No More Meadows (23 page)

The receptionist told them that Mr and Mrs Lamm were waiting for them in the bar. Christine followed Vinson, and a small woman with a monkey face and a mad hat with butterfly antennae stood up and smiled and waved.

She was nice. She went on smiling after she had been introduced to Christine. She told Vinson that she was cute as Christmas and a typical English girl, and when Christine called her Mrs Lamm she said at once: ‘Oh, you must call me Edna. You and I are going to like each other.'

Her husband, whose name was Milt and who had a head like a jumbo grade egg and trousers straining across stout thighs, was sold on Christine from the first moment he saw her. Christine conquered the suspicion that it was part of his act to be sold on every woman from the start, and enjoyed hearing him tell Vinson: ‘Where did you find her? Now just where ever did you find her? But, Vin boy, she's lovely. She's just the loveliest thing …'

Christine did not feel very lovely after a six-hour drive with no chance to do her face or change her wrinkled skirt, but perhaps the light in the goldfish bowl was flattering. She sat back in the red-leather chair, which was shaped like a cut-away barrel, and sipped the strange new taste of bourbon, which she was told she would like and didn't, and wondered if people looking in from outside would envy her for being a frequenter of the Capitol-Carlton Hotel.

Vinson and Edna did not seem to know each other very well. He had told Christine that his family were not close, but she was surprised that he talked so politely to his sister, asking about her trip from Wilmington and whether she was satisfied with her room at the hotel. If Roger had talked to Christine like that, she
would think he had gone mad, or had found some new form of humour to try on her.

Everyone seemed to be very polite in America. When Edna suggested that she should take Christine up to her room, the two men immediately sprang to their feet and pulled back the women's chairs and handed them their bags. When they went into the lift a man who was in there took off his hat and held it against his chest, and when they reached his floor he made quite a ceremony of excusing himself to step out past them.

Christine's room was all windows on one side, which would have been nice if the glass had not been very dirty and covered on the outside by grimy wire screens, which kept out the air as well as the flies.

When she spoke to Edna about this, Edna said: ‘Don't worry. The hotel has air conditioning.'

‘Well, but wouldn't it be much simpler if they just got air in through the windows?'

‘Listen, honey,' Edna said, ‘you don't know Washington in summer. In about a month there'll be no air to come through the windows, and what there is is like a Turkish bath.'

‘I shan't mind. I like the heat.'

‘Not this sort you won't. It's frantic.'

‘Well, don't put me off,' Christine said. ‘I'm looking forward to being married and living here.'

‘Sure you are, and I'm very glad you're marrying my brother.' Edna took off her hat and prodded at the heavy coffee-coloured knot of hair that was lodged precariously in the nape of her neck. Although she wore a mad hat and an expensive-looking dress, Christine was relieved to find that she was not a smart kind of person at all. She wore the wrong shade of yellowish powder on her crinkled monkey face. Her hair was untidy and full of unconcealed pins. Her nails were square and unvarnished and looked as if she did all her own laundry, and she walked with an odd little sideways stoop, which made her clothes sag.

‘I've been glad about you and Vinson ever since he wrote us the news,' she said, sitting on the bed and kicking off her shoes. ‘You'll excuse me, won't you, but I bought new shoes for your wedding and they kill me. Vinson needs a wife. He should have
gotten married long ago, though I want to tell you I'm glad he didn't do it, because that girl was a tramp.'

Christine did not ask: ‘What girl?' She was not going to admit that Vinson had never told her.

‘Why does he need a wife?' she asked, exploring the room, which had spindly modern furniture and a bed made up to look like an upholstered couch. ‘Oh, look what a lovely bathroom I've got.'

‘Kinda small,' said Edna, squinting towards the bathroom door. She screwed up her face a lot, working it about as she talked as if it were rubber. ‘Why does he need a wife? Well, honey, what man doesn't? But particularly in the Navy. There's so much entertaining' – Christine's heart sank – ‘and then, you know, Vinson has been so much among other Navy men that he's gotten to be – you'll forgive me if I say it – just a little narrow.' She screwed up her face very tightly and looked at Christine from under the loose puckered skin of her eyelids. Sometimes she looked about thirty-five; sometimes she looked fifty. She might have been any age.

‘How do you mean?' Christine went to the window and rubbed on the glass, but the dirt was on the outside. Seven storeys below, a sprinkler had just gone by, and the endless cars were going swish, swish, swish along the wet black street.

‘I mean that he's a little given to thinking that life begins and ends with the United States Navy,' Edna said.' He's lived nearly forty years, and he knows a lot about his job, but not too much about what goes on outside it. He needs someone like you from a completely different world to freshen up his ideas a bit. Maybe I shouldn't be talking to you like this when we've only just met, but we are practically sisters-in-law, and, anyway, I've never believed in two people wasting time walking around each other like a couple of dogs before they can get to know each other.'

‘I'm glad. I like you, Edna,' Christine said, not feeling as shy as she would have if she had said this to a comparative stranger in England. ‘It's a bit difficult, you know, getting married without any girl friends or anyone to back you up.'

‘You're telling me,' Edna said. ‘I ran away from home to marry Milt. He was in Kansas City, Missouri, and I don't know
a soul there. I tell you, I never was so unhappy. I cried like a fool on my wedding day.' She laughed. Her teeth were white, but prominent and badly spaced. It seemed odd in this land of expert dentistry that they had not been properly fixed when she was younger.

‘I shall be terrified on my wedding day,' Christine said. ‘I shan't know anyone at my own wedding.'

‘You'll know Vinson,' Edna said. ‘I guess that's about all that matters. You'll be all right, hon. He's a pretty nice guy. You love him, huh?'

‘Oh yes. I'm marrying him.'

‘Swell. He and I have never known each other as well as we should. I guess he told you we were separated a lot after my parents were divorced, but I know enough about him to like him a whole lot, and I like him even better now that I see he was smart enough to pick someone like you.'

There was a knock at the door and Vinson came in. ‘Hi, girls,' he said. ‘What are you yattering about?'

‘We're talking about you,' Edna said, ‘and saying how smart you were to pick Christine.'

Vinson's face, which was more quick and tense in America than Christine remembered it in England, relaxed into one of its most loving smiles.

‘I think I was too,' he said. He came over to Christine and put his arm round her shoulder and kissed her. ‘How do you like her, Edie? Don't you think she's marvellous?' He rocked her back and forth, and Christine hung her head and smiled foolishly, feeling like a child being shown off to visitors.

‘She's a honey,' Edna said. ‘I've been telling her she's much too good for you.'

‘I know it.' Vinson kissed Christine again, and Edna said: ‘Well, I'll be going, kids.' She struggled into her shoes and picked up her hat. ‘What do you say we eat in about half an hour, Vinson? Milt's on a new diet, and he has to space his calorie intake exactly, so don't be later than you can help.'

When she had gone, Vinson turned Christine round and kissed her long and properly for the first time since she had come
to America. When he kissed her like this she knew why she had come three thousand miles.

After a while he said: ‘If you're going to change your dress, Christine, you'd better get around to it, or we'll be late.'

‘I will in a minute. Edna won't mind. She's awfully nice, Vin.'

‘You'd better get changed now.' He went to the mirror and straightened his tie and smoothed his hair. ‘It will be impolite to them if we're late.'

Christine, brought up with Roger, did not see how you could be impolite to a sister. The word in its social sense had no place in her family vocabulary.

‘You've had your hair cut again, darling,' she said. ‘Why do you wear it so short?'

‘Of course, I've had it cut for my wedding. A naval officer doesn't go around looking like a bear.'

‘It could be a bit longer without looking like a bear. It's awfully short. You've got a nice shaped head, and you ought to make the most of it.'

He glanced sideways at the mirror to see the shape of his head. ‘This is regulation length,' he said.' My goodness, I'd like to see the Admiral's face if I turned up at my wedding with it any longer than this.'

‘Oh,' Christine said. ‘Is the Admiral coming?'

‘I believe he might,' said Vinson, with reverent hope.

At dinner he talked to Edna about the wedding plans. Milt talked to Christine, asking her how she liked America and applauding her unremarkable answers.

When the food came he poured tomato sauce all over his steak and said: ‘This is a bit different to English austerity, isn't it? You ever see anything like this before?'

‘If we did, it would be the week's ration for two people,' Christine said. She had discovered on the boat that this was always a sure-fire statement to interest Americans.

‘If they'd only pull their socks up over there they could eat like this any day of the week,' Milt said.' Look at the Germans. The British could take a lesson from them in recovery.'

Vinson had been half listening to their conversation while he
talked to Edna. He was conscious of Christine all the time when they were with other people. ‘Watch your step, Milt,' he said. ‘Be careful what you say about England.'

‘Don't worry,' said Milt. ‘Christine and I are friends. I think she's just the most wonderful person I've met in ages. You don't mind anything I say, do you, Christine? There – aren't you cute? Of course you don't. Let me tell you, I think Britain's just the finest country.'

He seemed only to have superlative adjectives in his vocabulary. Everything was the finest he had ever seen – the food, the wine Vinson had chosen, Christine's dress. She wondered if he was like this at home. Did he tell Edna all the time how wonderful she was? And, if so, did it sound more sincere than all the praise he was throwing around now?

She also was conscious of Vinson all the time. Accepting the encomiums with which Milt sought to make up for his criticism of Britain's post-war effort, she was half listening to the conversation between Vinson and his sister.

‘Oh, not Aunt Felice,' she heard him say. ‘She can't come to the wedding.'

‘She must, Vinson. She wants to come, and she'd come, anyway, whatever anyone said.'

‘Oh no, I can't have Aunt Felice there.' Vinson frowned.

‘Why not?' Christine asked.

‘Well-' He spread his hands and laughed self-consciously. ‘Well, she – she's not quite the type of person one should ask one's guests to meet.'

‘He means she's nuts,' said Edna, biting crisply into cole slaw.

Christine did not see that it mattered. Nearly every family had at least one odd relation. If she had been married in England there would have been Great Aunt Isobel, who would have had to be kept from the champagne, and probably that weird, hymn-singing housekeeper of Uncle Leonard's, who everyone thought was his wife, and should be, if she wasn't.

Vinson was quite put out about Aunt Felice. He brooded until the dessert, which was pie with ice-cream. Milt wanted to eat it, but Edna would not let him. He did not tell her that she was the most wonderful woman he had ever met. He told her
that she was a goddamn interfering woman, and Edna laughed and told him that he was no better than a greedy hog. Christine liked that. She was used to that kind of amiable family abuse. It was the way her father and Aunt Josephine used to talk to each other.

Vinson did not like it. Christine took his hand and said: ‘Don't worry, darling, I won't ever talk to you like that. You shall eat all the pie you want.'

‘Vinson doesn't have to worry about his front. He has just the loveliest figure I've ever seen on a man,' Milt said, and Vinson cheered up and squeezed Christine's hand.

After dinner they went for a nightcap to the cocktail bar, where a woman was aggravating the drinkers by playing on a Hammond organ. Sometimes she played on the organ with one hand and on a near-by piano with the other, and that was worse. You could not talk against the organ, and Vinson soon suggested that, in view of the wedding tomorrow, it was time to retire.

He went up with Christine to her room. ‘I mustn't stay long,' he said. ‘You've got a big day ahead of you.'

‘I wish you could stay all night,' Christine said. She liked to shock him, because now that she was his bride, and English to boot, he thought that she should be so proper.

The upholstered couch had been miraculously made into a bed, and they sat on it and began to talk seriously, suddenly realizing what they were approaching tomorrow.

‘Are you sure you're not making a mistake?' Vinson kept saying. ‘Are you sure you love me? Do you love me more than any other man you've ever known?
Have
you ever loved another man, Christine? We've had so little time together, you haven't told me these things.'

‘What does it matter?'