Honeyville (32 page)
I willed him to look up, but whether he felt my eyes on him or not, he didn’t do it. He waited for his uncle to lead the way, and then the ladies, and then the servants, and then for the caskets to be carried in and, finally, with eyes still lowered, he scuttled into the church behind them.
It was snowing again and the wind was cruel. But I couldn’t yet drag myself away. I imagined her, lying in her coffin, the blood from her neck wound wiped clean, her face still and hard and white – and no friend there to grieve for her but her brother. I couldn’t abandon her mid-ceremony. To leave would have felt like desertion.
It is a large church and not one I had made a habit of entering. In fact, I had been inside it only twice; once, in a hailstorm when I was caught unprotected, and once, in the early days, I wandered in there in the way people are supposed to: looking for some peace, or some light – some love, I suppose, and forgiveness. I hadn’t believed in God for many years and yet I do remember it was distinctly comforting.
Outside in the cold, I remembered that sense of comfort. And I imagined the small party huddled round the two coffins. They would be standing far away at the front of the church with their back to the door. If I could slide through the smallest crack, and creep to one side, and hide behind the great wooden font or perhaps behind one of the fat, stone pillars, would they notice me?
There was a slight creak as I pushed back the door. I waited a moment and then slowly, softly pushed it again. As I poked my head in, I saw Xavier twisting away from me, as if he had half spun round at the noise. Was he expecting me, I wondered? It seemed impossible that he could have forgotten me altogether.
I slipped through into the church and closed the door behind me. There it was, the great wooden font of my memory, only a handful of steps away but, sadly, not half as great as I remembered. I realized it wouldn’t hide me. In fact, nothing about the church was as large as I remembered. The two coffins and the huddle of grievers were hardly any distance from me: close enough to have felt the cold breeze as I entered. There was a pillar that might have been wide enough to hide me, but it was at least ten or fifteen feet away. I couldn’t risk it. So I stood frozen, uncertain which way to turn. I could have left, but the rich, sweet smell of the incense and the rhythmic clank of the burner, the chanting of the priest, the snuffling tears of the women, the warmth and the peace … in truth I could not have left. They combined to lull and comfort and entrance me.
There was a bench behind me, beside the door I had just slipped through. I sat down on it.
The two caskets were identical, both of mahogany, richly carved, with large, curling silver handles. They rested, two caskets that were fit for kings, side by side, on two identical biers. Had
Cody
been buried in this sort of a box, I wondered? Of course he hadn’t, and what did it matter anyway?
It was impossible to know who lay in which one, of course, and my gaze switched restlessly from one casket to the next. Was stout Mrs McCulloch resting inside this one, her kind face frozen in sadness and resentment, as it had been the last time I saw her? (I remembered how she rested her head on my shoulder, and felt a moment of sorrow for the strength of her suffering.)
Or was it Inez resting inside?
Was one casket a fraction wider than the other? No. One would assuredly be lighter – but I could hardly test that out. The two boxes were just the same, as short and wide as each other.
But how could I say my farewells without knowing where to look? I thought there might be a clue in the way the grievers had arranged themselves … but no – at any rate, I could not be sure. And, for some reason, no matter which coffin I gazed on, I could only envisage the sad, stupid face of Mrs McCulloch inside.
I sat quietly, thinking I ought to leave. As long as I was uncertain which woman lay in which, there could be no comfort in gazing at the preposterous wooden boxes before me anyway. I was on the point of standing up when, for no reason whatsoever, Mr McCulloch slowly twisted round and stared at me.
The moment seemed to last forever. I stared back at him – it seemed the natural response. I nodded at him, not certain if he even knew who I was, but he didn’t react. He turned back to the caskets, leaned towards Xavier, standing beside him, and whispered something in his ear.
If I’d possessed any presence of mind I might even then have slipped away, and yet … some forlorn corner of my heart still clung to the idea that if only Xavier saw me, a cloud would lift and he would remember me, and welcome me back again.
He looked at me at last, but no cloud lifted. His expression didn’t change. He looked at me as if I were no one, nothing – not even there: and then he looked away again.
A most pathetic cry escaped me, and I left at once.
At last the president’s troops arrived and, with the troops, came order. Soon after that, the newspaper reporters packed up and left, and then, finally, so did the Union … It had run out of funds, and after a long winter under snow and canvas, the strikers had run out of fight. They trickled back to the mines that had previously employed them and, slowly, the town returned to a sullen and unhappy version of its older self.
In December 1914, fifteen months after Mother Jones had stood on the stage and shouted to that defiant, packed-out theatre hall: ‘It is slavery or strike!’, the miners opted for a return to slavery again. They had suffered enough. The strike was over. Nothing had changed, the world’s attention had moved on, and the mood in Trinidad could not have been more wretched. Death and dishonour hung in the air. It clung to every one of us.
After Inez died, there was nothing much to keep Xavier in Trinidad. I had resisted the temptation to approach him after the incident at the church. He had made it very clear that our friendship counted more to me than to him. He made it clearer still, about a week after the funeral. I came home from a solitary amble through town, hoping as ever that I might bump into him, and instead found a letter awaiting me. He had come to call, and I had not been there.
He could not have lingered for long. I was only walking a short while. I wondered whether he had waited until I was out before presenting himself, because the letter he left, bidding me farewell and apologizing for having missed me, was written on his aunt’s stationery, indicating he had written it before he even set out.
Words could never express the sense of loss I felt when I read the note and realized he was gone. He wrote that he was taking the train to Hollywood and, in my desperation, I set out to catch him at the station.
Spring had returned and the weather was warm again. I didn’t bother with a coat. Instead, I ran. I ran as far as the ticket booth and was about to burst onto the platform when I caught myself.
Was I mad or stupid?
If Xavier had wanted to find me, he would have done so.
He didn’t want to find me. He didn’t want me to rush to the train station and bid him farewell. He wanted to leave. Without me. So I turned away. And, once again, made the long trudge home to Plum Street.
His letter had offered no forwarding address.
The town was subdued and so was Plum Street, but it had been ten months since the troops had been and gone, and at least we were still in business. Several of the better brothels in town had recently gone under, so we girls hardly dared to complain. But we were bored, and we spent our empty days and evenings squabbling. Phoebe was the worst. As her income dwindled, she lost any inclination to be remotely civil to us. She looked on us with a sort of calculating resentfulness, so much so that we used to laugh about it, if only to relieve the tension.
‘Watch out,’ we whispered to each other. ‘She’s comparing how many clients you entertained last week with how many slices of ham you ate for breakfast this morning. Better put a slice back!’
We laughed about it together, yes, but in secret we did a fair amount of client-to-ham-slice calculating ourselves. We were frightened. With business this quiet, sooner or later one of us would have to go, and with Phoebe as capricious as she was, there could be no knowing which of us she might choose.
Although I suppose, of the eight of us, I was most likely at the front of the line. I’d been in the house too long. My habits had grown expensive and – there was no denying it – I had grown lazy. Yes, I brought in my regulars. But if I left the house, my regulars would settle for someone else soon enough. And it had been a while since I had done much in the way of attracting new clients. At thirty-eight, I wasn’t old. There were plenty of working girls in Trinidad far older than I was, and plenty of johns who preferred us. Then again, neither was I young. And, frankly, there were plenty of other johns who preferred the younger girls.
Anyone as business-minded as Phoebe would have seen all that; anyone as vicious as Phoebe would have rejoiced in it, too. In retrospect, I realize that Phoebe’s mind was probably unbalanced, and had grown steadily more so as the years rolled on. Necessary toughness had curdled into a kind of brutality that tipped, at times, into pure sadism.
I would feel her eyes on me constantly. It was only a matter of time before she drew me aside: time in which, I tried to reassure myself, I could surely make her think again. Perhaps I could direct her attention towards Jasmine, who would never take more than two clients in a day. Or to Poppy, who took so much laudanum that her hair had started to fall out. Or to Nora, who ate and drank with the appetite of three men. Or to Primrose, who could often turn tiresome and violent when she drank.
We were all of us imperfect. But I was old and tired out. And Phoebe sensed it. She sensed my sadness and despair. She sensed my neediness. Since the strike – or before that, since the death of Lippiatt and my friendship with Inez, I had been absent from Plum Street on too many evenings. Add to that, her cruelty. Phoebe liked to go after us girls when we were down.
As the weeks and months rolled by, the tension became fairly unbearable. I suppose it was a relief when she finally called me in.
She had her own parlour at the front of the house, on the second floor. It was where she attended to her business correspondence. It was also where she kept the overnight safe, and the room was locked, always. Either from the inside (if she was
in situ
) or from the outside, if she was elsewhere. Apart from our monthly accounting meetings, when each girl would file through, one after the other, it was a rare and alarming thing to be invited inside: the mark of one of two things – either you were about to be thrown out of the house altogether, or you were, for whatever reason, her current favourite, in which case you were expected to sit and play cards with her, and surrender as much unpleasant gossip as you could about the other girls or the punters. It didn’t matter which. Phoebe lapped it all up. In exchange, you received the warm glow of her approval, a fleeting sense of friendship and sisterliness and security and, above all, an overwhelming sense of relief to have survived the summons with roof and livelihood intact.
I hadn’t been called in for one of her gossip and canasta sessions in a year or more. She had summoned me when she heard the rumours about the music school and sent a warning. Most girls weren’t given warnings. But the salon had been so busy then, she had been unwilling to lose me.
When she summoned me now, there seemed to be no doubt that my time had come. The girls and I were in the ballroom. It was early evening and we were dressed for work. Up on the stage, Mr Truman hammered out the ragtime. Behind the bar, Jeremiah polished the glasses. Above us, our crystal chandeliers sparkled with the promise of laughter and joy, but the place was as quiet as death. Not a man in sight, if you didn’t count the staff – and we didn’t. We were idling the hour away, reminiscing about the busy times, wondering if Plum Street would ever again be returned to its former glory, when Simple Kitty tripped across the carpet towards us, looking sorrowfully at me.
‘Excuse me for troubling you, Miss Dora. Mrs Phoebe says you’re to come and see her at once.’ She bobbed me a curtsy, which was something she never did.
‘Oh Lord,’ drawled Poppy. ‘Kitty’s curtsying. Not a good sign. What do you suppose she wants, Kitty?’
Kitty shook her head. ‘She just said she wants to see you right away.’
‘You think you’re out?’ asked Jasmine with unconcealed relish. ‘What are you going to do, Dora? Oh dear Lord, where are you going to go?’
I picked up my full whiskey glass and swallowed it back.
‘That’s the way!’ Nora said, edging her bulk towards me, leaning over to offer my arm a reassuring pat. She didn’t move close enough, though, so she patted the air next to me instead. ‘Have another one before you go.’
‘Might as well,’ said Jasmine. ‘You’ve probably got nothing to lose.’ I knew it wasn’t meant unkindly – she was only saying what everyone else was thinking. I stood up too quickly, swayed a little and set out.
‘Good luck!’ they called after me, and there was kindness in their voices. I know it, because on other occasions my own voice had been among them. I have sat and watched, while Kitty led other girls upstairs. So I know about the kindness, and how mixed it was with relief.
Kitty was the only person in Plum Street allowed a key to Phoebe’s parlour door. I stood behind her while she first knocked and then unlocked it. Shyly, she poked her head into the room. ‘Miss Phoebe? I have brought Miss Dora to see you if you please. Shall I tell her to come in?’
I waited, imagined the scene: a fire in the grate, Phoebe straight backed at her desk, scribbling away, counting her money, writing her cheques. Or perhaps she was stretched out on the couch? Except Phoebe never stretched out. Her back never bent or curved or sloped, nor her neck and shoulders. She was regal – nowadays. Once upon a time, she had been a working girl herself. But I could never imagine it. Phoebe, naked, was an absurd and im- possible prospect.
There came no reply from her. Finally, Kitty cleared her throat, glanced back at me apologetically, and prepared to say it again. ‘Pardon me, Mrs Phoebe …’
