Honeyville (29 page)

We are silent. Nothing makes sense. And finally he leans forward. ‘Why don’t you tell me what happened Dora?’ he says. ‘I mean, after you identified her in the morgue … I presume you never discovered who fired the shot?’

I shake my head. ‘No, of course not. It might have been any one of them,’ I say. ‘From either side. You know how crazy it was. She was out on the prairie, on her own – on her way to deliver some message to Cody’s uncle. Or something. Some money to Cody’s mama … Gosh – who knows? There was a heist. They took her motorcar, jewellery, the cash – if she was still carrying it. None of it was ever seen again. All she had was the letter.’ I nod towards it, lying there, blood-spattered and inscrutable. ‘There was nothing else.’

33

1914
Trinidad, Colorado

Mr Adamsson came shuffling into the room where Inez lay, and seemed to glower at my guilty hand as it tucked away the letter. But, if he noticed anything, he didn’t say. He was more concerned with his paperwork. He carried a sheaf of papers with him and he pushed her small feet aside to clear a space on the marble slab so he could lean on it. Then he adjusted his eyeglass and set about his questions. Clearly he was worried that I might disappear before he had a chance to allocate responsibility for the body, and since Lawrence had already slipped away, I could hardly blame him.

So, with Inez lying between us, I offered up the necessary information. Name of Deceased? My name? Relationship to Deceased? Deceased Next of Kin? He recognised the McCulloch name, and as soon as I mentioned it, his manner lightened. After that, he could hardly wait to get rid of me.

I wandered out onto Main Street again. It was growing dark. The streets were almost empty, but the distant spatter of gunfire seemed to pound in my head, and echo from unknown corners.

I wandered aimlessly for a while, unable to make a decision. Mr Adamsson had suggested I inform the next of kin. I told him it would be better if he made the call himself. He didn’t like that. But I could not return to the McCulloch porch yet again, this time to inform them that their beloved Inez was not lying sick in a brothel, but dead in the city morgue.

I don’t know for how long I walked the streets. It must have been an hour at least. It was dark when my feet led me to the cottage. The drapes were pulled shut, but I could see the glow of electric light through the glass on the front door.

I knocked, and knocked again. Silence. Xavier wasn’t there. Even so, I didn’t want to leave. So I stood for a while and then, for the hell of it, I tried the door. Xavier rarely locked it. Sure enough there was a click, and the door opened wide – into the room I knew so well, and where I had spent all my happiest hours in Trinidad. With the drapes closed and the lamps lit, it was the only place in the world I could imagine being. The cottage beckoned me in.

At first I simply sat on the soft leather couch; and then, for a while, I lay on it, as I used to. I closed my eyes and tried to will back the evenings we had spent, Inez and I; and then Xavier, Inez and I, taking turns on the rocking chair, spilling liquor onto our stomachs as we squabbled or talked or laughed. There were moments when I felt she was there, back in the room with me. I wept, and I fell asleep, and I woke, my body cold as ice and with her warm laughter in my ear.

Xavier came back to the cottage some time after 2 a.m. He found me kneeling in the kitchen, hunched over the swordstick she had ordered from the spy shop in Philadelphia, and which she had given to her brother. I was struggling with the catch, trying to work out how the thing opened. I didn’t hear him come in – not until I felt his hand on my shoulder, and I heard the crack of his knees as he crouched to join me. Without a word, he took the swordstick from me and slid it open. The slim silver blade glinted under the electric light.

‘It’s rather beautiful,’ I said.

He slid it shut again. ‘Keep it,’ he said. ‘I don’t want it. And thank you, by the way.’

‘What for?’

‘The mortuary. I’m not good at that sort of thing.’

‘
Sort of thing?
’

He shrugged. ‘You know what I mean.’

He straightened up, so I followed suit. He had discovered me in his cottage, uninvited, rifling though his belongings. It was understandable if he wanted me to leave. I cast around for my coat and an expression of panic crossed his face. ‘You’re not leaving?’ he said. ‘Dora, you can’t leave!’

‘I shouldn’t be here. I’m so sorry.’

‘Why? Where else should you be?’

‘Nowhere else,’ I said. ‘But I’m not family. Your aunt and uncle probably need you.’

‘They have each other,’ he said. ‘We don’t.’

‘They do … I guess you’re right.’

‘I’ll see them again in the morning. Right now, I was hoping we could sink a couple of bottles of whiskey together. That’s all I want to do. Would you be in for that?’

We exchanged the ghosts of smiles. I didn’t need to answer.

It was a warm night, but simultaneously we looked across at the ash-filled grate. ‘I think we should light a fire,’ he said. ‘Don’t you?’

‘I think so, yes. You do it, Xavier. I’ll fix us some drinks. There’s something I want to show you.’

I waited until we were seated by the fire, each on our couch, the rocking chair empty in the corner between us. I pulled out the letter, and laid it on the ottoman. Xavier looked at it, spattered in her blood. He didn’t take his eyes off it, but nor did he move to take it. After a moment, I took pity and took it back.

‘It isn’t properly sealed,’ I said, holding it out towards him. ‘Look, Xavier. We could open it now, perfectly easily, and close it up again. Max would be none the wiser. Do you think we could do that?’ I longed for him to say ‘open it’, but even if he hadn’t, I don’t suppose I could have restrained myself for long. I had held back, waiting for Xavier’s permission. But as I held the envelope, my fingers on the seal, it popped open as if it had a will of its own; as if Inez
wanted
it. It’s what I told myself then. It’s what Xavier told himself, too. We read the letter and we put it away. In the circumstances, though our objections to Max and his journalistic ambitions were vindicated, the letter seemed trivial to the point of irrelevance.

But it gave us a foe at least: a focus for our ire. Everything was Max’s fault! And for a while – maybe an hour or two – it bolstered us through the grief.

We would help each other, so we said that night. Together, we would live through this. We talked about Inez, but never about her violent death. We drank two bottles of whiskey, and talked a lot and said nothing … until the fire died and the room grew chilly again. Xavier offered me his bed to sleep in. I accepted the offer and when I woke he was lying fully dressed, on top of the covers, beside me. I was never more comforted by a sight.

We stayed indoors with the drapes drawn, while the sun beat down outside. Xavier shuffled off to make us coffee and he brought it through on a tray into his room, where I remained on his bed, and we lay side by side, like an old married couple, sipping coffee and staring at the wall.

It’s how the day passed. We talked about my childhood in England, my father’s return there and my decision not to follow him. My regrets. His regrets. We talked about his parents’ death on the railroad, how he and Inez had travelled from Chicago together, and the kindness of his Aunt Philippa through it all. It troubled him that he couldn’t be the man she wanted him to be. We told each other many things that day which I don’t think either of us had told anyone before, but we didn’t talk about Inez.

Hours passed as we lay on his bed. We had long since moved from coffee to whiskey again, and there was, for long stretches, a numb silence between us that I think we both found comforting. Our arms lay limp by our sides, close enough to feel the warmth from each other’s skin, and I found that comforting too. He took my hand.

It was a trigger. It made me cry, which encouraged him, I think. He turned and kissed me.

The bed springs creaked as he twisted his body towards me and his lips touched mine. I waited. It wasn’t what I wanted. It wasn’t what he wanted. But people do the oddest things, in grief.

I felt his discomfort. He leaned closer towards me. I felt his shame. I felt my pity. I gave him a moment to extricate himself, but it seemed, having begun, that he lacked the nerve to pull back. So, finally, I pushed him gently away.

He rolled away from me at once. There was a long pause.

‘Forgive me,’ he said at length. ‘That was the most ridiculous thing I think I have ever done. I am so sorry.’

I laughed. ‘Forgive you? Whatever for?’

‘I shouldn’t have done it.’

‘Trust me,’ I told him. ‘I’ve survived worse. And what’s a kiss, between friends, after all?’ I tried to take back his hand but he pulled it away.

‘I’ve been meaning to do it for ages,’ he said.

‘Do what?’ I asked, bemused now.

‘
Kiss
you,’ he said. He sounded angry. As if I were the stupid one.

‘
Have
you?’ I said. ‘Why?’

There followed the longest silence yet. I watched the emotions churning in his handsome face and was struck more forcefully than ever by his similarity to his sister – and by the great differences. He was small and delicate, as she was. They had the same blond hair and grey eyes – and yet they could not have been more different. I thought all this, as the silence extended. He wanted to say something. He looked ready to burst with it, and I wanted to help him. On the other hand, he seemed angry. So I waited.

When he spoke, it sounded stilted and tight. ‘You’ve become a good friend,’ he said.

‘I hope so. I consider you a friend.’

‘Of course you do.’

It was an odd response. Again, I waited.

He said: ‘It would make my Aunt Philippa so happy …’

‘What would make her happy?’ I asked. ‘Xavier, honey. You’re not making sense.’ Nor was he, but somewhere at the base of my neck, I could feel prickles of panic. In his clumsiness, his personal confusion, I hoped that he would not continue along the track I suspected he was laying out for us. I pulled myself up from the pillows and swung my legs to the ground. ‘I’m hungry,’ I announced. ‘Aren’t you? I don’t even remember when I last ate. I could make us eggs. Do you have any eggs? I could make us eggs on toast … Would you like that?’

But the track was laid – it was laid long ago, I suspect. From the moment we first met, and liked each other, and I took him to fetch Inez from my home at Plum Street. He tugged me back onto the bed. ‘Wait! Dora. Please
…
I don’t know how to put this—’

‘Then don’t,’ I said, sitting up again.

‘If I could be a
normal
man …’

‘Oh, for crying out loud!’

‘I’ve never even tried!’

‘Well, darling – you’re thirty-five years old. There’s probably a reason you’ve not got around to it. Come on,’ I nudged him and smiled. ‘Don’t do this. Please. You’re a fairy. Always were and always will be. You are never going to be a normal man. Who cares?’

‘A lot of people care. Actually. The Sheriff’s Department at Long Beach. My Aunt Philippa – or she would if she knew. Uncle Richard. Inez …’

A beat, while we remembered.

‘Inez didn’t know,’ I said. ‘I asked her once.’

‘You didn’t!’ He was horrified.

‘Not directly. Of course not. Indirectly, I asked her something about the possibility of you one day settling down and she was …’ He looked pained; I patted him on the leg. ‘She hadn’t the
faintest
idea, Xavier. Honestly, I got the sense it had simply never crossed her mind. I imagine it’s the same with your Aunt Philippa.’

‘That’s the thing. Aunt Philippa was always so good to us, Dora. And now Inez is gone. And she has no children of her own. And she will be stuck with Uncle Richard and I swear he’s no solace to anyone. I
owe
her …’

‘It’s too bad for your Aunt Philippa,’ I said.

He wasn’t listening. ‘I thought, with your experience, you might be able to help me … Couldn’t you? Teach me how … And then I could find a nice girl, and we could settle down and have children together. And she and I could … settle down and …’ He sighed. The despondency on his face as he envisaged it made me forget how much I disliked what he was suggesting and how hurtful I found it – and made me laugh instead.

‘I can’t help you, Xavier. You’re going to have to find another hooker to work miracles for you … Or maybe find another way to make your Aunt Philippa happy. Show her your movies. Invite her to California and show her the sunshine. Go visit her this afternoon. She needs you. And now – let me make some breakfast.’

We shuffled off the bed and wandered together into the parlour. Neither of us had undressed the previous night, and we were still wearing our clothes of the day before. Mine, I imagined, with some part of Inez still on them. I had worn them to the mortuary. I had brushed against her body as it lay on the slab, and I felt there was some physical remnant of her death that still clung to me.

‘Xavier,’ I said. ‘I’m going to take a bath. Would you lend me a bathrobe?’

He lent me the paisley silk affair I had so admired when he opened the door to me last week. It smelled of his cologne and, as I wrapped it round me, there was something comforting about it. More than comforting. I held the fabric to my nose and inhaled – the smell of Xavier. It made me happy.

I had left him cooking the eggs. When I emerged from his bathroom, his robe around me, the cottage smelled like home: of wood smoke, from the fire last night, and buttered eggs, and grilling bread. I followed the smell into the kitchen, and watched while he worked. He looked older, grimmer, greyer, still in his clothes from yesterday.

‘Gosh I’m going to miss you when you leave,’ I said abruptly. ‘Trinidad will be unbearable without you and Inez.’

He looked up from his cooking pan. ‘One egg or two? Or three? I’m having three … Pleasant bath?’

‘Very pleasant,’ I said. ‘Two, please. Xavier. I suppose you
will
leave, won’t you? Now that Inez is gone. When do you suppose you’ll leave?’