I pushed the door open. A small bell rang as I did. The smell of the store was familiar. A mix of bay rum, cardboard, and stale cigarette smoke. I suddenly realized it had been a couple of days since I'd had a cigarette.
As we stood by a tie carousel, I whispered to Carter, "Where's my lighter?"
He pulled it out of his trouser pocket and whispered back, "You left it at the hotel."
"I did?"
He nodded. "In Darwin."
"Huh."
"Gentlemen!" A man in his 50s approached us. His gray hair was slicked back from his forehead. He was deeply tanned with brown eyes. He stood about 5'8" and was trim. He wore a vest over a white shirt. A measuring tape was hanging around his neck.
Pulling on the vest, he asked, "How may I help you?"
"We're looking for Mr. George."
He smiled, "I am he."
"Mrs. Tutwiler referred us."
He frowned for a moment. "Tutwiler?"
Carter said, "Her son, Mr. Jenkins, is a customer of yours."
The tailor's eyes widened. "Young Tom Jenkins! How is the boy?"
I replied, "We've never met. He's in San Francisco."
Mr. George smiled and a look of recognition passed over his face. "Which is where you're from. You must be Mr. Williams." He offered his hand.
I shook it and said, "Word gets around."
He shook his head. "I travel once or twice a year to San Francisco. I was there just a few weeks ago. And I saw the opening of your new building on Market Street. Besides," he smiled, "who among us wouldn't recognize such a handsome face?"
He reached up and patted my cheek affectionately. Looking over at Carter, he said, "And Mr. Jones." They shook.
Taking me by the arm and leading me into the store, Mr. George said, "I suppose you're here for some beachwear, although the paper says we'll be having rain for the next few days."
I nodded and looked over my shoulder at Carter, who was grinning.
. . .
"Young Tom," said Mr. George as he pulled on the cuffs of my new trousers, "is quite a handsome fellow."
"How old is he?" I asked.
"I don't know. Late 20s. Perhaps 30." He moved from the front to the back. "As I say, he's a handsome fellow. Quite popular with all the blokes one sees here and there."
"Why is he in San Francisco?"
"Why indeed? I had no idea until you told me. I suspect he's hiding from someone or something."
"So, he's not there for business?"
Mr. George laughed. "Business?" He stood, walked around, and pulled on the fabric around my legs. I was standing on a stool. Carter was sitting behind me in a chair. I glanced at him in the mirror. He winked. "There's no business for him to attend to. His mother—"
"Mrs. Tutwiler?"
"Yes, but I always thought her name was Jenkins."
"She said Tutwiler was her maiden name."
"Oh, of course." He stepped back and looked over at Carter. "What'd you think, Mr. Jones?"
"Nick looks good in whatever he wears."
"I can't disagree with you there, sir." He offered his hand and I stepped down. He handed me another pair of trousers to try on. "These are a bit more snug. More in the French style. See what you think."
I took them with me and stepped around the screen to change.
"Now the Tutwilers were from Holland, I believe. They arrived in the 1860s, if memory serves. Much of what are now the Eastern Suburbs originally belonged to them. I could be wrong, but I seem to remember my mum telling me that."
"That so?" I asked.
"Perhaps. All I know for certain is that young Tom has always spent quite freely. I know that may be a crude thing to say, but I had often wondered where it all came from. And then, John Gregston, an old friend of mine, was in here one day when Tom came in for some shirts. When Tom left, John pulled me aside and told me the whole sad story of young Tom, his mother, and the unfortunate thing that happened to his father."
"What was that?" I asked as I reached down to button the trousers and found a zipper instead. I tried to quietly pull it up, but I heard Carter ask, "A zipper?"
I laughed. "Yes. And I'm OK."
He laughed and said, "We were just talking the other day about how we don't like zippers."
"Well, they are rather the thing these days," replied Mr. George. "About half my stock has zips and I only see that increasing. Buttons are more and more looked upon as old-fashioned. I was happy to see you both sporting them."
I walked around and got up on the stool. As I did, Carter whistled.
"What?"
"Well, the view from over here is, well, it's nice."
I saw Mr. George tilt his head from behind Carter. I tried to turn and see what they were looking at. Mr. George picked up a hand mirror from behind a counter and brought it over.
"Turn and use this."
I did and was embarrassed by what I saw. Handing the mirror back, I said, "I can't." I could feel myself blushing.
Carter laughed. "Son, you can and you will." He crossed his legs in a way that meant he liked what he saw. "Besides, you already have a pair like that."
I shook my head. "I don't think they're this tight."
"You're right about that, son."
"Mr. Jones, do they often ask you to repeat yourself? Your accent is quite distinct."
I laughed. "He was very popular in Hawaii. No one said much in Hong Kong or here."
"I'm sure they were all quite astonished," was Mr. George's reply.
"As am I, frequently." I looked in the mirror. Carter was frowning at my high-hat tone. "So, what did your friend say about Tom's family?"
"Well," started Mr. George as he squatted down to work on the cuffs of the trousers. "It seems that Mr. Jenkins, the father that is, was from some place in South Australia that no one ever heard of. Quite handsome and quite dashing even though he was the son of a farmer. How he came to Sydney, no one knows. But he did and somehow he met Margaret Tutwiler. They married before long." He paused and thought for a moment. "Young Tom must have been born in 1930, now that I think of it. That would make him 24, almost 25." He sat back and shook his head with a smile.
"Why 1930?" asked Carter.
"Because," he replied as he looked down more closely at something, "I remember John telling me they married on the Sunday after the Federal election of that year. That was in October of 1929. The Labor Party swept the election in a big upset over the Nationalists. Of course, I voted Labor in those days. We all did. Now I'm a Liberal, seeing as how I'm a capitalist and a poofter."
He stood up and smoothed down my trousers. "There." He offered his hand. I stepped down and said, "Carter, it's your turn."
Mr. George asked, "Coffee for you, Mr. Williams?"
"Thanks. Black with sugar."
Mr. George laughed. "Now that sounds like California to me."
I stepped behind the screen and quickly changed back into the trousers I'd been wearing. As I did, I heard a crack of lightning, quickly followed by thunder outside.
"Looks like no beach today," Carter said as we changed places.
As Mr. George stirred my coffee and carried it over to me. "Nor for the rest of the week, if you can believe the Morning Herald, which is always a question. And we're just full-up on rain this summer, thank you very much. I hope it doesn't lead to any flooding."
"Thanks," I said as I took the cup. "So, they got married in '29 and Tom was born in '30."
Carter walked around the screen in his first pair of trousers. They weren't the tight ones but he still looked good. As he stepped up on the stool, Mr. George said, "Yes, so all went well, or so I'm told, until the war came. We were in the war when the old sod, Britain that is, declared in 1939 but it didn't really hit home until after Pearl Harbor." He looked up at Carter. "But I'm sure you know all about that."
Carter turned red, like he always did when that subject came up. I said, "Carter's a fireman and San Francisco needed every one of them, so that's where he spent h
is time during the war. I spent a few months outside of Port Moresby at a temporary hospital."
"Wounded?"
"Corpsman."
He nodded. "So you saw the brunt of it, then."
I said, "Yeah." I paused to let the images fade back. "Did the father go to war? Wouldn't he have been too old?"
Mr. George's eyes flashed for a moment. I realized that he and the other Mr. Jenkins were probably close to the same age. "I suppose so, but he volunteered before Pearl Harbor and, so, was in Singapore when the Japs invaded."
"Did he survive?" asked Carter.
"No one knows. He's officially listed as missing in action but the mother, now Mrs. Tutwiler as you say, had him declared dead in 1949." He stood up and looked at me. "Well?"
I nodded. He offered his hand to Carter, which was odd to see. Carter stepped down and walked around the screen with the second pair of trousers.
Mr. George brushed some lint off his sleeve. "That's when the real tragedy began. According to my friend, Tom, who was then 18 and thinking of going to England for university, decided instead to become a man of leisure."
I could hear Carter zipping up his trousers. I looked over at him and got another wink with a sly grin.
Mr. George continued, "Apparently the Tutwiler fortune passed to him to administer for reasons that aren't clear to me. He was the oldest male in the family or something of that nature." Mr. George's eyes lit up as Carter came from behind the screen. I turned and gaped, not sure what to say.
"Well," asked Carter, looking right at me.
I blinked a couple of times and said, "Uh, take a look in the mirror."
Carter casually walked over and did just that for about half a beat. I laughed as he turned and ran back behind the screen.
Mr. George sighed as he stood and walked into the back storage area. "They really leave nothing to the imagination." There wasn't a shred of disappointment in his tone.
. . .
"Are you sure these are the right size?" That was Carter. He was trying on a new style of swim trunks. We'd finished with everything else, including getting a slightly larger pair of the French-style trousers for him to try on. Those were a little more generous in the right spot and didn't instantly reveal everything.
"Yes, Mr. Jones. It's nylon. It will stretch." Mr. George sounded very amused.
Carter took a big breath. "OK. Here I come."
I turned and watched as he came around the screen. He was wearing nothing but a pair of black Speedo trunks. It was a brand made in Australia that neither of us had ever heard of. Mr. George had said the new nylon trunks had just arrived and that they were the latest thing.
I nodded at Carter as he walked by. I knew what was under those black trunks but they did a good job of not so much hiding the evidence as packaging it in the right way.
Keeping away from the mirror, Carter asked me, "How does it look?"
I smiled. "You look good. Makes your legs look enormous." I knew he would like that since, when he did bodybuilding, he always put a lot of emphasis on his thighs and calves. Or so I'd heard him talk about with our friends who had the same interest. I didn't like bodybuilding. But I did like bodybuilders. "Have a look in the mirror," I suggested.
He walked over and stood there for a moment. We were in the back in an area that was closed-off from the rest of the store by a curtain. Things had been quiet when we'd first arrived but, as we'd tried on clothes and had them fitted, the little bell over the door had rung more and more until it sounded like there was quite a crowd out front.
As Carter stood there, I spent some time admiring his posterior. It looked good and it was well-framed. His broad shoulders tapered perfectly down to the slightly shiny black fabric and then his thick legs emerged below. As always, the light managed to capture the golden tinge of the hair that covered his body making him appear to glow slightly.
After standing there, looking for a long moment, Carter suddenly did a bodybuilder pose with his biceps and then pulled his arms back to show his chest. I heard some gasps behind me.
Turning around in my chair, since I really wasn't in a position to stand right at that moment, I caught sight of two male clerks, one male customer, and one female, all standing just outside the curtain peering in.
Mr. George cleared his throat and made his way over to the curtain. The two clerks ran away as did the female customer. The male customer stood for a moment, looked down at me, and said with a leer, "You're one lucky bloke," before walking away.
Mr. George pulled the curtains closed with a sharp yank and then turned and asked, "How do those feel, Mr. Jones?"
I swiveled back in my chair. As I did, I saw Carter standing in front of me. I looked up, trying not to gape too much. He smiled down at me and said, "Fine. I'll take a couple. Now it's Nick's turn."
Chapter 7
Driving along Old South Head Road
Rose Bay, N.S.W.
Wednesday, February 23, 1955
Half past 1 in the afternoon
As we made our way back to Dover Heights, the storm clouds kept getting darker and the lightning strikes more frequent. I was hoping the sky would just open up because the air was thick and oppressive, even with the windows rolled down.
"Why is Tom Jenkins in San Francisco, do you think?" That was Carter.
I shrugged. "I don't know. And I'm sure as hell not going to ask Mrs. Tutwiler."
"Do you think she goes by Marge, Maggie, Peg, or Peggy?"
"If we want to live through the night, her name is Mrs. Tutwiler and that's all we need to know."
He laughed and put his left hand on my right leg. "I'm so proud of you."
"For what?"
"For quitting smoking."
"But I haven't. Or I haven't on purpose. I just forgot." I looked out the window at the darkening sky. "But you haven't been smoking, either."
Carter put his hand on my cheek. "Son, you might not have noticed, but the only time I ever smoke is when you're smoking."
I turned, kissed his hand, and asked, "Really?"
"Yes."
I sat there for a moment, once again confounded by my inability to keep track of the people around me.
"What are you thinking?" asked Carter as he used the turn signal and I braced for another right turn across the opposite lane.
"That I'm never going to get used to making a right turn like this."
He laughed as he smoothly made the turn. "You should do some of the driving. I think it will help you relax about it. It's probably worse to be sitting in what you think of as the driver's seat and not have a steering wheel in front of you."
I thought about that for a moment as we drove down the block and he made a left turn.
"But you didn't answer my question," he said.
I sighed. "You're so much better at keeping track of other people. You remember names and birthdays and what people are doing. You write them letters. I never do any of that."
He poked me in the ribs and I jumped up and banged against the car door, causing it to fly open. Without missing a beat, he yanked on my right arm, holding it in a grip of steel, giving me time to pull the door closed.
"Jesus, Carter."
"Sorry, Nick. But you deserved that poke. I'm not having that conversation with you again. You're good at what you do," he said with a determined tone as he made a right onto George Street. "And I'm good at what I do." He pulled the car into the side spot on the driveway, put the brake on, and killed the ignition. Turning towards me, he took my chin in his hand and yanked on it. "That's. Why. We're. Perfect. For each other." He shook my chin and then released it.
I sat back and rubbed my jaw for a moment.
He leaned in and kissed me hard on the mouth. Staying right in my face, he said, "Call it God. Call it kismet. Call it extremely good luck." He kissed me gently on the lips and said, "Whatever it is, I wouldn't have it or you be any other way."
I nodded and smiled. I put my hand around his neck and pulled him for a longer, mor
e satisfying kiss. As we necked, there was a tremendous lightning strike quickly followed by a thunderclap. And, with that, the rain began to come down in buckets. We didn't move. Except for our tongues, of course.
. . .
We left the clothes in the trunk and quickly ran up the stairs and through the front door. Much to my surprise, Captain O'Reilly and John Murphy were sitting together on the sofa in the living room. Mrs. Tutwiler was sitting on a low-slung chair. And the three of them were laughing uproariously about something.
"Well, there they are." Captain O'Reilly stood, walked forward, and brushed the water off my shirt. "The gales are blowing in, make no mistake. I wouldn't want to be out in this mess no way, no how."
I let him pull me into a hug. He kissed me on the cheek. As he stepped back to give Carter a handshake, I asked, "What are you two doing here?" I looked at my watch, wondering if it was 7 already. But it was a quarter to 2.
Mrs. Tutwiler stood and said, "They got kicked out."
Murphy stood and nodded. "We made the mistake of sleeping in the same bed. We were asked to vacate the premises or else they would be calling in the police."
I rolled my eyes.
Mrs. Tutwiler caught me doing it and nodded. "The rank hypocrisy is what I can't tolerate."
Captain O'Reilly grinned at me. "Johnny and me was in the bar last night from 9 until closing at 10 and we received three offers apiece."
Murphy said, "Now, wait there just one moment, Dan O'Reilly. You received two offers. The same man came back around. He was too drunk to remember you'd already turned him down."
O'Reilly and Murphy burst out laughing. Mrs. Tutwiler covered her mouth while she giggled. It was nothing short of astonishing to see.
She looked up at Carter. "Did Mr. George take care of you?"
He nodded. "Yes, ma'am."
O'Reilly and Murphy both laughed at that.
Mrs. Tutwiler smiled warmly and asked, "And how about lunch?"
I asked, "Do you have anything you could make for us?"
She smiled and said, "If sandwiches will do, I'll make a stack for all around."
"Thank you, Mrs. Tutwiler."
"My pleasure." With that, she turned, walked through the dining room and into the kitchen.
The Excluded Exile (A Nick Williams Mystery Book 12) Page 6