Amagansett (17 page)

From shoveling shit in East Hampton they had moved to the woods north of Amagansett where they felled oaks for a couple of months, reducing the trees to cords of wood. Then it was on to
Promised Land where they tarred the roof joins on the fish-factory buildings at Smith Meal, daubing obscene doodles—only visible from the air, they calculated—to relieve the monotony. When the shimmering pods of menhaden reappeared in late spring, they descended from their lofty perch and lugged hundredweight sacks of fish meal, still blisteringly hot from the driers, out to the box cars on the railroad siding. The only white men in the human chain of seasonal southern workers, they soon picked up the songs and learned to take the ribbing in good humor.

They grew tight, sharing stories as they toiled. Hendrik’s father was a tough little Welshman who had ended up in Montauk by way of Nova Scotia. It was here that he met his bride, Hulda, a towering Swedish blonde who waitressed at Parson’s Inn. It was a typical tale of Montauk folk: two people from different corners of the world, thrown together at this windblown outpost. There were Norwegians and Finns, Spaniards, Danes, Dutch and Portuguese. Many of the Italians had worked on the Long Island Rail Road, laying the final miles of track out to Montauk, only to marry and settle down. There were workmen left over from Carl Fisher’s doomed enterprise to develop Montauk, and there were Navy men left over from both wars. Then there were the Irish of course, not for any particular reason, just because they seemed to turn up pretty much everywhere.

Many in East Hampton and Amagansett looked down on the tatty little community of transients, apparently forgetting that their own villages had started life in exactly the same way. It was natural that Conrad and his family take Montauk to their hearts. After all, their story was no different—first-generation immigrants lured to the eastern end of Long Island by a twist of fate. In their case, they owed it all to the intervention of a loose paving stone. If one of the men who made the weekly booze run out to Montauk hadn’t turned his ankle, then Conrad’s father wouldn’t have had to stand in for him, and he would never have set eyes on Amagansett.

Two years into Prohibition, his father and Eusebio had secured a lucrative little slice of the trade in illegal liquor, running the stuff into the city from the tip of Long Island, where the foreign schooners
moored just beyond the twelve-mile limit, the booze hustled ashore by a fleet of local boats. On the night in question, Conrad’s father had found himself on the ocean beach at Amagansett, hefting cases of Golden Wedding whiskey into the back of a truck.

The way he told it, he experienced an epiphany of near-religious intensity. As he took in the unbroken strip of moonlit sand backed by dunes, he found himself transported back to his Euzkadi, to the beaches north of Biarritz which he’d fished since childhood. The same ocean, the same waves breaking against an identical stretch of coastline. And he made a vow to himself: if he couldn’t go back to the old country, he would at least return to the old ways. As soon as he had saved up enough money, he would move with his boys to Amagansett and take up fishing once more.

That moment arrived, quite unexpectedly, a few weeks later. While pushing their way along a crowded downtown sidewalk one night, Eusebio yelped then spun around, searching the faces in the throng. He grabbed their father’s arm and urged him to hurry along. Within a block, Eusebio was leaning on him for support, steering him into an alleyway. That’s when their father saw the bib of blood soaking the back of Eusebio’s pants.

It was a warning, a single thrust of a stiletto blade into the back of the thigh; but the assailant had messed up, striking an artery. Eusebio felt the life slowly draining out of him and he began to talk. He admitted that he hadn’t been entirely honest in his dealings with their father, excluding him from certain profits, certain transactions, one of which had just backfired on him. He told their father to disappear, and quickly; it was just a matter of time before the people in question came knocking on his door. He barely managed to reveal the whereabouts of his ill-gotten gains before drifting into unconsciousness. Death followed moments later. Their father left Eusebio where he had fallen, curled on the cobbles. He would have taken his friend’s black Borsalino hat with him, but Eusebio had always joked that he never took it off for fear his Maker wouldn’t recognize him when his time came.

Conrad had a dim recollection of being hauled from his bed in the dead of night, of their father thrusting a thick roll of bills
into the hands of a tearful Irena, of being bundled into a car. They woke the next morning to find themselves in a field on the outskirts of Hempstead. By late afternoon they had moved into their rooms on the third floor of Sea View House, the only hotel in Amagansett at that time.

The money from Eusebio was enough to buy a house, a boat and some gear; and their father’s first act on taking possession of the two-story lean-to on Miankoma Lane was to carve his name into the lintel above the front door, according to the Basque tradition.

Their sudden appearance on the scene, to say nothing of their father’s deep pockets, piqued the interest of the community. But suspicion soon gave way to wary acceptance, largely thanks to the intervention of Cap’n Josh. When word trickled through to the old man that the newcomer was a Basque, Conrad’s father was summoned to the Kemps’ large house on Bluff Road. Cap’n Josh’s mother was still alive at the time, though you wouldn’t have known it to look at her, and four generations of the family were living under one roof, the oldest and youngest both in diapers.

The two men retired to the study where they traded stories for most of the evening over a bottle of King George rum. When they finally emerged, Cap’n Josh announced to his sons that the Labarde family was to be welcomed into the fold. He had worked alongside Basques on the whaleships and knew them to be one of the oldest seafaring peoples, God-fearing and hard-working, proud and reserved, their ancient homeland divided by a border not of their choosing.

All this was more than enough to recommend them to Cap’n Josh. However, he did suggest that their father spend that first winter cod fishing with the Kemps. It would give him a chance to learn the ways of the local surfmen.

Antton and Conrad were placed under strict orders to tell no one about the source of their wealth, even when it became clear that many in Amagansett were lining their pockets with booze money. It was an oath Conrad had broken on only two occasions—once with Lillian, the other time with Hendrik.

‘Was that the
Demeter
I saw out there?’ asked Hendrik, nodding towards the bay.

‘Yeah.’

‘You’ll be wanting a bed for the night, then.’

‘The floor will do.’

‘I got a mess o’ clams and a bluefish needs eating. I’d boil up a lobster, only I’m sick to the hind teeth of the damned things.’

Hendrik cooked up the clam chowder on the kerosene stove, and they ate it off their knees, watching the sun slip behind the bluffs on the western shore of the bay.

‘Heard you had a run-in with Charlie Walsh,’ said Hendrik.

‘Yeah?’

‘Don’t want to talk about it?’

Conrad shrugged. ‘Just bad history going back a ways.’

‘That’s good of you to say. But I heard what he done with them earrings off of that girl you found. He’s rotten like a pumpkin hit by a frost then melted in a harvest sun.’

Conrad smiled.

‘I knew the girl, you know,’ continued Hendrik, reaching for his beer. ‘From the yacht club, when I was working bar last summer.’

On returning from the war, Hendrik had taken a job at the Devon Yacht Club that first season to raise some cash to replace his neglected lobster pots. It was very likely he had met Lillian during his stint at Devon.

In fact, Conrad had been banking on it.

‘Fine-looking and funny with it, always quipping,’ said Hendrik. ‘Had a smile could tear the insides out of a bear.’

It was Conrad’s cue, the reason he had come here, but he felt her hair clip in his pocket, pressing against his thigh, and he found he was unable to speak. He looked to change the subject, anything to regain his composure.

‘Hendrik, I need a charter boat for this Saturday. There’s a party wants to go tuna fishing.’

‘Tuna fishing, huh?’

‘Best if it’s someone who works out of Montauk Yacht Club.’

‘Rich folk, eh?’

‘Money no object.’

Hendrik thought about it for a moment then came up with a name.

They talked about the old times until the moon was high overhead. They skirted around the subject of the war, dipping their toes in from time to time, but never taking the plunge. That was the way of it, though. Only the ones who hadn’t been through the real meat-grinder liked to go over their adventures.

Moving inside, Hendrik insisted that Conrad take the cot while he bunked down on the floor. Lying there in the darkness on his back, Conrad toyed with how best to tackle the subject. There was only one way—front-on.

‘There’s something I got to talk to you about, Hendrik.’

‘I didn’t want to ask.’

‘What’s that?’

‘I ain’t seen you in months, and you don’t need me to find you a charter boat.’

‘Last year,’ said Conrad, ‘at the Devon Yacht Club, were you working the night of the first dinner dance?’

‘Sure I was. It was a big do, all hands on deck.’

‘Was Lillian Wallace there?’

It was a moment before Hendrik replied. ‘Yeah.’

‘You remember who she was with?’

This time, the silence lasted longer.

‘There was a whole gang of them,’ said Hendrik.

‘Her brother?’

‘Sure. And her sister. They was always there together.’

‘What about her fiancé, Justin Penrose?’

Conrad heard a match strike. Light from the kerosene lamp flooded the shack. Hendrik was looking at him intently, his eyes demanding an explanation.

‘I can’t,’ said Conrad. ‘Not yet.’

Hendrik nodded. ‘What do you want to know?’

‘Who she left with. And when.’

Hollis had never been assaulted by a goose before.

‘Eugene!’ snapped Mary, hurrying over from the house.

Either Eugene was deaf, or Mary estimated her authority over the big bird far too highly; possibly both. Hollis found himself backed up against his car, trying to parry the thrusting beak with his leg.

He thought about taking refuge inside the vehicle, but Mary’s other guests gathered on the lawn were all staring now in rapt amusement, and the idea that they would witness his ignoble withdrawal was too humiliating to even consider.

‘Eugene!’ barked Hollis.

‘Don’t,’ said Mary, ‘you’ll scare him.’

‘What!?’

He only took his eyes off the goose for a split second, but it was enough for Eugene to get a good one away—a sharp nip to the thigh.

‘Christ!’

Mary placed herself between Hollis and Eugene.

‘That’s enough,’ she said firmly. ‘Barn.’ She pointed.

Hollis could have sworn Eugene shot him a look before skulking off, one that said: Saved by the bell, buddy.

‘That’s strange,’ said Mary.

‘What?’

‘I’ve never seen him so angry before.’ There was definitely something in the tone of her voice that suggested Hollis was to blame in some way.

‘I didn’t do a thing,’ he bleated.

‘Maybe you didn’t need to. You know what they say about geese.’

‘That they taste damn good with orange sauce?’

‘That’s not funny.’

But she smiled.

Hollis was immediately collared by a large woman in a noisy print dress who proudly announced in a gruff baritone that she was Chairman of the apron booth at the upcoming LVIS summer fair. She also happened to be the Secretary of the Roadside Committee, and proceeded to spend the next half-hour singing the praises of Tufor weedkiller in the Society’s ongoing drive against poison ivy, ragweed and sumac. She wasn’t as alarmed as some about the threat posed to the local verges by the recent surge in the dandelion population.

Hollis was finally rescued by her appetite, the smell of the lamb flame-grilling on the barbecue luring her away. It left him free to fill his glass at the drinks table and survey the gathering. It seemed to be divided into two clear and quite discordant camps—Mary’s associates from the LVIS, and a younger crowd, dressed more casually. Strangely, they seemed to be mingling quite happily.

‘I see you met Barbara.’

Hollis turned.

‘She doesn’t like me,’ continued Mary, filling her glass. ‘She thinks I’m too young to be President.’

‘She didn’t say anything.’

‘She’s far too diplomatic, knows I’ll demote her to the candy-and-cigarette booth if I hear any rumblings.’

For a moment Hollis thought she was being serious, but as she raised the wine glass to her mouth, her lips curled into the faintest of smiles.

‘Why do you do it?’ he asked.

‘It’s easy to laugh, I know, but I think it’s important, where we live, how we live.’ She paused briefly. ‘And it keeps me out of mischief.’

She took another sip of wine then said, ‘I see from your look that you’ve finally done your research.’

She was right—he had. Abel and Lucy had filled him in on the story, or rather the scandal. Mary’s husband, an engineer, had been spared military service because of their son, but had volunteered to help re-tool the machines at the Grumann aircraft plant in Bethpage. During his lengthy absence Mary had struck up an affair with an army liaison officer based out of Camp Hero at Montauk Point where the big guns were. His job, it seemed, was to develop relations with the locals, a task he had clearly taken to heart.

Opinions were divided when it came to the allocation of blame. Mary’s husband was a man known for his fierce temper and his wandering eye.

‘Does it bother you?’ Mary asked.

‘Why should it bother me?’

‘The fallen woman.’

‘Maybe I’m fallen too,’ said Hollis.

The moment was broken by the arrival of a man dressed in a navy blazer and gray flannels. There was a rakish elegance to his colorful bow tie and the matching kerchief gushing from his breast pocket. His silver mustache was flecked with pieces of potato chip.

‘This is my cousin, Edgar,’ said Mary. ‘He’s a keen sailor.’

‘Vice-commodore of the Three Mile Harbor Sailing Club,’ added Edgar, pumping Hollis’ hand.

‘Tom. Tom Hollis.’

‘Tom’s with the Town Police.’

‘Ah yes,’ said Edgar knowingly. ‘Didn’t recognize you in civvies. You’re the one whose wife slipped her moorings.’

He didn’t intend to be the last to leave, but when he found himself alone with Mary, the final set of taillights disappearing down the track, he was struck by a sense of inevitability, that somehow they were always going to find themselves in this situation.

Or not.

Maybe he was deceiving himself. It wasn’t as if he had much
experience of such matters. It was quite possible he’d imagined the unspoken complicity, the words behind her eyes.

‘I should be going,’ he said.

‘What, and leave me to tidy up on my own?’

They carried everything inside to the kitchen on trays. She washed up; he dried, putting crockery and glasses away in the cupboards according to her instructions. It was an ordered kitchen, spotlessly clean, and he vowed to himself that he’d make an assault on his own the very next day.

She suggested a nightcap, and they retired to the veranda with their glasses, where they sat on wicker chairs, their knees almost touching.

‘Are you working tomorrow?’ she asked.

‘No.’

‘Sunday?’

‘The night shift.’

‘Do you have any plans?’

He tried to think of something, anything.

‘I thought I might take in a movie tomorrow night.’ He hesitated, mustering the courage. ‘Do you want to come?’

‘I can’t.’

‘Oh.’

‘I’m going walking.’

‘At night?’

She smiled. ‘Tomorrow, but I’ll stay over in Springs. I sometimes do.’

‘Friends?’

‘A friend.’

‘Oh.’ He swirled the wine around his glass, suddenly aware how late it was, and wishing he was gone.

‘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.’