Romeo Blue (9780545520706)

by Stone, Phoebe

  Soon enough, my father came bubbling into the kitchen with a cheerful smile. “What ho, Fliss! Has The Gram fallen into a heap? What shall we do? How about we all go out for dinner tonight? We’ll go to the place along the wharf. What’s it called, the Boiling Pot? We haven’t done anything like that since Fliss has been here. What do you say, old bean?” said Gideon, patting me on the back and then putting his arm round The Gram.

  “Oh yes, please!” I said, jumping up and down.

  “We’ll take the whole clan and we’ll even ask Bob Henley along,” said Uncle Gideon.

  “And what about Miss Elkin?” I said. “I think she would be ever so pleased to be invited as well.” Gideon frowned and didn’t answer me. He sat down at the blue table and opened the newspaper. He started whistling and turning pages. The Gram and I began tucking the soft, pliable bread dough into buttered baking tins. Soon, five fat little loaves were sitting all ready to be popped into the cooker.

  I left the room and went upstairs and when the loaves had baked, the delicious smell drew me back downstairs. I stood in the hallway for a moment and I could hear Gideon talking quietly to The Gram. “I’ve heard from Donovan, actually. Unfortunately, our sources tell us there’s a rather important German agent in the area.”

  It was as if someone had taken a basket of laundry and dumped it all out into the wind. Shirts and skirts and sheets and towels were let loose, flying every which way. Every idea in the world popped in and out of my mind. Was Mr. Fitzwilliam the Gray Moth? Was that why the man at lunch had planned to mail that letter to Cape Elizabeth? Never before had I ever met anyone who seemed so dark and dangerous as Mr. Fitzwilliam. How long had he been living in that big house on the cliff walk? Not long, I should imagine. Wouldn’t we have run into him around town before if he really lived here? And one day recently, though he didn’t see me, I spotted him down on the rocks below, staring up at our house, studying it, watching for something. What about that story of the architect who had been murdered? I should have realized right then that there was something wrong. And what had this to do with Derek’s father?

  Oh, I so hoped Derek would come home soon. We were to begin dance practice at seven and he was already late. I needed to talk to him. I wasn’t going to tell Uncle Gideon anything until I had talked with Derek.

  I put on a little jacket and went out the back door into the garden. The full moon cast an oddly bright light on the sleeping wild roses. In the fields beyond there were seas of drying goldenrod bending and rustling and glowing yellow with the wind and moon.

  Then I saw a shadow of someone up on the road, walking briskly towards the house. It startled me at first but soon I realized it was Derek. I ran up as fast as I could to the road. We stood there in the stark moonlight, our long, pale shadows shimmering on the road before us. “Derek. Oh, Derek. I just heard Gideon say there is a big German agent in the area,” I said. “Don’t you think we should tell Gideon about your father and Fitzwilliam?”

  Suddenly, Derek grabbed me. He wrapped his one good arm round me and he held me really tightly. I was pulled in close against him and I could feel him trembling. He kept on holding me like that and he pushed his face against my cheek. His lips brushed across mine and I felt as if I were swimming in a warm blur. Then he whispered, “Fliss, don’t say anything yet. It has nothing to do with my father. We have to figure this out on our own. Don’t say anything. I want to get to know my father first. I need to get to know him. My father is my business. No one else’s.” Then he let go of me and rushed on into the house, leaving me standing alone in the shadows.

  Yes, America was losing many, many ships along the coast. German U-boats were everywhere, lurking, and when supply ships or even convoys went through the eastern waters, U-boats torpedoed and sunk many of them. It was like an epidemic. Gideon was dark and gloomy about this and he had gone off to talk with a friend who was on sub-watching duty up on the hill in a cement tower with open windows all round the top. It was tucked away in the pinewoods but if you looked up at the hill, you could see the eye of the tower poking out of the trees.

  It was another one of those windy, rainy days and Derek had built a fire in the fireplace. Everyone was out of the house that day, as planned, and Derek’s father had just arrived. He was standing in the hallway with an umbrella that the wind had ripped to shreds and turned inside out. He was quite wet. The water rolled off his macintosh and he stamped his boots. Then he shook off the macintosh and shuddered. “Oh, I’ll keep this on,” he said, touching his hat. “It loses its form if I take it off when it’s wet. It will dry to a perfect shape this way.” He smiled at Derek, and Derek looked proud and pleased. Derek’s father was happy to see the fire in the fireplace and the two of them settled down together in front of it, like old friends.

  I brought in the tea tray. All the while I kept wishing Gideon would suddenly come back and barge in and ease my mind about this. I did not like deceiving him. But there was nothing wrong with a father visiting with his son, was there?

  “Well, she is British,” Derek was just saying, “and one of my favorite Bathburns, actually.”

  “Honestly, truly, Derek?” I said, setting the tea tray down. I put the cups out and poured the tea. “I am actually a dual citizen,” I added, looking away.

  “But this is terrific for you, my son, to have someone your own age here. And to live in this marvelous house. What a view, even with the rain. Do you often see whales and porpoises?”

  “All the time,” said Derek. “We see all sorts of creatures, even sharks, I think.”

  “Sharks too! Quite exciting. Is that one there now?” Derek’s father pointed out the window.

  “Look through these binoculars. It’s probably a seal. They love rain,” said Derek.

  “Oh,” he said. “Oh, how do you focus them? Let me see. I guess I need to remove my glasses.” He took off his glasses and looked through the binoculars. “Ah yes, I can see the water now. There are certainly plenty of birds floating about.” Derek’s father put down the binoculars. “Well, this is a grand place. The water is quite rough out there today!”

  “Did we live here by the water when I was a baby?” Derek said then, suddenly. The words came out in a rather awkward way and he seemed startled himself by their sound. Derek’s face rather crinkled up, as if someone had just clapped their hands way too close to his ears. “Where was I born?”

  “Ah, of course, you would be curious. Do you really want to open this can of … this can of …”

  “Worms,” I said.

  “Yes, this can of worms,” said Derek’s father. “Well, perhaps it’s time. You know I hadn’t wanted to talk about it. Really, I had hoped we could somehow just let it go and start afresh. It’s rather sad. Your mother and I were married in Texas. She had the idea that she wanted to marry a cowboy. You were born in that state. I worked on a ranch outside of Austin. I was a cowboy but I must confess I wasn’t a very good one. I never could lasso a single steer because I couldn’t handle a rope. This was because of muscle damage in one of my arms from a childhood injury.”

  “Oh, but that’s like me,” said Derek. “My left arm is pretty much paralyzed. I can’t use it.”

  “I am so unhappy to hear this. Ah, but we are father and son, are we not? Parallels, you see,” said Derek’s dad.

  “But how did you come to leave me or whatever it was?” said Derek, sort of twisting in his chair. “What happened anyway?”

  “Well, your mother died. I became deeply depressed. I am sorry to say that I am given to depression. I do hope you have not inherited that! I came to Maine because I lost my job. I really don’t like horses anyway.”

  “But why did you not want me anymore? Why did you leave me here? What happened?” Derek’s voice was plaintive and his face was pale. He looked tired suddenly and I barely recognized him for a moment.

  “Derek, people’s lives are changing. Sometimes there is no use for regretting. We cannot look around. It would be too painful. I cannot talk ab
out it. I do not want to break down and cry. I don’t have a handkerchief. Will you excuse me for a moment? Where’s your lavatory? I think I’ve drunk too much tea. And I cannot bear to remember.” He laughed and cried in a confusing way and stumbled out of the room, as if the sadness made it hard to walk.

  “It’s just up the stairs and down the hall on your left,” said Derek. And then he propped his chin in his hand and looked down into the depths of the floor.

  I was always looking to cheer up Derek, so when his father left the room, I picked up his glasses, which he had left on the table in his confusion and sadness. I put them on and I made a face at Derek.

  “Come on, Fliss,” he said, “put those down.”

  “Very well,” I said, looking round the room through them. It was really quite strange. I expected them to be blurry because most glasses are fitted with lenses to suit the needs of the owner. But these glasses seemed to have no special lenses. They were clear glass. I had no trouble seeing through them.

  I put the glasses back on the table and I looked up at Derek. He was now inspecting the little brochure that came with the box of Lincoln Logs that his father had brought him. “This is a special, complicated set. It’s not for little kids, Fliss. It’s a teenager’s set,” said Derek, looking a bit brighter.

  “Derek,” I said, “perhaps we shouldn’t allow your father upstairs. I mean, perhaps Gideon would be upset.”

  “Oh no, he’s family,” said Derek. “It’s fine. He was so sad. I shouldn’t have asked all that. Didn’t you see how he almost cried?”

  I was wondering why someone would wear a pair of glasses that did not help him see better. I mean, what purpose would those glasses serve? Why wear a pair of clear glasses? I suddenly felt a draft sweep through the room.

  Lying in my bed across from Auntie that night, I felt I was drifting in a kind of fearful fog. As Derek had said, why can’t a person wear clear glasses if they want to? Why was I being so glum? Why did I want to cast shadows on the best thing that had happened to Derek in years? He said he loved his father. He said he would trust him with anything. Derek and his father had built a wonderful Lincoln Log construction together and then they had gone outside and taken photographs. Derek’s father brought out his camera and took a number of pictures of Derek standing by the house, on the porch, in the hallway. Then Derek brought out his Brownie box camera. But his father protested. “No, no, I don’t look well in photographs. My nose is swollen from a cold I had. Another day, but not today.”

  Why was I becoming so fearful? What was it that seemed to be flying over me like a shadow of a bomber moving over a city? I stayed awake for a long time that night, listening to the waves hammering the rocks below. I kept saying over and over to myself, as the waves broke, I love Derek. I want to be loyal to him. I don’t want to hurt him. Derek had been calling me crazy as a loon recently. Perhaps he was right.

  But after visiting, Derek’s father had set off down the road on foot, walking into Bottlebay, where he said he had parked his car. As he walked along he was humming a tune. He had given Derek a great hug good-bye and he had taken my hand like a true gentleman and pretended to kiss it in a jokey way. Then he had set off down the road. Only now something came back to me. As I lay here in my bed, the tune Derek’s father was humming suddenly played in my mind. How easy it was to miss things, to not notice things when you were smack in the middle of the soup of your life. Yes, he was clearly humming a song I had heard before. It was the German soldiers’ song called “Lily Marlene.”

  Outside the barracks by the corner light,

  I’ll always stand and wait for you at night.

  We will create a world for two.

  I’ll wait for you the whole night through,

  For you, Lily Marlene,

  For you, Lily Marlene.

  I tried to talk to Derek about his father and my fears the next day but he would hear none of it. “But, Derek,” I said.

  And he said, “No. I don’t want you to say anything about my father. He’s my father and whoever or whatever he is, I stand by him.”

  “But, Derek,” I kept saying. “Please just think about this.”

  “Stop worrying,” he said. “He’s family. He’s a photographer, like me. And he’s a great photographer.”

  “No, Derek,” I said. “You must stop seeing him. I don’t like all this. There’s something wrong. Why was he humming that song?”

  “You’ve got rocks in your socks,” said Derek. “It’s a pretty tune. Even you said so. You’ve gone nutty, Fliss.”

  “Well, I haven’t gone round the twist yet,” I said.

  “Yes, you have. That’s just it. You have gone round the twist. Or the bend, as normal people say. Let’s face it, Fliss, you’re just not normal,” Derek said. He looked at me with his eyes that had turned fiery like burning coal.

  “No. Gideon won’t want him in the house here,” I said.

  “Gideon won’t know. He’ll never know unless you tell him,” said Derek.

  “Please,” I said. “Maybe we should just talk to Gideon first.”

  At the mention of Gideon, I became quiet in my heart. I knew the dance was fast approaching and I had not asked him if he would like to go as a chaperone. I certainly hadn’t mentioned Miss Elkin. He hadn’t wanted to take Miss Elkin to the Boiling Pot, so why would he want to go to the dance with her? As The Gram had said, “In case you haven’t noticed, Flissy dear, my children live in the clouds. They are not an ordinary breed. And they cannot marry everyday, regular people.”

  Oh, I felt dreadful on all counts. Everywhere I turned, I felt sorrowful. Poor Miss Elkin. Poor Derek. Poor me! I almost wished I had my old bear, Wink, back. He was always so levelheaded when I was not. He always had that steady smile I could trust, even if it was a sewn-on smile that never changed. I wished then that I wasn’t twelve. Twelve-year-olds do not believe in bears and I needed now to believe in something.

  Yes, I tried to listen to Derek and forget my fears about his father. I tried to think of other things. But I did not forget about Derek and me on the road that night. How he held me close to him. I wasn’t sure if it was just because he was momentarily stirred by the news or if it had meant more to him than that. But the feeling of his cheek against mine followed me everywhere. It brought with it a kind of joyous, tingly feeling, a kind of enormous happiness and that happiness seemed stronger than my fears about Derek’s dad. I supposed Derek was right. Perhaps his father was just a character who put words together in a slightly different way and wore clear glasses for the fun of it. The dreamy feeling of Derek holding me seemed to push away everything else. And I walked round the Bathburn house in a haze of mixed-up happiness and anxiousness.

  Four days before the dance I opened the icebox door and there was a corsage, sitting in a box on the shelf, a bright purple rose blooming, glowing in an eerie way, with its terrible, fleshy petals like tentacles. Gideon had been to Portland and had bought it for Derek to give to Brie, for the dance. I hated it. Every time I opened the icebox, there it was.

  And Auntie and The Gram were cleaning furiously. I had to help. We opened up the two back bedrooms beyond the little gymnasium and we aired out the curtains, fluffed the pillows, and swept the floors. Mr. William Donovan and Mr. William Stephenson were coming to stay with us.

  “Two Williams?” I said.

  “Yes,” said Auntie. “They are big shots from Washington and New York. Mr. Stephenson works for Prime Minister Churchill.”

  “Well then, we should make autumn bouquets,” I said, “and fill the house with them because I am a great fan of Prime Minister Churchill.”

  The Gram scrubbed the kitchen floor and we made all sorts of biscuits and pies, even though we had some trouble getting enough sugar and we had to borrow some ration stamps from Miss Elkin.

  When I went round to her house to get the tickets, she looked at me in a longing sort of way and said, “Did you ask Mr. Bathtub? Do you think he would want to go with me as a chaperone
to the dance?”

  “Oh, Miss Elkin,” I said. “This may sound odd but you know that Mr. Bathtub still loves my mother, even though he isn’t married to her anymore. It’s a bit of a mess.”

  “Oh, Felicity, I was hoping, that’s all. You know. It would be nice,” she said.

  “My aunt says that some people only love one partner in their lives,” I said. “She says those people are like Canada geese. They marry for life. If they lose that partner, they won’t accept anyone else. They often spend the rest of their lives alone.”

  Miss Elkin looked suddenly brisk and impatient and she hurried away into her house.

  It was quite festive when our guests arrived. I had gone outside and picked dried flowers and branches of berries and turning hydrangeas for all the rooms. Aunt Miami was dressed up in her rose silk gown and she floated about the house in a swirl of fabric. I put on my new plaid taffeta frock, the one that seemed to make Derek blush and look at the ceiling. (Perhaps the green and red colors bothered him.) It was almost evening when the great dark car pulled up outside. We went out to help Big and Little Bill carry their baggage into the house. They had brought all sorts of things, like a small film projector and briefcases that Mr. Stephenson (Little Bill) wouldn’t let anyone carry. We had a lovely dinner in the dining room and we sat there making jokes and laughing.