Honeyville (37 page)

Every crib in the row belonged to a working girl, and consequently the smell of antiseptic was forever lingering in the air. Somehow, at Plum Street, there were other smells to cover it: fresh flowers and burning essences and expensive soaps and perfumes. Here, the smell hung unadorned. It was the smell of hookers’ fear; and even today I can’t smell it without feeling a wave of misery.

The room cost only $17 a week. I could have afforded something better, but I only ever intended to stay there for a fortnight or so, to give myself time to collect myself and form a plan.

I lacked the will to collect myself. The idea of ‘forming a plan’ was repellent. I was thirty-eight, and alone: truly alone. My family was dead. My husband could have been dead for all I cared; my darling friend Inez was dead, and William Paxton too. I had left no friends behind at Plum Street. In all the world there was only one person I wanted to see, and he had left town and returned to Hollywood without me, without even saying goodbye. I was tired. So very tired. I only wanted somewhere to lie where I would not have to speak, or look, or think.

One day the money ran out. I looked into my tin box, and there was nothing left inside. And yet there I was – somehow still alive. My $17-a-week crib needed to be paid for somehow. As long as I lived, I needed to eat – or, preferably, drink. So I opened my trunk, pulled out a yellow silk tea dress, rather crumpled after all the months lying in an unpacked heap. I poured myself a drink, burned a little incense, sprayed a little scent – and opened the door. And that’s how I survived.

It’s not a period of my life I like to dwell on too much. And in retrospect I can only think what a miracle it was I survived at all. Many a time I considered ending it. In the time I stayed there (it was longer than a year, and less than two), three girls in the row did just that. They poisoned themselves. It was the cheapest method. The rest of us, who lacked the courage to take that, more efficient exit, slowly poisoned ourselves with liquor instead.

I hardly ventured into town. The months passed; the summer came and went, and then another long winter. Slowly, as the miners returned to the camps, so the work returned to my district, too. In some ways, crib work was easier than at Plum Street. There was never any need for conversation. Barely any need to undress. And though the rest of the week was quiet, on a Saturday night, if the weather was mild, we could turn three – maybe four – tricks in a night. It kept the roof over my head, and it kept me in drink. When a person has made such a hash of her life, and she wakes each day with the smell of disinfectant deep beneath her skin, liquor is of course the important thing.

One early dusk in September, 1916, eighteen months after peace had returned to our miserable streets, as I lay sleeping off the gin of the long night before, I was awoken by the sound of music. Somewhere in the town, not far from my crib, a band was playing. There were trumpets and tubas and drums and violins; and, even more unusually, rippling through the air to my bedside, the sound of laughter! In any case, I was sufficiently curious that, instead of lying there limp, soaking afresh in my despair (as was my normal method of re-entering the world each day), I clambered out of my cot and pulled open the door. Girls looking similarly sleepy and dishevelled peered out from the doors on either side.

‘Is that laughter?’ we asked.

‘Do you hear it too?’

Of course we did. We all heard it! The sounds were growing louder. The music and laughter, and the cheering and the marching of feet, and even a motorcar honking its horn to the music – it was coming our way.

We listened in silence. It had been a long, long time since such a happy sound had been heard in unhappy Trinidad, and I think it struck us all just then, quite how much we had missed it.

‘It’s magic,’ the girl beside me murmured. And it was, too: the sweetest, freshest breath of magic to have touched our street all year long; and I swear, just then, something wonderful happened: a tiny spark of the magic found its way to me and it punctured my long hibernation.

‘I’m going to find out what it is,’ I announced. ‘Who wants to come?’

My two neighbours looked at me curiously. They were more words than either had heard me speak since I arrived on the street.

The music grew louder.

‘Come on!’ I said to them. ‘Can you hear it?
People are
dancing!
’

I dressed – not in the first dress that came to hand, but another one, a blue serge morning dress that still lay folded at the bottom of my chest. It was loose now – so loose I considered taking it off and putting on something else instead. But the girl from the neighbouring crib – she never told me her name – was standing at my door, urging me to hurry.

‘It’s Rockefeller. That’s who it is. They said he was coming, didn’t they?’

I had heard nothing about it. Then again, I had heard nothing about anything for a long time.

‘No, I didn’t believe them neither,’ she said, when I didn’t reply. ‘Matter of fact, no one prob’ly did. But he’s here all right. He was in Cokedale last night, Pru says.’ She nodded to a crib further up. ‘He spent the night in one of the miners’ houses. With all his millions and millions of dollars. The wife cooked him his dinner and everything.’

‘Surely,’ I said, ‘the miners would shoot him first!’

She shrugged. ‘That’s what all the noise is about. He’s doing a make-peace tour of all his mines and all his precious company towns. Due to being the most hated man in Colorado … He’s talking to the men and he’s dancing with the wives and apologizing and making promises about how it’s all going to change – and they love him!’

I laughed, and she laughed too.

‘It makes no sense,’ I protested.

‘Of course not,’ she said. ‘But there’s no explaining folks, is there? Except, I guess, we’ve all got damn short memories. And thank the devil for it.’ The sound of music and laughter seemed to have turned away from us now. It was heading uptown. ‘Well, are you coming or ain’t you?’ she said. ‘Better hurry or we may miss everything. It’ll be quite a sight, I’ll bet. So hurry up now.
Let’s go!
’

We ran through the warm streets. I felt weak. It occurred to me as I tried to keep abreast of my com- panion that I had not run for many years. Not since I was a child, not since I’d left England, perhaps. Well, I ran that day. And I still have no idea quite why, or what possessed me to do it.

On Main Street, we collided with the crowd. Not so long ago, the same crowd had marched the same route to follow the coffins of slaughtered men, women and children. But perhaps there is a rhythm to these things, after all. No matter who or what or how or why, there comes a time when we cannot grieve any longer. Now the time had come to celebrate – something, anything
.
And here was Mr Rockefeller, who owned most of the mines in Colorado, who was the source of all our misery. He had come to apologize and make peace.

Our route had taken us close to the front of the parade. Mr Rockefeller himself passed only a few yards before us. A giant, heavy-jawed man, solemnly dressed, he was grinning and waving, and everything about him was joyful and incongruous. And behind him, grinning and laughing, joyful and incongruous, was the crowd. He looked grateful – happy. Everyone did. Everywhere, there was happiness in the air.

‘But this is madness!’ I shouted to the girl – my neighbour who never told me her name. ‘How can our memories be so short?’ She glanced at me without curiosity. I don’t think she heard what I said. In any case, she was younger and fitter than I was. The next time I turned to her, she was lost in the crowd. I didn’t see her again that day. In fact, I’m not certain I ever laid eyes on her again.

The car and the band and the dancing crowd spilled on past, and Main Street was quiet again. I needed to sit down with some urgency, I realized. I felt faint, and my blue dress was sticky with sweat. What I needed was a drink. I looked about me – the spark of joy extinguished. Here I stood, on the corner of Main and Commercial. It was the very spot where Inez and I had stood that first time we met, and Inez had grasped hold of my shoulder, white as a ghost:
What do you say we sit down?

I’d not been back to the Toltec since Inez was alive. But I needed a drink. I needed to sit … And it probably sounds silly, but I like to imagine there was something more to it than that. Something seemed to tug at me. I stumbled to the Toltec, one foot in front of the other, without quite thinking about why. I had been avoiding it for too long, perhaps.

One quick drink, then I would head home to the crib, get ready to work. The drinks in town were more expensive than I could afford, in any case. Just one quick drink, for old times’ sake, to see out that short-lived spark of whatever it was that almost felt like joy.

The smell of polished wood, and spittle and tobacco, the hard sound of men’s voices bouncing off the hard wooden floor – the smell and the noise of the place echoed bittersweet familiarity. The tin roof had dimmed, I noticed. A year and a half’s worth of tobacco smoke had turned it dull and black in patches.

And there he stood at the bar. My fairweather friend. Xavier.

He was as dapper as ever, in a linen suit, straw boater resting on the counter beside him. He held his head in his hands and in front of him (I could never picture him without) stood a half-empty glass of bourbon.

I hesitated. Was it really him, or was I only imagining him there? It crossed my mind. The smells and sounds of the place were so familiar, and so entangled in shared memories – perhaps he was a ghost?

The saloon wasn’t terribly full. When I called out his name, he dropped the hands from his face and turned and looked at me.

‘There you are!’ he said, as if I’d only returned from a trip to the bathroom.

He looked bruised. His face looked bruised, and his lip was cut. Why was his face bruised?
Was I dreaming?
I couldn’t be sure. It wouldn’t be the first time I had dreamed of him. I had dreamed of him as a cadaver before this. Lying on a slab in Adamsson’s morgue.
So – was I dreaming?
There was half a room between us and I wasn’t sure that I would make it across to him. If it was him. I saw a chair and empty table just beside me and I went to that instead. I needed to sit down. If he was real, perhaps he would come and join me.

‘
Dora?
’ The room was darkening. There was a noise. Feet moving. And then a crash. My head, knocking against the table, and a glass dropping. And the smell of Xavier’s cologne. I came round to the sound of his voice. He was kneeling beside me, calling me softly, and when I opened my eyes he was crouched beside me, wearing an expression of such tenderness … I cannot explain. They say a vision of your entire existence passes before your eyes at the moment of death, and maybe it does. Maybe it will. But there is only one moment, one vision I know I will remember. Xavier, as he looked at me then, his face bruised, his lip cut, was the happiest sight, the happiest moment of my life.

I said: ‘Is this a dream?’

He laughed. ‘I was going to ask you the same question. They’ve been telling me you were dead.’

‘Who said I was dead?’ I sat up slowly.

‘Phoebe said so,’ Xavier told me, a hand on each of my shoulders. He gazed into my face. ‘… I didn’t believe her, Dora. I’ve been here five days, searching for you. I asked for you at Plum Street – nobody had seen you. Nobody knew. Nobody’s seen you, Dora! They thought maybe you’d left town. Maybe you were dead …’ He smiled. ‘And then Phoebe got wind I was in town and she sent a guy to beat the hell out of me …’

‘Ah.’ It explained the bruises. ‘Well, she does that.’

‘But you’re
here
, Dora. And you’re alive! Just as I was about to start searching the cemeteries … You’re looking terrible, by the way.’ He let go of me, sat back on his haunches and inspected me more carefully. ‘What the hell happened to you?’

‘I’ve been keeping a low profile,’ I said. It was meant to be funny. I’m not certain how. It was the truth, in any case: a profile so low, indeed, that the people at Plum Street dared to pretend they thought I was dead. ‘It’s a long story.’ I reconsidered. ‘Matter of fact, no it’s not. Get me a drink, Xavier. And something to eat. I think I need something to eat. And I’ll tell you. You look well, by the way – aside from being black and blue …’

‘I
am
ratherwell,’ he said, as if the fact surprised him. ‘That is, everything is going well back in Hollywood. And now, at last, I have found you.’ He smiled at me: a glorious beam of purest, sweetest affection – and all for me.

I was too wan to return it. Besides, there were questions. A second later he spun away from me – that dancer’s precision – and shouted at the barman to bring me food and drink. ‘And perhaps a bottle of bourbon for the both of us.’

We didn’t say much until the food came. He watched me, and I gazed at the table, worried that if I spoke a word, I might just fall apart altogether. The sense of being cared for, of being watched with love – the words to describe it don’t come to me. Like stumbling across a grassy knoll, a trickling stream, a soft, sweet breeze and a long ice-cool drink, after being lost in the burning desert all your life long.

‘You still a fairy?’ I asked him at last. I smiled. I knew the answer anyway.

‘What do you think?’ he replied.

I sighed. ‘Shame.’

‘Not really. You still a hooker?’

‘Ha!’

The food arrived. Beef and potatoes. He watched me eating it, took some off my plate in his fingers and put it into his own mouth. I couldn’t eat much, but Xavier finished what I left. Afterwards, I pushed the empty plate away and sat back. I’d eaten very little, but I’d not eaten so much in a long time.

‘You got scrawny,’ he said.

‘You disappeared altogether,’ I replied.

He nodded.

‘Well? You have anything to say about it?’

Slowly, he shook his head. ‘I wish I could undo it, Dora. I wish I could. That’s all. I can tell you I’m sorry. But I think – maybe it would infuriate you. I am sorry. So very sorry. I wrote to you a hundred times and then to Phoebe – god knows, so many times. Finally she wrote back, said you’d left the house. And then I wrote again asking for an address, and she said you were dead. So I got on the next train and I came back to find you, and apologize. And explain. I just prayed it wasn’t true. I wanted to tell you …’ He looked uncertain. ‘Maybe it should wait. I should let you talk first. Throw something at me. Beat the hell out of me. I deserve it. But I came to find you, Dora, because …’ He leaned towards me. ‘Do you remember we talked about it? We talked about it often. You said you might come to Hollywood with me, start afresh …’