Tigers in Red Weather (35 page)

Helena got up and went over to the bar.

“I’ll do that,” Hughes said, but she waved him away, so he seated himself next to Nick, who smiled at him.

“You look …,” he whispered into her ear.

“What?” she whispered back.

“I don’t know … Heartbreaking.”

She tilted her head back slightly and her red lips parted. He wanted Helena to go away and the party to go away and to just sit there with her and breathe in her sweetness until the clocks stopped.

When the Pritchards showed up, and then the Smith-Thompsons, Hughes could barely concentrate on the conversation. But after a while, he found his happiness wasn’t exclusive; it began to expand to include Helena, and his friends and the hot summer evening and the anticipation of the party. Nick had put on Count Basie and the ebb and flow of the jazz filled the sitting room, along with the cheerful sound of ice cubes hitting glass.

He watched his wife move among their guests, her hand resting here on Dolly’s arm, and there at Caro’s waist, bending her head in to listen intently to something Arthur Smith-Thompson said and then laugh at Rory spilling his drink on the Oriental rug. Everything felt good and right. Like it would last forever.

It lasted only until dinner, when the conversation turned to Frank Wilcox and the damn murder. Dolly had brought it up, and Caro had said something silly about the girl wanting to catch herself a big fish and Nick had gone off to some dark place, practically accusing their guests of being complicit in the crime.

Hughes had tried to set the tone right, pouring more wine and joking around, but he could tell they’d lost Nick for the evening. It made him angry. Caro was a nice woman, but she was a ninny and there was no reason for Nick to go spoiling everything over some foolish, offhand comment.

When they had finished eating, and their guests had moved out to the lawn to join the gathering crowd and listen to the first tune from the band, Hughes cornered Nick on the porch.

“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 end 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.”