the contrary!’ cried Inez. ‘They treat the animals better. It matters to them if a mule is lame. It still has to be fed. If a mule is blown up in one of their careless explosions, that is so many dollars wasted.’ I could hear Lawrence’s voice and turn of phrase in everything she uttered. He had recited the same speech to me too. ‘But if a man is maimed. If a tunnel collapses on him, and he is maimed and blinded or killed …’
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.
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!’
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
