‘Yeah,’ Lois said, ‘Danger Number 1: I'll double my income.’
The months went by. We did a beautiful Camelot theme at Benbrook Lake, bride and groom made their vows out on the dock. We had such trouble finding waiters willing to wear tights and all that Merrie England stuff, but that was the kind of problem Grice was good at solving. I never did find out where he got those boys from, and their silver service was a little rough around the edges. But I will say, they did have good legs. He also got us a great deal on period feasting-ware.
Then we did the Skelton twins, double ceremony, every last thing had to be in exact duplicate. They even had two pastors, one of the bridegrooms being some kind of lapsed Catholic. Those Skelton girls got so many gifts the sip ‘n’ see ran to three rooms. They even each had a set of olive-spoons.
Six months after Lance, I got a call from Kath.
I said, ‘What's up? You don't sound right.’
‘No,’ she said, ‘I'm all right, but I've got to be quick, in case she comes back – and if she does, I'll pretend you just happened to phone me. I've got Audrey staying.’
She had turned up on Kath's doorstep. Kath said, ‘I told her, when I wrote, if ever she needed a little holiday she was always welcome. Well, I nipped home between a four o'clock lesson and a six o'clock and there she was, sitting outside in a hire car. She had to have bacon and eggs because I don't keep much in these days.’
I said, ‘How long is she staying?’
She said, ‘That's the thing, Peg. I don't know. She's been here two weeks now. Don't get me wrong. She can stay as long as she likes. She's no trouble. She's the first one slept on my spare divan and she says that's comfy. Only thing is, I don't know what she's got in mind. Whether she's got other people to go and stay with or when she's booked to go home or anything, and I don't like to ask her. I don't want her thinking she's not welcome. I hear her crying sometimes, in the night. That's a terrible thing to hear.’
I said, ‘She paying her way?’
She said, ‘She's offered, but that's not about the money. She don't cost a lot to keep. Drop of soup and she plays with that till it's gone cold. She hasn't half lost some weight, Peg. Anyway, the money don't matter. I'm not hard up. Thing is, though, me and May have booked up to go to Benidorm again. I mean, she could stop here on her own, I suppose, but I don't know as that'd be good for her. She'd be better off somewhere with company. Anyway, what I wondered was, if you could ring me up, pretending you don't know she's here, and then I can put her on and you can ask her, casual like, how long she's planning on staying. What do you think?’
I said, ‘What's she do all day?’
‘Walks,’ she said. ‘Walks, walks, walks. That's where she is now.’
‘And she hasn't said anything? About her plans?’
‘No. The only thing she said was, she always loved it here. You know what I wonder? Where are those boys when she needs them? She never mentions them. All the things she did for them, fancy trips, piano lessons and all that kind of carry-on. I bet they don't even know where she is.’
I left it a day then I called back, acted all surprised when Audrey answered.
‘It's a long story,’ she said, ‘but Kath's been my port in a storm.’
She said Norfolk, England, was the only place that made any kind a sense to her. ‘I counted up,’ she said. ‘I went with Lance on fifteen different postings. And now he's gone, I don't belong anywhere.’
I said, ‘You could have come to me. Why didn't you come to me?’
‘I needed to do some walking, Peggy,’ she said. ‘Listen to the birds singing. Tire myself out so I have half a chance of getting to sleep at night. I know you'd have made me welcome, but Dallas doesn't do good birdsong, you must admit.’
I said, ‘When do you plan on moving on?’
She missed a beat. ‘Well … soon, I guess. I suppose Kath needs to know.’
I said, ‘How are the boys?’
She said, ‘I have a mind to rent a little cottage. Somewhere by the water.’
I said, ‘And will you please come and see me? When you've had your fill of birdsong?’
She said, ‘Peg, when you and Vern, you know, when you split up? Did you sometimes wake up in the night and think he was still there?’
First little while after me and Vern split, I had Crystal climbing in beside me every night, rucking up the sheet, making me hot as hell.
Aud said, ‘I wake up with a start and I think I can hear him breathing. It happens nearly every night. I see him in the street, too. I saw him in Sacramento and Chicago and I've seen him a dozen times in King's Lynn.’
70
I was so thrilled when Crystal told me she had in mind to go back to school. She was a bright kid and it bugged me to think of her trimming poodle hair all day long. Seemed to me, if Carla Gillis could be getting herself a proper profession, my Crystal definitely should. Besides, she wasn't getting any younger.
I said, ‘I'd been wondering whatever happened to that brain of yours. Well, glory hallelujah. And if I can help out, you know I will.’
Then she told me what she intended doing. She hoped to take a eight-week course at the Deschutes School of Taxidermy in Bend, Oregon.
I said, ‘Cancel that offer of financial assistance. Are you outta your mind?’
‘Here we go,’ she said. ‘What'd you think? I was going to Harvard Law School?’
I said, ‘Taxidermy is antlers on walls, right?’
‘Correct,’ she said. ‘But that's not the half of it.’
‘Okay,’ I said, ‘I was just checking I hadn't heard wrong and you were actually gonna do something useful with your life like be a tax attorney. So we are talking about prize fishes in glass cases? And men who chew tobacco?’
‘Mom,’ she said ‘I never saw a good ole boy actually stuffed and mounted, but you may be on to something there.’
I said, ‘If you want to ruin your life, why don't you just cut to the chase, move up to Maine and go into partnership with your daddy? He can sell the worms, you can stuff whatever they catch with them.’
‘Okay, enough,’ she said. ‘Now, listen to what I have in mind. I want my own business, Mom. There are people out there with so much money they don't know what to spend it on next and I want to help them. There's women come into our place, buy real gold chains for their dogs. They pay people to walk them. They get their portraits painted, for Chrissakes. So here's my idea: pet eternalisation. The loved one barks his last, I go to work on his little doggy carcass, mount him in some lifelike pose and there he'll be, like he's returned from the dead. I might do cats too, if I can get the hang of them. I think there's real money to be made. Soon as I graduate, I'm gonna hire some work space and set up. I'll need a work bench. And somewhere with ventilation. And anybody you know got a pet of advanced years, you might want to mention to them to keep me in mind. I haven't set on a name yet. I thought maybe Perpetual Pets?’
Grice suggested Friends Forever.
I said, ‘How definite are you about doing this?’ Seemed to me, if she was willing to go back to vet school and settle down to her books there was a lot more money to be made keeping pets alive than by stuffing them.
‘Definite enough I've bought myself a skinning knife,’ she said.
I said to Grice, ‘You can wipe that smile off your face. Some day you'll have kids breaking your heart.’
‘Oh, I don't think so,’ he said. ‘How about Memorial Mutts?’
She said if everything went according to plan she'd be enrolling for September. ‘It's intensive,’ she said. ‘I have to mount five fish, or four and a fibreglass repro. I have to do waterfowl and game birds, flying and standing, number depends on whether one of them is a turkey ‘cause they take longer. Then there's game heads, small mammals, horn-preparation for antler mounts, and two rugs, one flat, one open mouth.’
Never having had a lick of encouragement from my own mother, I hated to be so negative about Crystal's idea. But all I could foresee was he
r ruining her hands, in and out of chemicals all day long, not to mention the kinda animal odours she'd be getting into her hair and clothing. It was a line of business that could say the wrong thing about a woman. I guess I was still hoping some day I'd get to organise a wedding for family.
I said, ‘And then? Do I have to come up there for your graduation?’
‘You don't have to come anywhere or do anything,’ she said. ‘When I've finished my training I'm gonna come right back, get myself a work room with running water, and open my order book.’
Lois screamed when I told her. ‘Dear God, Peg,’ she said. ‘Didn't we get anything right with these kids? This is gonna be a real asset to you. When you're schmoozing with those Junior League dames. They find out you're related to a pooch-stuffer and a worm-farmer, hell, they're never gonna forget your name! Well, backwoods blood will out, that's what I always say. Must be a proud moment for Vern. She could be on to something, though, you know? Fools and their money? I'm all for it. Empty those suckers’ pockets. Specially dog-owning suckers. I tell you we got a spaniel? It was just another way Herb thought he'd stop us getting to New York. He said it was for Kirk. Reckoned dogs are soothing, but seeing my rugs ruined sure don't soothe me. Meanwhile, of course, Kirk's gone and we're left with the rug-stainer.’
I said, ‘Why did Kirk need soothing?’
‘Oh, you know,’ she said, ‘he always was a irritable type of kid and I guess all those guy hormones made him worse.’ She said he had girls throwing theirselves at him, he was so good-looking.
‘That's half the trouble,’ she said. ‘He doesn't have to do a thing except smile and they come running. He'd have two or three on a string all the same time, then one of them'd phone up want to know where he was. Herb didn't always know what to say for the best. There was one turned up on the doorstep, sobbing and begging him to stop two-timing her, and he just went wild, Peg, screaming and shouting, broke the screen door. That was when we got the creature. Anyway, it'll do him good, staying at Sandie's. Gerry won't stand for any upset. He guards Sandie like she's made of glass.’
Sandie had suffered a miscarriage. ‘I don't know what was the big hurry anyway,’ Lois said. ‘I told her. Time enough for babies. She reminds me of Gayle sometimes. You know how she always had that doomy feeling about the boys when they were flying? Always waiting for the worst to happen to Okey? Well, Gerry's in the fire department now, Westchester County, and that's how Sandie is. Whenever he's on watch, specially nights, she's waiting for that knock at the door. I told her, she has to relax. He's a nice kid too, for an Irish. I like him. I told her she could wait ten years and still have plenty of time to raise a family. Know what she said? “Ten years time, Mom, there may be other things I have to do.” Maybe she thinks she'll be pushing me around in a bathchair. Maybe she thinks I'm going senile. I don't think I am. Brain's working fine. It's the rest of me has started to slide south. Top of your arms turned to jello yet, Peg?’
So Crystal quit the poodle parlour and headed out to Oregon to learn caping and fleshing and a lot of other things I didn't care to know about, and the wedding season wound down, except for an all-gold fiftieth-anniversary party we did for Mrs and Mrs Achilles Ruskin III. Grice went to Key West for a week, helping a friend with his aged mother, and I sat around the office playing with this idea he had for branching out.
‘Why stop at weddings?’ he kept saying. ‘We could be party-planners for the whole cavalcade of life. I wasn't so ‘sure. Christenings I knew we could handle. Rose Jenneau had been so pleased with her wedding, she called me, the moment she knew baby Rose was on the way, asked me to take charge of the christening lunch and the gift display. But I feared the taint of funeral teas might affect the happier aspects of our work. And as for that big party Tootie Gunzhauser had hosted after her divorce, French champagne and a firework display, I thought that was in the worst possible taste. Still, I was feeling stale. I'd have gone on a cruise myself, if I'd had anybody to go with.
I was just thinking of closing up early, going home and tidying a few drawers, when the phone rang. It was Betty.
‘Peggy!’ she said. ‘You'll never guess who's coming to town.’
71
‘Gayle and Lemarr,’ she said, ‘are on a world-wide tour of Texas!’
She read out to me from her newspaper. ‘”Friday next, at the Assembly of God, Converse, Pastors Lemarr and Gayle Passy bring their ministry of prayer and healing to San Antonio. Dr Passy …” Peggy?’ she said. ‘I didn't know Gayle had married a doctor. “Dr Passy and his wife Gayle, who is also a licenced minister” — did you know about this? “… and his wife Gayle, who is also a licenced minister, hail from Fayetteville, North Carolina. Lemarr describes his early years, selling life insurance, as a time of rebellion against the call of God. It took a herniated disc and the loss of my livelihood to open my heart and mind to His Purpose for me. With my late first wife, Eveline, I accepted the call to ministry and we began taking the Good News to the streets of Wilmington and Jacksonville, places where many fine young men, serving in the military, had lost their spiritual way in life. I too lost my way, as I watched my wife suffer with a cancer of the blood. I left my Bible unread and took comfort in strong drink, which is no comfort at all. Then, on March tenth in 1967, the Lord came to me. Lying on my bed in a motel, suddenly the room was filled with a wondrous light and I Heard the voice of God telling me to return to Fayetteville where I would find a helpmeet to resume my ministry. I was so exhausted, fighting the Truth, I obeyed and in Fayetteville I found Gayle, whose own life had been a Vale of Tears. Soon after our marriage we began broadcasting on JCIL-FM and our prayer programmes ran daily until last year, when the baton was taken up by Pastor Ronnie White. This has enabled us to take to the road with Gayle's awesome ministry of healing” It says here Gayle is a graduate of the Rocky Mount Bible College. Did you know that? My, that girl's a dark horse! There's a whole list of places they're appearing. Bethel Church, Jasper; Christian Fellowship, Cloverleaf; Living Waters Tabernacle, Edna; Pentecostal Church, Beeville. Friday they're at the Assembly of God, Converse, then they're up to Abilene, Unity Praise Center, Perrytown Assembly of God and then to Oklahoma. Peggy, you just have to come down here and see her. There's a picture of her in the paper looking so pretty.’
Well, wild horses wouldn't have kept me away. I was more a believer in the power of positive thinking than any of those old epistles to the Trojans, but Gayle was the only person I ever knowed got her own radio show and I wasn't gonna miss seeing her perform.
I said, ‘I'll get a hotel.’ I couldn't face staying at Betty's little place, all those brats of Deana's under my feet.
‘You will not!’ she said. ‘Deana and the girls got a place of their own. When Carla's working I'm rattling around here, don't know what to do with all this space.’
I travelled down Thursday, stopped off just after Austin for a salad platter and got into town about four. Drove around the old neighbour-hood, saw a few faces I thought I knew. Then I realised the kids I was looking at couldn't have been older than thirty. I always do that, forget to allow for the passing years. Then I turned on to San Jacinto.
I hadn't called ahead, tell my mom I'd be in town. I hadn't even finished weighing up whether I was gonna pay her a visit. I drove past anyway. The place was looking run down, but there was a light on inside. I kept going. Decided to sleep on it.
Betty didn't finish till six but Carla was home, getting ready to work a night-shift. She looked so smart in her nursing whites.
I said, ‘Look at you!’
‘I'm on Renal,’ she said, real proud of herself, and rightly so.
I said, ‘So Deana moved out at long last. Where'd she go?’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Trailer park,’ she said, ‘other side of Salado River.’
I said, ‘She working?’
She said, ‘Depends what you call work. She's moved in with a guy called Bulldog. They get stuff out of dumpsters, try to fix it up and then sell it. Trouble is,
most of the stuff in dumpsters is there for a very good reason.’
I said, ‘Well, has to be better than sitting on your mom's couch all day watching TV.’
‘I guess,’ she said. ‘Long as I don't have to come home and listen to her bellyaching, I could care less what she does. I don't like Bulldog, though. If Dwayne knew about it, I don't think he'd like a guy like that round his girls.’
I said, ‘He beating up on them?’
‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘He's not like that. He brings them stuff home and everything, makes a real fuss of them. He gives me the creeps. Ask me, he makes too much fuss of Delta. Ask me, it's not natural.’
I'd have thought she'd be glad Deana's kids had a new daddy being kind to them, but I guess it was hard on Carla having a junior-pageant queen in the family and her being so homely herself.
I said, ‘Delta's the pretty one, right?’
Carla said, ‘Yeah, she's pretty. And she knows it. She's had Mom telling her every day of her life.’
I said, ‘Honey, you're pretty too.’
She laughed. ‘Aunty Peggy,’ she said. ‘You think I'm jealous? Of Delta? I mean, she has Deana for a mom, and now she has Bulldog slobbering all over her, plus she doesn't appear to have much going on between her ears. Far as I'm concerned, that pretty face is the only thing ever went right for her. It's just she's just too knowing about it. You understand what I mean? I've seen her around Bulldog, and she's more knowing than's good for her. Heck, she's only eleven.’
She said things hadn't worked out between Sherry and the Comanche. ‘She makes earrings now,’ she said. ‘Silver and amber and stuff. They're okay. She sent some for Christmas for me and Deana's girls. Moves around a lot, though. She stays with people and then moves on. I've filled up the whole ‘S’-page in my address book with Sherry's wanderings. What d'you think about Gayle getting religion?’
I said, ‘I don't know till I see her. Do you remember her? Remember going on the bus, when she married Ray?’
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