“Nicky, what’s the matter?”
“What do you mean?” She wouldn’t look at him.
“At dinner.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, twisting the fabric of the dress between her fingers. “I can’t help it. Every time I think about that poor girl, I just can’t … breathe.”
Hughes could see she was close to tears. “All right, all right. Jesus. It’s OK. Don’t get upset.”
“Well, I am upset, goddamn it.” She turned on him. “Why can’t you understand what’s happened? Can’t you feel it? Like everything good is … Like it means something else. Like everything is becoming infected. Why don’t you see that?”
“Nick, you can’t, I don’t know, obsess about this. Wilcox is just a shit and what happened to the girl is a tragedy. But that’s it. It’s not any bigger or smaller than that.”
Nick looked at him as if he were speaking a foreign language and then slowly nodded her head. “Of course, you’re right, darling. I’m being silly.”
He felt her slipping farther away from him, but there was nothing he could do about it.
“We should see to our guests,” she said, crisply, smoothing out an invisible wrinkle in her dress. “It’s not a very good party when the hostess has a crying jag on the porch, is it?”
“The hostess is perfect,” he said. “Maybe she just needs a glass of champagne.”
Hughes offered Nick his arm and guided her down to the front lawn. He went to the bar to get two glasses of champagne, but when he returned to the spot where he had left her, Nick had disappeared.
Searching for her in the sea of people, Hughes spotted Arthur heading straight for him.
“Hello, hello.”
“Found the bar, did you?” Hughes clapped him on the back.
“Sure did.” They both surveyed the party for a moment, and then Arthur said: “I knew that girl. The maid.”
Hughes turned toward him and Arthur looked away.
“She worked for us last summer.”
“Did she?” Hughes said. “I didn’t know that.”
Arthur was nodding his head. “Yes. Elena. She was …” Arthur stopped, and then said softly, “The kind of girl you couldn’t help but look at.”
Music drifted over them.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if it was Frank. Who did it, I mean.” Arthur swallowed the rest of his drink.
Hughes stared at him.
“She was like that. Seductive, I guess you could call it. Pull you in and then push you away.”
There was a bitterness in his tone that made Hughes feel slightly sick.
“You know?” Arthur said.
“I’m not sure I do.”
“I just hope Frank didn’t fall for it. Would be a damn shame for him. I mean, Caro’s got a point. It was only a matter of time before there was some kind of trouble, with that girl chasing after married men. That’s what burns me. People running around, making a mess out of everything. First wanting this and then wanting that. Never stopping to realize there’s somebody else in the room, if you see what I mean.”
“Well, I hardly think we can blame the poor girl for getting murdered,” Hughes said.
“But it is girls like that,” Arthur said violently. “Never realizing what they have. Always wanting something else.”
Hughes looked at his friend. Arthur’s face had turned ugly. He thought about Eva, and then about Nick. And all at once he understood what his wife had meant. He had to find her.
“Excuse me, Arthur,” Hughes said. “I should probably go see if Nick needs any help.”
“Of course,” Arthur said, but he wasn’t listening.
The party was in full swing and it took Hughes ages to cross from one side of the lawn to the other, stopping every few seconds to glad-hand their guests. The band was playing a Noël Coward song, and Hughes wondered, belatedly, how they planned to do ragtime without a piano. He laughed. They’d been had. It didn’t seem to matter, though; their guests’ voices were a dull roar, the line for the bar was long but not too long, and couples had begun to dance happily to whatever the Top Liners saw fit to play.
He looked for Nick’s dark hair and blue dress among the white dinner jackets and pastel silks, to no avail. When he reached the bar, he found Daisy and her little friend with the dark bangs. They were mooning around, probably trying to figure a way to sneak some champagne.
“Hello, girls.”
Daisy’s friend had a funny way about her, dramatic and charming, answering all his questions like she was in a play. It made Hughes smile, but Daisy seemed embarrassed.
He took pity on the girls and asked the bartender to put a few drops of wine in some water for them, and then shooed them off to go listen to the band.
He continued to shake hands and kiss cheeks, but he was feeling increasingly desperate to find Nick. At one point he saw her down by the bandstand, talking to his daughter and that boy, the one who had a crush on her. But by the time he got down there, they had all wandered off somewhere else. It was like being in a dream, where you try to run, but can only move in slow motion.
He was scanning the lawn for what seemed like the hundredth time when Dolly Pritchard found him.
“Hello,” Hughes said. “I’ve been on a hunt for my wife, but she keeps eluding me.”
“Oh dear,” Dolly said. “That doesn’t sound satisfactory at all.”
“No,” Hughes said. “It isn’t.”
“You know, I think she said she was going down to the boathouse to cool off.”
The band had gone on a break and now only laughter and the buzz of conversation filled the night. Hughes squinted toward the dock, and the small strip of beach, looking to see if Nick was dipping her toes in the water. She did that sometimes when she’d had too much to drink; she said it had a sobering effect.
“Toes are very sensitive, you know,” she’d say. “Most people ignore them, but they’re our first contact with the ground every day. Like antennae.”
Hughes thought about all the little things, her small fancies, hundreds, thousands, enough to fill days. How had he missed all that? He thought again about what she’d said about the murder ruining everything. He did know what she meant, but she was wrong. Nothing had changed, not really; it was just with a thing like that, you had to choose sides. And when it came to your friends, you all had to smile while you did it, pretending you were in happy agreement. That’s what made it hard, all the tension of pretense and false understanding. Hughes was beginning to realize that he was better at not choosing a side. He’d worn Eva like armor, against Nick, against the possibility he wasn’t who he wanted to be. And the whole time, she’d been there, waiting, like something frozen in amber.
He felt an urgent tug at his sleeve and turned. Daisy was standing there, wild-eyed.
“Where’s Mummy?” Her voice sounded squeaky, desperate.
“Daisy.” He took her by the shoulder, a feeling of panic rising in him. “What’s wrong?”
“Where’s Mummy? I need Mummy.”
“I don’t know, sweet pea.” Hughes looked down the lawn again. “I think she said she was going down to the boathouse to cool off.”
His daughter wrenched herself out of his grasp and tore down toward the harbor. He called after her, but she didn’t turn around. For some reason, his mind went back to the phone ringing in the house on Traill Street, the feel of the cold receiver pressed against his ear. He hesitated for a moment and then followed quickly, pushing past groups of guests who called out to him.
He made for the far side of the boathouse. From there, he could see the outdoor shower silhouetted against the sky. He heard water running through the pipes: Nick must be in the shower, which also meant she must be drunk.
As his eyes adjusted, he saw someone else, Ed, pressed up against the wooden slats, looking in. Hughes froze. He could feel the chemicals making their way through his bloodstream, cramping his limbs and constricting his lungs. Then, all at once, Daisy appeared from the dock en
d and Hughes watched her stop in her tracks. She started mumbling something that sounded like Sunday school lessons and Hughes saw Ed turn at the sound of her voice. He knew he should move, do something, but his legs were made of lead.
The two children were staring at each other now, like they were communicating in some kind of secret, silent language. He could hear Nick start to sing in the shower, a sweet tune from earlier in the evening.
And then Daisy called out for her mother.
Hughes heard Ed say, “Curiosity killed the cat.”
He felt his muscles tightening, coiling inside him.
“But satisfaction brought it back,” Daisy said softly.
Hughes saw Ed cock his head, the same way he had after Hughes had hit him.
“What are you doing looking at my mother, Ed Lewis? Are you a sex maniac? Like Mr. Wilcox?”
“Don’t talk about Mr. Wilcox.” The boy’s voice was hard and flat, but it lacked the mockery he had directed at Hughes. It was more … what? Defensive? Hurt? He couldn’t put his finger on it, exactly.
“Those matches,” Daisy said, “the ones from the Hideaway …”
The Hideaway, the matches, the sheriff. Like a latch being sprung, Hughes felt his muscles release and he was running.
“Daisy, get away from him. Now.”
He watched his daughter step back quickly at the sound of his voice. Ed turned and faced him, almost like he was glad, like he’d been waiting for him. Hughes grabbed the boy’s arm, his own momentum pulling Ed along with him toward the beach. He twisted the arm, hard, feeling the young muscle and sinew and bone resisting the pressure, and thought momentarily about breaking it. He could imagine the satisfying snap, the surprise on Ed’s face. He could feel the sense of triumph. But Hughes could hear his guests in the distance, so he released his grip slightly and put his face as close to Ed’s as he could. He could smell his own breath, boozy, in the small space between them.
“Now, you listen to me.” Hughes was panting. His scalp itched with sweat. “I know you. I know what you are.” He tried to control his breathing. “Yes, I do.” He wrenched the boy’s arm again, cruelly. “So here’s what’s going to happen. If you ever come near my wife again, if you ever look at my daughter the way you did tonight, if you so much as breathe in their direction in a way I don’t like, I will wait until you are asleep one night and I will come into your room and I will break your neck. I will break it, and then I will tell them you fell down the stairs sleepwalking.” Hughes thought he saw a flicker of doubt in the boy’s eyes, a sliding to the side as if he was considering the threat. “Do we understand each other?”
He watched the boy wince slightly, just a small movement between the corner of his lip and the crook of his eye. He must be hurting him. Hughes began to straighten up, prepared to let him go, his message delivered, but Ed leaned in closer, putting his lips to Hughes’s ear.
“It was research,” the boy whispered. “Frank Wilcox and the girl. My mother and Mr. Fox. Aunt Nick and that trumpet player. I saw them.”
Hughes felt all the energy drain from him, and his skin prickled. He could hear the boy’s breathing while he paused.
“I told you,” he continued, “no one says anything they really mean. None of it’s real.” Ed pulled back and looked at Hughes, as if he really wanted him to understand something. “I think—I don’t know yet—but I think they’re going about it all the wrong way.”
Hughes could feel his brain shutting down; he let go of the boy’s arm. Ed straightened up, rubbing the place where Hughes had held him. He searched his face for something, then nodded slightly, and walked slowly off, back toward the party. Hughes stood rooted to the spot. He could hear people laughing. He saw the lights of the boats in the harbor winking at him, and heard the masts pinging in the distance. The trumpet wailed out into the night. He closed his eyes.
He didn’t know how long he stood like that, thinking of nothing, his mind smooth and empty. Finally, he turned away from the water. A lantern was lit in the boathouse, and he walked toward it. He saw Daisy sitting on the floor, her head on Nick’s lap. His wife’s hair was still damp from the shower, but she was wearing her evening dress, the gold thread leaping in the lamplight.
Out of sight, he leaned against the wall and listened.
“I don’t care,” Daisy was saying. “I hate all of them.”
“Darling.” Nick’s voice was kinder, gentler than it usually was when she was speaking to their daughter. “I want you to listen to me. I’m going to tell you this because someday it may be very important for you to remember. If there’s one thing you can be sure about in this life, it’s that you won’t always be kissing the right person.”
Hughes looked up at the sky and a noise escaped him, a strange, sorrowful sound he didn’t know he was capable of making. He ran his hands over his eyes and then, stiffening his spine, he levered himself away from the boathouse, the rough surface of the clapboard pushing back against his palms.
He walked toward the door, and entered the lit interior, feeling the glow of the lantern on his clammy skin. Daisy’s little tearstained face looked up at him from her mother’s lap, and Nick smiled at him, softly, conspiratorially.
“Here you are,” Hughes said. “Just where I thought you’d be. My two best girls. I’m so glad.”
ED
1964: JUNE
I have this image of Daisy. It is early summer and we’re standing on the porch of Tiger House. It’s dusk and I’ve just come back from visiting my mother in the hospital in the city. She has stayed there longer than anyone expected and longer, I’m sure, than Aunt Nick and Uncle Hughes can afford. The hospital is a strange place and I’m having one of those moments in which where I’ve been and where I am don’t connect. Where I’m wondering How was I just in that place and now I’m in this other place? and none of it makes any sense. And then I look at Daisy and I have the sensation that, just at that moment, while I’m looking at her, she is unfurling. Right there and then, before my eyes. Becoming, as my father would have called it. She doesn’t mention my mother or the hospital. She looks at me and says: “The Reading Room? I’m dying for a drink.” And I say, “OK,” or something. And then she slips her arm through mine and I can feel her bracelet through my shirtsleeve and it sends shivers up my spine. We step off the porch into the evening. And that’s how it begins.
* * *
“I always have this strange feeling,” the woman with the violet eyes was saying, “that everyone here is the same person.”
We were standing at the Reading Room bar and Thomas was waiting to take our order. Daisy just laughed, but I thought it was an interesting thing to say, and I moved closer to the woman.
“Gin and tonic for me,” Daisy said. “Ed?”
I couldn’t really concentrate on the drink order, because I was still thinking about everyone being the same. The room was full of men and women who looked like they could have all been born in the same second of the same year, even though, of course, they hadn’t. Navy blazers; yellow blazers; green trousers; pink skirts with yellow whales; yellow belts with pink lobsters; Nantucket reds; Nantucket baskets; blue and white rep ties; yellow and purple rep ties; pink and navy rep ties. It made my head hurt.
“Ed?”
I looked up and saw Thomas drumming his fingers on the polished wood.
“Oh, hell’s bells,” Daisy said, turning away. “He’ll have a gin and tonic, too.”
I smiled. “Hell’s bells,” I said.
Daisy smiled back and poked me with her elbow. Only Daisy did things like that.
“Olivia, you know my cousin, Ed,” Daisy said, turning back to the woman with violet eyes.
“I’m not sure.”
I, for one, couldn’t ever remember having seen this Olivia before. She was pretty, but a little too old to be that pretty. I put her somewhere between thirty-eight and forty, but she had the kind of looks that would have made a debutante popular.
“Ed’s going to Princeton in t
he fall,” Daisy said.
I always found this sort of conversation a bit odd, but one of the things I’d learned in boarding school was that alma maters were some kind of character reference. It was just one of those things. Boarding school had been extremely educational in this way, teaching me how to decode these small intricacies that everyone else seemed to understand naturally, and I was grateful to Uncle Hughes for having sent me there, although I suspected he wouldn’t have thanked them for it.
“Are you? Princeton? Well, that’s nice.” Olivia seemed distracted, but she pulled herself together, adding: “Go, Tigers!”
I liked her. I could see the hem of her slip a little, and I liked that, too. She was exposed, and slightly uncomfortable. I was standing so close to her now, I could smell her perfume. She smelled like candied roses. I wanted to reach out and touch her hair, which was an unusual shade of red, feel its texture between my fingers.
Daisy was signing the chit, in that hasty way of hers. Scribble, scribble and then shoving it away like she couldn’t bear to look at it one minute longer. I’d watched her do it for years. At the yacht club, the tennis club, and here, where women were admitted into the inner sanctum every other Sunday.
I would have liked to stay and chat a little more with Olivia of the Violet Eyes, but Daisy handed me my drink, and said: “We have to go find my mother and father. Pay our dues. They are footing the bar tab, after all.”
“Good-bye,” I said to Olivia. “It was nice talking to you.”
She smiled, but she was already looking for someone else to cling onto, in that sea of sameness.
Daisy grabbed my hand and said: “Stop dawdling, Ed Lewis,” and we pushed through the small crowd out onto the dock, where women were trying not to get their heels stuck in between the planks. Outside, Daisy hesitated for a minute, her hand loosening its grip on mine, before she spotted Aunt Nick standing on the far edge, with Uncle Hughes close by.
Aunt Nick was not in the sea of sameness. She held a certain fascination for me, it was something about the way she moved, but I didn’t particularly like her. And in many ways, underneath her unusual appearance, she was just like everyone else. It seemed to me that the world was made up of two camps: There were people like me and Daisy, who lived as honestly as we knew how, and then there was the rest of the world, who, for various reasons, couldn’t help lying to themselves.
Tigers in Red Weather Page 28