Tigers in Red Weather (26 page)

“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 enjoying 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.”

“Whose maid?”

But he knew who it was. There was no use pretending anymore.

1944: DECEMBER

E
ven though Christmas was over, the train station still carried that whiff of holiday excitement. You could almost smell the pine in the air. People milled past Hughes, a moving canvas of anticipation. A pretty Wren in a gray coat with jingle bells sewn onto the hem tinkled by, lifting his spirits, if only for a moment. He had missed the train to London and now faced the depressing prospect of spending one of his three precious liberty days back aboard the
Jones
.

Stepping out into the streets of Southampton only made him feel lower. The Germans had bombed the hell out of the city, so that its most prominent feature was now a snaking mass of metal from the station to the docks, a landscape of tracks, towers and cranes. The buildings looked like a collection of ruins, jagged blackened structures reaching skyward. But it was the staircases leading nowhere that disturbed Hughes the most. They seemed to be everywhere, futile against the blown-out backs of the houses; he had learned to keep his eyes on the pavement when he went into town.

Still, it was better than Le Havre, where they had just left off an entire motorized division. The French port town had taken such a
beating during its recapture that the
Jones
had been forced to continue to England to reprovision, instead of going straight back home.

Hughes made his way back to the docks and headed for the Red Cross canteen, where at least you could get a coffee that wasn’t just lukewarm sludge, and maybe a doughnut, and stare at the Red Cross girls in their pale blue overalls.

Inside, a long line made him curse his luck all over again. Hughes was about to give up and go in search of a pub instead when he heard Charlie Wells call out to him.

“Derringer.” Charlie was standing midway along the line, motioning for Hughes to join him. “I thought you were on a train to London. What happened, decided the charms of Southampton were too good to be missed?”

“I missed the damn train,” Hughes said, ignoring the men grumbling behind him about line cutters.

“Ah, well, you can come out with me and the boys. You might learn something.”

“Go to hell.”

“Ha.” Charlie clapped him on the back. “Don’t be sensitive. Come on, we need to put some hair on that chest of yours. It’ll get you out of that stiff collar, at least.”

Hughes wasn’t in the mood for Charlie. In fact, he hadn’t been in the mood for much lately. He hadn’t seen Nick in three months, and Christmas had been a dismal affair, with the
Jones
pitching fitfully all the way from the Brooklyn Naval Yard, a frozen turkey, and cranberry sauce that tasted like sweet, red piss. He was sick of these wretched, destroyed cities, harbors that were always blowing like shit and the seasickness that never seemed to get better. When he’d seen the Army boys disembark in France after ten days on the Atlantic, he couldn’t help laughing to himself. They’d been the color of pea soup. But then again, it could have been the thought of an enforced march against the Germans in midwinter.

“Lieutenant Derringer.”

Hughes turned to see Commander Lindsey behind him. Like Hughes, he was wearing his dress blues. “Captain.”

“I’m glad I ran into you. You’re going to London, I believe. Three days’ liberty?”

“Yes, sir, but I missed my train. Doesn’t look like I’ll be leaving until tomorrow now, sir.”

“Missed your train, did you?” Commander Lindsey rubbed his finger over the top of his lip, which he had a habit of doing when he was thinking over a problem. The first time it happened, Hughes had thought his captain was telling him that he had something on his face and he had mimicked the gesture, until Commander Lindsey had demanded to know why the hell he was so twitchy.

“That’s unfortunate,” the captain said. “I have a dispatch here that has to get to the Naval Control Room by tonight. Lieutenants Wilson and Jacks have already gone on, I suspect.”

“Yes, sir. I think they did make it to the train.”

“Right. Well, Lieutenant, maybe we can kill two birds with one stone, so to speak. I’ll have a word with the Brits and see if they have a dispatch driver they can spare. Maybe we can get you to London tonight, after all.”

“That would be terrific, sir.”

“Get your coffee, Lieutenant, and be quick about it. I’ll meet you out front.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Mr. Wells.” Commander Lindsey nodded at Charlie, before turning on his heel and walking toward the canteen door.

“Annapolis bastard,” Charlie said when the captain had left. “Always walks like he has a stick up his ass.”

“You got your commission. Besides, you shouldn’t be so sensitive,” Hughes said, grinning at him.

“Let’s get the coffee,” Charlie said, scowling. But his face lit up
again when a Red Cross girl with a big chest turned to serve them. “Anyway,” he said, “I’m not sure what London has that I can’t find here.” Charlie winked at the Red Cross girl, who smiled back.

Hughes laughed. He was already feeling a damn sight better.

At the Royal Navy Admiralty House, in one of the city’s remaining municipal buildings, Hughes waited in the lobby while Commander Lindsey went to speak with his British counterpart. The hustle and bustle of the post reminded him of the train station, but without all that Christmas business, which was a relief. He had sent off a letter to Nick two weeks before Christmas Day, hoping that it would get to her on time. He hadn’t known what to say, except that he loved her and missed her; he couldn’t write about what he was doing or where he had been or was going.

The year on active duty had been like living in suspended time. There was the world he had left behind, and this other place he had slipped into: the constant explosion of depth charges from the K-guns shaking the ship; the pale faces of the crew in the battle station red lights; zigzagging across the Atlantic in total blackout, decoding messages until you thought your eyes would drop out of your head. Nick was still living in the real world, a place you could dream about sometimes when you took up the bunk chains to get some sleep. But where he was you couldn’t talk about, let alone explain.

“Lieutenant Derringer.”

Hughes looked up and saw Commander Lindsey. It took him several seconds more to realize that the person accompanying him was a woman; she was wearing breeches, an oversized hacking jacket and what looked like flight boots. At first, he couldn’t tell how old she was. But as they got nearer he saw from the girl’s brow, shining below a mass of tightly pinned hair, that she was about Nick’s age.

“You’re in luck, Lieutenant. Dispatch Rider Eva Brooke here has
a delivery to make herself in London.” Hughes thought he detected the beginnings of a smile tugging at the corners of his captain’s lips.

“Sir,” Hughes said. He looked at the girl. “Miss Brooke.”

“Mrs. Brooke,” the woman said in a voice that sounded like a church bell.

“I beg your pardon. Mrs. Brooke.”

“Right. Lieutenant, this dispatch is for Lieutenant Commander Napier at the Admiralty Citadel. See that it gets to him before you enjoy the sights.”

“Yes, sir.”

Commander Lindsey turned to the young woman. “Mrs. Brooke.”

“Commander.” The young woman gave his captain a smart nod.

They made their way out of Admiralty House and around to a lot in the back filled with rubble from neighboring buildings. A group of boys were showing off their shrapnel collections to one another.

One of them had a black eye. It made Hughes’s head feel light, like vertigo.

“I suppose I won’t be needing this,” Mrs. Brooke said, throwing her motorcycle helmet in the backseat and eyeing the car with disgust, before opening the driver’s-side door and getting in.

“What do you normally drive?”

“A motorcycle,” she said. She gave Hughes a wry smile.

“Yes, I got that,” Hughes said. “Which kind?”

“Do you know anything about motorcycles?”

“No.”

“That’s what I thought,” Mrs. Brooke said, and released the clutch, backing the car out of the lot. She honked twice at the boys, who scattered like pigeons.

Hughes ran his hand over the dashboard. “A Daimler. German.”

“Very perceptive. Are you always this clever?”

Hughes looked at her; she was staring straight ahead. “Not always. I have my moments.”

“Well, we did have a General Motors factory until the Luftwaffe took a sudden and rather noisy fancy to it.”

“They’re funny that way.” Hughes patted his breast pocket, reassuring himself he had put his toothbrush in there. He had several extra collars in his coat jacket, and that was it for his liberty provisions. “So what are you delivering to the Admiralty?”

“This bloody car, if you can believe it. Apparently, they lost a couple in air raids last week.” She turned to Hughes. He noticed that her eyes were almost exactly the same shade of brown as her hair. “I don’t mean to be unkind, but I don’t think the Royal Navy would waste their precious petrol taking just a letter all the way to London. Even for you.”

They began to leave the vestiges of Southampton behind and the road opened up, dead winter fields on either side.

“Why didn’t your commander take the letter himself?” Mrs. Brooke asked after some time.

Her voice really was like a church bell. Hughes thought of the chimes of St. Andrews on the Island, where he and Nick had been married. Nick’s naked body flashed inadvertently through his head, like a bright, hot streak of light.