Mark Mills - Amagansett

‘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?’