Mark Mills - Amagansett

‘Do you want to come?’ she asked.

‘Excuse me?’

‘With me. Walking.’

‘Walking?’

‘You’ll pick it up quick, it’s very easy.’

He smiled. ‘Sure. Why not?’

‘Tom.’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you want to kiss me?’

He hesitated. ‘Yes, I think so.’

‘You don’t have to.’

‘No, I’d like to.’

‘Your glass.’

‘Oh. Yes.’

He put it down beside the chair.

They both leaned forward and their lips met.

For a moment he felt ridiculous, detached, as if observing himself from on high. He could see the small patch of thinning hair on the crown of his head as he craned his neck, her hand sliding up his arm, taking a hold and drawing him closer. Then her tongue forced its way between his lips, and he dropped back into himself.

Only two tongues had breached the barrier of his lips before. One had belonged to Lydia, the other to a downtown whore he’d arrested—a pasty young Ukrainian who had lunged at him in a bid to secure her release. That time, the kiss had lasted no more than a couple of seconds, though he still wondered whether that wasn’t just a little longer than had been absolutely necessary.

Unlike Lydia, who kissed like she was stoking a fire, Mary’s tongue was soft, gentle, probing. And then gone.

‘Mmmmmmmm,’ she said, smiling, looking deep into his eyes.

‘Yes.’

They kissed some more. When they broke off again, she said, ‘I set off early.’

‘Huh?’

‘To beat the heat.’

‘Oh.’

‘You can stay if you want.’

‘Isn’t that a bad idea?’

She shrugged. ‘I’m all out of good ideas.’

‘I’m thinking of you.’

‘I know you are.’

He sat back in his chair. ‘I don’t know, Mary.’

She took his hands in hers. ‘Let me put it another way,’ she said. ‘Edward—that’s my son—comes home in just over a week. He’s only seven, and I love him…’ Her words tailed off.

‘But…?’

‘But he’s difficult. If this doesn’t happen soon it’s never going to.’

‘Difficult how?’

‘Think Eugene then add a bit.’

‘Where’s the bedroom?’

They undressed in silence in the near-darkness, Hollis perched on the edge of the bed, Mary standing near the window, silhouetted against the moonlight striking the blind.

He was the first to slip between the sheets. They were crisp and fresh, as new.

‘That’s my side,’ said Mary.

‘Sorry.’

‘No, don’t move.’

She climbed in beside him, facing him. He ran his hand along her thigh, up over her hip, down into the dip of her waist. A different contour, a different landscape to Lydia’s—more rugged, angular.

‘He knew,’ said Mary.

‘What’s that?’

‘Eugene. He knew. That’s why he went for you.’

‘Be quiet.’

‘Okay.’

They made love, slow and tender, taking their time.

When it was over, she said, ‘Well, that was quick.’

‘Was it?’

He was a little stung, but genuinely curious; he really had very little else to judge it by.

‘I enjoyed it a lot,’ she said, stroking his face.

‘Did you?’

‘Couldn’t you tell?’

She had certainly seemed to enjoy it, but in truth he’d been a little distracted, his mind straying to other matters, such as how firm she was, how taut, just how slack and baggy he felt beside her, on top of her.

She took his hand and placed it between her legs, the oily warmth, the matted hair. ‘You see. Feel how wet I am.’

She didn’t release his hand.

This time they took longer, though he couldn’t say just how long. His desire—unchecked and unruly this time—pushed all other senses to the periphery of his world. She uttered words he’d never heard spoken by a woman, and her whispers sped him towards a conclusion she would then deny him.

The release, when it finally came, was somehow not his, or theirs for that matter. It belonged to the thing that had swallowed them whole.

He lay on his back, drifting in and out of sweet slumber, her arm draped across his midriff, her breath cooling the skin of his chest. He felt like a man who had unearthed a hidden mystery. He told himself it was only sex, but his heart rejected the words.

Had he really spent so many years of his life not knowing?

When he felt an involuntary twitch of sleep in her leg, he gently extricated himself, tugged on his pants and headed downstairs.

He pulled the car behind the barn, where it couldn’t be seen from the road.

As he slipped back into bed, she said, ‘That’s very thoughtful.’

‘Go to sleep.’

‘I can’t.’

He fought the urge to ask how it had been for her.

‘How was that for you?’ he asked.

‘Christ, Tom, look at me. I’m a wreck.’

He looked at her, then kissed her, overcome with tenderness.

‘Your ankles crack when you walk,’ she said.

They talked for quite some while. He wallowed in the intimacy of feeling her body while asking her about her life. She seemed to be related to pretty much everyone in the area, worryingly so, but that was the way with the older families, she assured him—they were all ‘cousins’ of some sort or another. She had inherited the farm from her uncle, who had died childless, and she lived off the rent from the land. The eldest of three girls, her two sisters and her parents lived in East Hampton, all within a few miles’ radius. She said that since they now knew each other carnally, it was only right he should meet them all the next day. His face dropped, but she was only joking.

They discussed his work, and she told him several amusing anecdotes about Chief Milligan which he hadn’t heard before. Though he knew it wasn’t the moment to ask, he couldn’t help himself.

‘Do you know Conrad Labarde?’

‘The one who found Lillian Wallace?’

‘Yes, the fisherman.’

‘I met his stepmother a few times. Maude. She used to be a teacher at the school in Amagansett, a good woman. My mother was on the same charity committee as her.’

‘Where’s she now?’

‘She moved away when her husband died. It was a couple of years ago, just before the war ended. She wasn’t from here. There was a brother—Antton, I think—he died too.’

‘How?’

‘Some kind of fishing accident before the war. He drowned off the beach. I know they all took it hard.’

Hollis tried to picture it: the Basque returning from the war in Europe to find his father dead, his stepmother gone. He knew the Basque had served in Europe during the conflict, because he had paid a visit to the Veterans of Foreign Wars office in East Hampton. They didn’t have the details of the outfit he’d ended up with—only a record of his enlistment and dispatch to Camp Upton along with all the other local men—but the Post Commander had heard that he’d seen action in Italy. Maybe the American Legion in Amagansett would know more. Hollis made a mental note to check with them.

‘Tom.’

‘Yes.’

‘I don’t want to know what this is about.’

‘It’s nothing.’

‘Don’t lie to me. First you ask me about Lillian Wallace, now it’s the man who found her.’

In the silence that followed he tried to formulate a response, enough to satisfy her, nip her curiosity in the bud. It wasn’t required.

‘I mean it,’ said Mary. ‘I don’t want to know. But there might come a time when I do. And then I’ll expect you to be honest with me. Okay?’

‘Okay.’

‘May I have my breast back now?’

He removed his hand and she rolled on to her side. He snuggled up behind her and kissed the nape of her neck, inhaling her scent.

‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered.

‘Just tell me one thing. Is it important?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then you’re forgiven.’

Twenty-One

They arrived at the Montauk Yacht Club at seven o’clock sharp, two chauffeur-driven cars pulling up near the clubhouse and disgorging their occupants.

Conrad made his way along the dock to greet them.

He recognized her father, brother and Justin Penrose from photos she’d once shown him at the house. Her sister, Gayle, was talking to a small woman with long dark hair tied back off her face. Her appearance fitted what Lillian had told him of the maid, Rosa. This was confirmed when Conrad drew closer to the group.

‘Help Rosa unload the food, will you,’ said George Wallace to one of the drivers.

Gayle effected the introductions and Conrad shook hands with father and son. George Wallace thanked him for recovering Lillian’s body from the ocean, and for arranging the charter boat. It didn’t seem to occur to him that there was anything odd about juxtaposing the two events in the same sentence, but at least he got them in the right order of priority.

Conrad made a point of gripping Manfred Wallace’s hand a little more firmly than was necessary, and of staring deep into his blue, almost aquamarine, eyes. He was rewarded with a satisfying flicker of unease.

Another man introduced himself as Richard Wakeley. They had spoken on the phone when Conrad first called Gayle to say he’d found a boat for them. Steering Conrad a little to one side, Wakeley peeled off the sum they’d agreed on from a wad of bills.

Conrad tucked the cash into his hip pocket. ‘Not coming with us?’ he asked, taking in Wakeley’s neatly pressed slacks and leather shoes.

‘I can’t stand the ocean.’

‘She’s a cruel mistress, old Mother Atlantic. As Lillian learned to her cost.’

The overfamiliar use of her Christian name was intentional.

‘Indeed,’ said Wakeley.

In all, there were seven in the party—the Wallaces, Justin Penrose and his father, another man, and an attractive brunette a little younger than Gayle, with dark pools for eyes.

They all seemed pleased with the boat, the Zephyr—a lowsided, beamy forty-four-footer. There was plenty of room around the two fighting chairs bolted to the aft deck, as well as a shaded eating area in the large open pilothouse, which had been vacated by the skipper for the running bridge above.

Conrad knew that Captain Whitman B. Chase wouldn’t disappoint, and he didn’t. His grizzled face was shaded beneath the long bill of his swordfisherman’s cap; and his gruff, almost dismissive, greeting of his customers as they clambered aboard was no less than they’d expected, or hoped for.

‘Stow your gear down below. There’s ice in the fish hold,’ he growled. ‘And shake a leg, else we’ll miss the ebb tide.’

They exchanged amused glances, delighted at being taken in hand by this grumpy old sea-dog.

As Conrad helped load the platters of food, the boxes of drink, crockery and cutlery, he sensed an unease in Rosa. She seemed to be doing her very best to avoid his gaze.

Taking a large dish of devilled chicken from her, he said pointedly, ‘Thanks, Rosa.’

There was no mistaking the alarm in her eyes.

She knew. Lillian had told her about them.

Turning away, he tried to assess the impact of this revelation, feeding the information into the equation. There was no way of knowing how it would affect his plan, if at all.

She certainly hadn’t told her employers, that much was clear from the way they were treating him. And if she hadn’t told them by now, then she was unlikely ever to do so. Lillian had probably sworn her to secrecy, and there was no reason for Rosa to break that trust, even now. Just to be sure, though, he kept a close watch on her until they were ready to leave.

Chase fired the engines and a great cloud of fumes billowed out of the stern.

‘Cast off,’ he called.

Rollo freed the lines, leaping aboard the Zephyr as she slid away from the dock and out into the basin of Montauk Lake.

‘Good luck,’ shouted Wakeley, waving them off.

Rosa stood beside him. She wasn’t waving.

They steamed out of the channel then ran east. The sea was glassy calm with a gentle ground swell running, and they bowled along at a steady clip, driven by the throaty GM diesel.

Rollo worked his way to the end of the narrow swordfish pulpit that extended some twenty feet clear of the stem. He stood there, his hands on the rail, facing into the rising sun, the wind whipping his hair, and Conrad wished for a moment that he had a camera with him.

‘Do you want some coffee?’

He turned to see that Gayle had joined him on the foredeck. She hadn’t found her sea legs yet, and probably never would, certainly not in those heels.

‘Thanks.’

He glanced up at the flying bridge where Chase was rolling a plug of tobacco around his mouth.

‘Hey, Cap, coffee?’

‘Makes me shit liquid.’

‘I think that’s a no,’ said Conrad. He nodded at Rollo riding the wind beyond the bow wave. ‘He’ll have some when he’s finished.’

‘What is that thing?’

‘A pulpit, for harpooning swordfish.’

‘Oh.’

Gayle started making her way around the pilothouse.

‘Best take those off.’ He nodded at her shoes. ‘One big swell and you’ll be swimming.’

She reached for him to steady herself, her fingers pale against his forearm. She was flirting with him, just as she had the other day when she showed up at his place. This time, though, he didn’t resent her quite so much for it. From what Hendrik had told him, it seemed unlikely she was involved.

‘Thanks,’ she said when she was done.

‘No problem,’ he replied, tearing his eyes away from her feet.

They could just as well have been Lillian’s.

The only experienced fisherman among the party was the gentleman who proved to be the father of the brunette. The older men called him Marshal; Manfred Wallace and Justin Penrose addressed him as ‘Senator’; to his daughter he was just plain ‘Pappy’.

The Senator had come armed with his own rod, its reel as big as a dinner plate, and he had every intention of telling the others how things were done. Depositing himself in one of the fighting chairs, his instructions were clearly secondary to the real purpose of the exercise: that of discussing his past exploits. For him, ‘the one that got away’ was a six-hundred-pound bluefin he’d hooked off the Outer Banks of North Carolina, an excellent winter tuna fishery known to few, he claimed.

‘I was in the chair for an hour before the first mate took over. When he folded, I put in another half-hour. That monster never tired, not once, kept running back and forth beneath the boat. We could have been there till nightfall and still not brought it to gaff. Yes, she earned her freedom, that one,’ he conceded magnanimously, through gritted teeth.

As the stories ran on, the others hanging on his every word, it was becoming increasingly clear that the trip had been organized primarily for the Senator’s benefit.

And that, thought Conrad, presented an opportunity for a bit of sport.

They were five miles south of Block Island when the order came down from the flying bridge to start trolling. Rollo took a couple of menhaden from the live well. They hooked the fish up to the lines and trailed them over the teakwood transom into the wake.