from beneath his hands. “Sorry, I didn’t take you for an early drinker.”
“I’m not, any more than you are. But I’ve been in London for the last week and a half, which is about as restful as strolling through a pack of rabid dogs, followed by twenty-four hours in the company of your friend in the black coat. I think just this once my sainted mother would permit a belt before lunch.”
Despite his brave words, Stuyvesant raised his glass with caution, warned by the powerful fumes. He took a sip. The liquid seared a path from lips to stomach lining, and he coughed, blinking against the astounded tears in his eyes. “Jesus, what is this?”
“I try not to ask,” Grey told him. “One of my neighbors distills it. It makes an excellent fire-starter, if you’re ever caught with wet wood.”
Stuyvesant gently set the glass down far across the table, half expecting its contents to crawl out and come across the bright oil-cloth at him. He’d drunk his share of bathtub gin since the Volstead Act had passed, but this was one for the books. In self defense, he pulled out his case and placed a cigarette between his lips, then hesitated, lighter in hand. Surely if the vapors from the glass were as explosive as they smelled, the coals in the stove would have blown out the kitchen windows already? Still, he brought the flame gingerly towards his face, and was relieved when his exhaled breath did not turn into a flame-thrower.
He snapped the lighter out, then looked around until his eyes hit on a tin saucer with dark stains in the bottom, and got up to retrieve it. Before sitting again, he shed his jacket, both for the comfort and to set an informal, just-us-boys note to the upcoming conversation.
Grey finished his second drink more slowly than his first, but in all, Stuyvesant figured, the man had just downed eight or ten ounces of raw liquor—extremely raw liquor—with no reaction. Or rather, with one reaction: The man was no longer squeezing his head to keep it in place.
“You find this stuff cures headaches?” the American asked.
“It’s about the only thing that does.”
Stuyvesant flicked the ash from his cigarette over the tin saucer. “I take it Major Carstairs gives you a headache?”
“Like a spike through the brain. It sounds as though he gave you one, as well.”
“Not like that.”
“I hope to God not, for your sake.”
“However, I don’t. Seem to give you one, that is.”
“The day is young,” Grey said grimly.
Stuyvesant sat back against the chair to study the man on the other side of the table. The information he’d managed to drag from Carstairs about Grey had struck him as a closely calibrated doling out of facts, more tantalizing than informative. Still, the bare outline of Grey’s life had led him to expect a typical shell-shock victim: jumpy, pale, and pitiful. Instead he was faced with this sturdy brown-skinned farmer with the high-class accent, whose gaze was even and hands without tremor. Who, moreover, had just managed to squeeze out a little humor despite a pounding fury inside his skull. He’d set out from London anticipating the need to conceal a healthy man’s distaste for a weakling like Grey, yet what he felt now was something very like sympathy.
“Why?” he asked.
“Why does the Major give me one, or why should you keep trying to?”
“Why don’t you have a headache from me? Yet.”
“Because you’re not hiding things.”
Hiding things: Well, that was Carstairs, all right. “You sound pretty sure about it. That I’m not hiding things.” Grey shot him a glance, and went back to massaging his temples. “I mean, doesn’t everybody?”
“The things most people conceal are small and private embarrassments. People like the Major hide themselves; they hide
from
themselves; and it’s an agony to me.” Grey dropped his hands, studying his visitor with the same disturbing intensity that he’d shown when listening to Stuyvesant earlier—the American
“I’m not, any more than you are. But I’ve been in London for the last week and a half, which is about as restful as strolling through a pack of rabid dogs, followed by twenty-four hours in the company of your friend in the black coat. I think just this once my sainted mother would permit a belt before lunch.”
Despite his brave words, Stuyvesant raised his glass with caution, warned by the powerful fumes. He took a sip. The liquid seared a path from lips to stomach lining, and he coughed, blinking against the astounded tears in his eyes. “Jesus, what is this?”
“I try not to ask,” Grey told him. “One of my neighbors distills it. It makes an excellent fire-starter, if you’re ever caught with wet wood.”
Stuyvesant gently set the glass down far across the table, half expecting its contents to crawl out and come across the bright oil-cloth at him. He’d drunk his share of bathtub gin since the Volstead Act had passed, but this was one for the books. In self defense, he pulled out his case and placed a cigarette between his lips, then hesitated, lighter in hand. Surely if the vapors from the glass were as explosive as they smelled, the coals in the stove would have blown out the kitchen windows already? Still, he brought the flame gingerly towards his face, and was relieved when his exhaled breath did not turn into a flame-thrower.
He snapped the lighter out, then looked around until his eyes hit on a tin saucer with dark stains in the bottom, and got up to retrieve it. Before sitting again, he shed his jacket, both for the comfort and to set an informal, just-us-boys note to the upcoming conversation.
Grey finished his second drink more slowly than his first, but in all, Stuyvesant figured, the man had just downed eight or ten ounces of raw liquor—extremely raw liquor—with no reaction. Or rather, with one reaction: The man was no longer squeezing his head to keep it in place.
“You find this stuff cures headaches?” the American asked.
“It’s about the only thing that does.”
Stuyvesant flicked the ash from his cigarette over the tin saucer. “I take it Major Carstairs gives you a headache?”
“Like a spike through the brain. It sounds as though he gave you one, as well.”
“Not like that.”
“I hope to God not, for your sake.”
“However, I don’t. Seem to give you one, that is.”
“The day is young,” Grey said grimly.
Stuyvesant sat back against the chair to study the man on the other side of the table. The information he’d managed to drag from Carstairs about Grey had struck him as a closely calibrated doling out of facts, more tantalizing than informative. Still, the bare outline of Grey’s life had led him to expect a typical shell-shock victim: jumpy, pale, and pitiful. Instead he was faced with this sturdy brown-skinned farmer with the high-class accent, whose gaze was even and hands without tremor. Who, moreover, had just managed to squeeze out a little humor despite a pounding fury inside his skull. He’d set out from London anticipating the need to conceal a healthy man’s distaste for a weakling like Grey, yet what he felt now was something very like sympathy.
“Why?” he asked.
“Why does the Major give me one, or why should you keep trying to?”
“Why don’t you have a headache from me? Yet.”
“Because you’re not hiding things.”
Hiding things: Well, that was Carstairs, all right. “You sound pretty sure about it. That I’m not hiding things.” Grey shot him a glance, and went back to massaging his temples. “I mean, doesn’t everybody?”
“The things most people conceal are small and private embarrassments. People like the Major hide themselves; they hide
from
themselves; and it’s an agony to me.” Grey dropped his hands, studying his visitor with the same disturbing intensity that he’d shown when listening to Stuyvesant earlier—the American
Similar Books
