Best of all, when I arrived home, someone was waiting for me beneath the sea grape tree, bearing a bottle of champagne and a small white box, the best kind. Not a ring, of course. But I’d worn that diamond pendant like a talisman ever since, as if it could ward off evil, as if by the act of wearing it I could lure my lover back to me, however far he roamed.
It dangled now between my breasts as I bicycled through the soupy air to the canteen, apron neatly tied for the eight o’clock shift. As I climbed the steps in my natty uniform and headed into the kitchen.
Half an hour later, the orders poured in. Bacon and eggs, bacon and eggs, yet more bacon and eggs, because these chaps were accustomed to everything powdered and canned back home in darkest England, apparently, and here in Nassau we still had the genuine article, sent over from the Lend Lease office in Miami in vast American quantities from vast American farms. The smoke of frying bacon filled the kitchen. My arms flew. Spatula in each hand, the right turning eggs and the left turning bacon. I still remember that rhythm, still remember how the air inside that kitchen turned always as dense and hot as July, whatever the actual season—but especially in July—and how the perspiration collected on my scalp and ran down my temples and my spine. I remember the noise of the men enjoying their breakfast, the clatter of china and cutlery, as if that canteen still exists inside my head somewhere. Maybe it does.
On this particular day, however, the duchess was absent. To her credit, she showed up most mornings, picked up her spatula and flipped her share of eggs over easy, but she never did enjoy the best of health, and today was one of those days that word came down the telephone wire from Government House. Her Royal Highness—no giggles at the back, please—was unwell, and sent her regrets to the canteen staff.
At the time, I didn’t imagine there might be another reason for her absence. Like I said, the lady was subject to spasms of sickness from time to time. Mrs. Gudewill took the call—Mrs. Gudewill had a fondness for ringing telephones that I never could understand, I mean a ringing telephone was a harbinger of disaster so far as I was concerned—and announced the news. I don’t remember thinking anything at all about it. I just shrugged and wiped away the perspiration from my temples and turned back to that canteen grill, flipping and turning. There was a knack to sliding a finished egg whole onto its plate without folding over the white on itself or, God forbid, breaking the yolk. You had to concentrate a little, especially in that heat. You had no time to think about absent duchesses and murdered husbands and lovers sailing back to jolly England in a time of war. You had no time to think about your silly old conscience. And maybe that was why I dedicated myself so thoroughly to that canteen. Not for the morale of the troops, not to do my bit or to share in the excitement of war, the bumper crop of virile young men that wanted sowing in the dining room behind me. Because it was something to do. It occupied the long, lean hours. It occupied the space between my ears that might otherwise be filled with anguish.
At half past one o’clock, I hung up my apron, washed my face and hands in the lavatory, and climbed back on my bicycle. The air outside was dark and hot, threatening the kind of rain that did nothing to refresh you. Sometimes a gust of wind came off the water to batter me on my bicycle. I trundled on past my cottage, past the golf course, the stretch of barren road along the shore. There was a rumble of thunder. Then the good old British Colonial, brooding in the heat. Hardly a soul reclined on the sand outside. The harbor, now. That was bustling. A steamship was in the process of attaching itself to the dock. I cycled carefully around the excitement and came to a stop outside the Prince George. It was now past two o’clock, plenty late for a drink. I propped the bicycle against the wall outside and made straight for the bar.
To my surprise, Jack himself stood behind the counter. Surprise because Jack didn’t usually saunter to his duty until later in the afternoon, on account of staying up all night to hear everybody’s secrets. Some younger fellow watered the lunch crowd, I never could remember his name. Today that fellow had his back to the room, however, was polishing the glassware one by one with a clean white cloth, and Jack faced the tables and stools, braced his eight fingers and two bony thumbs on the wood, shirt crisp and waistcoat black. The ceiling fan whirred directly above his head. I slid into place and told him his countenance was looking wilted today, was something up?
He stepped away and reached for a glass. I laid my arms on the counter, one folded over the other, and watched him pour me a gin and tonic. Because of shortages, there was no lime. Just bottled, concentrated lime juice, an unsatisfactory substitute that tasted of metal. Jack set it before me on the counter and assumed his original stance.
“You ever think of moving back home?” he said.
“Home? This is home.”
“I mean back where you came from, Mrs. Randolph. Where you was brought up. Family and friends.”
I set down the glass. “I come from nowhere, sonny. I’ve got nobody.”
“You have a mother and a father. Brother and a sister.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Family’s family, Mrs. Randolph. They might could help you find what you’re looking for.”
“Oh? I didn’t notice I was looking for anything.”
“Everybody’s looking for something. If you ain’t looking for something, you’re trying to get away from something. Ain’t that so?”
He had lowered his face a little, so that when I raised my face a little, we met right in the middle, eye locked with eye, tonic fizzing our chins, fan stirring our hair.
“Where do you get your ideas, Jack?”
“I’m just saying you might want to get out of town, Mrs. Randolph. That’s all I’m saying. Get the devil out of Nassau, and maybe take with you whatever you care about.”
“What’s happening?” I said. “What have you heard?”
Jack straightened up and glanced at the doorway. “Just that someone’s at the end of his rope, that’s all. And there’s a lot of fools swinging on that rope, you know what I mean? A lot of fools.”
“Fools like me?”
There was a commotion taking shape on the opposite side of the room, near the doorway where Jack had just glanced. He gave me a last look and stepped away, straightening his waistcoat, to nudge his colleague at the glassware. I tipped back my glass—it was a thirsty afternoon, all right—and reached for my pocketbook to rummage out a cigarette. As I did so, I contrived a sweep of the room beyond my shoulder. But it was only Freddie de Marigny and his cousin Georges de Visledou, laughing over some joke. I turned away and lit my cigarette.
“Why, Mrs. Randolph!”
“Freddie. How nice.”
The stool beside me scraped back a few inches. De Marigny’s long body took possession. He laid a palm on the counter and made some gesture to Jack with the other hand. His cousin Georges made me a salute and reached for an ashtray.
“How’s married life?” I asked.
“A bit lonely, at the moment. Nancy is in Vermont for the summer, learning to dance.”
“To dance? Doesn’t she already know how?”
“I mean real dancing. This famous dancer is teaching her, this Miss Graham. You’ve heard of her? It’s a retreat of some kind.” He paused to light a cigarette. “Nancy doesn’t like the heat so much.”
“Why don’t you join her?”
“Because I have business interests, Mrs. Randolph. I’m a working man. Anyway, I don’t want to spend the summer dancing. Georges, now.” He nudged the other man with his elbow, and Georges, who had been staring around the room, idling his cigarette, made a start. “Georges, you good-for-nothing. Why haven’t you made some escape from this inferno, like Nancy?”
Georges looked at me and then the floor. Turned around to scrabble for the ashtray. His cheeks were pink. He was a handsome devil, all right: strong Gallic looks, dark shiny hair.
Freddie just laughed and leaned toward me. “My dear cousin has an amour, you see. That’s why he stays here. But what’s
your excuse, Mrs. Randolph? This column of yours? Or something more interesting, like Georges here?”
“Habit, I guess. I don’t mind the heat so much.”
Jack set a pair of glasses in front of the two men. I met his gaze for a second or two, but there was no telling what he was thinking, no expression at all on that flat, white face. Still, I had the idea he was communicating something, some idea. Someone’s at the end of his rope, he’d said.
I circled my finger around the rim of my glass. “Say. Your father-in-law’s in the same boat, isn’t that right? Wife scampered off to cooler climes.”
“Yes, Mrs. Oakes is in Maine, as usual.”
“Poor Sir Harry. The way he stomps around without her. You ought to keep each other company.”
Freddie winced. “I’m afraid I haven’t seen Sir Harry in some time.”
“On the outs, are you?”
“For the moment. He’s something of an autocrat, you see—”
“You don’t say.”
“And I—well.” Freddie put his hand to his heart. “I am not so easily brought to heel, I’m afraid. He knows I don’t want his money, and it irks him.”
“Irks him? Isn’t he pleased you’re not after Nancy’s fortune?”
“Not at all. A man like that, money is the only power he knows. Without it, he’s just an ordinary fellow. And a son-in-law who can’t be bought—well. But we will mend fences. He’s got a temper, that fellow, but he’s like me. The storm passes, and everything is like it was before.” Freddie sipped his whiskey. “Anyway, he leaves for Maine in a day or two. That should cool him off.”
“Meanwhile, he sits at Westbourne with Harold Christie.”
“Christie’s with him?”
“That’s what I hear. In a plush guest suite, whispering into the old man’s ear. What’s the matter?”
Freddie was shaking his head. “Christie. You know he double-crossed Sir Harry last year, on the deal for the land for that airport? He had better watch himself. Sir Harry plays a long game. And Christie owes him a great deal of money.”
“Does he, now?”
“A great deal.” He glanced at Georges de Visledou, who had taken his drink and his cigarette and gone over to speak to a pair of women at one of the little round tables. “I will tell you something else. A few months ago, just before we had this last little disagreement, Sir Harry told me he was going to leave Nassau.”
“Oh, that’s been going around for ages.”
“No, but he means it. He doesn’t like the way the women here treat his wife, for one thing. He doesn’t like all the scrutiny, you know, this British oversight in his affairs. He’s been sending his money away for some time, to this bank in Mexico, and you may take my word for this, Mrs. Randolph. By this time next year, Oakes will be out of the Bahamas for good.”
As he said all this, de Marigny had lowered his voice, had positioned his head in close proximity to mine. I glanced to Jack, who was quietly rearranging his bottles behind the counter, and Jack, who had been watching us, looked away. I thought of the papers locked in my desk drawer on Cable Beach.
“Which bank?” I asked. “The one in Mexico?”
“Banco Continental, of course. Wenner-Gren’s outfit.”
I stubbed out my cigarette. “Fascinating. And also illegal, isn’t it? Moving your assets overseas in a time of war?”
“What does that matter to such men? But come. You’re not leaving?”
“I only stopped by for a little refreshment.”
He touched my hand. “We’re having a little dinner party tonight, Georges and me. You must join us.”
I opened my mouth to offer my regrets, to say I was otherwise engaged, but then I wasn’t, was I? Otherwise engaged. For all I knew, Thorpe was on his way back to London right now. For all I knew, I had seen my last of him. This idea—the loss of Thorpe—inserted itself at the top of my head, penetrating deeply, and then drew a slow gash right down the middle from skull to viscera, splitting me apart the way you might filet a trout.
I laid a few shillings on the counter and rose to my feet. “Why, how lovely of you to think of me, dear Freddie. Eight o’clock all right for you?”
He took my hand and kissed it. As he bent over my fingers, the light glinted on his hair.
“Eight o’clock is perfect.”
When I stepped back out into the simmering air, the first thing I saw was the Government House limousine sitting by the curb, Union Jack flags hanging limp from their tiny flagpoles above the headlights. The chauffeur stood against the wheel well, checking his watch. He saw me and straightened.
“Mrs. Randolph?”
“Indeed.”
“Her Royal Highness requests a moment of your time, if it’s convenient.”
I glanced at the rear window and back at the chauffeur, who stared back steadily, in the same way that Jack regarded me from behind his counter. The heat laid its oppressive hands against my cheeks, my chest. Already I felt my dress warming against my legs.
“You can put my bicycle in the back, I guess,” I said.
It’s a strange and rather empty sensation, riding in a limousine by yourself, a giant official limousine like the one that ferried the governor and his wife about the island. I thought of that Life magazine cover, the two of them in the drawing room I now knew so well, resting against those cushions I now knew so well.
We drew up the hill, toward the west gate, and glided past the guard booth. Came to a stop before the portico, where I had once made the acquaintance—if you could call it that—of Sir Harry Oakes. Sir Harry Oakes, who was also on his way out of Nassau, if de Marigny’s information was straight. I tried to imagine this, the Bahamas without Sir Harry, and could not. He was part of the landscape. From time to time, as I rode my bicycle about the island, taking exercise to keep my mind off my lover’s absence, I might see him clearing land somewhere. He drove the bulldozer himself, back and forth, digging up scrub and palmettos and what have you, taking a kind of boylike glee in the destruction. Always he raised his hand and greeted me. Why, just the other day, I’d stopped my bicycle to chat with him, because I knew that Nancy and her mother had decamped for New England once the heat descended on Nassau, and a fellow like Oakes was sure to be bored and restless. It was late afternoon, and we were both perspiring freely, but he didn’t seem to notice the discomfort. I asked about his wife, and he said she was doing well in Bar Harbor, and I asked (rather more carefully) about Nancy. “Doing much better, thanks,” he said. “Away from that sex maniac husband of hers.”
“Oh, be fair, Sir Harry,” I said. “They’re newlyweds.”
Hmph, Oakes said.
“Now, don’t be grumpy. He is a handsome devil, after all. Maybe she couldn’t resist his charm.”
He stuck out his lips a little, but he wasn’t really angry at me. We understood each other, Oakes and I, the way two outsiders will always feel a kinship in a place like this, a place like Nassau.
“He’s not such a terrible character, you know,” I went on. “He does love her. He’s enchanted with her. It’s not the money.”
“Of course it’s not the money. The fool sent me a damned notarized letter, right after they eloped, giving up any rights to it. He’s just a—damn it all—”
“He’s a son-in-law with a will as stubborn as yours.”
Hmph, he said.
“Sir Harry. She’s nineteen, isn’t she? She’s not a child. And she might have done worse, believe me. Much worse.”
Possibly he knew what I meant. I always maintain that man had more human perception than most people gave him credit for. At any rate, we parted on good terms, almost affectionate, though I don’t know why I should have thought of him as I climbed from the rear seat of the limousine and walked under the portico to the front hall of Government House, where Miss Drewes stood waiting for me, mouth twitching. Maybe it was because of Freddie’s revelations that afternoon. Maybe it was some fleeting visitation of the cataclysm to come.
Mi
ss Drewes and I had never quite become friends. I don’t know why. I liked her—efficient, intelligent, sly sense of humor lurking beneath that Mount Holyoke polish—and I believe she liked me. But like a pair of neighboring cog wheels that couldn’t seem to match their respective teeth, we never really clicked together, if you know what I mean. I’d always presumed this was because she was so terribly protective of the duchess, and I had been trusted with altogether too much power, in her estimation.
And yet, as she greeted me in the hall, as she led me upstairs to the duchess’s suite, I had the feeling that Miss Drewes was suppressing the desire to laugh. Her mouth twitched, as I said. She had almost nothing to say to me, in contrast to her usual experienced patter. I asked what this was concerning, and she said it was a private matter, and the duchess would explain herself. Upstairs, the air was warm and musty, smelling of the usual Bahamas mildew, of dampish wood and rich flowers. When we arrived at the duchess’s door, Miss Drewes seemed to hesitate before she raised her hand to rap on the wooden panel. She cast me a small, nervous smile and knocked twice. The duchess’s deep voice floated back: Come in.
Miss Drewes turned the knob and stood aside for me.
Unwell the duchess might have been, but she paced the blue-and-white carpet of her blue-and-white dressing room with true American spirit. The suite was decorated in the French Provençal style, awfully elegant, mirrors all over the place that surrounded you with a thousand off-kilter versions of yourself. On the settee, Wallis had draped a number of splendid gowns. She didn’t bother to greet me, only waved her hand at the dresses and said, “There you are, dear Lulu. I’ve been cleaning out my wardrobe. So many dresses. I was wondering if any of these might fit you.”
The Golden Hour Page 32