Resurrection Day Page 7

  ‘Sure, William,’ he said. ‘I believe you. It’s a big place.’

  Two-Tone nodded in satisfaction, looking to the right and to the left. ‘That’s right. And you should be ready, too.’ He leaned in and said, ‘I’d let you into my shelter when the time comes, but I think it’d be too crowded. You got some canned food?’

  Carl smiled. ‘Sure do. And bottled water.’

  ‘Then that settles it. Time the sirens sound, you be on your doorstep with your stuff and I’ll take you with me. Deal?’

  ‘Deal.’ Carl turned to leave and then something came to him, something he had just been thinking about. No real reason, just curiosity. ‘Two— Unh, William?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’d like to ask you something, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘Sure, go right ahead,’ he said, leaning on the shopping cart.

  ‘General Curtis. What do you think of him?’

  ‘Hmmm,’ Two-Tone said, reaching out to rearrange one of his trash bags. ‘The Rammer. Not a bad man, even if he’s Air Force. I don’t hold that against him. I know that he’s not liked for what’s he done since Cuba, but you know what?’

  ‘What’s that?’

  Something a bit terrifying occurred, as Two-Tone stood up and his voice sharpened and his eyes seemed to bore right into Carl. It was like the man who was once an Airborne officer had returned. ‘He saved me and a bunch of my buddies, that’s what. After the invasion went to the shits and the Russians used their tactical nukes, some of the high mucky-mucks that weren’t in DC wanted to write us off. We were contaminated and most of us were wounded, and without prompt rescue, decon, and treatment, we’d all die. But he was acting chairman of the Joint Chiefs then and he ordered the Navy to come pull us off the beaches, and they did, hundreds of us. What a horrible and honorable day that was, Carl. We were all there, wounded and dying, but we still had our discipline, we weren’t going to show the Navy that we were just a mob. So we stayed in line, letting the worst wounded leave first, with guys out on the perimeter, putting down harassing fire so what was left of the Cuban army or the Soviets couldn’t get to us. He got us all off, Carl, all of us who were still alive. So you won’t hear me say anything bad about the general. He’s an honorable man, Carl, one of the last honorable men alive.’

  Carl was shocked at the change in Two-Tone’s demeanor, and all he could say was, ‘I understand, William.’

  ‘Good,’ he said, and then it was like a part of his insides collapsed, and the old Two-Tone came back. He started moving away, shopping cart wheels squeaking. ‘You have a good night, now.’

  ‘I will.’

  He had gone a few yards when Two-Tone shouted after him. ‘Carl! One more thing!’

  Carl turned. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Your canned goods,’ Two-Tone said. ‘Don’t bring any beans. If we’re cooped up for a month in my shelter, last thing I want is you and me farting at each other. It would be awful.’

  He gave him a half wave. ‘Understood. No beans.’

  ‘Good,’ he said again, and as Carl went around to the front of his apartment building, the squeaking noise from the shopping cart seemed to get louder and louder.

  ~ * ~

  FIVE

  The British consulate was on State Street, and after parking his car he had to walk a couple of blocks to get there. His wrists itched from the tweed jacket he was wearing. His reporter’s notebook was in an inside pocket, and his shoes felt stiff as he walked. Besides the tweed jacket, he owned a lonely black two-piece suit that he had bought after being mustered out in ‘68, but that article of clothing was appropriate only for wakes and funerals.

  This part of Boston was relatively thriving, with gift shops, restaurants, and state offices in renovated brick buildings. Traffic was backed up at the lights and there were some Japanese people in a tiny tour group, probably looking for the Freedom Trail. Everything looked fine for a Saturday night in the up-and-coming city of Boston—now the largest port in the northeast—but with his reporter’s eye for detail and his old soldier’s habit of surveillance, Carl could see that things still didn’t fit. The shops mostly attracted state workers, port employees, or tourists—prices were way out of line for the average Bostonian. Most of the cars were old and rusted, tailpipes spewing exhaust, and many of the stores had private guards, on alert for orfie gangs prowling for smash-and-grab attacks. The average Bostonian passing Carl on the sidewalk looked tired, the men’s clothes dull and shabby — elbow patches were now the rage—and the women’s clothing looked like it came from 1950s New York. Most of the women were bare-legged, but they tried to look like they were wearing hosiery by inking a black line up the back of their lags.

  The British consulate was in a newly con5rr_xted building, four-stories tall with a brick facade and elegant entrance. A black wrought-iron fence surrounded the yard and a British flag hung from a second-story flagpole. Two Boston cops were chatting it up with a plainclothesman who was probably consular security. Across the street, behind a police barricade, were an older man and woman. Both carried signs—the woman’s said BRITS OUT OF NORTHERN IRELAND and her companion’s sign said NO MORE COLONIALISM. BRITS OUT OF USA. They were ignored by everyone who walked by them. Boston was an old Irish town, with memories of feuds and revolutions and the iron rule by the British of their home country, but he knew from reading back issues of the Globe that the people had other memories as well. Like the grinding and starvation-plagued winters of 1962 and 1963, when aircraft from BO AC and the RAF landed at Logan every day, disgorging food supplies and doctors and nurses to supplement the Boston hospitals, to help treat the refugees streaming up here from Connecticut and New York City.

  Dark times, times that were still very fresh in most people’s minds, and which almost always crowded out older thoughts of the 1916 Easter Rebellion and the six counties of Northern Ireland, still under British rule. It wasn’t that the Boston Irish didn’t care anymore; they just had bigger things to worry about: feeding their children, or seeing their husbands or wives treated for cancer.

  At the gate Carl flashed his press pass and his driver’s license to the security man and Boston cops and then climbed the short flagstone path leading to the white-columned entrance. He knew there were people in Philadelphia and Congress who didn’t like the British presence, but the Brits were still quite popular in lots of places. Their assistance after the war had made the difference between life and death for so many. He’d met some British officers in California in ‘63 and ‘64, and while he appreciated their suggestions, he, too, found that there was something irritating about their superior attitude, their spit-and-polish dress, the way they took their meals in their quarters. Somehow they couldn’t entirely suppress their glee at being needed again by the Yanks, instead of just being the poor relations across the Atlantic.

  But to be fair, he thought, there was that one British paratroop officer, the one who had spent a couple of days with his unit in California and then left Carl with a bottle of brandy. His name had been Kenneth something, and he hadn’t been like his brethren. He had really seemed to care, had offered some good suggestions on how to do better patrols in the mountains. When he had left, he had shaken Carl’s hand after Carl had thanked him. He had said, ‘Don’t mention it, old boy. Just consider it a little payback for your help with the Hun back in the forties.’

  Carl stepped through the entrance and onto the polished marble floor. The room was crowded but he could see a wide stairway that led up to the left. Before him were a row of tables and another double set of doors, leading to a ballroom. It seemed like half of Boston was crammed into the two rooms. Among the guests, he was surprised to see, was Major Devane from the Globe, in his dress uniform, talking to a couple of consulate officials. Carl elbowed his way to a reception desk, where a sweaty man in a red-trimmed British army uniform was passing out guest badges. Behind him on a wall were a set of five photographs—the largest, in the center, of course, was of the Queen. Then there was a pictur
e of Prime Minister Edward Heath and one of Kim Redgrave, the British consul for Boston. The two other photographs were smaller, black-and-white, and trimmed with black crepe. They were photos of the British ambassadors who had been on duty at the UN in New York and on Embassy Row in Washington during that October ten years ago.

  ‘Sir?’ the soldier asked, though it came out ‘Saaar?’

  ‘Carl Landry, Boston Globe.’ After a moment, the soldier passed over a name badge, sealed in plastic, which Carl pinned to the lapel of his jacket. He pressed through the double doors to the reception room. The ceiling was high and gilt-lined with elaborate carvings. British and American flags hung on the far wall, next to a larger portrait of the Queen. A string quartet was playing in one corner, and there was a din of conversation and some laughter. He figured the room held about two hundred people, and as he moved through them he spotted a long line of tables, covered with white tablecloths. His stomach grumbled as he saw the food laid out on fine dishware. Slices of roast beef, cheeses, hard rolls, jumbo shrimp, grapes, apples, and pears. It had been a long time since he had seen a spread like this.

  He ate three jumbo shrimp and then went back and made a sandwich with a large roll, some slices of roast beef, and chunks of cheese. It was tender and moist and tasted very good. The food he usually ate was either canned or frozen; fresh food, for the average person in Boston, was a once-or-twice-a-week treat, and Boston was doing better than a lot of other places.

  He noticed how many people were eating, and it made sense. No wonder it was so crowded. This was the British consulate, after all, and good food in plentiful portions made this a high point for whatever was left of Boston society. While he was trying to decide about making another sandwich, the crowd near him parted and Mark Beasley came up to him, cameras hanging off him as if he were a poorly decorated Christmas tree. He had a sandwich in each hand.

  ‘Christ on a crutch, Carl, will you look at this feast?’ Mark said. ‘Here I was, I thought I was being punished by George by being sent out here tonight. Man, if I knew how much food was gonna be here, I would’ve volunteered.’

  ‘Don’t forget to put those sandwiches down when picture time comes, Beast.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about that, and I won’t be putting the sandwiches down anywhere; they’ll be going into my pockets.’ He came closer and winked. ‘When I leave here tonight, I’m gonna have two days’ worth of food stuffed in my coat. And you should do the same.’

  Carl laughed. ‘You know, I just might.’ The Beast moved down to one end of the long table and Carl saw one of the white-jacketed waiters behind the table whispering something to a companion, both of them smiling. The taller of the two smiled more directly at him as he went up to the serving table.

  ‘Help you with something, sir?’ the waiter said, with just the slightest trace of condescension. Carl paused, and then looked back again at the crowded room, feeling again that sense of irritation from his California duty. The British were well dressed, amiable, and barely touching the food available this Saturday night. The Americans had on their best clothes as well, but there was a discreet sense of shabbiness about them, like the clothes had been carefully mended and cleaned for many years. The Americans held full plates and laughed too loudly, like they were doing their best to say thanks to their British hosts. Ten years, he thought. Ten years ago it had been reversed. The Americans had been loud and rich and well fed, while their British cousins had been the ones with the lesser role. He knew the attitudes of the Brits, and while he couldn’t blame them, it still rankled.

  ‘Sir?’ the waiter repeated.

  Carl looked back at him, picked up an apple, and tossed it in the air. He caught it and deftly put it into his right-hand coat pocket.

  ‘For later, if you don’t mind,’ he said.

  ‘Not at all, sir.’

  ‘Good,’ Carl said, walking away, not wanting to see the smug smiles behind him.

  ~ * ~

  A stage with podium and mike had been set up on one side of the room. A press area was marked off with gray duct tape and three television cameras had been set up, one for each of the Boston stations. Photographers were up front—including the Beast, who was still chewing as he unstrapped his cameras—and Carl stood with the print reporters. He recognized a reporter and photographer each from the Boston Herald and the Christian Science Monitor, and a couple of radio reporters. A few other press types were there that he didn’t know, including a woman wearing a black dress cut just above the knees and a string of simple white pearls. She wore hosiery that would cost an American woman a week’s wages, and her high-heeled shoes were polished to a reflective gleam. Her dark brown hair was done up in an elaborate knot at the base of her neck. She had a reporter’s notebook and a fountain pen in her slim hands. When she turned and smiled at him, Carl blinked hard. She was the most beautiful woman he had seen in a long time.

  By the time he thought to smile back, she had turned away and several men were stepping up on the stage. Carl got out his notebook. The show was about to begin.

  A youngish man in a light gray three-piece suit announced in a cultured British voice that he was the press attaché for the British consulate in Boston, and that he was pleased to introduce Kim Redgrave, the British consul. When he stopped speaking there was a round of applause and the consul came up to the podium, giving a little half wave. A few steps behind him was another young man, this one carrying a long, wide piece of cardboard that he held close to his body. The consul was in his early forties, with a wide smile and a ruddy face, and the beginning of a pot belly that strained against the gray vest of his suit.

  ‘I would like to thank all of you for coming out tonight to this wonderful event,’ Redgrave said. He didn’t read from notes. ‘This evening marks something special for British residents in America, and for our people at home. For the past ten years, we have done what we could to ease the suffering which has scourged this land. Ten years after that dreadful war, the people of America are still in our thoughts and prayers. And the people of Boston have always had a special place in the hearts of many Englishmen ...’

  He paused for a moment, winked. ‘Except, of course, for the matter of that little tea incident some centuries ago.’

  Some polite laughter, and then there was a woman’s voice at his ear, the accent the same as the consul’s. ‘So sorry, but could I trouble you for a moment?’

  He turned his head, noting with a pleased smile that it was the woman in the black dress who was talking to him. ‘Go right ahead.’

  ‘... as you helped us with Bundles for Britain in the 1940s, so we have helped you in return with Bundles for America, and our own local effort here, Bundles for Boston

  She moved closer and Carl caught a whiff of perfume, something airy and wonderful that he wanted to remember for a long time. ‘That red-headed man, behind Mayor Toland. Who is he?’

  ‘Ty Keenan, city councilor and president of the Boston city council.’

  ‘And what’s he doing here?’

  ‘Besides making the mayor angry?’

  She laughed, a sound he decided he wanted to hear again.

  ‘. . . through three world wars, we have formed an un-shakeable bond that can only be strengthened as the years continue ...’

  She said, ‘Please go on.’

  ‘Ty wants to be mayor someday, and he wants everyone here to know that.’

  ‘... so, tonight, on behalf of the British people, I’m pleased to announce the start of our annual winter relief effort, Bundles for Boston. And I truly hope that this will be the last time that the people of Boston and this great nation depend on our help, despite how eagerly we offer it. You have made great strides in the past ten years—we look forward again to having you as our equal partner in the world.’

  Redgrave stepped back and his assistant came forward, handing him the white piece of cardboard. The consul flipped over the cardboard, revealing it as a mock check, drawn on Barclays of London and made out to ‘The Peop
le of Boston’ in the amount of £10,000.

  As Carl wrote down the amount he felt again a twinge of anger. The least they could have done was convert it to dollars, he thought. The consul presented the mock check to the mayor of Boston, Franklin Toland, who was grinning as he shook Redgrave’s hand. The television cameras panned across the stage as one, and flashbulbs went off. Carl was amused at the sight of Ty Keenan trying to get into the photo, and the way Mayor Toland gently pushed the consul across the stage, using the check as a battering ram, so that Keenan wouldn’t appear in any of tomorrow’s photographs.

  Applause broke out and the woman’s voice was at his ear again. ‘What do you think of that, what he said about this being the last year? Do you think he really believes that?’

  Carl said, ‘Maybe. But other people would say not on your life.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’