Laurie Graham - The Future Homemakers of America

‘He was found by a servant,’ she said. ‘That’d be a footman or a pageboy, taking him his coffee. Imagine. He’d put down the tray, all beautiful silver and jewels, and say, “Good morning, sire” and baboom, the king’s dead.’

Gayle Jackson was parked, waiting for us.

‘Y’all wanna come back to my place?’ she said. ‘Get a coffee or something?’ Time hung heavy for Gayle, poor kid, stuck out in a rental waiting for her darling Okey to come home.

Lois said, ‘Sure. You won’t mind if I bring along something, give it a little lift ?’ She had a liquor bag hanging from the back of Sandie’s stroller.

Gayle’s face lit up. I guess there always was that weakness in her.

Betty said, ‘Honey, did you hear? About the king?’

‘He’s dead,’ Lo chipped in. ‘Ba-boom.’

‘Course,’ Betty said, ‘it had to be a servant found him, not the queen. They’d have separate bedrooms. Kings and queens always do.’

‘Jeez,’ Gayle said. ‘How come?’

‘Why, because they have such palatial homes, of course!’ We relied on Betty for that kind of inside information. ‘They have separate closets, separate everything.’

Sounded fine to me.

‘And poor Princess Elizabeth is thousands of miles away in Africa, having the news broke to her by her courtiers. She’s just going to have to pack her bags and fly right back here and get coronated.’

She leaned down to rub Sandie’s frozen little cheeks. ‘Hi, sweetie pie. Have I been ignoring you today? My, you’re so cold. Lois, is this child warm enough?’

Sandie gave Betty a big smile. ‘Told,’ she said. ‘Digger’s ass.’

So we all headed down to Gayle’s place, and Audrey came in from next door, for coffee and a little something from Lois’s bottle, just to warm us through and wish the old king God speed. Even Betty came along and that didn’t happen too often, on account of Ed keeping her on a short tether. Betty was allowed to go any place she liked, as long as it was the PX, the chapel or the school gate.

‘I’m just fine,’ she always said. ‘If Ed Gillis is happy, Betty Gillis is happy. Anyways, I don’t have time for gallivanting. My babies keep me busy. Caring for my home and my babies.’ Her babies were Deana and Sherry, but she included Ed too, for some reason we could never fathom, so that made three whining brats, leaving their skivvies for her to pick up and generally giving her the runaround.

Gayle and Audrey were off-base, on account of they didn’t have kids. The rest of us were in quarters. They weren’t much more than cabins, with flat asphalt roofs, but at least we had each other. At least inside that perimeter fence we were one Nation, under God, indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.

Audrey didn’t seem to mind being outside. She was of a pioneering disposition. They could have put her in a mule wagon and she’d have made the best of things.

‘When in Rome,’ she always said.

Well, when in Rome , maybe, but not when you’ve been posted to the asshole of the universe.

Lois said, ‘Aud, you’re wasted here. Can’t they send you some place you’d have to live in a pup tent? I may just have a word to the CO’s wife. See if they got any mutinies need putting down. Any prairie fires need extinguishing.’

The rentals were just outside Drampton, in a place called Smeeth. It wasn’t a town. Just a couple of places growing sugar beet and a pumping station, supposed to keep the river moving along. It was called The Drain and it ran higher’n the roadway, which didn’t seem natural to me. I hoped and prayed that pumping station never broke down. Been me quartered there, I’d never have dared turn my back on it. I wouldn’t have slept nights for fear of waking up drowned.

Where they were, looked like one house but it was two, back to back, holding each other up but only just. Every house out there had that look about it, sagging in the middle, crouched down, like the sky was too much for it. They had a whole lot of sky in Norfolk, England.

Audrey and Lance were in one side of this broke-back house, Gayle and Okey were in the other, and oh how Gayle longed for a baby. A baby, and quarters, with steam heating and a Frigidaire.

‘Next year,’ Okey said, ‘next year.’

They seemed like a pair of skinny kids, playing house. Her with her ponytail and her bobbysocks. Him with his crewcut.

Gayle put on the coffee and Audrey fetched a kitchen stool from her place, Gayle and Okey not having much in the way of seating.

‘Right, this king?’ Lois said.

‘ The king.’ Betty put her straight.

‘Whatever. They’ll have a fancy funeral for him, right? With a big parade and everything. And it’ll be in London, huh? Because he’s the king.’

‘Well, I guess.’

‘And where exactly is London?’

Audrey said it was in the south-east. Fact was, though, none of us had seen the sun since the day we landed, so that didn’t help much. Get to the base gate, we still wouldn’t know whether to turn left or right.

‘Anyone else thinking what I’m thinking?’ Lois was looking excited, jiggling Sandie up and down on her knee. ‘We go, girls. We go. Find London, see the parade, then have some fun. See a new movie, or a show. Find ourselves some top-hole toffs, what-ho, treat a girl to dinner, dontcher know.’

Betty said much as she’d love to go and pay her respects, Ed’d never allow it. For starters, who’d look after Sherry and Deana? ‘And Crystal,’ she said to me, ‘who’d mind her?’ She was looking to me to stop her building up any silly hopes. When it came to playing the mommy card, showing how you just had to rein yourself in once you had kids, Betty always turned to me for back-up because you sure as hell couldn’t rely on Lois.

Gayle said, ‘I will.’ Her love of children extended even as far as Deana Gillis. Deana was in third grade. Sherry, Betty’s youngest, was in first grade, same as my Crystal. Well, they should have been, except nobody ever heard of grade school in England. In elementary school there they just had names like Miss Boyle’s Class, Mrs Warley’s Class, Miss Jex’s Class. Crystal’s reading and writing seemed to be coming along okay. Still, every night I prayed we weren’t ruining our child’s education. Wrecking her future just so’s her daddy could save their English asses from the Red Menace.

‘And what about little Sandie?’ Betty now felt she had a watertight case. I could tell because she wasn’t furrowing her brow quite so deep. ‘You can’t drag a tiny tot thousands of miles,’ she said. ‘Not even knowing where you’re going to. Do you realise, they don’t even have enough food out there? I’m sorry, Lois, but it’d be just too crazy for words.’

Audrey said, ‘Well, I guess that’s the kinda attitude opened up the West.’

She never had a lot of patience with Betty. Besides, even I knew nothing’s thousands of miles away in England. You keep going, it won’t be long before you run outta country.

Then Gayle piped up. She said, ‘I’ll look after all of them. I don’t mind not going. I never even heard of this king.’

Betty said, ‘No. It’s a wild and irresponsible idea.’

‘Hey…’ Lois was pepping up her coffee from the bottle. Those little red patches were breaking out over her cheekbones. ‘Hey,’ she said, ‘I could care less. You’re the royalty freak. I can go to London any damn time I please.’ And everything went quiet, ’cept for Sandie, crying with the hot-aches, thawed her little fingers out too fast against the wood-stove.

Gayle said, ‘Okey’s Mom mailed me the new McCall’s pattern book. Anyone want a look at it? There’s a real easy pattern for a bolero.’ And she ran upstairs to get it. I whispered to Audrey, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers.’