Cancel All Our Vows: A Novel

Chapter One

The early afternoon edition of the Minidoka Herald had a red-bordered box on page one titled WHEW! It stated to the suffering citizenry that this Friday was the hottest June twenty-seventh on record. An exceptionally dry spring had shrunk the Glass River. It curved meagerly under the new Jefferson Boulevard bridge, under the old Town Street span, under the railroad bridge and, four miles south of the city, under futuristic concrete of the new Throughway bypass bridge. It was dwindled in its channel, and on the steep mud-cracked banks bottles glinted, half buried.

The city spread from the riverbanks up the slight slope of two hills, one on either side of the river. The city sizzled in the gentle valley. North of the city the hills steepened. South of the city they finally flattened into a plain. The paper said that the temperature at the airport, five miles to the south, was a hundred and three. The unofficial temperature in the city was a hundred and four, but it felt hotter. The hills seemed to constrict the heat, and prevent any vagrant breeze from reaching the city. With school out, both municipal swimming pools were jammed with children. Their elders—those not tied to a job—sought the air-conditioned theaters and bars.

All talk seemed to be about the weather. The sky was a white misty blaze. All asphalt streets extended into a wet shimmering mirage. The siren sounds of the ambulances were smothered by the humid blanket of heat as they took the heat prostration cases to Municipal Hospital, and to St. Joseph’s on the other side of the river.

At precisely twelve minutes of three the big air-conditioning plant which kept the office building of the Forman Furnace Corporation cool, burned out. For a time the low, flat-roofed, modern building retained its electrical chill. Outside sprinklers turned slowly, keeping the surrounding landscaping green. By three o’clock, however, when the factory let out, the dainty blouses of the office girls had begun to stick to them.

Marcia Trevin, secretary to Mr. Fletcher Wyant, the treasurer of the Forman Furnace Corporation, sighed and patted her forehead with a damp Kleenex. The door to Mr. Wyant’s office was open. By leaning forward a bit she could look in and see him at his desk. He had taken his coat off and he was working in his shirt sleeves, making out one of his interminable comparative balance sheets, making those tiny and scrupulously neat figures which always seemed to Marcia so very strange when you thought of the bulk of the man who wrote them.

She watched him for a moment or two, watched the expressionless remoteness on his big, strong-featured face, the heavy wrist and hand moving the hard pencil. One lock of the hair, so rank and black that it always made her think of Indians and horses, had fallen across his forehead She would have given her soul for the courage to walk in and smooth it back in place. She was silently convulsed as she imagined the look of pure horror that would spread across the big face. Or maybe it wouldn’t be that way at all. Maybe he would …

She leaned back for a moment and indulged herself in a daydream of six years’ standing. He would take her hands and look right into her eyes with those funny pale grey eyes of his. He would say, Marcia, my darling, forgive me for being so stupid. Forgive me for not seeing, until now, what has been right in front of my nose for six long years. And then he would kiss her, of course. That was the way it always happened in the stories. I know I’m too heavy, but my ankles are good, and I know my eyes are pretty.

A drop of perspiration trickled down between her breasts and brought her out of her daydream. The top edge of her girdle was soaked. She was suddenly irritable. It was all right for him to sit in there and play around with the figures, figures that she would eventually have to type in quadruplicate and then cut stencils of. She got up with determination, plucking her shirt away from herself, and walked into Mr. Wyant’s office. With each step her resolve grew more dim and indeterminate, and finally she stood looking across the desk at him, wondering how in the world she was going to state it.

Fletcher Wyant slowly became aware of someone standing silently on the other side of the desk. He finished his problem in simple subtraction and wrote the new figure on his work sheet before he glanced up.

Miss Trevin stood there, her wide face flushed, her pocked cheeks damp with perspiration. Poor gal. The heat was rough on her. And the flush meant she had something personal to communicate. Seeing the steamy condition of Miss Trevin made Fletcher Wyant conscious again of his own discomfort. He tossed the pencil on top of the half-finished work sheet, and leaned back, stretching, then pulled the shirt sleeves free where they had stuck to his arms.

They going to get that thing fixed, Miss Trevin?

No sir. I got through to Maintenance a little while ago. Everybody has been calling. They have to get a new part or something.

He got up and went over to the window, opened it and stuck his hands out. "Now it’s about the same inside as out. Might as well leave it open. A breeze might come along."

Mr. Wyant, sir, I was wondering … I mean the heat being so brutal and all. And Miss Coward is letting the girls go from the stenographic pool … if …

You mean you want to go home? God, there’s no objection to that. I just didn’t think of it. And it must be hotter out in that little box of yours than it is in here, even. What’s lined up?

She couldn’t help a sigh of relief. Well, the only thing is that call you placed, about the tax refund case, and Mr. Corban dropped in while you were out and said he’d come back later.

Cancel that call, then. I want you taking notes when it does come in. Get Mr. Corban on the line for me, and then you can take off.

Thanks loads, Mr. Wyant. All I want to do is get home and get these clothes off before I … She flushed violently and fled, saying good night in a muted voice as she went through the door.

Fletcher grinned at the empty doorway. Marcia Trevin was good luck in the secretarial department. Quick and smart and loyal. And the greatest of these is loyal. She always let him know who had their knife out. Little spinster, built on the same general lines as a fireplug, and almost embarrassingly adoring. Due for another bump, if Personnel will stand still for it.

The communication box on his desk said, Mr. Corban on the line, sir. Good night.

Thanks. Good night, Miss Trevin. Hello, Ellis?

Hi, Fletch. Dropped in about an hour ago but your girl said you were visiting.

Fighting, she meant. I was out in the shop. God, what a day!

A brute indeed. I suppose Laura called Jane to remind her, but I thought I’d remind you too. You are our guests at the club tonight.

Fletcher winced, but his voice was affable. I hadn’t forgotten, Ellis. It’s going to cost you, though. I’m going to drink rum Collins until they come out my ears.

Good deal. I’ve got the same general idea. Little anaesthetic against the heat. About six then. We could pick you up.

No. That’s too far out of your way, Ellis.

No trouble, really.

We’ll meet you out there, maybe a little after six.

Look for us on the terrace.

When Fletcher hung up, he leaned back and frowned. Hell of a night to try to be festive in. And Ellis Corban would be a little wearing, even on a comfortable night. But that wasn’t the proper attitude toward a protégé. When the opening had come, in mid-April, Fletcher had brought up Ellis Corban’s name. Stanley Forman had preferred, as usual, that the slot be filled by promoting one of the men already working for Forman Furnace. So Fletcher had to prove that they didn’t have anyone available who could carry the load. He had met Ellis Corban at several meetings at the tax division at the state capitol. Over a couple of drinks afterward, he had discovered that Ellis wasn’t happy with the firm he was working for. And he had learned, in the meetings, that Ellis Corban had one of the finest financial minds he had ever come across in a man of thirty. Stanley Forman had reluctantly permitted himself to be convinced, and during the month Corban had been with Forman Furnace he had already justified Fletcher’s evaluation of him. Stanley Forman was pleased.

But that doesn’t mean, Fletcher thought, that I have to like the guy personally. He’s got that damned pontifical way of speaking, and that jolly-boy approach. Some day when he gets his feet under him, the bastard may try to knife my job out from under me. But until he gets around to trying it, he’s taking a real load off my shoulders. He’s the type to try all the angles.

Jane had helped Laura Corban find a house to rent, and it was hard to find one the right size because of the two small Corbans. In addition to that Jane had taken a firm dislike to Laura Corban. He couldn’t understand that. The two or three times he had seen Laura Corban she had seemed nice enough. On the quiet side. Little anemic-looking, but certainly pretty, and knew how to dress and walk. Sort of a sly sense of humor, too. Crept up on you when you were least expecting it.

Jane had suggested they put the Corbans up for membership in the Randalora Club, and so Fletch had done it, and the membership committee had passed on it quickly. This was the traditional evening—the one where the Corbans entertained the Wyants at the Randalora Club for cocktails and dinner and the June dance, in return for the favor of having been put up for membership. It wasn’t the sort of thing you could duck out on. But he wished he could. He wanted to spend the twilight on his own terrace, clad in shorts, drinking beer, slapping mosquitoes, and watching the lights of the city below.

He was just turning back to the report when Stanley Forman came and leaned against the doorframe and said, Such devotion to duty, my friend.

Stanley was thirty-seven, only a year older than Fletcher, but Fletcher thought, and Jane agreed with him, that Stanley looked at least fifty. He had come into the company very young and five years later, when his father died, Stanley had been made president. He seemed almost to have forced his appearance to correspond with his responsibilities. He was prematurely bald, tall, heavy, slightly florid. He had a lazy casual manner, but his mind was quick and shrewd. By taking gambles both in design and in the functioning parts of the Forman Furnaces, and in insisting on an aggressive sales and promotion approach, he had moved Forman up from a negligible factor in the industry to a husky and respected competitor.

Though his manner was uniformly casual, Stanley Forman managed always, in some subtle way, to continually underline the employer-employee relationship when dealing with his executives. Fletcher was conscious of this attitude, and frequently resented it, but there didn’t seem to be anything which could be done about it. The attitude itself was fallacious. In forty-nine when the income tax burden on executive salaries had become excessive, all major executives of the company had been put on a stock deal, whereby they were permitted to buy Forman stock at less than market.

Fletcher had accumulated a good holding, and he knew that Stanley Forman, except for the difference in size of the holdings, was no more owner of the company than he was. But Stanley seemed to fancy himself as the wise and tolerant commander of troops—one who wanted to get along with the boys, but could break anybody any time he wished, right from the executive officer on down.

Most of all Fletcher despised his own response to this attitude of Stanley’s. It seemed to make him overly affable. Like a damn Airedale. Never could seem to treat the man in a normal way.

Devotion, Stanley? I’m about to take off and get a beer.

Stanley looked at his gold pocket watch. If you don’t manage it in about five minutes, you’ll be the only one left in the place. I’m going around shooing everybody out.

Fletcher stood up and stretched, scratched his ribs. In front of Stanley even the stretch seemed forced. In that case, I’m off.

Don’t try to play golf. You’ll drop dead out there.

I’m just a little foolish, Stanley. Not completely crazy.

Stanley plodded heavily off toward the next office down the corridor. Fletcher slid the work sheets into his top drawer, closed the window, hung his coat over his shoulder, perched his hat on the back of his head, and went down the corridor toward the entrance, shutting his office door behind him. Stanley was in with Hatton, the sales manager, and Hatton, in his raspy voice, was telling one of his brutally bawdy stories. Of all the executives, Hatton seemed to be the only one completely unaware of Stanley’s air of austerity and command.

He heard Hatton say, So this girl, she looks at the guy again, and she says, ‘Look, I don’t mind you bringing along your Canasta deck, but when I …’ 

The words were lost as he walked out of earshot, but just as he was walking by the reception desk he heard Hatton’s hard burst of laughter which followed the punch line.

The sun leaned hard on the back of his neck as he crossed to the parking lot. The maroon Pontiac sedan was like a furnace. He rolled down the windows and opened both doors and stood outside the car for a few minutes in hopes it would cool off a bit. The car was pretty dusty. He decided he’d wash it tomorrow if it turned out a little cooler. The car would be two years old in October. Only thirty-one thousand miles on it. Wouldn’t be that much if he and Jane hadn’t decided, last summer, that the kids ought to see Yellowstone. Trade it again this fall, he thought, if I can get a good deal. If not, it will go through the winter all right. Replace these bald-headed tires, have new shocks put in, and a complete motor job. New battery too, maybe. Might be simpler just to get a new one. The damn house ate money though.

He got in. It hadn’t cooled off much. He started out as quickly as he could, turning the window flaps inward so that the heated air blew hard against his face. One thing about leaving early. Traffic wouldn’t be as wicked. Minidoka was going to have to do something about the damn traffic. Do it soon.

He drove down to Town Street, turned left and crossed the bridge, hitting the light side on the far side of the bridge. On the other shore of the Glass River he turned north on Dillon Drive. The wide drive climbed steadily toward the newest residential area on the north of the city, high on the hills overlooking the city.

His street turned left off Dillon. The street sign was rather disturbingly rustic. It said Coffeepot Road. When they had looked at the lot he had told Jane that the name of the road is just too goddamn quaint. But Jane loved the hill, the name of the street, the lot, and, after far too much money had been spent, the completed ranch-type house.

Fletcher didn’t know whether the name of the street had marked him, or whether it had been the very impressive sketch the architect had made, or whether it had been the final contractor’s bills, but in the year since they had taken occupancy, he hadn’t quite been able to accept the house as home. It was still all house, and very little home. What the architect and the contractor hadn’t done to make it on the austere side, the decorator had added. Fletcher found himself living with a great deal of glass and wrought iron and ceramic tile. He could take a great deal of pride and pleasure in looking at the house, or in looking down the really impressive expanse of the thirty-five-foot living room. But when he came to sit down, either inside or outside, he had the odd and uncomfortable feeling that he was taking his place in a picture that was just about to be snapped for an article in House Beautiful or House and Garden. His standard gesture of protest was to take off his shoes and tie at every opportunity—though always with a slight feeling of guilt. As though he were spoiling the picture.

He parked in the drive and got out and looked at the lawn and the plantings. The grass had a parched look, and the plantings weren’t living up to the landscape gardener’s promises. He shrugged and went into the house.

Jane came through into the big living room, moving fast. She slowed down when she saw him. Hey, I wondered who was barging in. Plant burn down?

He tossed his coat on a chair. Air conditioner stopped. Stanley shooed everybody out.

Big of him. Oh, Jesus, what a day I’ve had! She wore a wilted halter and shorts. She was a big smooth-limbed blonde woman with a round face, pretty blue eyes, a generous mouth. She moved, always, with the beautiful economy of a natural athlete. She played a man’s game of golf, was a sought-after mixed doubles partner, and was more seal than woman in the water.

Troubles?

That wretch, Anise. She’s supposed to get here at nine on Fridays. So at ten she calls and says she’s got the arthuritis something miserable. It’s only two days a week that she’s supposed to come here, and this is the fourth day she’s missed since the first of the year. Every darn time I want to entertain on the weekend she has to miss Friday. Now she won’t come until next Tuesday, and with the kids home from school you have no idea what a shambles this house turns into in nothing flat.

Where are the kids?

They went off on their bikes to the pool. They took a lunch.

Fletcher frowned at her. Damn it, I thought we agreed they wouldn’t go in the public pool. Polio season is starting. It seems to me that you could at least …

Honey, it’s just too damn hot and I’m too tired to squabble about this. They teased and teased. I would have taken them out to the pool at the club, but you had the car. They promised to be careful. Besides, that article said that you shouldn’t let them get overtired and chilled. Who is going to get chilled on a day like this? And they promised faithfully to be back here by five.

And spend half the night while we’re out looking bug-eyed at that television screen.

That was part of the promise too. Bed at nine thirty for both of them.

He looked at her hard. I suppose it’s okay. But backtrack a little. You said something about entertaining this weekend. It sort of got lost in the rush. What about that? Are we, for God’s sake?

I thought it would be nice if tonight we ask just a few people to come around Sunday for drinks. There’d have to be the Corbans of course. And then Midge and Harry, and Sue and Dick, and maybe Martha and Hud.

Lord help us, he said softly.

Now, you know you always have a good time once it gets going, Fletcher.

He decided that was one statement he was remarkably weary of. He picked up his coat. Guess I’ll take my shower first. Okay?

Of course, darling. I’m not quite ready yet.

He went down the hallway. The house was built in the shape of a T, with the crossbar toward the road. On the breezeway end of the crossbar were the children’s rooms. On the other end was the master bedroom, and Fletcher’s study, designed so that it was readily convertible into a guest bedroom. The living room took up most of the upright of the T, with the kitchen, dining area, and utility room furthest from the road. This design permitted one portion of the bisected back yard to be used as a terrace, and the other half as a utility yard invisible from the terrace. Fletcher knew, by painful count, that there were nine view windows in the house, each, oddly enough, with a view to go with it. And he also knew that it had been a mistake, at the last minute, to change from duotherm glass to plain plate glass. In winter each view window radiated a vast patch of chill into the house, and it was this tiny change which made the heating system inadequate.

As he went down the hall Jane called, Your good tropical came back. It’s in your closet.

Good, he said without spirit.

But his spirits came back after he stripped and went into the pristine bathroom. Whenever they had to go out for cocktails, Jane always seemed to be showering when he arrived home. Though he had never mentioned it to her, it always annoyed him to have to shower after her. She was a fervent shower taker. She liked her showers long, hot, steamy and soapy. She left the bathroom as dripping and sodden as the headwaters of the Amazon.

The needle spray was delicious. He stepped out and toweled himself briskly, noting smugly that he had made only small patches of steam on the mirrors of the two medicine cabinets. He plugged in his razor and shaved quickly. Just as he was finishing, Jane banged on the door and said, Hey, next!

Comee ri’ ou’, he said, his voice distorted by the delicate procedure of finishing the upper lip. He racked the razor, promising himself to clean it later, pulled on fresh shorts, snapped the two buttons and went into the bedroom. Jane smiled at him and patted his bare shoulder as she went by.

The shower had left him a little sweaty and he decided he’d better wait until he dried off before dressing. He scuffed into his slippers and went to the kitchen. He found the Collins mix and the gin and made himself a drink that was mostly gin and ice. He looked cautiously out the front door, and saw that the paper was within reach. He snatched it and went back to the bedroom and stretched out on his bed with the paper, and with his drink on the night stand at his elbow.

He could see through the bedroom view window, see across the terrace and out toward the summer hills, see a dull red barn that he was fond of.

And, as he was looking, it happened again to him. It was something that had started with the first warm days of spring. All colors seemed suddenly brighter, and with his heightened perception, there came also a deep, almost frightening sadness. It was a sadness that made him conscious of the slow beat of his heart, of the roar of blood in his ears. And it was a sadness that made him search for identity, made him try to re-establish himself in his frame of reference in time and in space. Fletcher Wyant. He of the blonde wife and the kids and the house and the good job. It was like an incantation, or the saying of beads. But the sadness seemed to come from a feeling of being lost. Of having lost out, somehow. He could not translate it into the triteness of saying that his existence was without satisfaction. He was engrossed in his work and loved it. He could not visualize any existence without Jane and the kids. Yet, during these moments that seemed to be coming more frequently these last few weeks, he had the dull feeling that somehow time was eluding him, that there was not enough of life packed into the time he had. The red barn and the hill had something to do with it. As though the window showed him a place where he had never been, and a place he could never reach.

It almost seemed that if he could tell Jane, if he could find the words to describe just how it was, maybe she would understand, and maybe she was feeling the same way this year. Maybe this was the year for feeling this way. Thirty-six. And twice thirty-six is seventy-two. Perhaps, at mid-point, there is a nostalgia for things that never were. Or a greed for more lives than one.

But there were no words to tell Jane. And if he tried to fumble it through, she would have a pat remedy. You need a vacation, darling. You don’t get enough exercise, dear. Don’t you think you ought to get another checkup? Nothing against her, of course. Rather, the fault would lie with him for not being able to express it.

He took two large swallows of his drink, turned resolutely to Pogo, and then to the financial news.

He glanced at his watch. Five twenty. The kids were overdue. The sadness was lost and annoyance took its place.

Chapter Two

By the time Jane came out of the bathroom, Fletcher’s drink was gone and he was into the baseball results.

She came hurrying out of the bathroom, stopped dead and said, You aren’t dressed!

The look of her pleased him. Ever since the weather had turned warm, she had been taking sun baths on the terrace. She had a pleasant, honey-toned tan, overlaid by the rosy flush of her shower. The ends of her hair were damp. She wore a pair of panties of filmy blue nylon and that was all.

She pleased him, so he looked down at himself with a look of mock astonishment and said, Why so I’m not!

Oaf! she said, and hurried to the built-in drawers under the windows and dug into the top drawer looking for the proper bra.

He was braced on his elbows, and he looked at her approvingly. If you wanted to be a hair-splitter, you could detect the slightest thickening of her waist, a faint sag of breast, just the merest puckered areas