh, fine! There are more direct old Anglo-Saxon words. Why don’t you use those? Like a nasty little boy writing on the men’s room wall.”

  “You’re an infernal machine set to explode in my face. And here I am without my Bandaids.”

  She laughed softly. “I seem to catch on. You’re scared, aren’t you?”

  The copper mug was empty. He tossed it over his shoulder and heard it fall into the bushes in front of the house. “I guess so. I guess I’m drunk enough to be honest. I haven’t run into anybody like you before. I don’t know how to handle it. What are you after, anyway?”

  “Maybe … I want to feel alive once.”

  “Right here in my front yard?”

  “Don’t be such a fool! Don’t be purposely dense. Arrange things. Send Ellis on a trip or something.”

  “Then come to the side door and knock twice.”

  “Fletcher, don’t you understand what I’m trying to tell you? Why are you trying to make it as tough for me as you can? I do have a little pride left. Not much. I’ll grant that. But a little. And I’m fighting for … self-preservation or self-identification. I don’t know which. It’s time I found out something about myself. Through you, Fletch. Because you’re … sensitive and understanding and aware of me.”

  “Who isn’t?”

  “You’re running like a rabbit.”

  He took a deep breath of the warm night air. “If I was more sober, baby, I could say this better. Look, I’m fine. I’m a little twitchy this year. But I’m fine. I want to keep playing with my own dice on my own table. Believe me, it’s an effort to be so … hell, austere. I look at you and you give me the jumps. I get crazy ideas. I’ve had them since Friday night. We run the hell out of here, you and me. Way away from the whole damn thing for keeps. So how many people are involved? Eight of us, baby. Four adults, four kids. So I’m scared. I don’t want a sample, Laura. I’m afraid if I get a sample, I want to take over all the merchandise, because as I said, I have a slight twitch this year. But I’ll get over it. So don’t ask me again, please.”

  She was very still for a long time. At last she said in a low tone, “I’m damn selfish, Fletcher.”

  “Me too.”

  “It might be too right? Can anything be too right?”

  “Sure. Alcohol is too right for an alcoholic.”

  She touched his cheek suddenly with her fingertips. “You’re quite a guy, Fletcher,” she said. And she was gone into the night. He ran his tongue along his lips. He knew he was still drunk, but the hard core of sobriety in the middle of his brain had expanded. He was full of a nagging disgust at the way the day had turned out. Laura was right. Nobody talked any more. Nobody had fun any more. There didn’t seem to be any more people in the world like Dr. Tom Marsan. Haven’t thought of him for years. God, I wonder if the old guy is still alive. He must be. Jane would have told me if he died. Bull sessions with him when I was a kid. He was Dad’s best friend. He always treated me like an adult, talked to me like an adult. Too old-fashioned for Jane, though. She goes for the brisk young doctors. I guess on account of old Dr. Tibault being an unsuccessful, old-fashioned GP. Damn shame I dropped him. A rare guy.

  And he suddenly had a strong desire to go and see Dr. Tom Marsan and spread his life out in front of the doctor and ask for some reasons, and some explanations. Go like a kid in need.
Funny, you could be grown up, with responsibilities and a family, and still there was one place in you that was still a kid, still uncertain, aware of the need of guidance.

  He walked around the house, deep in thought. And as he got out on the terrace, he heard the shrill ugly voice of Martha Rogers, loud in anger. She was down beyond the terrace, and he knew at once that it was a particularly ugly and vicious scene in the making. He lengthened his stride.

  “… you dirty little bitch! Let go of me, Hud! I’ll scratch her goddamn eyes out.”

  In the moonlight he saw Hud holding Martha’s wrists. He was having trouble holding onto her. She was trying to yank away, and kicking at his legs. Laura stood six feet away, unmoving, not even looking toward them.

  Hud was trying to be calm. “Now, Martha. Now, Martha honey.”

  She was panting and granting with her efforts to get free. “Don’t Martha me, you damn old goat. Think you can get away with it and me fifty feet away from you. Just what the hell do you think I am?”

  Jane came running over. “What is it? What is it? I heard you yelling from way in the house. Darn it, Martha, we have got neighbors.”

  Martha suddenly went limp. She dropped onto her knees, sitting back on her heels. Hud tentatively released her wrists. Martha immediately put her hands flat against her face and began to moan pitifully.

  “What is it, Fletch?” Jane demanded.

  “I don’t know. She wants to beat up on Laura.”

  Laura said coldly, “Mr. Rogers pulled me down onto the grass. I was trying to get away from him without making a scene when she came along. She kicked at us and started screaming. She kicked me in the back and it hurts.”

  “You were trying to get away. Yes, you were trying to get away,” Martha said bitterly. “I can just imagine that, you little tramp.”

  “You better keep him on a leash, Mrs. Rogers.”

  Martha scrambled up again and this time Fletcher grabbed her. She twisted in his grasp and raked his face before he pinned her arms. “Damn it, settle down!” he yelled at her.

  Hud said, “I was out of line, Martha. It wasn’t Mrs. Corban’s fault I was just horsing around.”

  “Sure. You’d cover for her, wouldn’t you?” Martha said hotly.

  Laura walked over to Jane and held her hand out. “Thanks for a lovely party, Jane. I really enjoyed it. I’ll thank you and Fletcher for Ellis too. I think he’s still out in the car.” She walked off without haste, her shoulders straight and her head high.

  “You try that again,” Martha shouted after her, “and I’ll fix your wagon for good.”

  “Oh, hush!” Jane said. “Don’t make more of a darn fool of yourself than you can help, Martha.”

  By the way Martha tensed and spun out of his grasp, Fletcher knew that Jane had said precisely the wrong thing. Martha’s virulent temper was well known throughout Minidoka.

  “What am I supposed to do? Stand there and cheer? Kibitz, for God’s sake? I don’t blame Hud too much. She’s been waving it around all afternoon. She’s been wearing the invite like a sandwich sign. I’m not going to let her work it off on my husband. I don’t care what you do.”

  “Lower your voice!” Jane hissed at her. “Can’t you act like a civilized human being? Can’t you see what a spot you’re putting me in? Ellis works for Fletcher. We have to be nice to them. Can’t you control yourself?”

  “I can control myself one hell of a lot better than you can, Jane,” Martha suddenly said in a dead level voice.

  “What do you mean by that?” Jane asked furiously.

  Martha took a step toward her, still using that same dead tone. “Dolly thought we might try bridge for a change. I came out to get you and that Rice boy. I guess you were too busy. Down there in that rubber raft. Don’t give me …”

  “Martha! Stop!”

  She took another step toward Jane. “I won’t stop. Don’t give me that virtuous act. You had me fooled good. You’re as much bitch as that Corban wench. You and a college kid in that rubber raft. I couldn’t believe it and I couldn’t be sure. And then I saw him get up and then I saw you get up and pull your swimming suit back on, and you showed up good in the moonlight, honey. So I went back in and I tell you it made me feel sick, and I told Dolly I could hear you way out in the lake swimming around, so we started another game of Canasta. Then Fletch came and sure you two came in looking like butter wouldn’t melt. I’m just sick and tired of … of your kind of morals, and this whole stinking group and I don’t care if I never set eyes on you again. Take me home, Hud. Right now. This minute. I want to go home and take a bath and see if I can get clean.”

  “Martha,” Jane said in almost a whisper. “Oh my God, Martha!”

  And Fletcher, walking away from them, walking blindly across the dark lawn, heard the way her voice sounded and he knew that it was true, and he could see how it was with them there in the darkness, and see her getting up in the moonlight, and see them having a cigarette together as a chaser and hear them talking in low tones and maybe laughing together and planning the next time.

  He walked up to the side of the house and put his fists against the house and leaned his forehead against the house. Sure, it was a game you played sometimes, to tantalize yourself, to conjecture about her committing an infidelity, playing with the sense of outrage that flooded through you. But this was real. This had happened. This was indelibly, incredibly, sickeningly true. A big bronze kid with shoulders, and she had to take him, take the eager maleness, doing for another those things they had learned together, saying to another those words which belonged to marriage.

  He sobbed aloud, his lips close to the side of the building. What was his name? Rice. Sam Rice, a pleasant guy with an open face and a good smile. And how many others? How many dozen times? How many hundred times? How many back seats of strange cars, and how many sleazy afternoon hotel rooms when the shopping trip took longer than she had thought it would, and how much foulness and how much pretense, and how much silent indulgent laughter at his expense, and how many alien hands on flanks and breasts and thighs he had thought were his alone? Sure she had acted strange last night. Why not? And it had taken longer to arouse her because she’d already had all she wanted, and then had to go through it one more time just to keep the dull husband happy and unsuspicious. And she’d come directly from the Rice boy into his bed, with a whore’s conscience, with a whore’s innate dexterity. How many people had been snickering at him behind his back for years? Had Hud ever gotten any? Probably. Whenever there was any around, Hud seemed to get his share in spite of his farmer-boy manner.

  He heard a car door slam and heard the car drive away. He heard Harry Van Wirt’s heavy husky voice, sleepy on the night air, and then heard them go too. Now the party was over. The last party.

  He heard the whisper of her step in the grass, and she came up behind him and he felt her hand on his shoulder. “Ah, Fletch. Fletcher, darling.” Her voice was thick and she was crying. Whore hand on his shoulder.

  He spun and struck blindly at her with all his strength, struck with his open hand, not saying a word or making a sound. The hard slap rang loud in the night. His palm and fingers stung. It knocked her down and she sprawled back onto her shoulders, her skirt going up, her long legs scissoring in the moonlight, and he thought that her legs had looked like that to the Rice boy. He leaned his shoulders against the side of the house, holding his stinging fingers tightly.

  She lay still on the grass on her back for a moment and then pushed herself up into a sitting position and leaned over to one side and spat, and he knew that he had cut her mouth.

  “Fletch, darling. Darling, you’ve got to listen to …”

  “There’s not one damn word you can say. Not one.”

  “But I can’t let you think that I … that I …”

  “Did you let him? Did it happen? Isn’t that the only thing you can say?”

  “Yes, but …”

  “Yes, but it only took thirty seconds, darling, so it really do
esn’t count,” he said in a mincing imitation of her voice.

  “But you don’t understand. You don’t understand!”

  “What the hell is there to understand? For Christ’ sake, are there degrees? Middle-aged bitch getting her thrills from school kids. You’re a prize, you are! How did you get him to do it? A little cash on the line, maybe?”

  “Don’t,” she moaned softly. “Oh, don’t!” She spat awkwardly again, and gagged.

  “Don’t soil our lovely marriage with my nasty words? This is what gets me. You did it with my kids about sixty feet away from you. That’s fine. Educational for the little rascals. We’re done, Jane. Completely and utterly and finally done.”

  He watched her get awkwardly to her feet. The fine clear co-ordination of her body seemed to have deserted her utterly. “You’ve got to listen to me.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong, Jane. I haven’t got to listen to you. I haven’t got to do a damn thing to you or for you or with you. I haven’t a single obligation left, as far as you are concerned. My obligation is to the kids. Are they home?”

  “I turned out their lights and I was walking out when I heard Martha screaming.”

  “It’s a good thing. Now listen to me. I don’t want them to know or suspect what their mother has done. You understand that?”

  “Of course, but …”

  “Shut up and listen. I’ll move my stuff into the study. We’ll try to act normal until I decide exactly what can be done. I’m going to get custody of them. You aren’t fit, and any court will tell you that. I’m making that kid correspondent, and I’m going to make damn sure that if you try to fight it, Martha will testify. The best thing you can do is accept it as quietly as possible.”

  “Fletcher!”

  “Shut up! I’ve never felt so damn dirty in my life.”

  He walked away from her and into the house and went directly into the bedroom. He decided it would be easier to carry his clothing to the study-guest room in a suitcase. He took the suitcase off the closet shelf as she came in. Her face was chalky and expressionless. The left side of her mouth was puffed where the lips were split and his fingers had left raised red stripes on her cheek.