Tigers in Red Weather (29 page)

He walked aimlessly for a while and then made his way toward Piccadilly, where he knew he would find a Red Cross. It was bustling inside. Hughes looked at his watch: 8:30. He waited in line for a cup of coffee and a doughnut, and then sat down at a small wooden table
near the window. He drank the coffee and watched as the sun grew stronger. Then he ate his doughnut, dipping the end into the last drops in his cup. He began to feel better. He knew what he had to do.

He went to the counter and asked one of the girls for a pencil and a piece of paper and took them back to the table. He began composing a letter to Nick:

This letter might seem out of the blue and I don’t want you to worry, but there are some things that I have to say. The war is making the world a strange place, and me with it. So, I want you to know that whatever happens, I love you. I loved you when we first danced together and you teased me about having two left feet. I loved you when I proposed, and you turned your face away from me. I loved you on our wedding day, when I found you hiding upstairs like some miserable kid. And more than anything, I’ve loved the idea of you as I’ve crossed and recrossed this damn ocean, waiting, praying to come home
.

I’m not the same person who shipped off for training a year ago. Things have happened that I’m not proud of, that I wish I could take back. But I want to come back a man at least as good as the one who left you. I don’t want to pretend anymore, that I’m the same or you’re the same, or we’re the same. I want to be honest with you
.

But if I make it through this, I promise that I’ll do everything in my power to make our life a happy one, and to try and be the man you need me to be
.

I love you, Nicky. Don’t give up on me
.

Hughes

Hughes folded the paper in thirds and slipped it into his breast pocket. He returned the pencil and took another coffee from the girl.
The winter sun was now pale silver. Writing the letter had made him feel lighter, but he now found his thoughts turning back to Eva. He had left her without a word. He thought about that moment the night before, they way he had suddenly felt he knew her, not through experience, but intuitively. Hughes rubbed his eyes. He’d have to go back and explain to her that it had been a mistake. That they’d both had too much to drink and gotten carried away. That they’d been lonely and it had only been that loneliness that had driven them together. He couldn’t be the man he wanted to be if he didn’t do that. But he dreaded it, he dreaded looking into her eyes and telling her that it had all been for nothing.

He rose and left the canteen, making his way past the shops, some closed and shuttered, others still hopefully displaying wares to a public who wouldn’t buy very much. He went into one and chose a pair of bright red calfskin gloves for Nick. He’d send them to her, but not with the letter. Later, maybe, for her birthday.

Hughes found himself in Hyde Park, with its bare branches outlined against the sky. He sat on a bench and watched the people milling by. A GI had his arm around a girl, pulling her in tight as he leaned back against a tree. Hughes remembered it was New Year’s Eve. He should have made provisions for a bunk at the Red Cross. He could do that after he’d seen Eva. He couldn’t put it off any longer. He brushed himself off and headed back to Claridge’s.

At the hotel, he didn’t bother ringing her room. This time, he didn’t hesitate at the elevator, but strode in briskly and waited impatiently while the attendant pulled the chain across. He just wanted the whole scene to be over as quickly as possible.

He knocked at the door of room 201. Eva opened it, and stood in the doorway in her dressing gown. He looked at her and then she stood aside to let him in.

“I didn’t know if you’d be back,” she said.

It wasn’t an accusation, just a statement of fact, and Hughes knew
then that he didn’t care about his letter, or the war, or trying to be a better man. All he cared about was the way he felt when he was with her.

“Neither did I,” he said. “But I am.”

“Yes,” Eva said, reaching for him. “You are.”

When the sun had completely disappeared from the sky, and the sound of the V-2s shook the night like fireworks, Hughes disentangled himself from Eva’s sleeping body and rose from the bed. In the darkness, he felt his way over to the chair, where his jacket was hanging, and slipped his hand into the breast pocket. He pulled out the letter and ran his hand over the paper, as if touching it would tell him something. He went into the bathroom and switched on the light. He took one last look at his note to Nick, and then tore it up and threw the pieces into the toilet. He watched until they had all disappeared, pulled down into darkness with the pressure of the flush. Then he switched out the light and went back to bed.

1959: JULY
II

A
fter Nick’s phone call about the dead girl and the pandemonium at Tiger House, Hughes had been unable to think of anything else. He had gone over and over the situation all the way down to Woods Hole and then as he sat on the ferry, cupping his hot coffee in the ghostly illumination of the upper deck. He had barely managed to make the last boat, and the
Island Queen
had pulled out of dock just as the sun flashed and then winked out of sight, leaving ocean and sky in darkness.

Nick had charged him with getting Avery to come east to deal with Ed and Helena. But Hughes hadn’t wanted him to come. He had hoped, when he telephoned him, to persuade Avery instead to send for his wife and son. As usual, Avery had been cryptic and unhelpful.

“It’s character-building,” he had said, after Hughes had told him about the dead body.

“I’m not sure that it
is
character-building,” Hughes said. “I think you’re missing the point here. Helena is very upset and we think it would be best if they were with you.”

“And you think you know what’s best for my family.”

“I’m not suggesting that.” Hughes felt like banging the receiver against the library table. He had to force himself to remain calm. “But the fact is, you’re far away and maybe don’t understand the situation as well as you could.”

“What are you saying? That I don’t take care of my family? I am far away, as you put it, because I am working for my family. Everything I do is for Helena and for my son, so they can know a life that isn’t bound by the stricture of convention and servitude. Of course, I don’t expect you to understand that.”

“Oh Jesus, Avery, stop being such a prick. Nick is worried. If you don’t want them back in L.A., then why don’t you come down to the Island, just for a week or so, if you can’t get away for longer.” He prayed to God the man wouldn’t accept.

“That’s not possible at the moment. I am at a critical point in my work.”

Hughes was silent.

“But,” Avery said, as if the thought had just occurred to him, “if you want to send the money for a plane ticket …”

“Go to hell,” Hughes said, and slammed down the phone.

Nick had been right about Avery from the first. The man was a charlatan and had been trying to squeeze them for money from the minute he had married Helena. One of the things Hughes loved about Nick was that he knew there was no way in hell she would ever give that man one red cent. She was a force to be reckoned with, his wife, and at times like this he thanked God for that.

With Avery washing his hands of the situation, Ed was Hughes’s problem. But by the time the Vineyard Haven lighthouse came into view, he had a plan, or at least the beginnings of one. He had to find something that would keep Ed out of the house as much as possible. Hughes had been in the Boy Scouts and remembered it as absorbing and exhausting: At best, it would be a good influence on the kid, and
at worst, a distraction, at least until the summer was over. Meanwhile, Hughes decided he would stay on at Tiger House and keep an eye on things.

He couldn’t be sure how involved Ed was in the murder of that girl. He might know something or he might not. Hughes didn’t want to contemplate anything more than that. But he realized that the scene earlier that summer hadn’t just been Ed acting out. The boy was dangerous.

As he walked down the gangplank, he spotted Nick waiting for him. She was leaning against the station wagon, the wind off the harbor blowing her green dress between her legs. She was lovely. In fact, she had only gotten more beautiful with age, as her bone structure became more pronounced. He wondered how he could have failed to notice that, and a sadness came over him, as if something had been wasted.

Nick was smoking a cigarette and had one arm folded across her chest, her hand cupping her shoulder as if she were cold. When he reached the car, he set his suitcase down and took her in his arms.

“You’re freezing,” he said, feeling the freshness of her skin.

“It’s cold,” she said into his neck.

“You get in. I’ll drive.” Hughes put his case into the trunk and walked around to the driver’s side.

“You’re staying,” Nick said.

“Yes.”

“Good,” she said and lit another cigarette.

She was quiet as he navigated the car out of Vineyard Haven.

“How’s Daisy?” Hughes finally asked.

“How do you think she is?” Nick snapped. She stubbed out her cigarette. “I’m sorry. It’s been an awful day. Actually, she seems less shaken up than I am, frankly.”

“I’m sorry. It must have been terrible for you.”

“A dead body, Hughes. And not just some peaceful great-aunt, either. The poor thing was strangled and god knows what else.”

“Jesus.” Hughes took a cigarette out of the pack on the dashboard. He had a vision of Frank Wilcox pushing the girl’s head down to one side as he took her from behind. “Have you talked to her? Daisy, I mean.”

“She … well, you know how she is with me. I’m the ogre, aren’t I?”

“Don’t say that. She loves you. She looks up to you.”

“She talks to you.”

“She doesn’t talk to anyone our age. She’s twelve.” Hughes smiled at the thought of his daughter. Such an intense little thing. Always worried about winning. He remembered taking her once to the West Tisbury fair, where she’d fallen in love with one of the plush prizes. She had spent over an hour and all her pocket money trying to knock down the four bottles to win it. Hughes had known the game was rigged. In the end, he had paid for the damn thing outright, and it was a bargain. He knew Daisy would have stayed there all night until she succeeded.

“Well,” Nick said, “she talks to Ed. Those two have been thick as thieves. He’s been sneaking off and she’s been covering for him. They even disappeared today, after everything that’s happened.”

“Where did they go?”

“I don’t know. They told me they’d been down at the Quarterdeck, cool as could be. As if Helena and I don’t have enough to worry about.” Nick pushed her head back against the car seat. “God, I sound like a shrew.”

“You sound like a mother,” Hughes said, putting his hand on Nick’s thigh.

“I wonder sometimes if there’s a difference,” Nick said and moved her leg out of his reach.

It was ten o’clock when they reached Tiger House, but the children weren’t in bed.

“Daddy.” Daisy raced down the stairs and leaped into Hughes’s arms.

“I’m going to fix a drink,” Nick said.

Over Daisy’s head, Hughes watched his wife disappear into the blue sitting room. Her back was straight and she moved with her usual ease, but her grace was tinged with a sort of sorrow.

Hughes looked down at his daughter.

“How are you, sweetheart?”

“I’m starving,” Daisy said. “We missed lunch. Ed bought me a cheeseburger, but that was ages ago.”

“Hmm. Well, let’s see if we can rustle something up.”

He followed his daughter into the summer kitchen, watching her blond head bobbing along in front of him. It hurt his heart.

Hughes looked in the icebox. There wasn’t much there and it made him feel guilty about leaving them on their own so much. Whenever Nick sank into one of her moods, the shopping didn’t get done.

“How about some warm milk? It’s not good to eat right before bed.”

“All right,” Daisy said, seating herself at the table.

Hughes pulled the milk bottle out and poured some into one of the copper pans that hung above the stove.

“How’s your mother been?”

“Fine,” Daisy said.

Hughes stirred the milk with a wooden spoon and poured in a little vanilla extract, something his cook had done for him when he was a child.

“Ed helped the sheriff and he paid him two dollars.”

“Is that so? How did Ed help the sheriff?”

“I don’t know. He was with the policeman when he reported it to the sheriff, I guess.”

“Didn’t he come back here with you?” Hughes turned to his daughter.

“Hello, Uncle Hughes.”

Hughes looked up to see Ed standing in the doorway.

“Hello, Ed,” Hughes said evenly. “I hear you’ve been helping the sheriff.”

“Yes,” Ed said.

“That’s very good of you.”

Hughes poured the milk into a mug and handed it to Daisy.

“You two should really be in bed now. It’s late.” He put his hand on Daisy’s shoulder and looked at Ed. The boy blinked first.

Nick was waiting at the bottom of the stairs. She handed Hughes a gin and tonic.

“Say good night to your mother.”

“Goodnight, Mummy.”

“Goodnight, Daisy.”

Daisy started up, but Ed stayed where he was.

“You go on, too, Ed,” Hughes said.

“Good night, Aunt Nick,” Ed said, but his eyes were on Hughes.

Hughes moved fractionally in front of his wife, feeling the hairs on his arm prickling a little.

“Goodnight,” Nick said.

Hughes watched until Ed disappeared around the landing before turning back to Nick. “Where’s Helena?”

“Asleep,” Nick said, nodding toward the sitting room. “What did Avery say?”

“I tried, but he won’t do it, Nick,” Hughes said. “Frankly, he didn’t seem all that concerned. He said something odd about it being character-building.”