The GI Bride (23 page)

The following day, the pastor came to see
me. I invited him in but did not ask him to sit down.

‘I’m sorry you left in such a
hurry yesterday. We didn’t have a chance to talk,’ he said.

There was a boulder-sized lump in my throat
and I wasn’t sure if I could speak to him in a civil manner, but I took a deep
breath and opened my mouth, surprised by my own daring. ‘How dare you and your
precious church stand between me and my God?’ I spat. ‘How dare
you?’

He stammered, then tried to explain the
rules of that particular branch of the Lutheran Church, which was, as
I recall, the Missouri Synod. I listened as politely as I could, and then it was my
turn.

‘Thank you for showing me how far your
church has distanced itself from the teaching of Christ,’ I told him. ‘You
can be sure I will not be transferring my membership to yours or any other Lutheran
church.’

He told me how sorry he was to hear that and
assured me that I would be welcome to attend the church as long as I understood the rule
about Communion. I almost choked on that final comment.

‘Does that mean you won’t be
able to baptize my baby either?’ I asked.

‘Your infant child would be exempt
from the membership rule, but I will pray that you have a change of heart about your own
membership.’ I thanked him for his visit and showed him the door.

We ended up having Robin christened in that
church because Mary and John Nicholson, who were to be her godparents, were also
Lutherans, but I never again attended that so-called Christian church.

We had some interesting neighbours in the
apartment complex but almost everyone worked in the casinos and slept most of the day.
There was little socializing when we first moved in. A number of gorgeous showgirls
lived close to us, and next to them I felt like a dowdy old frump, although I must say
they didn’t always look so glamorous when they first got up and wandered out to
their swimming pool to work on their suntans.

We felt fortunate when a non-show-business
couple with a young daughter moved in next door. They were
Don and
Rosa Montgomery and their daughter’s name was Robin, which was quite a
coincidence. Don was a scientist who lived and worked in Los Alamos in New Mexico but
was on assignment to the Nevada nuclear test sites. Rosa was the sister of Ruth Graham,
the wife of evangelist Billy Graham. They were, of course, a religious family and were
always thoughtful and kind to us. Their daughter Robin was a little younger than Wayne
but at least he had someone close to his age to play with. I used to love hearing
Rosa’s stories of how she and Ruth had grown up in China with their missionary
parents and about some of the funny things that had happened before her father got the
hang of the Chinese language. My favourite story was about why his congregation kept
giggling during his sermons. At last, someone explained to him that the Chinese word for
‘pig’ was similar to the word for ‘Jesus’ and that he often got
the two mixed up by using the wrong inflection.

Despite Palmer’s new job, we still
seemed to be very short of money. When one of the newer neighbours asked if I would
consider taking care of her child while she worked at the casino, I said I would. Stacey
was about eight so now Wayne had another playmate. I hadn’t initially thought to
ask the mother, whose name was Marilyn, what she did for a living but when I did, she
told me she was a ‘gambler’ and proceeded to explain what that meant.

Marilyn would go to the casinos, day or
night, and start looking for a man who was alone and on a winning streak. She would then
stand next to him, encouraging him and cheering him on. Many times the man would
consider her
to be good luck and would end up giving her some of his
chips to gamble alongside him. Of course, she didn’t gamble with the chips but
cashed them in later. Sometimes she would end up drinking and dining with the man and
perhaps he would buy her an expensive gift at one of the chic boutiques in the hotel.
There were several such gambling girls; they made arrangements with the hotel boutiques
to return the gifts and get perhaps half of the retail value in cash. It was quite a
racket with the same items being sold many times over. I asked Marilyn if she ever went
to bed with any of these men but she insisted, at least initially, that she was not a
prostitute.

Later, she started staying away for longer
periods. Sometimes I would have to go to her apartment to find clothes for Stacey and it
looked as though a cyclone had gone through the building. There were cocktail dresses
strewn everywhere and the whole place smelt of booze. I was worried that she was getting
in over her head, and was increasingly concerned that she might be using drugs. She
would sometimes cry uncontrollably on my shoulder, but when I tried to talk her into
changing her crazy lifestyle she said she couldn’t because nothing else would pay
as well. In return she paid me well and always in silver dollars. Poor Stacey spent more
and more time with us, and would cry for her mother. It was heartbreaking and reminded
me of my lonely childhood when I was evacuated during the war and separated from my
family.

It was difficult to get into the Christmas
spirit, with the hot desert sun beating down every day. We put up a small tree for the
children and I seem to recall that we cooked
outside on the grill on
Christmas Day. Somehow, Christmas just didn’t seem the same out there in the
desert. Wayne was happy because he got just what he wanted from Santa: a cowboy outfit.
He took being a cowboy very seriously and was forever practising his draw. ‘Stick
’em up, pardner,’ he’d say.

We took him horseback riding at a ranch and
to the National Quick Draw Contest to show him how fast he would need to draw if he
wanted to be a real cowboy. Now, this cowboy business was a whole new thing for Wayne as
he had previously had a Superman outfit, which he was always putting on and would leap
into the room when we had company, scaring the hell out of our guests. He was funny as a
little boy and, come to think of it, he still is; only the costumes have changed.

Soon after the holidays, Mary and John
Nicholson came to visit us for Robin’s christening. It was wonderful to see them
and I realized how much I missed having them nearby. While they were with us, Palmer
arranged for us all to see the show and have dinner at the Flamingo Hotel; we were to
see Myron Cohen, the comedian, plus the dancing girls. Mary and I decided to splurge and
have our hair done at one of the fancy salons on the Strip. Now, in the early sixties
the beehive hairdo was in, so Mary and I, wanting to be trendy, asked for exactly that.
It being Las Vegas, where just about everything was done to excess, we came out of that
salon with the biggest hair you’ve ever seen.

We had a great evening out, and after
we’d stumbled home across the patch of desert that separated the Strip from where
we lived, Mary and I decided that our
expensive coiffures were much
too splendid to waste. Mary said she’d heard that if you wrapped toilet paper
around your head before going to bed, it would preserve your hairdo. So, between us we
used an entire roll, wrapping our enormous beehives.

The next morning when we emerged,
bleary-eyed, from our bedrooms, we took one look at each other and began to laugh
hysterically. After rolling about in bed all night, our carefully wrapped beehives had
grown about a foot taller and skinnier, and when we finally composed ourselves enough to
remove the paper, our hair looked as though it had been moulded inside a stovepipe hat.
It was a terrible waste of toilet paper but the laughs we’ve had about that
incident over the years have been worth it; I just wish we’d taken pictures.

Palmer and I played host to quite a number
of his customers, most of whom were rich but pleasant company. One youngish man in
particular comes to mind. Palmer brought him home for lunch one day and, in the course
of conversation, he revealed that he had married the Kimberley heiress. ‘I know
you’re not American,’ he said to me, ‘but are you familiar with the
name?’

‘Oh, yes,’ I replied.
‘Kimberly-Clark paper products are well known in Britain too.’

‘No.’ He laughed.
‘I’m talking about Kimberley diamonds. You know, the Kimberley diamond
mines.’ Oh, Lord, I thought, and here I am, serving him a ham sandwich.

Of all the amazing things that happened
while I was living in Las Vegas, one thing stands out, and it didn’t
involve anyone famous. I was taking the baby for a walk in her buggy
one day, along the sidewalk on the Strip in the days when you could do it safely. Coming
towards me was someone who looked familiar. I thought I must be dreaming after all, this
was Las Vegas, not England. Who could I possibly know here? As we got closer, I realized
it was who I’d thought it was. It was my old friend June Gradley from the South
Oxhey council estate.

‘June Gradley!’ I almost
shouted. ‘What are you doing here?’

She stared back at me, clearly dazed.
‘Iris Jones,’ she finally managed to get out.

We hugged each other, questions pouring out
of our mouths. I remembered then that my mother had told me she’d married an
American but she didn’t know where she lived in the States.

‘My Len’s still in the air
force,’ she explained, ‘and we’re stationed at Nellis Air Force base
here in Vegas but what are you doing here?’

‘Well, you might say I’m
stationed in Vegas too,’ I said. ‘I’m married for the second time and
my husband works at the Flamingo Hotel.’ We chatted for a while before exchanging
phone numbers and addresses and promising we’d get together soon. I was over the
moon to think that I would now have a normal friend in this weird place, and an old
friend from England at that, another GI bride. How lucky can you get? I thought, as I
walked away with a big grin on my face.

June and Len Armstrong had two young
children and lived in military housing on the air force base, and I will never forget
our first visit to them. They had invited us for
dinner. When we got
there, Robin was asleep so we laid her in the middle of their bed. She was only about
three months old and not very active so we assumed she would be safe. As we sat around
the table eating dinner, we suddenly heard a loud thump, followed by the sound of the
baby screaming. We rushed into the bedroom and there was Robin, on the hard tiled floor.
I picked her up and tried to comfort her but the screaming didn’t stop. I was
terrified. Len said we should take her to the base hospital to have a doctor check her
over, and that was what we did, with the baby still screaming. As soon as it was our
turn to be seen, she stopped crying. The doctor checked her over, found nothing
detectable wrong with her but told us to come back if she seemed to be sleeping more or
longer than usual. I stayed up all of that night, just watching her, but she seemed fine
and the next day she showed no ill effects from her fall except a small bruise on her
forehead. The guilt I suffered for leaving her alone on that bed stayed with me for a
long time and after that, in similar situations, I simply created a little bed for her
on the floor.

Playing host with Palmer, entertaining his
customers at the hotel, was great fun as long as he didn’t drink too much. I felt
that although I was inexperienced I did a good job and managed to converse easily with
just about anyone. Palmer told me that most people thought I was charming and loved my
Englishness, whatever that meant.

The only problem was that it was difficult
to acquire the necessary wardrobe for all those fancy dinner engagements. My crazy
neighbour Marilyn had an abundance of evening clothes and usually came to my rescue. I
borrowed dresses from her even though I often had to have
them cleaned
before I could wear them. Sometimes I just hung them outside for a while to get rid of
the smell of smoke.

I used to love going to see and hear the
entertainment in the lounges of the various hotels when we were with clients. I also
remember two or three times leaving the kids with my next-door neighbour for an hour so
that I could walk up to the Strip and listen to Jerry Vale, who was appearing at the
Sands Hotel lounge I was crazy about him and almost fainted when he said hello to me one
evening. In those days, you could order one drink and sit there listening for as long as
you liked to some of the biggest stars around. I don’t think you can do that any
more.

Palmer’s job required him to work long
hours, but I was so busy with the baby and baby-sitting that I really didn’t have
time to worry about what he was doing or how much he was drinking. We were still so
short of money, though, that I had to take the baby to a free clinic for her
inoculations. I used to feel guilty being there, along with all the poor Native American
women and children. We were able to have nice evenings out because they were
business-related and didn’t cost us anything, but making ends meet at home was
another matter. If it hadn’t been for the money I earned for looking after Stacey,
I wouldn’t have had enough to buy groceries. The situation seemed ridiculous to
me, but if I questioned Palmer about it, he always had an excuse or blamed me for being
extravagant. Extravagant with what? I would ask myself. I never could figure out what
was extravagant about buying diapers or baby food. The entire time we lived in Vegas, my
only extravagance was that one ridiculous beehive.

In many ways, Las Vegas was the perfect
metaphor for my marriage to Palmer. It was all bright lights and plenty on the surface,
but underneath the glitz, and the show-off entertainment, our life and marriage were an
arid desert. My children and I were like tumbleweed, blown about by the ever-changing
prevailing winds, and emotionally, I was parched.

After we had been in Las Vegas for about
six months, and before we’d had time to begin looking for a different place to
live or get our furniture out of storage, Palmer announced that he had been offered a
job back in Chicago and we were going almost immediately. I was stunned. I never
understood how these things came about: I didn’t know if he looked for jobs
because he’d been given notice by his present employer, or if in fact they came
looking for him. I just accepted it and did what I had to. What choice did I have? I
certainly couldn’t stay by myself in the middle of the desert with two small
children.