Honeyville (9 page)

Yes, yes.

‘Well – never mind he has five children to feed and a wife with another on the way – he is worthless to them! If he can’t dig coal out of the rock at the same rate as the other man – he might just as well be dead. And
then,
Dora, tell me, what is to become of him and his wife and children then? It’s all very well for the company to boast of its schools and its pleasant houses, and the little back yards with chickens and so on – but what becomes of a man the moment he is of no use to the company? What then?’

I sighed. Couldn’t help myself. And wished that Lawrence were back in town so the two could rant at one another. ‘It is a wicked and unfair world, Inez.’

‘Yes it is, Dora.’

‘I’m sorry you have had to wake up to it.’

She had opened her mouth to speak but she closed it again at once. She smiled, shamefaced. ‘It’s true. I am rather late …’

‘Better late than never.’

A graceful pause. But Inez couldn’t stay subdued – or shamefaced – for long. ‘By the way, darling, I was thinking about your wardrobe,’ she said. ‘For our project I mean, of course.’ She nodded at the door that opened into my dressing room. ‘I thought it might be fun to look through your clothes and decide what you should wear, so as to look suitable. Something sober and not at all … you know. If you look too flashy they won’t take to you and our entire project will be lost.’

Inez had taken to heart my wish to set up a singing school. I dare say that even after her nights of sin and sexual awakening with Lawrence, she could never quite accept what it was I did for a living. Ladies of leisure, I note, seem to be born with reforming zeal deep in their blood and bones. No matter what, they encounter a woman like me – a woman who isn’t like them – and they feel the need to change her. Added to which, with Lawrence away, Inez was bored. I think it amused her to conjure such a mischievous plan – especially one that might simultaneously bring her new friend so much happiness. In any case, Inez was determined to rescue me.

And I was touched – more than touched. And even if, in the cold light of day, I thought her project was a little preposterous; even if she and I had only half thought it through; the mere fact of there being one – of my having a friend who cared enough to want to conjure it for me – was a wonderful thing. Inez was determined to rescue me and – whether I needed it or not; whether she could rescue me or not – I felt blessed.

9

The Project? Inez was going to use her connections to help me start up a singing school in town so that I could leave my life at Plum Street behind and become a respectable woman again.

The plan? Was this:

I was to be introduced to the Trinidad elite as an Italian from Verona whom Inez had found, searching for books about Italian opera in the Carnegie library.

‘Brilliant, no?’ Inez giggled (the opera idea having been hers). ‘An excellent touch for added
veracity
. There you were, not looking for ten-cent romantic novels like every other lady in Trinidad, but seeking out improving books about Italian opera! In fact, Dora, why don’t we say you have written one? In
Italian
? You could offer to send for it – pretend to have one sent all the way from Verona. And then, once you’re properly established, we can say it was lost, and pretend we are sending for another … and then another. Wouldn’t that be too funny? They’d be so impressed.’

The idea had been that I should give a recital at the Ladies’ Music Club, which convened at 4 p.m., according to Inez, on the third Tuesday of every month. Each month, just like the Ladies’ Plant Appreciation Club, the Ladies’ Historical Club, the Ladies’ Travel Club and numerous other clubs, it took place at the home of a different lady, whose task it was to provide both refreshment and entertainment. Inez said it was her Aunt Philippa’s turn to be hostess:

‘Or at any rate, if it isn’t, then it ought to be. I shall make it happen. She has the only decent piano in Trinidad, so they really oughtn’t to complain. Assuming,’ she added as an afterthought, ‘you know how to play it?’

‘Of course,’ I said, indicating my beloved harpsichord, sweltering beneath a velvet throw and sundry decorative knick-knacks in the corner of the room.

‘Good.’ She glanced at it. ‘Oh, is
that
what it is? How adorable! The ladies love to go to Aunt Philippa’s anyway,’ she added. ‘Because of the honeycake. We have
the best
honeycake, and Aunt Philippa swears she will take the cook’s recipe with her to her grave. Which is horribly mean of her, I always think. Never mind. We need to decide what you will sing – something God-ish,
definitely.
And then something romantic.’

‘I don’t have an operatic voice, Inez. It’s more of a dance-hall, vaudeville type of singing.’

‘They won’t know the difference. Believe me, they won’t have the slightest idea. We need to choose you some clothes. And then we can tell all the ladies how lucky they are that you’re setting up in town as their singing instructress. And I shall make a great performance about how much you have helped me with my singing – and sure as night follows day, the ladies will follow me. And it’ll be perfect! We can put on a show at the theatre in the New Year, and
le tout
Trinidad will turn out.
Et voilà!
Goodbye Rotten Plum Street. Hello … Well. Hello, somewhere else! The best plans are always the simplest ones.’

‘You honestly don’t suppose that they will recognize me?’ I asked her. ‘Because I’m certain I shall recognize most of them. If not their names, then their faces.’

‘Absolutely not!’ she said, leaping up from my small couch. ‘We can make your hair as dowdy as can be – and we can make sure you only wear the plainest clothes – and if you don’t have anything suitably drab in your wardrobe, we’ll go to Jamieson’s together and pick something out! So. Are you going to show me your dressing room or aren’t you? For heaven’s sake, we only have a week or so to prepare. Do let’s get on with it!’

10

Lawrence was out of town for several days afterwards, and Inez dedicated herself to our project. On the morning of the event, she arrived at Rotten Plum Street (as she now referred to it) unannounced. She rushed up the back stairs and burst into my small sitting room without knocking. ‘I have thought of everything!’ she said, dropping herself onto the nearest couch.

I was alone at my harpsichord, playing to calm my nerves. Her entrance made me jump. ‘Inez!’ I said. ‘You can’t simply burst in like this. God knows – what if I had been with someone?’

She looked around the small room. ‘But you’re not,’ she said. ‘Besides, it’s ten in the morning – and didn’t you tell me you never allowed them to stay the night?’

‘Even so …’

‘It’s horribly airless in here, Dora. Why don’t you open a window?’ She stood up again, and went to open it herself, impatiently pushing aside the knick-knacks and ornaments on the sill. ‘You should throw out half this junk. What do you keep it for?’

‘They’re gifts,’ I told her. ‘Believe me, I long to get rid of them. But I can’t. Otherwise …’

‘
Pour encourager les autres
,’ she said.

‘Something like that.’ I smiled. ‘Most of it’s junk, but not all.’

‘Well. You’ll be out of this dreadful place soon. As soon as we’ve set you up. And, by the way, when you tell them you’ve written a book, you’ll be able to charge a fortune. You can’t
imagine
how much money there is flushing round in this town.’

I laughed at that. ‘Oh, I believe I can …’

‘By the way, it occurred to me in the middle of last night that you’re going to need an address! Quite why we hadn’t considered it before, I cannot say.’

‘I thought a post-office box,’ I said. ‘See what interest I can muster and then—’

‘You can’t give singing lessons in a post-office box. And the ladies have to know where to find you. That is, until you can find a little place of your own. And by the way, I have seen the sweetest little cottage on South Elm Street, which you might easily be able to take once your students start to roll in. And in the meantime, Dora, I have come via the Columbia. I’ve taken a room for you there in your new name. It’s only for the week, mind. But I thought – if we are to do this, we must do it properly. And nobody could doubt the credentials of an Italian opera singer if she is residing at the Columbia!’

The Columbia was the oldest and by far the most luxurious hotel in town. It stood elegant and proud at the heart of Trinidad, on the corner of Commercial and Main Streets. ‘I can’t afford that!’ I said.

‘It’s my gift to you, Dora, to thank you.’

‘Whatever for?’

‘For being my friend,’ she said simply. ‘You can’t imagine what a thrill it is. And for introducing me to Lawrence; and for showing me that even in this Hicksville-
Snatchville
of a town …’ She giggled delightedly. Ladies didn’t call it Snatchville. They just about called it
Honeyville
, if they were being especially daring – if they called it anything at all. ‘No matter what my brother Xavier thinks, life
can
be absolutely … exciting.’

‘But it must have cost you a fortune. I can’t accept—’

‘Oh don’t be silly, darling!’ She waved it aside. ‘I have already paid for it in cash. The room is sitting empty. It’s under your new name. It’s a suite. And I have told them to put a piano in there – you can play the piano, can’t you?’

‘You know I can,’ I said. ‘I already told you. And I was just playing when you came in.’

‘Oh yes, of course you were. Well then,
Maria di Leopaldi
,’ she pronounced it badly, but with relish. ‘You can leave the ladies a card with your name and details on it – and for a week you can hold court at the Columbia. Offer them trial lessons or something. It’s perfect. And after that, we had better find you a place.’

For authenticity we decided she would come to fetch me from the hotel, where I would be waiting in the room she had hired, in the Italian opera singer disguise she had helped to pick out, and that we would walk the five minutes or so east along Main Street to Aunt Philippa’s house together.

It was, I think, the longest walk of my life. God knows – in the exhilaration of cooking up the plan with Inez, I hadn’t allowed myself to fully acknowledge the risks. Shuffling along Main Street with my head down, stomach churning with fear, the risks hit me like a bucket of ice-cold water. If Phoebe discovered I was trying to make my escape, and she surely would, she would not only put a stop to it, she would exact a vicious kind of revenge. I dreaded to imagine quite what; although I knew, whatever it was, it would cause her no loss of income. It gave me some comfort. She wouldn’t murder me then, or have me beaten to a repellent and uncommercial pulp of flesh … My mind skittered from one vengeful alternative to another, and I might have turned back, but Inez marched us forward, and I hardly had a chance.

She made a point of waving and smiling at just about everyone we encountered.

‘You haven’t met Trinidad’s new celebrity,’ she shouted proudly to anyone who stopped – and to several who didn’t. ‘She’s performing for the Ladies’ Music Club this afternoon, but if you or your wife are interested in singing instruction …’

By the time we reached Aunt Philippa’s house two blocks north of City Hall, Inez had already collected three eager lady students. ‘Between you and me, they’re not quite
wealthy
enough to be part of the Ladies’ Music Club,’ Inez explained to me in her noisy whisper, as soon as they passed, ‘which makes them all the keener to hang onto our coat-tails, Mrs di Leopaldi. I tell you what, you’re going to make a fortune, Dora! And no one to take any commission off you, either.’

Mention of Phoebe and her commission – or rather Phoebe and her imminent lack of it – made my stomach lurch so violently that we had to pause. What was I even thinking? Phoebe would kill me if she discovered what I was attempting. She would send her stooges round and have me beaten until I begged for mercy. Was I mad?

Even now, I feel a prickle of fear, remembering. But I wasn’t mad. In retrospect, I know the word is ‘desperate’. Remote as it was, Inez seemed to be offering me a way out: a new life that didn’t depend on the whims of a single, vicious woman whom, over the years, I had learned to hate.

‘Oh we can deal with Phoebe!’ Inez said blithely. ‘For crying out loud! Let’s just concentrate on getting ourselves through this!’

As we turned into the McCullochs’ street – three times the width of Main Street, and each handsome house as large as any mansion, I felt my knees buckle, and Inez had to push me up the steps to the great front door.

‘Inez!’ I whispered, as we waited for the maid to answer. ‘I can’t speak Italian! Not a word!’

‘For heaven’s sake,’ she said, stamping her foot. ‘Nor can they! They’ve just about heard of Michelangelo. And Rome. Relax! You’re going to be
just fine
…’

Aunt Philippa looked nothing like her niece; twice her girth (though the same small height), her hair and eyes were as dull and pale as Inez’s were alight with colour and life.

‘No, no, she surely didn’t inherit all that prettiness from me!’ Aunt Philippa remarked cheerfully, putting a plate and doily into my hand, and an array of small, unwanted sandwiches. ‘Why, she looks more of an Italian. Like you, Mrs di Leopardaldi.’ She looked at me again: at my light brown hair and hazel eyes. There was nothing Italian about any of us. ‘Even more so,’ she muttered vaguely. ‘Inez tells me you’re a wonderful opera singer! Well, have you glimpsed our little opera house? Of course you have – it’s right opposite you at the Columbia. Built by Jews, by the way
.
But we don’t mind that. Here in Trinidad, we are terribly open-hearted, you will discover. Italians too – just about
anyone
is just fine with us. And the opera house – I call it little, but it’s not
really
little
,
now is it? It’s our most handsome building – after the Columbia, some people say
.
I disagree. I think it’s handsomer than the Columbia. But what do
you
think? You’re an Italian. You know about these things. Do you think it’s more or less handsome? As a building? I should love to know …’