Tigers in Red Weather (27 page)

“He’s got a girl in town, I think.”

“Ah, yes, the proverbial girl in town.”

“You sound like you don’t approve.”

“I don’t approve or disapprove. It’s just a cliché, that’s all,” she said.

“I’m not sure that’s the worst thing to be, a cliché,” Hughes said.

“Aren’t you? I think it’s just about the worst possible thing in the world.”

“Everybody wants to pretend they’re different, but we’re not. We’re all the same.” He thought about the
Jones
, 200 seamen and 12 officers, 212 men shaking from the depth charges.

“How awful for you, to think like that, Lieutenant,” she said and
her voice had a softness to it that irritated Hughes. “And call me Eva. I’m not sure I can bear to hear ‘Mrs. Brooke’ for the next three hours.”

“Where is your husband, then?” Hughes pitied the poor fellow.

“I can’t really be certain,” she said. “Last time we saw each other he had been in North Africa.”

“He’s in the Navy, too?”

“Yes.” She sighed.

Hughes fell silent. He didn’t think he could handle listening to a soliloquy about Mr. Brooke, which was bound to follow that sigh. Then again, you could never be sure, especially about a girl who rode motorcycles. He leaned his head back against the seat and stared out the window.

“Are you from here?”

“When you Americans say ‘here,’ I’m never quite sure where you mean.”

“Here,” Hughes said, passing his hand in front of the windshield. He was getting impatient with her snotty little attitude.

“Hampshire? No,” Eva said.

Hughes watched small circles of fog appear and fade on the window with his breath. Outside, the gunmetal sky hung dully around them. He pulled his Zippo out of his pocket, and started flicking it with his thumb, listening to the rhythmic click of the steel.

“So, where are you from?” Eva finally asked, as if she were resigned to conversation.

“Cambridge, Massachusetts,” Hughes said, thinking of his mother and father rambling around their big house all alone.

He had written to his mother, too, letters full of good cheer and optimism about winning the war. It disgusted him a bit, the tone of those letters, but she had been so angry when he went off that he felt it was his job to present things in the best possible light. He imagined her now, on her fainting couch, her fists balled in fury as she read them.

In the distance, he saw what looked like seagulls with very black heads. He watched them circling and thought of German planes and the ocean. He thought of Le Havre and wondered where that division was now, and how many had already been cut up by the panzers, and how many had frostbite and how many would be escorted by the
Jones
one day, back across the Atlantic, home. Listening to the sound of the motor vibrating underneath him, he dozed off.

When he woke, the glass was steamed up. He reached into the pocket of his coat and found his pack of Lucky Strikes. He cracked the window a bit and put a cigarette in his mouth.

He turned to Eva and offered her one.

“Oh, yes, please,” she said, and for the first time she looked like what she was, a young woman, delighted by the prospect of tobacco.

“How old are you?” Hughes asked, lighting one and handing it off to Eva.

“Twenty-four,” she said.

The open window brought in the sharp scent of wet grass and dead leaves.

“What made you want to be a dispatch rider?” He pulled lazily on his own cigarette, feeling more relaxed than he had in some time.

“Why would you ask that?”

“The obvious reason,” he said.

“Yes, of course. Then I suppose the answer must be equally obvious.”

“Excitement?”

“Yes, and also … I don’t like the idea of being stuck.”

“I’d give anything to be stuck in one place right now,” Hughes said.

“Not just in a place. I don’t know, just stuck in anything, really.” She said it firmly, but Hughes had the strange impression she might cry.

Her hair had started to come unpinned, curling up around her face and neck, and Hughes saw that she would be, in fact, attractive, if it weren’t for the breeches and the ill-fitting jacket. Her hands on the wheel looked very small and he had an urge to see her wrists, which he imagined to be birdlike.

“So you have your motorcycle and you can ride away whenever you like, is that it?” He exhaled into the car.

“Well, it’s not all that cavalier.”

“I guess it must be nice for your husband to know you’re doing your part, fighting alongside him, so to speak.”

“Oh, is that what husbands like? I’ve never been very good at knowing about those things.” She sounded contemptuous. “Is that what your wife does, her part?”

“In a way,” Hughes said, looking hard at her. He didn’t like her tone. “She exists. That’s enough for me.”

“How charming.”

Hughes ignored the comment.

“She must be quite a marvel, your wife, for her very existence to give you such comfort.”

“She is.”

Eva looked at him. She seemed unspeakably sad suddenly. “Oh, hell,” she said, turning back to the road.

They passed a few minutes in silence. Jesus, she was prickly. “How far away are we?” he asked.

“We’re not far now.” Her voice had returned to its former clarity, all business.

Hughes felt relieved. “I’ve never been to the Admiralty Citadel,” he said. “What’s it like?”

“Oh, you know, maps and things. All very busy in there.”

He lit another cigarette. “What are you doing for New Year’s Eve?”

“Are you asking me to step out?”

“What?” Hughes felt his cheeks go a little hot, like a girl. “No, it was just a question.”

“Oh, don’t get so excited. I was only joking,” she said and gave him a sly smile.

Hughes laughed. She was a strange bird, this Eva Brooke, like some kind of actress playing a million different parts.

“I’m not sure yet,” she said, “perhaps with my family. I have a couple of days’ leave.”

“Oh,” Hughes said.

“But your commander said you had three days. I’m sure there will be dances, if you’re looking for something to do.”

Hughes was silent.

“What’s that face? Don’t you like dances?”

“Not very much right now, I guess. They remind me of my wife.” He thought of Nick in her dress with the neckline like a heart. He liked that dress.

“Oh my,” Eva said, “you really are smitten. We’ll have to see what we can do about that.”

It was at that point that Hughes decided to shut up for the rest of the trip.

When they hit London, Eva’s driving became more careful, as she maneuvered to avoid parked cars, fire trucks and general debris. It was still strange to go from one bombed-out city to the next, with only rolling fields and the odd village in between. As they passed what had once been the Dunhill shop, he was reminded of his last visit to London, before the war. He had come with his college crew team and they had made a somewhat drunken visit to stock up on cigars in anticipation of a win against their English rivals. Now all that was left was its sign, leaning up against a pile of rubble.

“Goddamn Germans,” he said. “Look at this place.”

“Yes,” Eva said, “it does feel sometimes like the whole world’s on fire, doesn’t it?”

They parked and Eva put her service card on the windshield, flicking it disdainfully against the glass. “I’m not sure what they’d do about it, anyway,” she said, more to herself than Hughes.

She walked briskly toward the Admiralty Citadel, a large concrete blockhouse with a square tower and firing positions, like something out of the Middle Ages.

“Charming, isn’t it?” she said, giving him a smile.

Hughes noticed that she’d managed to put lipstick on at some point and her hair was tidied. When had she done that? Did she really think a little lipstick was going to detract from her badly fitting clothes? Still, there was something sexy about it. He didn’t know if he had actually ever seen a woman in breeches before.

They showed their papers to the guards at both the entrance to the building and the stairwell, going down several flights underground.

Eva seemed to know her way around. When they reached a certain level, she took a corridor and then another. They had to squeeze past several naval officials who were pulling maps out of drawers in heavy wooden chests. A white phone on one wall rang doggedly until a Wren picked it up. It reminded Hughes of the
Jones
belowdeck. Dark and cramped, with green painted concrete and steel. Finally, they got to the entrance of the operations room, which was heavily sandbagged, and again flashed their identification.

Inside, a large map adorned the whole back wall, showing U-boat locations and the movement of the Allied convoys. In front of the map was a metal walkway, with Wrens going back and forth, moving the markers in and out of place as locations were called from the floor. It made Hughes feel ill to see how close those convoys were to the black markers. On the ship, you only had the depth charges, and although they went off constantly, rarely did they hit anything. You knew they were there, the submarines, probably lurking close by, but
since you couldn’t see them, you could still imagine you were safe. Sometimes, anyway. Eva had been right, the citadel was all “maps and things, all very busy,” but now that he was there, her comment took on a different and sinister meaning.

A lieutenant commander approached him.

“I believe you have a dispatch for me, Lieutenant.” The man’s eyes seemed to look right through him.

“Commander Napier,” Hughes said, coming to attention. “Yes, sir.” Hughes pulled out the envelope and handed it over.

The lieutenant commander said nothing, only nodded and then walked away. Hughes looked around and saw Eva chatting with some officer, her head thrown back in laughter, her curly hair in danger of falling out of its pins again. He wondered if he should wait. It seemed rude to leave without saying anything after that long, strange drive, but he also felt it would be better, somehow.

He took one last look at the map, and then walked back out past the guards. He stood in the corridor, unsure if they had come left or right down the hall. He had just decided on left when he felt someone squeeze his arm.

“You didn’t think I was going to abandon you to the terror of dancing alone, did you?” Eva said.

Hughes couldn’t say why, exactly, but a wave of relief washed over him.

Somehow, they had managed to find a taxi, something Eva had insisted on, which was all right because Hughes had just gotten his pay. But when she had told the driver to take them to Claridge’s, he momentarily panicked. Seeing his expression, Eva just laughed.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to force you to buy me dinner, Lieutenant. My family keeps a room there.”

She seemed to have metamorphosed once again since they had reached London. She was more relaxed, less fractious or sad or whatever
it was. She pulled the pins out of her hair in the taxi and popped them into her jacket.

Hughes didn’t ask what her family did to be able to keep a room at Claridge’s, but he also didn’t really care. The possibility of seeing the hotel where everyone, including his hero Churchill, stayed was good enough for him.

When they pulled up in front, he smiled. The stately entranceway was piled high with sandbags, exactly like the operations room at the citadel, as if there was no difference here between work and leisure. And as at the citadel, Eva strode purposefully ahead, her funny boots clacking against the polished black and white marble floor. This time, though, Hughes didn’t feel the need to keep up. He looked around at the tiered chandelier, and the comfortable club chairs. There was an unnerving portrait of an extremely stiff-looking woman hanging over the fireplace, which in its turn glowed warmly. He joined Eva at the front desk.

“Good evening, Lady Eva,” the older man behind the desk said.

Lady Eva? Just who the hell was this girl?

“Good evening, Winson,” Eva replied.

“Not too cold a drive for you today, I hope.” He held out a key attached to a brass plate that read C
LARIDGE’S
R
OOM
201.

“Traveled by automobile today, I’m afraid.”

“Very good,” the man said.

Eva turned to Hughes. “The lift’s this way,” she said, taking his arm and guiding him back through the lobby.

“He seems like a pretty efficient fellow,” Hughes said, smiling down at her. “Lady Eva.”

“Yes, Winson’s indispensable,” Eva said, ignoring the mention of her title, “if only for his witty conversation.”

They stood in front of the elevator. “I just need to take a quick bath and get out of these clothes,” Eva said. “Then I’ll buy you a drink at the Causerie.”

Hughes disengaged her hand from his elbow. “I should wait down here,” he said, feeling a little foolish. “And then I’ll buy you a drink.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Eva said. “Nobody waits in the lobby.” She pushed him into the elevator.

The attendant kept his eyes on the ceiling and pulled the inner door shut.

As they approached room 201, Hughes stopped, and held his ground. “Look, I’ll just wait outside here. And don’t tell me nobody waits in the hallway.”

“They’ll think you’re a deviant,” Eva said. “Or my lover, waiting for a signal. But suit yourself.”

“Jesus,” Hughes said, hurrying into the room behind her.

Once inside, he took in the curving burled-wood cabinets and plush carpet, cursing himself. Eva was trouble, but he had already known that, if he was honest with himself. He thought of Nick, sharing that drafty rented house with Helena on Elm Street, and felt guilty. He shouldn’t be here. But he also knew he wanted to be here, and if he felt guilty, it was because he wasn’t really thinking about Nick at all.

“Sit here,” Eva said, pointing to a cream-colored armchair.

Hughes kept standing.

“Don’t be foolish,” she said. “Here, you can read this to keep busy.” She handed him a copy of the
Illustrated London News
.

The cover story was about the Ardennes Offensive raging in Belgium and the terrible weather conditions. Hughes thought again of the division they had left off in Le Havre. He sank into the chair and ran his hands through his hair.