The room had gone quiet. Tyler was looking at the floor and Ed had his eyes on Nick. Hughes, on the other hand, had disappeared. Typical, Helena thought.
“OK, everyone,” Daisy said, coming into the room with a slim square package under her arm, oblivious, as usual. “Ta-dah.” She handed it to Helena. “Daddy? Get back in here, we need you. Where’s he gone?”
Helena tore at the wrapping paper with a vehemence that surprised even her. It was a record. The cover showed some sort of hazy hippie man, with his head turned. VAN MORRISON BLOWIN’ YOUR MIND! it read in fat, sausagelike writing. Helena laughed out loud, and held it up for the rest to see.
Nick put her hand over her mouth, trying to stifle her own laughter, her eyes locked with Helena’s. “Daisy darling, really. Do you think that’s appropriate for your aunt?”
“Oh, don’t be such fuddy-duddies. It’s not about drugs,” Daisy said, taking the album and heading for the record player. “You have to hear this song, Aunt Helena. It’s called ‘Brown-Eyed Girl.’ It’s about you.” She squinted at Helena. “Except, of course, you have blue eyes.” And then Daisy started laughing, too. “Oh, well, never mind. I’m not really doing so well today, am I?” She put the needle to the vinyl.
A little drumbeat and then the sound of a guitar, like calypso. Helena smiled. It was a good song, a glad song, the kind that made you want to be happy, even if you didn’t feel like it.
Daisy took Tyler’s hand and started to do a little twist. Eventually, she held her hand out to Ed and pulled him toward her, the three of them forming a small circle.
Helena watched them, a little band of young gypsies, with everything in front of them. Even her son, always so serious, doing his version of Daisy’s Chubby Checker–style twist.
She looked at Nick. Her cousin held out her hand. Helena sighed and then took it. Nick pulled her up and put her arm around Helena’s waist.
“We are old fuddy-duddies,” Nick said.
Helena leaned her face against her cousin’s soft cheek and felt an indescribable longing. Over Nick’s shoulder, she could see the kids smiling at them. All except Ed. She was glad he didn’t pretend. She needed him. She had set the ball rolling and now she needed him to be strong and true.
She could smell her cousin’s perfume and thought about those wet leaves she had been talking about. How could she still love Nick, after everything? Helena’s head felt like it might split; it was too much to think about. She couldn’t bear it. So instead, she just held Nick, tight, as if it might be the last time.
HUGHES
1959: JULY
I
The phone was ringing in the house.
Afterward, when Hughes would go over the moment in his head, he would swear he first heard it ring as far as a block away. But then again, that could have been his memory playing tricks on him. What he did remember clearly was the feeling of dread that arose in him at the sound.
He had been ambling slowly down Traill Street, passing his hand through hazy clouds of gnats suspended in the warm July air. It was late afternoon and, after a morning of unproductive work on a client’s estate, he had taken off early and caught a showing of Laura at the Nickelodeon in Harvard Square.
That was one of the things Hughes loved about summer in the city. He could leave the office and no one asked, or cared, where he was. With his family far away on the Island, he experienced a sense of weightlessness that was rare in his daily life. He would eat dinner alone in the kitchen, a sandwich, or a steak if he felt like cooking, and then he would go up to the study and read until he fell asleep on the single bed. He only went to the bedroom he shared with Nick to change his clothes.
When he did, it felt like a ghost town. The picture of Daisy in the silver frame on his bureau, the cuff links in the blue china bowl, the perfectly straight pillows on the bed, all seemed to belong to someone else’s life. He wondered sometimes, looking around at the room, what an archaeologist would make of all this, of him. How would he be described? A man who kept his shoes shined, his socks in order. A man who loved his family. Was that him? When he was in the study, he knew better who he was, and this soothed him.
Recently there had been a sense, tugging away at him, that something was wrong. He noticed it sometimes when he was driving to work, or when he was reading, and would find himself having to stop what he was doing until the feeling passed. He couldn’t put his finger on it exactly; something akin to fear, but it wasn’t quite that. He knew it had to do with Nick, with losing her. But he hadn’t lost her, though sometimes he would imagine that he had. The thought sickened him, like the sound of a bone breaking.
And when he heard the phone ringing in the house, as he walked his street on that summer afternoon, the same disquiet came over him, an alarm ringing in his head.
It had started a month ago, early June, shortly after Nick and Daisy had arrived at Tiger House for the season, and he’d gone down for the weekend to prepare the boat. After scrubbing Star down and checking the dinghy’s hull and rigging for any damage, he went for a drink at the Reading Room, where he played two rounds of rummy and drank three gin and tonics, staying later than he had intended.
Still not tired, he had decided to take a stroll by the harbor, to breathe in the ocean and watch the lights dotting Chappaquiddick. When he reached the yacht club, he went in and stood out on the stringpiece, listening to the foghorns in the distance and tracking the outline of the Chappy ferry as it passed. He loved the Island. Sometimes he wondered, had he and Nick moved back here after the war, as Nick had wanted to, if things would have turned out differently. He thought of Nick, at home, perhaps getting ready for bed, the small sigh that escaped her lips when she sat at her dressing table at the end of an evening. He looked back out at the dark water and pushed the idea out of his head.
He took Simpson’s Lane, because it was the quietest way. He liked how it had remained almost a dirt path when everything else on the Island was changing. He was thinking about this when he reached the corner, and saw Frank and the girl coming out of the Hideaway, her dark head leaning on his shoulder.
Startled and not wanting to be seen, Hughes held back. He watched them walking away and, unsure of whether to continue, decided to kill time with a cigarette. As he smoked, he tried to rearrange his surprise. It wasn’t the obvious implication that confused him. It was more that it was an odd thing to do, for Frank to be so careless. Anyone who had happened to see them would have known something was going on, and the Island was a small place; everybody knew everybody. You couldn’t just walk down the street flying your secrets at full mast. And if you were stupid enough to do that, you knew it would be around town in two seconds flat.
Hughes stamped out his cigarette and headed toward home. As he approached the back drive on North Summer Street, he saw Ed, or the shape of him, really, standing there. And beyond the boy, Frank Wilcox again, still with his maid, this time engaged in some kind of intimate conversation. Hughes’s first thought was to wonder how Ed had managed to sneak out of the house so late without anyone noticing. He quickly forgot all about that when he saw the boy start moving toward the couple, like a cat, silently, keeping to the far edge of the sidewalk near the privet hedges lining the street. Frank and the girl turned down Morse Street in the direction of the tennis courts, Ed following in their wake. The boy stopped a moment and leaned down to pick something up from where Frank had been standing, before turning the corner and disappearing out of sight.
Hughes stood there feeling foolish. The idea of following Ed, who was following Frank, seemed like some kind of ridiculous caper. But what choice did he have? He couldn’t very well let Ed go after them, especially knowing what they were likely to get up to.
Hughes made up his mind to grab Ed and haul him back to Tiger House. He started toward the corner, but when he reached Morse Street it was empty. He jogged to the end and turned toward the overgrown path that ran down the side of the tennis courts toward Sheriff’s Meadow. He waited briefly and listen
ed. He could hear footfalls ahead of him.
The path was one that few people used anymore, since the town had cut a real trail to the meadow from Pease’s Point Way. As he made his way along it, the warmth of the night pushed the scent of untouched plant life up around him. The low moon provided a little light to see by, but not much, and Hughes had to tread carefully so as not to trip on the branches and roots underfoot.
When he came to the run-down shed off the old ice pond, he stopped again. It seemed as good a place as any to take a girl who wasn’t your wife for a roll in the hay. But after listening for a moment, he decided it was empty. He looked around for a sign. He was in the backlands of the meadow now: ahead was the marsh, and to either side was only thick undergrowth; neither seemed particularly likely spots. Hughes’s shoes were getting wet in the soggy ground, and he cursed under his breath. When he found Ed, he was going to give him a good talking-to for this wild goose chase. If he found him.
He was considering just calling it a day and waiting for the boy back home when he heard the hush hush of feet off in the bushes to one side. He tried to peer through. He couldn’t see much, but the feet were definitely moving away from him. Shit. Hughes pushed through the thicket, covering his face to keep from getting scratched by the brambles.
He emerged and found himself on a winding path, hemmed in on both sides by a wild hedge. The smell of honeysuckle hung heavy, and Hughes found himself thinking of the first time he kissed Nick, outside her mother’s house after a dance. She had been leaning against the side of the house, pressed lightly into a mass of flowers that was growing up a trellis, and forever after, the odor had been linked with her in his mind.
Hughes came to a clearing, and here he stopped dead. The moon had risen slightly. In an old shelter off to one side was Frank Wilcox, pants down around his ankles, pumping rhythmically into the girl, who was facing away from him. Frank had pushed the girl’s head down to the side with his hand, and was using it as a sort of leverage.
In the middle ground stood Ed, his back to Hughes. The boy wasn’t making any noise, but Hughes could see his right arm moving up and down at a frantic pace.
Jesus Christ, Hughes thought. Jesus fucking Christ.
He approached Ed as quietly as he could and reached out his hand, clamping it hard on his nephew’s shoulder. The boy’s arm stopped, but other than that, he didn’t move a muscle. No gasp or little jump of surprise. He heard the sound of the zipper going up, and then Ed turned around. There was no expression on his face and Hughes felt himself wince. He put his finger up to his lips and then pointed in the direction of the path. Ed waited a moment, looking at him, and then headed back toward the courts.
Hughes stayed silent on the way, furious, just watching the boy’s unhurried steps in front of him. But when they hit the street, he swung Ed around to face him.
“What the hell do you think you were doing?”
“I’m not a pervert,” Ed said, matter-of-factly.
“I’m not so sure about that,” Hughes said. “I mean, Jesus Christ, what were you thinking?”
Ed just stood there, his eyes strangely flat. Hughes couldn’t guess what was going through the boy’s mind, but he also knew that he had done some weird stuff when he was Ed’s age and had felt pretty crummy about it at the time.
“Look,” Hughes said, deciding to take a different tack. “It’s normal to wonder about these things.”
“What things?”
Jesus. “Men and women.”
Ed was silent.
“When I was your age, there was this girl I really liked …” He wasn’t sure where he was going with this.
“I don’t like Frank Wilcox. I don’t like the girl particularly, either.”
Was the kid dense? Hughes tried to keep his voice even. “What I’m saying, Ed, is that you can’t go around spying on people in the middle of the night. Especially like that. I mean, Christ.”
“I wasn’t spying.”
“I think we both know what it was you were doing.”
“It was research.”
“That is not research.” Hughes was getting angry again. “And what you saw was not a pleasant sight.”
“Why does it have to be pleasant?”
The boy’s tones were neutral, but Hughes had the impression that Ed was taunting him. “Look, I know things aren’t easy at home, with your father …”
“Don’t talk about my father,” Ed said, and here Hughes detected an edge.
“Look …,” Hughes began.
“I’m trying to educate myself,” Ed said. “About people, what’s inside them.”
Hughes stopped. “I’m sorry, what do you mean, ‘what’s inside them’?”
“I do a lot of research. Research other people don’t want to do.” Ed was looking at him intently. “It’s not all pleasant.”
It was the way he said it, a slight inflection, perhaps; Hughes felt a chill come over him. Something was very wrong here. “What do you mean?” he said slowly.
“For example,” Ed said. “I know about your letters. The ones from that woman in England. Eva.” Hughes felt his breath being sucked out of his body. Then the adrenaline. Eva. This couldn’t be happening. His brain felt fuzzy, primal. He moved toward Ed and took the boy by the collar, pushing his face close to him. So close he could smell the kid’s shampoo, and his sweat. “What the fuck did you just say?” His own voice sounded strange to him, quiet and cold.
“The letters,” Ed said in a rush, as if Hughes’s proximity excited him. “The ones you keep hidden in the basement.”
“The letters I keep hidden in the basement.” There was rage, like a stink coming off him. “My letters. You little bastard.” He was going to tear the kid to pieces. He could feel it. He wasn’t going to be able to stop himself. Then: Nick. He had to think. Hughes forced his brain to work. Finally, and with what seemed like impossible effort, he let go of Ed.
“No, Ed,” he said evenly, “I don’t think you found any letters. I don’t think you know anything.” He looked at him. “I think you’re a pathetic little twelve-year-old boy who’s been caught jerking off to two strangers going at it. That’s a sad story. That’s the kind of story that makes people think: ‘What a confused, messed-up kid.’ And then they start to think about other things, like maybe he’s too unstable to be out and about, that sort of thing. Do you see what I mean?”
“I don’t think I’m confused,” Ed said, not taking his eyes off Hughes. “But then again, I guess I could always ask Aunt Nick. Maybe she’d know.”
Hughes nodded his head slowly and then backhanded the kid, hard, sending Ed flying across the pavement. Ed touched his hand to his lip, but stayed down.
“Get up,” Hughes said.
When Ed rose, he grabbed the boy’s face and turned it from side to side. There was no blood.
“Get home now, and don’t wake your mother.” His voice sounded hoarse, as if he’d been running in the cold. “And don’t you ever threaten me again.”
Ed looked at him. He didn’t cry, or mock him or whine about the blow. Just cocked his head slightly, before turning and walking back down Morse Street toward home.
When Hughes returned, the house was quiet and he went to check on the letters. He had been keeping them in a toolbox underneath his workbench in the basement, a place he knew neither Nick nor Daisy would ever have any reason to look. When he lifted the tray of stray nails and screws, he found them seemingly undisturbed, Eva’s beautiful, creamy stationery stacked neatly in a pile. He picked up the one resting on top.
Southampton, March 3, 1945
Dear Hughes,
As I write this, you are probably tossing and turning somewhere across the Atlantic, while I am sitting here at my dreary desk, still dreaming of that magical steak we ate last week.
I must say, it felt very liberating and slightly scandalous to celebrate my divorce in such a manner. Champagne and steak! What would the War Office say? Who cares. I am a lost woman now, and am thoroughly en
joying it.
A friend of mine has agreed to lend us her house in Devon the next time you get leave. It’s just a little cottage, but we don’t need anything bigger than a bed. I can’t even boil an egg (will you care?), so never mind about a kitchen. We shall walk around naked all day and I will throw myself at you every chance I get.
Hughes, I’m not sure I can stand all this happiness. Please, please stay safe. There’s so much sadness around, it scares me. I know that sounds a bit dramatic, but I can’t help it. The world’s on fire, after all. Just come back to me quickly.
Love,
Eva
Hughes carefully put the letter back and then took the whole pile upstairs to his office, where, with a heavy heart, he locked them in his desk, slipping the key into his pocket.
He didn’t tell anyone about the incident and as the days passed, he tried to put the episode into perspective. Ed really was mixed up, without a real father figure, and was probably just acting out, he told himself. He was a kid. He was going through some bizarre, albeit slightly unnatural, stage of growing up. It was all going to be fine. Hughes went back to the city and his lazy afternoons and sleeping in the study. Still, he kept thinking about Frank and the maid, about the letters, and about Nick.
The phone was ringing in the house. Hughes got to the front door and turned the key in the lock. His heart hammering, he bounded up the two flights to the landing and into the study. He picked up the cold, black receiver.
“Hello?”
“Hughes. Thank god.” It was Nick.
“What? What’s happened?”
“It’s Daisy. She and Ed found a dead body.”
Hughes leaned back against the wall, his hand on his chest.
“Goddamn it, Hughes. She saw it.”
“Who?” He felt like he couldn’t breathe.
“Well, they’re not sure. There’s some talk that it may be somebody’s maid. Apparently, she’s one of the Portuguese girls.”
Tigers in Red Weather Page 20
