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Authors: Ross MacDonald
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his wing. It wasn’t a very protective wing, I’m afraid. Jack wasn’t on the carrier for more than a week or two when it was ordered to Okinawa, and then burned. That was the end of Jack’s sea duty, and the end of my husband’s naval career.”
“You mean they fired him out of the Navy?”
“Not exactly. They gave him shore duty at Great Lakes. Ben hated it. So did I. But it was much harder on him than it was on me. When I married him, he was terribly ambitious. He used to talk about someday becoming CINPAC . The job at Great Lakes led nowhere, and wasn’t intended to. As soon as the war was over, Ben resigned from the Navy. Fortunately he was married to me, and my father took him into the company.”
Her voice had dropped into the half-conscious rhythm of memory. She was aware of my presence, which made speechpossible, but she wasn’t just talking to me. She was telling herself about her life, and finding out how it sounded.
“Is this the end of your husband’s career in the oil business?”
“I don’t know. It feels like the end of a lot of things to me.” Her voice dropped out of hearing, but I sensed its quiet rhythms continuing in her mind. Then it was audible again: “I’m afraid my father has turned his back on us. We disappointed him by having no children. Now he’s got himself a woman named Connie Hapgood. She used to be a teacher at River Valley School, and she’s actually younger than I am. Younger than I ever was,” she added in a flash of wry and angry wit. “Father is in his seventies, but he plans to marry her as soon as his marriage to Mother is dissolved. He’s even talking about having another family.”
“Talking will do no harm.”
“He means it, though. He’s got himself persuaded, with that woman’s help, that he can have a second life. And of course she’ll do her best to get Ben fired and put her own people in. There were rumors of it even before the blowout, and now that it’s happened I’m afraid Ben’s finished.”
“But the blowout was pure accident, wasn’t it?”
“It must have been. Of course. But Father will blame Ben. Father has always had to have someone to blame.” The sentence came out heavy and cold, like a capsule history of her early life. After a while, she added:
“One of the planets—I forget which one—takes something like a hundred and sixty-five years to revolve around the sun. It makes for a long long year. And that’s the kind of a year our family seems to be having.”
“Neptune?”
“It may be Neptune. He’s the god of the sea, isn’t he? Maybe
he
got mad and blew up our oil well. But please don’t suggest that possibility to my husband. He’d be only too willing to believe it.”
chapter
11
We rode in silence, like companions on a journey to inner space, until we left the freeway at Pacific Point. Elizabeth told me how to find her brother’s house, just south of the city limits in the suburb of Montevista.
As we turned down the driveway, the night sky was blacked out by overarching trees. Then it opened out ahead of us, flooded by moonlight, floored by the glittering sea. In that perspective, the house which clung to the edge of the cliff looked small and low. All its windows were lit.
I parked by a masonry wall on the left side of the driveway.
“Let me do the talking,” Elizabeth said.
“All right. But I want to come in.”
She looked into my face. “Why? It will be easier for me to talk to Jack and Marian alone.”
“We didn’t come here to make it easier for you. And I didn’t come along for the ride.”
“Very well. Come in if you like.”
“I don’t like. I’d rather be home in bed. But I will if you insist.”
She drew in her breath in a little gasp of irritation, which she controlled. Her gloved hand pressed my arm.
“Don’t get angry, Mr. Archer. Jack is about all I can handle at any one time.”
As if to demonstrate the truth of this, Jack Lennox came out through a gateway in the stone
“You mean they fired him out of the Navy?”
“Not exactly. They gave him shore duty at Great Lakes. Ben hated it. So did I. But it was much harder on him than it was on me. When I married him, he was terribly ambitious. He used to talk about someday becoming CINPAC . The job at Great Lakes led nowhere, and wasn’t intended to. As soon as the war was over, Ben resigned from the Navy. Fortunately he was married to me, and my father took him into the company.”
Her voice had dropped into the half-conscious rhythm of memory. She was aware of my presence, which made speechpossible, but she wasn’t just talking to me. She was telling herself about her life, and finding out how it sounded.
“Is this the end of your husband’s career in the oil business?”
“I don’t know. It feels like the end of a lot of things to me.” Her voice dropped out of hearing, but I sensed its quiet rhythms continuing in her mind. Then it was audible again: “I’m afraid my father has turned his back on us. We disappointed him by having no children. Now he’s got himself a woman named Connie Hapgood. She used to be a teacher at River Valley School, and she’s actually younger than I am. Younger than I ever was,” she added in a flash of wry and angry wit. “Father is in his seventies, but he plans to marry her as soon as his marriage to Mother is dissolved. He’s even talking about having another family.”
“Talking will do no harm.”
“He means it, though. He’s got himself persuaded, with that woman’s help, that he can have a second life. And of course she’ll do her best to get Ben fired and put her own people in. There were rumors of it even before the blowout, and now that it’s happened I’m afraid Ben’s finished.”
“But the blowout was pure accident, wasn’t it?”
“It must have been. Of course. But Father will blame Ben. Father has always had to have someone to blame.” The sentence came out heavy and cold, like a capsule history of her early life. After a while, she added:
“One of the planets—I forget which one—takes something like a hundred and sixty-five years to revolve around the sun. It makes for a long long year. And that’s the kind of a year our family seems to be having.”
“Neptune?”
“It may be Neptune. He’s the god of the sea, isn’t he? Maybe
he
got mad and blew up our oil well. But please don’t suggest that possibility to my husband. He’d be only too willing to believe it.”
chapter
11
We rode in silence, like companions on a journey to inner space, until we left the freeway at Pacific Point. Elizabeth told me how to find her brother’s house, just south of the city limits in the suburb of Montevista.
As we turned down the driveway, the night sky was blacked out by overarching trees. Then it opened out ahead of us, flooded by moonlight, floored by the glittering sea. In that perspective, the house which clung to the edge of the cliff looked small and low. All its windows were lit.
I parked by a masonry wall on the left side of the driveway.
“Let me do the talking,” Elizabeth said.
“All right. But I want to come in.”
She looked into my face. “Why? It will be easier for me to talk to Jack and Marian alone.”
“We didn’t come here to make it easier for you. And I didn’t come along for the ride.”
“Very well. Come in if you like.”
“I don’t like. I’d rather be home in bed. But I will if you insist.”
She drew in her breath in a little gasp of irritation, which she controlled. Her gloved hand pressed my arm.
“Don’t get angry, Mr. Archer. Jack is about all I can handle at any one time.”
As if to demonstrate the truth of this, Jack Lennox came out through a gateway in the stone
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