Laurie Graham - The Future Homemakers of America

‘Hell is a bad word,’ Crystal said. ‘Also, jeez. Miss Boyle says.’

‘Vern,’ I told him, ‘I can make pie and go visiting.’

I’ll say this about Vern. Sometimes pie was all it took.

‘Honey,’ he said to Crystal, ‘you tell Miss Boyle welcome to the free world, thanks to folks like your daddy, and you can say any goddamn words you please.’

‘You don’t tell Miss Boyle no such thing,’ I said to her when I was tucking her in, ‘and you know what? Mommy’s gonna get you a princess dressing table, all pink and pretty.’

I was thinking I’d get Miss Homemaker of America to give me a hand. Betty always seemed to have a hundred ideas how to turn a prefab cabin into what she called ‘a gracious and lovely home’. I figured, if I kept Vern sweet, smartened up the quarters, made the occasional pie, I’d be able get off base once in a while without getting the third degree. Get away from the whine of the jets and the rattling of the windows. Now I’d got the hang of driving on the wrong side of the road, and handling that funny money of theirs, I was starting to enjoy going out there.

Crystal said, ‘Mommy? Do I have to have a princess dressing table? Can I get roller skates instead?’

I fell and busted my collar bone, coming outta the PX where the kids had been skidding around, polishing the ice. They strapped me up, till the bone knit, which good as put me in the slammer for a while. Couldn’t drive, couldn’t hardly pull up my own shorts. Couldn’t stop Betty Gillis running in and out performing acts of neighbourly kindness. Vern ate all the soup she brung in. That man was a walking Disposall. I just lived on codeine and Pepsi and prayed next time he got orders it’d be for Ramey, Puerto Rico.

‘You rest up now,’ Betty said. ‘I’ll take care of things. You’re in the best place. You seen what kinda weather we got today?’

They called it a Fen Blow. Looked like a sandstorm to me. A sandstorm on the far side of the moon.

‘Just when you thought it couldn’t get worse,’ Lois said. ‘Here, open nice and wide and I’ll steady the gun in your mouth. Hell, no. Let me go first. You can make your own arrangements. I got Herb at home and you’ll never guess what he’s doing.’

Herb loved chopping wood.

Thirty-six hours they didn’t fly a single sortie, because of the Blow, and Vern was like a bear with a boil on his backside, driving out to the facility every five minutes, looking for a patch of clear sky.

I said, ‘Why can’t you quit prowling around and do something? Play checkers with Crystal or write your mom. Do you know Lance Rudman writes his folks every week?’

‘Yeah?’ he said. ‘Well that figures. Pushing a pencil’s about what Rudman’s cut out for.’

Vern didn’t have much time for Lance. Okey Jackson was the one Vern rated, even though he looked so wet behind the ears, and there were jocks in the squadron had seen real action in Korea. Whatever it was they got up to up there, and I really didn’t care to know, Okey was the one kept showing them he had the moxie.

Soon as I got the strapping off, I shampooed my hair and pin-curled it. I was just going to the closet to get the dryer hood when I heard the siren. Then the crash trucks started up.

First time I ever heard that, back at Kirtland, I ran right outside, looking down the flight-line for smoke and then when I seen it I wished I hadn’t, because I didn’t know what the hell to do with myself. By the time we got to Drampton, England, I guess I’d learned there was no point. Wait long enough I knew I’d either be getting a visit from the chaplain, standing on my doorstep like the Grim Reaper hisself, giving me my wake-up call, or I’d be hearing from Betty Gillis on the jungle drums.

It took her thirteen minutes.

‘Breathe again,’ she said. ‘It’s 366 Squadron. You wanna come up here for coffee?’

So we all rendezvoused at Betty’s. She was minding Sandie again, didn’t seem to know where Lois was.

I said, ‘One of these days that kid’s gonna start calling you Mommy.’

‘Be fine by me,’ she said, ‘she’s such a little cutie. Way I see it, Peggy, some folks just aren’t cut out to be mothers, and if I can lend a helping hand, why, I’m doing Sandie a favour too. You heard the way Lois yells at her sometimes? Tell you the truth, I’d love another little one of my own, only Ed’s acting stubborn about it.’

Betty had been putting out feelers, trying to find out the news from 366. See if there were casualties. Pretty soon her telephone started ringing. One of their Invaders had come in on a tight turn and an engine flamed out. The crew had had to eject, and they were all safe home bar one, a sergeant called Benedetto, left one of his legs behind in the wreckage.

We kinda knew his wife. You see girls around, get to recognise their faces. But the Benedettos were quartered on Soapsuds Row, down by the hangars, and besides, we were First Lieuts. We didn’t socialise with the enlisted.

Gayle said, ‘Is he gonna die?’

Betty said, ‘Honey, they can do wonders these days. They’ll give him a new leg and a disability pension and everything.’

Audrey said, ‘That’s right. Air force takes care of its own. Now let’s do something to perk ourselves up. How about a Scarf Exchange? And I have a tangerine lipstick somebody might like.’

Gayle said, ‘He still could die.’

Betty said, ‘We’ll have no more of that kinda talk, thank you, young lady. Now, I have a tray of brownies here needs arranging nice and pretty. Care to make yourself useful?’

Gayle dumped the brownies on the plate.

I whispered to her, ‘You wanna come out driving, after? Get off the base for five minutes? Celebrate me getting back the use of my shift arm?’

She nodded. Little Sandie was looking at her, so solemn. Even she knew something had happened.

Betty’s Best-Ever Brownies

2 sticks sweet butter

4 eggs

4 ounces powdered chocolate

2 cups sugar

1/2 cup sifted flour

1 teaspoon McCormick’s vanilla extract

Heat the oven to 350°C. Grease and flour a large baking tray.

Melt butter over a low flame, stir in chocolate and set aside to cool.

Beat eggs and sugar until pale and creamy. Fold in the chocolate mixture and blend carefully. Gently add the flour, pour into pan and bake until just set (20–30 minutes).

Leave in pan until cool. Cut into squares for serving.

Instead of heading up to Brakey we went over by The Warren, the only little bit of woodland in the neighbourhood, spruce mainly, and came through it on a narrow track, trees pressing in both sides, but I liked it a lot better than having that big Norfolk sky watching every move I made. There was a nice earthy smell in there, too, like spring might be on the move.

Gayle was still quiet, so I just talked to myself.

I said, ‘This is like the fairy forest in one of Crystal’s bedtime stories. You see any handsome woodcutters? No, well, I guess Herb Moon’s still winging his way home with the rest of the boys.’

‘How come nobody ever talks about it?’ she said. ‘Peggy? About crashes and stuff? Like this morning, Benedetto nearly didn’t make it, and we just go to coffee at Betty’s and sit round, asking her why her brownies taste so good? Can you explain this to me, ’cause I just don’t get it? I mean, when you hear there’s a plane down, when you hear those trucks going off, don’t none of you ever get the shakes, waiting for the holy Joe to come creeping up the path, tell you you’re widow of the week? Hell, Peggy, don’t none of you get scared?’