The Future Homemakers of America (15 page)

Audrey wrote me from England. She was expecting herself by this time.

‘Well,’ she wrote, ‘Another girl! I guess It's back to the laboratory with the baking-powder theory. I hope Ed's taking it on the chin.’

‘It'll be Betty taking it on the chin, if Carla starts robbing Ed of his beauty-sleep. You heard it here’ Lois was reading over my shoulder.

I'm sending Yardley's lavender water for the new mom. I figure baby Carla already has coatees in every shade of pink.

The Coronation was so beautiful. Crown jewels, velvet robes, marching bands. This is some country. Betty would have adored it. Tell her I'm sending pictures from the magazines. We watched it on TV at the Officers’ Club. It rained, naturally, but there were people had slept out all night, including Kath, to see the Queen go by in the gold carriage. I invited Kath and John to come and watch with us, but Kath had already arranged to go with her friend May. I get the feeling that flood washed away more than Kath's poor old house. She's not such a shrinking violet any more, specially now she has electricity and all the latest appliances, but John is in quite a bad way with his nerves so I guess she's just had to take over.

I wrote Gayle at the address you sent me but I didn't hear anything. Sometimes it's better to let these things go, you know? Once a girl's out of the military, you don't have anything in common any more. I've seen it happen.

Love to the gang,

Aud

38

Next I heard, Kath had gotten herself a regular job.

‘I wish you could see us,’ she wrote. They had been housed in a kind of duplex. It was called a maisonette.

I've decorated all through, nice bit of wallpaper and gloss paint, and I'm buying a green settee on weekly terms. If I ever can get John Pharaoh to shift his carcass I could stretch right out on it. Give me a box of soft-centres and I shall be like Lady Docker. I've gone part-time, at the laundry, eight till one, and they're a smashing crowd. We do have a laugh and that's a lovely smell, suds and nice clean sheets. Better than them old eel traps any day. Better than them beet sheds.

Time hangs a bit heavy for John without the fishing, and he can't manage the traps any more. He can't sit at it like he used to, with his nerves. But when we get the telly, he'll be right as rain.

Audrey is in the family way; I suppose you know. She runs round, always got some affair coming off at the base. She's always got flowers to arrange or her hair to get pinned up. But she never forgets me. She drives out here sometimes on a Sunday, and she always brings John a bar of chocolate.

Annie Howgego passed over. You didn't really know her, but I haven't got that much news. That place of hers never dried out properly, but she Wouldn't leave. She could have had a flatlet, but she wouldn't even go and have a look at it. You've got to move with the times, that's what I say.

I sent a sympathy card to little Gayle, but Audrey says she probably, never got it. She'll be moving around, trying to pick up the pieces. I shall always think of him, at your lovely party, looking at that barley eel John had brought. I told John about what happened, but I don't know if he remembered who Okey was. All the best to your hubby and your Crystal. I don't suppose I'd know her now, they grow so fast.

Yours sincerely,

Kath

Audrey was back Stateside by the fall of ‘53, but we didn't have the pleasure of her company on base for a while. She was in Chicago giving birth to twin boys, Lance Jnr and Mikey. Then they had a big affair up there for the christening. Six godparents for each boy, including a rear admiral and a congressman.

When Lois saw Audrey's letter she said, ‘Uh-oh. Brigadier general the best they could come up with from the army? This list of godparents seem a little lightweight to you, Peggy?’

Still, we all agreed, twins were neat. A whole family in one go.

They got bigger quarters than us, on Delaware Row, and Audrey kept everything so neat and nice I wondered how she managed it, with two peevish brats to see to as well. Then when Herb Moon made captain and him and Lois moved up, just opposite the Rudmans, I found out the secret of Audrey's success. She had some enlisted DW going in, three mornings a week, mopping her floors and folding her laundry.

This freed Aud to become a serious brass-polisher, what with Lance bucking for major and everything. When Herb got his promotion I warned Lois she'd have Audrey on her case, trying to get her involved at the Wives’ Club.

I said, ‘You'll soon forget your humble roots.’

‘Don't worry, Peg,’ she said. ‘I get a free moment from all that bridge-playing and volunteering, I'll come down here and see you. You know how I do love to
slum
.’

None of us ever heard from Gayle. I wrote her every week, for a while, then there didn't seem much point. Only subjects I had were air force and kids, probably the last two things on earth she wanted reminding about.

The day of Okey's anniversary, me and Betty took flowers out to the cemetery. When we got back there was a card from Gayle. Just said, ‘Please remember Okey on the fifth. Still packing smokes. Missing you.’

Next promotion board, Vern and Ed both got passed over. They were reassigned to transports. Betty said Ed was of a mind to quit anyway, but that was just brave talk. Three growing girls to feed, they had to be struggling.

Vern took it real bad. I mean, I could see the board's point of view and I could see Vern's too. Anybody could get sinus trouble. There's no shame in it. But when a man's been a real aviator and he gets sidelined, he feels like a waste of space all of a sudden. He doesn't want to hang out with the jocks any more ‘cause they're going higher and faster, and he's going nowhere. So that was when the chip on his shoulder started growing. Ended up it was all chip and no Vern.

Crystal started hanging out with Sherry Gillis about this time.

I said ‘How come? You never liked her before.’

She said, ‘We both got grouchy dads. Plus, she hates Deana and Carla's just a kid, and I don't even have’’ a sister.’

Nineteen fifty-four was a bad year for me. I could see where me and Vern were headed, but I didn't have anybody, I could tell. Ida and Pearl were gone, back to Castle, and it wasn't like it used to be with the old gang. Kirk and Carla and Audrey's boys were all at that troublesome stage. Getting into everything, falling over every two steps they took. When you have a smart eight-year-old who can tell you how frogs get babies and where flies go in winter, you don't have patience with the diaper stage any more.

I did a few turns at the base thrift-shop, but my time for that had passed too. What I needed was a job. Heck, even Kath Pharaoh had a job.

‘The laundry offered me full-time,’ she wrote me. ‘But for one thing, I fancy a change. I'd like to get out and about. Meet different people. I went after something at R&D Modes. That's a dress shop. I didn't get it, though. I don't think I was smart enough dressed. Then the other thing is, John Pharaoh. He's going downhill, so I can't be gone all day.’

Every time I wrote and asked, she just wrote back, ‘It's a nervous thing.’

Couple of times in town I saw places were hiring and I made enquiries, but soon as they seen my address they tore up the forms.

‘No military,’ they'd say. ‘You just get a girl trained up, then she's gone.’

The only one halfway understood what was bugging me was Lois, and sometimes I didn't think even she did. Sometimes I thought she'd caved in, started shinning up that greasy pole at the OWC. Going to coffees. Painting her nails Peach Pastelle instead of Red for Danger.

Then the squadron got a Temporary Duty to McDill, Florida, and Lo was pissed as a nest of hornets ‘cause the wives didn't get to go.

‘I am so bored,’ she said. ‘Let's go someplace. Remember that time we all went to the beach?’

Wichita, Kansas, was a long way from any beach, but Labor Day weekend there was a Wild West show over in Butler County, so we fixed to all get together and take the kids. Even Audrey said she'd come along, for old times’ sake.

Lois said, ‘Long as I don't have to have that Gillis girl riding in my car.’ Deana always got car-sick. It seemed to me Betty brought it on. You have your mommy asking you every five minutes, ‘Y'all right, precious? You feeling ill yet?’ of course it'll happen. Crystal never was sick in her life. We never asked her if she wanted to be.

So I had Deana ride up front with me. I told her to read me out all the signs along the way, take her mind off her stomach. Audrey sat behind with her boys and Kirk.

I could have spent hours watching Kirk. He was like a little old man sitting there. Funny beaky little nose. He wasn't much of a talker yet. He just looked out the window and pointed at things. I noticed Audrey was studying him too. I caught her eye in my mirror.

I said, ‘Cute kid, isn't he?’

Deana was reading out road signs, like I'd told her. ‘Pure Oil. Ice. Pumkin Pie Diner. Nothing Refreshes … like Seven-Up.’ She was the dead spit of Betty. Big for ten too.

Audrey said, ‘Yes, he is cute.’

Deana said, ‘My mom says that baby is from the Devil. Thrifty Maid Tomatoes. 400 East. Snap Beans Serve Yourself.’ She hardly broke rhythm. ‘Pickrell Feed and Harness. Dogie Gulch Wild West Show first left!’

Audrey was still looking at me next time I checked the mirror. Raised her eyebrows.

I said, ‘Well, motherhood seems like it suits you, Aud. You think you'll have any more?’

‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘I've done my duty by the Rudmans. Given them an heir and a spare. Once they're in school, then I'll have time to do some of the things I want to do.’

I said, ‘Would you ever get a job?’

She looked shocked. ‘I have a
job,
Peggy,’ she said. ‘I run Captain Lance Rudman, Inc. But I'd really adore to do something artistic. You know? Paint pictures or something?’

We'd all took blankets, excepting Audrey. She'd brung lawn chairs. I helped her get them outta the trunk.

I said, ‘You believe what that brat said about Kirk?’

She said, ‘She's only repeating what she's heard. Betty ever discuss it with you?’

I had never heard Betty say a word about Kirk, except her usual head-shaking over the slapdash way he was being raised.

Audrey said, ‘Maybe one of us should have a word to her? Deana goes round saying things like that, I don't care to think …’

I said, ‘Maybe. But not now. I don't want the day ruined.’

It was the first time the four of us had been out on a spree since England. We had a great time. There was steer-roping and bull-riding, and stick-horse races for the kids. There was burgers and hot dogs at the Chuck Wagon, all you could eat for a buck, and a bank robbery at three o'clock.

Lo was yee-hawin’ all over the place, flirting with some good-looking boy in fancy high-heeled boots and leather chaps, his hair grown just like a girl, meant to be Buffalo Bill or somesuch. He sounded East Coast to me. If he was a cowboy, I was the Yellow Rose of Texas.

‘Is it true, what I heard?’ Lois said. ‘Cowboy gets undressed, last thing he takes off is his hat?

‘Yes, ma'am,’ he said. ‘And in the morning it's the other way around. First thing I do is reach for my hat. Third thing I do is roll me a cigarette.’

39

When we got home, friend husband was prowling around, waiting for his dinner to jump outta the Frigidaire and fry itself.

‘Where you think you've been?’ he said, even though I'd told him a hundred times where we were going, and Crystal had her Sitting Bull totem-pole souvenir balloon an inch in front of his nose.

He had turned morose since he stopped flying bombers, and he was getting a little paunchy too. Time was, he was as religious about doing his squat thrusts and his sit-ups as he was about Beer Call. Then it got, it was just Beer Call. Final stage was he just stayed home, sat in front of the TV with a cold one.

I sat with him, watched him shovelling in the corned beef. Crystal was trying to rope the cat.

I said, ‘Betty's having a Tupperware You get a free gift, or something.’ I thought I'd keep the conversation light, till the storm-clouds passed.

‘I'm thinking of quitting,’ he said.

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Nobody stays in the military for ever.’

Times I'd longed for him to be out of it. Then when he said it, I felt like a big hole opened under me. We'd always been a threesome, me, Vern and the US Air Force.

‘Go back to Maine,’ he said. ‘Give Mom a hand.’

I said, ‘You got three sisters up there to give her a hand. She's got your pop. Besides, she don't want a hand. She wants a yarn store. That what you gonna do? Sell knitting patterns?’

It was a fool thing to say.

He was up on his feet, chair went over one way, table went the other, fried eggs, ketchup, beer bottle splintered into a thousand pieces. Crystal shot into her room and the cat went with her.

He never said a word. Just banged the door on his way out. Lois said she never heard a thing, but Nancy Windier, who was the other side in Gayle's old quarters, asked me next day if I'd heard a sonic boom. She said it had made her wedding group fall off the wall.

So I braced myself for hard times with Vern, but one upturned table was as bad as it got. He got his discharge leave the same week Pop Dewey electrocuted himself saving money on getting a repair man in, so he'd have had to go to Maine anyway for the burying. I cleared the post. Audrey didn't make it to my Farewell, she had some Luncheon Club committee, but Lois dropped by. Betty was crying, said she didn't know what she'd do without me.

Lois said, ‘Will you quit dabbing your eyes, Gillis? What kind of a send-off is this? Don't you realise Peg's
escaping?
We should be drinking some of that French champagne.’

I said, ‘You think I'll ever see any of your ugly faces again?’

‘You never know your luck,’ she said.

You get used to a whole lot of goodbyes when you're with the military. There are faces I remember, without names. Some are names without faces. Just the gang from Drampton who've stayed kinda true over the years. That's adversity for you.