"Montague, Art - Suburban Renewal" - читать интересную книгу автора (Montague Arthur)

"A week ago you told me we couldn't afford it. Then you told me you wouldn't have time. As for money, you give Peter Muir a deep discount on his job when you should be firing the drunken lout and suddenly you also have time. If you have time you should be out getting more work, not doing personal home improvements." She was right, of course. On every count. But he was going to weather these winds of discontent head-on for once.

"My margin on Peter's job is intact, the gross just isn't as high as normal because he's doing some of the work on his own time. Lots of people do that." That wasn't exactly the truth; more than once he'd turned down just such a proposal from a potential customer.

"You could have done better," she responded, "and you know it."

"I do, Ethel, but what's done is done and that's what a person has to deal with. A person moves on."

"So what you're saying is your summer work season is going to be a bust but we'll be able to float in our pool while we worry about it."

"Our pool will be a showpiece. I can show it off and it'll bring in customers. It'll be like the showrooms the car dealers have."

"Are you saying I'll have to spend the rest of the summer with strangers traipsing around my backyard. Not in this lifetime, boy!"

"Well, it was just a thought," he said, wanting now more than anything to keep the peace. But Harv didn't back down.

While Harv juggled work schedules, ordered materials, and got site preparation underway, Ethel contracted a stubborn cough, developed a limp, and pleaded numbness in her fingers. Complaints of vertigo, cramps, and palpitations of the heart became commonplace.

The excavators and plumbing contractors came and went. The footings were poured. In the course of a weekend Harv and Little Ricky did the forming for the sides and pads. They wrapped up the work late Sunday afternoon and Harv invited Little Ricky to stay for supper.

Harv looked for Ethel to let her know. He told Little Ricky he was going to suggest they order pizza, but she wasn't in the house. Nor was Pepperpot.

"I haven't seen her since morning break, just before I went back to the shop to pick the last of the 2 x6's for the forms," Ricky offered. "Maybe the noise got to her and she went over to a neighbor's."

"Maybe," agreed Harv. "Listen, I'll order some pizza anyway and a six-pack. It's been a long day."

When Little Ricky left around eight, Ethel still hadn't returned. Later Harv shared the last two cans of beer with Jim Stoneweather.

Jim was in a buoyant mood. "Well," he reported, "she came, she saw, she's gone away. We made an arrangement I can live with and she was out of here by one o'clock." Harv was very glad to hear that, though Jim did confirm he was still going to sell the house. "Too many memories, Harv," he said, "and the housing market is on an upswing. Catharine and the kids and I will be just fine."

"Well, I do hope you'll come to the grand opening pool party next month."

"Wouldn't miss it for the world."

Harv spent another two hours making everything was perfectly ready for the morning pour, having to finish up with a flashlight. It was after midnight before he got to bed. Ethel had still not returned. He was up at five as always, but skipped Denny's because at seven the concrete crew and trucks arrived to pour the pool walls. That afternoon they also poured the patio and barbecue pit pads. Harv personally screed and power troweled both of them. One thing no one ever argued -- Harv knew concrete.

On Wednesday the wall forms came off -- a beautiful job -- another late night for Harv. On Thursday at seven the crew was back to pour the pool bottom, eight inches thick with lots of rebar. "When I'm my own customer," Harv told the crew foreman, " I want the best. I've got two feet of tamped gravel fill just below and a sand/clay mix tamped below that. This pool is better built than my house."

The plumbers returned, and the filtration specialists and the ceramic finishers followed. Harv had Peter and Little Ricky fence the yard, tearing out the back caraganas in the process. A landscaper dug out the one remaining aspen and planted cedar shrubs and fir seedlings. Harv wasn't much for flowers but he did like evergreens. And since he had no intention of moving, he could watch the fir trees grow tall over the years.

After a week, having heard nothing from Ethel, Harv reported her missing. Jim Stoneweather's wife's lawyer reported her missing about the same time. Subsequent investigation, plus Jim's assistance, turned up the fact that some of his wife's jewellery was missing. That, added to the fact, the wife's boyfriend had decamped for parts unknown -- even with the new math, two and two still had to add up to four. A warrant was issued for the boyfriend, now sought for questioning in the disappearance of the two women, the dog Pepperpot, and some jewellery.

Shock swept the community for three days.
It was late August before Harv felt he could give his pool party. As a sales tool, it was too late in the season to have much value, but, as he said whenever the subject came up, it was what Ethel would have wanted.

Jim and Catharine came in from Albany for the party. As Jim had predicted, he'd obtained a good price for the house and, given his tragic circumstances, his company had enabled a lateral transfer to another job.

Harv called everyone in Ethel's "friends" book, all the neighbors with whom he was acquainted, some of his suppliers and, of course, some of his past and present customers. By three in the afternoon it was quite a wingding. By five it had spilled into the front yard. The pool was full of squealing kids, once every few minutes a cannonballing adult; the barbecue was billowing enough smoke to make the fire department nervous.