steaks and an icebox full of ice cream and a pineapple. The dismal, ramshackle farmhouse was transformed into a place of warmth, comfort and happiness.
He never found buried treasure, but he got an education, walking the six miles to school every day. He liked it because the schoolroom was warmer than his home; and Mrs. Maple liked him because he always asked how things worked.
Years later it was Mrs. Maple who wrote to the congressman who got Eddie a chance to take the entrance examination for Annapolis.
He thought the Naval Academy was paradise. There were blankets and good clothes and all the food you could eat: he had never imagined such luxury. The tough physical regimen was easy to him; the bullshit was no worse than he had listened to in chapel all his life; and the hazing was petty harassment by comparison with the beatings his father handed out.
It was at Annapolis that he first became aware of how he appeared to other people. He learned that he was earnest, dogged, inflexible and hardworking. Even though he was skinny, bullies rarely picked on him: there was a look in his eye that scared them off. People liked him because they could rely on him to do what he promised, but nobody ever cried on his shoulder.
He was surprised to be praised as a hard worker. Both Pop and Mrs. Maple had taught him that you could get what you wanted by working for it, and Eddie had never conceived any other way. All the same the compliment pleased him. His father’s highest term of praise had been to call someone a “driver,” the Maine dialect word for a hard worker.
He was commissioned an ensign and assigned to aviation training on flying boats. Annapolis had been comfortable, by comparison with his home; but the U.S. Navy was positively luxurious. He was able to send money home to his parents, for them to fix the farmhouse roof and buy a new stove.
He had been four years in the navy when Mom died, and Pop went just five months later. Their few acres were absorbed into the neighboring farm, but Eddie was able to buy the house and the woodland for a song. He resigned from the navy and got a well-paid job with Pan American Airways System.
In between flights he worked on the old house, installing plumbing and electricity and a water heater, doing the work himself, paying for the materials out of his engineer’s wages. He got electric heaters for the bedrooms, a radio and even a telephone. Then he found Carol-Ann. Soon, he had thought, the house would be filled with the laughter of children, and then his dream would have come true.
Instead it had turned into a nightmare.
CHAPTER FOUR
T he first words Mark Alder said to Diana Lovesey were: “My goodness, you’re the nicest thing I’ve seen all day.”
People said that sort of thing to her all the time. She was pretty and vivacious, and she loved to dress well. That night she was wearing a long turquoise dress, with little lapels, a shirred bodice and short sleeves gathered at the elbow; and she knew she looked wonderful.
She was at the Midland Hotel in Manchester, attending a dinner dance. She was not sure whether it was the Chamber of Commerce, the Freemasons’ Ladies’ Night, or the Red Cross fund-raiser: the same people were at all such functions. She had danced with most of her husband, Mervyn’s, business associates, who had held her too close and trodden on her toes; and all of their wives had glared daggers at her. It was strange, Diana thought, that when a man made a bit of a fool of himself over a pretty girl, his wife always hated the girl for it, not the man. It was not as if Diana had designs on any of their pompous, whiskey-soaked husbands.
She had scandalized them all and embarrassed her husband by teaching the deputy mayor to jitterbug. Now, feeling the need of a break, she had slipped into the hotel bar, on the pretense of buying cigarettes.
He was there alone, sipping a small cognac, and he looked up at her as though she had brought
He never found buried treasure, but he got an education, walking the six miles to school every day. He liked it because the schoolroom was warmer than his home; and Mrs. Maple liked him because he always asked how things worked.
Years later it was Mrs. Maple who wrote to the congressman who got Eddie a chance to take the entrance examination for Annapolis.
He thought the Naval Academy was paradise. There were blankets and good clothes and all the food you could eat: he had never imagined such luxury. The tough physical regimen was easy to him; the bullshit was no worse than he had listened to in chapel all his life; and the hazing was petty harassment by comparison with the beatings his father handed out.
It was at Annapolis that he first became aware of how he appeared to other people. He learned that he was earnest, dogged, inflexible and hardworking. Even though he was skinny, bullies rarely picked on him: there was a look in his eye that scared them off. People liked him because they could rely on him to do what he promised, but nobody ever cried on his shoulder.
He was surprised to be praised as a hard worker. Both Pop and Mrs. Maple had taught him that you could get what you wanted by working for it, and Eddie had never conceived any other way. All the same the compliment pleased him. His father’s highest term of praise had been to call someone a “driver,” the Maine dialect word for a hard worker.
He was commissioned an ensign and assigned to aviation training on flying boats. Annapolis had been comfortable, by comparison with his home; but the U.S. Navy was positively luxurious. He was able to send money home to his parents, for them to fix the farmhouse roof and buy a new stove.
He had been four years in the navy when Mom died, and Pop went just five months later. Their few acres were absorbed into the neighboring farm, but Eddie was able to buy the house and the woodland for a song. He resigned from the navy and got a well-paid job with Pan American Airways System.
In between flights he worked on the old house, installing plumbing and electricity and a water heater, doing the work himself, paying for the materials out of his engineer’s wages. He got electric heaters for the bedrooms, a radio and even a telephone. Then he found Carol-Ann. Soon, he had thought, the house would be filled with the laughter of children, and then his dream would have come true.
Instead it had turned into a nightmare.
CHAPTER FOUR
T he first words Mark Alder said to Diana Lovesey were: “My goodness, you’re the nicest thing I’ve seen all day.”
People said that sort of thing to her all the time. She was pretty and vivacious, and she loved to dress well. That night she was wearing a long turquoise dress, with little lapels, a shirred bodice and short sleeves gathered at the elbow; and she knew she looked wonderful.
She was at the Midland Hotel in Manchester, attending a dinner dance. She was not sure whether it was the Chamber of Commerce, the Freemasons’ Ladies’ Night, or the Red Cross fund-raiser: the same people were at all such functions. She had danced with most of her husband, Mervyn’s, business associates, who had held her too close and trodden on her toes; and all of their wives had glared daggers at her. It was strange, Diana thought, that when a man made a bit of a fool of himself over a pretty girl, his wife always hated the girl for it, not the man. It was not as if Diana had designs on any of their pompous, whiskey-soaked husbands.
She had scandalized them all and embarrassed her husband by teaching the deputy mayor to jitterbug. Now, feeling the need of a break, she had slipped into the hotel bar, on the pretense of buying cigarettes.
He was there alone, sipping a small cognac, and he looked up at her as though she had brought
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