Эд Макбейн - Mothers and Daughters

“Television.”

“Acting?”

“Producing.”

“That must be exciting work,” Amanda said.

“I like it,” David answered.

Cocktails and small talk in July. The new lake-front neighbors, Matthew and Amanda Bridges. The visiting son from the city. Julia cool in blue cotton. Matthew in dungarees and a T shirt, powerful arms and chest. Amanda in slacks and a full white blouse. July and small talk.

The screen door clattered shut.

August.

“Hi!” she called.

“Hello,” he answered. He lifted his arm and waved.

“Have you been in yet?”

“No.”

“I’ll bet it’s freezing.”

She was wearing a green tank-suit, a soft round girl who walked quickly to the dock before the cottage, as if she would dive instantly into the lake. He watched her appreciatively. She moved in a beautifully fluid, totally female way, and she was pleasant to watch. She shook her head suddenly, walked back the length of the dock and abandoned it, stepping onto the mud bank and walking gingerly to the waterfront, apparently having decided to enter the lake in slow progressive stages. She went into the water delicately and gently, holding her hands up near the full globes of her breasts, shrieking girlishly when the icy water touched the first mound of her body beneath the green tank-suit. The screen door opened and clattered shut again. Matthew.

“Hi, David. Going in?”

“Not just yet.”

“It’s freeeeeezing!” Amanda called to him. She was standing in water to her waist, slightly bent, delicately dipping her fingers into the lake the way David had seen it done by grandmothers and little girls.

He decided he liked Amanda Bridges.

The sounds on the lake were good sounds, summer sounds. Matthew grinned and ran past Amanda, plunging into the water recklessly. He surfaced instantly and said “Wow!” and then plunged beneath the surface again. There was a sudden silence during which the distant sound of the spillway seemed very close, all the whispering sounds of summer seemed very close and very loud, the soughing sad song of the mild breeze high in the tops of the lakeside pines and oaks, the languid rustle of heavy leaves against a heat-pale sky, and carried on the stifled breeze, echoing down the rolling bank from the Bridges’ cottage, the laughter of ten-year-old Kate playing with her younger brother, and Matthew suddenly surfacing and advancing on his wife, “Matthew, don’t! Don’t you daaaaare!” the words hanging on the water and the sky, the near buzz of yellow jackets in the close-cropped clover, the lap of the water against the dock pilings, the creak of oarlocks on the rowboats, the boats bobbing near the dock, yellow, red, yellow, and a telephone ringing someplace on the lake, the sounds of summer, sticky-slow and dreamlike, far away the hum of automobile tires on a road that rushed against the belly of the lazy countryside.

Amanda darted a frightened happy excited glance at her approaching husband and then dove into the water and broke into a powerful crawl for the raft. She climbed aboard, panting. Matthew followed her, and they both laughed short little laughs of contentment and lay back against the canvas. The lake was still again. David could hear the laughter of the children in the cottage. “No,” Kate said in her clear childish voice, “you’re supposed to be the milkman, Bobby.” He closed his eyes. The sun was hot. He began to doze.

Crackling.

A strange crackling sound.

His eyelids flickered, closed again.

Smell. Thick. Nostrils and throat. The crackle. What...

He turned on the chair, hot sunshine covered his right shoulder, his throat felt raw, the smell was thick in his nostrils, heat and the smell of...

He sat upright suddenly.

Smoke!

He looked out over the lake first, blinking. They were asleep on the raft, both of them. He turned his head to the right, saw the smoke drifting on the air, heard the crackling sound again, coming from the rear of the Bridges’ cottage, the children in the house, fire, he thought, Fire , he thought, “FIRE!” he shouted.

He leaped to his feet. His shoes. Where were his shoes?

“Fire!” he yelled again, and then ran toward the cottage, across the separating stretch of stone-strewn ground, where the hell are my shoes? he thought, children in the house, oh Jesus, “ Fire! ” he shouted, turned the corner of the cottage, stopped dead in his tracks when he saw the blaze.

He had fought fires in boot camp, fought raging oil fires, held the spray nozzle and suffocated the flames as thick black smoke poured from the open hatchway and heat mushroomed into his face. But in boot camp there had been experienced fire fighters teaching the embryo sailors, there was a feeling of absolute control, there was the knowledge that nothing could go terribly wrong.

There was no such assurance here. His mind seemed to be ticking in stop images. The flames. The pump room. The gasoline water pump. He rushed to the open door, backed away from the flames. I’m in my swimming shorts, he thought, Jesus, what... Jesus... the flames... how? He saw the gasoline can resting against the pump’s exhaust, saw gasoline spilling from the open spout of the can, feeding the fire. He reached into the flames. He grasped the charred hot handle of the gas can and pulled it out of the flames in one sweeping motion, a straight-armed motion that swept the can out of the fire and brought it back past his near-naked body. A sheet of flame followed the open spout as he swung the can in a backward arc. He could feel the heat passing his face, saw the sudden charred sooty streak appear on the wooden door of the pump room. He let go of the handle, the can fell into the bushes, immediately igniting them.

Oh, Jesus, he thought.

A hose. Water.

He turned his head in short jerks. Where was Matthew? What the hell was taking him so long to get off that raft?

“David, what is it?” his mother yelled from the porch next door.

“Fire!” he shouted. “Get Matthew!”

He saw the coiled hose at the back of the house. He ran for it. Kate stuck her head out of the upstairs window.

“What’s the matter, Mr. Regan?” she asked.

“Get out of the house!” he said. He began unwinding the hose.

“What?”

“Get out of the house!”

“What? What?”

“The house is on fire! Get out of there!”

He ran back to the pump room with the hose. Which? he thought. The bushes? The pump room? Which first? The whole lake front’ll go up. The bushes first. First the bushes. He swung the nozzle of the hose. No water. No...? I didn’t turn it on! He dropped the hose and ran back to the faucet attachment. He turned the wheel and then ran back to the house again. No water was coming from the nozzle. Come on! he thought. He twisted it. Which way? I’m turning it the wrong way! He finally opened the nozzle, sprayed water at the bushes, watched the flames turn to white smoke, and swung back toward the pump room. The flames had reached the ceiling of the room. They’ll go through, he thought. They’ll get into the house. Was Kate out? Would she have sense enough to take her brother with her? He looked up, saw only the empty window, and then shot the stream of water at the pump.

He saw the cans then. Cans of paint stacked behind the pump. He saw a gallon bottle of kerosene. He saw a can marked “Shellac.” This whole damn thing’ll explode in my face, he thought. This isn’t my house, he thought. I’m crazy, he thought. But he kept the hose on the flames. Go out! Goddamn it, go out! He leaned closer into the fire. He heard a crackling crisp sound, smelled the terrifying aroma of singed hair, my chest, he thought, and backed away from the flames. A pair of flaming overalls was hanging over the buckets of paint. He reached into the small room, a coffin set on end, a tiny room with a blazing pump and piles of explosive material. He grabbed the overalls and flung them back over his shoulder onto the ground, turned the hose on them immediately and saw Matthew, wet, panting, what had taken him so long? He did not realize he had been fighting the fire no longer than three minutes.