After the War Read Free

party was really one of her mother’s dumber ideas, although generally Cynthia was much better than the other mothers around. Certainly nicer than Archer and Billy Bigelow’s mother, that awful little Dolly; or poor Betsy Lee, with that dopey Irene for a mother (Betsy’s father had died, some folks said, while he was drunk and off necking that silly Dolly, which is what he usually did when he was drunk). And Deirdre: a long time ago, when Abby and her parents first came to Pinehill, Abigail and Deirdre were sort of friends; they used to take walks in the woods together with Deirdre’s little brother, Graham (who later everyone said was her son, by Mr. Byrd, whom later she married). But now they are not friends, and Deirdre is just like all the other grown-ups, drinking too much, and fat. Cynthia at least stays thin and she doesn’t drink a lot; she just gets silly, sometimes.
    But how can she even get silly, how can she think of anything else when her husband, Harry, Abigail’s father, is off in London, in danger, in the war ? Abby is frightened for her father; it is something she should never think of, and yetshe thinks of it all the time. Terrible things that could—not impossibly—happen to Harry, in London: bombs and fires, midnight invasions by German soldiers, all shouting and stamping boots and shooting guns and tanks killing everyone in sight. All the Americans there. Harry. The whole U.S. Navy and the Army too.
    Those were her darkest, blackest midnight obsessional thoughts. Another, only slightly less terrible, was that Harry would fall in love with some English lady, someone tall and thin with rose-petal English skin. Good at riding and gardening, cooking roast beef and puddings, all those English things in novels. Harry could fall madly in love with this English woman, and they could kiss a lot, and neck, and end up going the whole way, actually doing it. And then Harry would be more in love than ever, he’d forget all about his wife and his daughter, and never come back to them but just stay in England, maybe sometimes inviting Abigail to come and visit, by ocean liner or maybe a plane. But the idea of sailing or even flying did not cheer Abigail much. The thought of Harry living over there was much too terrible, almost as bad as Harry dead.
    And then: suppose we didn’t win the war after all? Suppose Hitler won, beat our Navy and Army, and Mr. Roosevelt?
    Melanctha Byrd, sitting on the edge of the pool, her bare feet cooling in the water, imagined falling in. How cool, how lovely it would be, all over her body. And then into the silence Melanctha heard (probably everyone else there did too) the overloud, still girlish voice of Deirdre, who was saying, “Derek McFall? But I knew him, he went to PinehillHigh one year. He was really cute, real blond and tall, with this accent, from somewhere up North. New England, somewhere like that. He was nice but not one bit friendly. A lot of the girls had these real big crushes on him, but he would never ask them out or anything. He played basketball real well but he kept pretty much to himself, and got terrific grades.”
    “And then he went to Hilton and played more basketball and got straight A’s there too.” Melanctha’s father, Russ, said this. He always knew everything, or else he said he did.
    “Well, I think he’s the best correspondent we’ve got in this war,” said Jimmy Hightower. “He’s always done his homework.” Jimmy went on to talk about this Derek McFall, whom Melanctha of course had heard on the radio, seen pictures of. “He’s even more impressive than Murrow,” Jimmy said.
    Several grown-up voices from all around the pool disagreed with Mr. Hightower. Including Russ’s. “For my money, or what’s left of it,” said Russ, “I’ll take Murrow. There’s something too, too Vermont about McFall. Too Yankee.”
    Cynthia Baird sounded mad at Russ as she said, “Oh come on now, Russell.” (Is that what she called him, always?)