Different Drummers (11 page)

Kathleen tried to swallow but there was a lump in her throat that wasn't there before. “Why? What did he do that was so bad?”

“Hell, I dunno. How would you understand? He just seems like he's got it in for me.”

“But this was only your first day. Everybody feels anxious on their first day. It'll be better tomorrow, you'll see.” She forced a smile and took his hand. “Come on. Let's go into the bedroom and make mad love. I'll make you forget all your troubles.”

It was as if he didn't hear, and without looking at her, he removed his hand from hers.

“Think I'll ride over to the pool hall and see if any of the guys are there.”

“Yes, why don't you do that?” Her voice grew louder with the hurt and helplessness at her inability to ward off a quarrel. “Why don't you go and leave me alone.”

He hauled himself out of the chair and without a backward glance sauntered through the screen door, letting it crash to behind him.

She didn't know what time he came home. Around two o'clock she fell asleep and he was there beside her when the alarm woke her at seven.

* * *

Even though it was Tuesday, the
Gazette
's busiest day, there was a half hour break in the meeting around noon that gave her a chance to rush out to the hardware store. Bob had been on her mind all morning. As hurt and bewildered as she was at his behavior, she couldn't shake the feeling something was making him desperately unhappy. He was so unsure of himself, and seemed to think the answer to his problems was a night out with the boys.

Before he'd left for work, he'd seemed sorry for his behavior the previous night and came as close to an apology as he was probably capable of giving. But his anxiety over his job was obvious and she wanted to see for herself how he got along with his boss. Maybe she'd catch him on his lunch hour and they could talk.

“Is Bob Conroy here, please?” she asked of the man she knew to be Mr. Phillips.

“You're Kathleen Conroy, aren't you?” He smiled as he extended his hand. “I saw your picture in the
Gazette
, and anyway, there's nobody else around here with an accent like that.”

He looked over his shoulder. “Bobby's out back working on some orders. Do you want me to get him for you?”

Suddenly unsure of herself and the reception she'd receive, she shook her head. “No, perhaps it's best not to disturb him. I thought he might have been behind the counter. I only had a minute anyway, and need to be getting back to the office. Would you tell him please I dropped by and that I'll see him tonight.”

“Yes ma'am, I sure will.” Mr. Phillips smiled, looking nothing like the bastard Bob had made him out to be.

That evening, she arrived home late and breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of the red car parked in the driveway. She hurried into the house, anxious to hear how Bob's second day had gone. He sat at the terrace table smoking a cigarette, the dark look on his face speaking volumes. At least ten butts littered the brick floor and she bit her lip to keep from saying it would be a good idea if he used an ashtray.

“Another bad day?” she asked instead.

“You could call it that. It was going pretty good till old man Phillips said you'd come in the shop lookin' for me. He was mad as hell. What did you go and do that for?”

She felt her cheeks grow scarlet as she tiptoed on a blade of anxiety toward him. “Just to say hello. There's nothing wrong with that, is there? I thought you'd be pleased. Mr. Phillips acted like he didn't mind at all. He seemed pretty nice to me.”

“I'll bet he did. Everybody seems pretty nice to you. Well, I don't want you comin' over there no more. It's bad enough havin' to work there without you coming in and making it harder on me.”

Her ears began to sing and she leaned on the chair back to steady herself.

“You're all tensed up because of your job but for God's sake don't take it out on me. Please, Bob, don't let's quarrel. I'm sick to death of it. All I want is for us to be happy. If the job bothers you that much, leave it. It's not the only job in town.”

He stared across the grass and took a long drag from his cigarette.

“Why don't we walk over to Todd's and get a hamburger?” she said, making one last desperate plea. “It's cooler tonight and the exercise will help you unwind. Freddie called me at work today and said he and Mary Mayhew will be in there around eight o'clock. We could join them if you—”

“You go if you want to,” he said picking up his car keys. “I'm not in the mood.”

“But you're going out aren't you?”

“Yep, that's right, Baby. I'm goin' out. And just so you won't worry about me anymore, I'm gonna have one hell of a good time. So when you get ready, why don't you just turn out the light and go to bed.”

He staggered into the house at three o'clock, and it was all she could do to wake him the next morning to get him out of the house in time to go to work.

That night was a repeat performance of the night before, but on Thursday night he didn't come home at all. Kathleen woke every hour from her position on the sofa, and at six o'clock she got up and made a pot of tea. Where could he have gone and why, in heaven's name, was he doing this to her? He had to be at his job in a couple of hours. She remembered Otis's words at the dinner table on her first night in Eddisville. “That Bobby ain't never been all that reliable,” he'd said. At least in this respect Otis had spoken the truth and Kathleen didn't know what in the world she was going to do about it.

At eight o'clock, she dressed as if for work and walked the short distance to Bennington Street. She knew Otis would be at work, and even now, with this worry about Bob, she didn't feel she could look at the man without her skin crawling.

She held on to the rail as she pulled herself up the steps to the porch. “Beulah, it's me, Kathleen. I need to talk to you. It's about Bob.”

Beulah's gray, set face appeared at the screen door. “Sit yourself down,” she said in an empty hollow voice. “I'll bring us some coffee.”

Her rough hands were shaking as she placed the cups on the rickety table, causing the coffee to slop over.

“I was about to come over to your place when you knocked on the door. Bobby came by here no more than an hour ago. He's gone, Kathleen. Gone back to Texas to reenlist.”

Kathleen's voice was a whisper. “What are you saying? He only just got out. He wouldn't do that. He just couldn't. What about me, his job, everything?”

Beulah's voice sounded empty, hollow. “Bobby don't have his job no more, Kathleen. Mr. Phillips fired him on Tuesday.”

“Fired him on Tuesday? But it's Friday today. On Wednesday and Thursday he left with his lunch bag as if he was going to work.”

“I don't guess he had the nerve to tell you he got fired.”

“But why would he get fired after just two days?”

Beulah stared at the floor. “Mr. Phillips told Bobby he had to have someone who could read the orders.”

“What could he mean by that? If they were badly written, Bob would have figured them out in time. There's a lot of writing I can't read right at first.”

Beulah sighed as if trying to explain something to a child. “Bobby couldn't read the orders because he ain't all that good at readin' anythin'.”

Kathleen rocked to and fro and her breath came in little shallow gasps. “What is it, Beulah? What are you trying to say?”

“Just what I'm tellin' you. Bobby can read and write some but it sure ain't much, not much more than his own name.”

“But that's not possible,” Kathleen said. “There's no way in the world I could be in love with Bob all this time, be married to him, and not even be aware he couldn't read.”

She waved her hands wildly. “These are the sort of things you just, well, you just know.” Beulah gave a weary shrug. “Well, I'm his momma and I'm tellin' you my son never learned a thing in school, just like me. Selma did, even though she ain't all that smart like I told you. But Bobby, well, he was always playin' hooky. Wouldn't listen to nobody. When he was fifteen he ran away from home and took odd jobs here and there. Just as soon as he could he joined the army.”

Kathleen stared dumbly at Beulah. Could it possibly be true?

“But what about those letters he wrote to me while I was still in England and he was in Texas. He'd have to know how to…”

Her unfinished sentence hung in the still morning air as she turned away from Beulah to stare out the screen door at the rutted driveway.

“You think somebody must have written them for him, don't you?”

“Yeah, I guess I do.”

Kathleen remembered incidents then. The day in the bank when he sat back while she filled out the forms. And he'd passed the help wanted sign outside Phillips Hardware and never mentioned it. Did this mean he was unable to read even those two simple words, or did he deliberately ignore the sign because he dreaded applying for a job he knew he couldn't handle? Then there was the application form he asked her to fill out for him, laughingly saying she could write prettier. He'd said he was sleepy so he wouldn't have to read the article in the
Gazette
about the two of them, or for that matter, read the want ads. Even then she hadn't guessed. She wondered now, now that she knew, why she hadn't become suspicious when he told her he hated the beach. Those letters she'd received were filled with glowing reports of the wonderful Carolina beaches. And what about before they were married, when he was in England? She racked her brain for clues, for some indication. But nothing came to mind. He'd visited her home on several occasions, looked at the family album, talked about his home. Talk, always talk. Nothing that involved reading. On their honeymoon in London, she'd been only too glad to be the guide, to pick out places to go, to read the schedules for the tube, to point out the landmarks.

As devastated and furious as she was, she couldn't help but see Bob's predicament. How desperate he must have felt, trying to hide his awful secret. When he'd lost his job on only his second day, he'd known it was only a matter of time before she found out. This had to be the reason he'd stayed out at night and his coldness toward her. He was afraid she'd ask questions and discover the awful truth.

She saw it all now, clear as crystal. If it hadn't been for her, he'd still be here in Eddisville. She remembered how happy he'd been on his first day home. He'd said he hated Texas, and now, all because of her, he'd gone back there to reenlist. Was it possible she'd made him feel inferior? Did her getting the job at the
Gazette
make him realize this was something he could never do? Was that what this was all about? Where was the handsome, glamorous, American soldier she'd seen across the dance floor at the Rialto, the one who seemed to be the stuff dreams are made of? American dreams. That night was light years away and she knew now there was no such person. She'd made him up. The man she'd married was an ordinary man from a little South Carolina town who was terrified his wife would find out his deepest, darkest secret, that he was practically illiterate.

“Will they let him back in?” she asked, kneading her throbbing temples. “Won't he have to pass some written test?”

Beulah shook her head.

“Bobby told me if he goes back in within ninety days, he won't have to take a written test. That's why he had to go now. He couldn't wait, you see. After the ninety days, they'd make him take a test that he knows he couldn't pass.”

Two big tears rolled down Beulah's leathery face. “I'm as sorry as I can be,” she said. “I guess Bobby figured if his momma couldn't read or write, it didn't much matter whether he could either. I just ain't fit to be a mother.”

The awful hopelessness of her life was etched in every line on her face.

Kathleen reached for her hand. “You're not to blame, Beulah. I am. He knew I was bound to find out sooner or later, and that I'd hate it when I did. And, well, I do. But more than anything else, I hate that he deceived me.”

She fumbled in her bag for her cigarettes then snapped it shut when she couldn't find them. “What did Otis say? Was he here when Bob said he was going to Texas?”

“Yeah, he was here and he didn't say much. It ain't all that important to Otis whether a body has any learnin', just as long as he's been saved. Otis said readin' and writin' don't matter much to Jesus.”

She placed her empty coffee cup on the rickety table beside her.

“Bobby knew you'd come here. He said to tell you he'll be back in a week or two. He's gonna look for a place for you both to stay and then he's coming back for you. I guess he figured you'd be used to the idea by then.”

Kathleen's headache was getting worse. She looked at her watch. It was nine o'clock. She pulled herself up from the chair and reached for her purse. “I'll have to go or I'll be late for work. We'll talk later.”

* * *

She stopped halfway up the steps of the
Gazette
's offices and leaned against the iron railing. The huge oak door seemed a long way off and if Lennie Barlow hadn't opened it and rushed to meet her, she didn't know if she would have ever made it without falling.

“What's wrong, English?” he asked as he helped her inside. “You're as white as a sheet.” She gawked at him, her mouth working but forming no words, no sound coming out. How could she explain to Lennie, who had a degree in journalism from some college in New England, that Bob had been fired from his job because he couldn't read simple orders in a hardware store. How to tell him her wonderful husband was by now halfway to Texas to reenlist? That was the clincher. He was going back into the army and he'd only just got out.

She let Lennie lead her to her desk then gave him what had to be a hideous grin. She sat in her chair and lowered her face slowly onto the cool of the desktop.