She discovered my name eventually. Though I’m not convinced she really registered it until some time later. I told her a little about myself – as little as I could – and watched her wide eyes watering, torn between outrage and pity.
‘You don’t need to feel sorry for me,’ I said, when her pitying expression was too much.
‘Oh but I don’t,’ she cried quickly, eyes sliding away.
‘After all, I am freer than most women and freer than any wife. I have money of my own. A wife doesn’t.’
‘Yes of course!’
‘A husband can beat and rape his wife and there is nothing she can do to prevent it. If a man beats me or rapes me, it is against the law. And even if it weren’t, here in Trinidad, we girls have friends who can make his life a misery. I have freedom. And one day,’ I told her, ‘when I have saved enough, I can stop this work altogether. And do what I have always planned to do—’
‘Yes?’ Inez asked, brightening. ‘Yes, and what is it?’
In truth the ‘plan’, if I could even call it such a thing, was no closer to fruition than it had been the first day I’d dreamed it up, seven or so years ago. I regretted mentioning it, and felt aggrieved with myself for having done so. But she wouldn’t let it go. She demanded to know what it was, my secret plan: what I might otherwise do that would save my wicked soul. I told her. I was a singer once.
Instant tears sprung. ‘A singer!Why, and you can be again!’ she cried. ‘You could sing at our own opera house! I just bet you could! You’re so dashing and beautiful and everything … I’ll ask Mr Haussman. He’s the manager. He’s quite an acquaintance of my uncle. I just bet you—’
‘But I don’t want to sing at the damn opera house,’ I snapped.
‘Well, of course you do!’
‘I am sick and tired of people looking at me—’
‘Even so …’
‘However, I admit it – I would love to teach others to sing.’
‘Well then!’ Inez was irrepressible: ‘You could start today! What’s stopping you?’
‘Plenty of things.’
‘Well? Name them!’
But I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to talk about my dreams. I didn’t need to be saved by her. ‘I don’t want to start today. I enjoy myself,’ I said. Or at any rate (I didn’t add), I used to. But a girl can have too much of a thing. ‘I earn good money. And I never have to cook or clean – or listen to any man bellyaching … or at any rate not for long. And then,’ I leaned in and winked, ‘well, they lay down their dollars. And then they fuck off. Out of my bed, out of my room. Out of my life.’
She gasped, as I had intended.
‘Better a whore than a wife,’ I said. ‘Any day.’
Inez was neither of course. She was a lady with a rich and indulgent aunt, who volunteered her time at the library. Inez could do whatever and go wherever she liked. It made my head spin to imagine it.
She was ‘looking for love’, she told me. (I could have told her to save herself the trouble.) Instead we spent much of the evening talking about that. Inez and her search for love. Her search for adventure. Her search for a bigger life. She was restless.
‘Aunt Philippa has almost despaired of me,’ Inez said with a hint of pride. ‘She’s utterly convinced I’m going to die an old maid. And I tell her – well of course I shan’t!But you know, Dora, I do begin to wonder myself sometimes. I know I look younger than I am. People always say I do. But I’m going to be thirty next birthday – it’s old. For a lady. Don’t you think?’ She glanced at me. ‘I mean to say – you probably … Maybe you—’
‘Oh, I already have a husband,’ I muttered. I hadn’t intended to confide in her. Certainly not. But there it was: the effect of her warmth, surprising me, inviting me to reciprocate. I had no close confidantes, and didn’t want any. But she was difficult to resist.
‘You do?’
‘Somewhere. I haven’t laid eyes on him in seven years or so. But I certainly had a husband. Until I woke up one morning … And there – he was gone!’ I looked at her astonished face, eyes filling with sorrow yet again, and I burst out laughing. ‘Inez,’ I declared – and I think by then I had almost come to believe it. ‘It was the best morning of my life!’
‘But why? Did he? Was he—’
‘A louse. He ran off with our savings.’
‘No! And … children?’ she asked, tentatively. ‘What happened to the—’
‘No children.’
‘Oh. Well. I guess that’s something.’
A silence fell.
‘Well!’ Inez filled it, bless her. ‘It looks like I won’t be troubled by any little rug rats of my own either. The rate I’m going. And it’s not like I’ve been starved of suitors. Believe me, Dora. Just about every halfway eligible gentleman in Colorado has thrown his hat in the ring.’
‘I’ll bet.’
‘Everyone in town knows I’m wealthy. Rather, they know my Uncle Richard is wealthy. And they know my aunt will be sure to make Uncle Richard make me wealthy too, the day I become a bride. It’s what Aunt Philippa goes around telling everyone.’
‘You probably have gentleman queuing round the block.’
‘Well – yes. That is, I did. I’ve lost count of the gentlemen I’ve refused. And it’s not that I’m fussy.’
‘Of course not!’
‘It’s just that the gentlemen in this town … I don’t like to be insulting. And I guess – well, maybe you see a different side of them.’
‘I guess I probably do.’
‘But they’re so darned dull with me! All they seem to talk about is business. Who made how many dollars buying this or that piece of real estate. And then they talk about hunting. Which is all very well, except I’m not interested. And then they talk about their automobiles. I spend half an hour with them and I’m already thinking to myself, well you’re such a dull fish – why, I’d far prefer to spend the rest of my life with my nose buried inside a novel than to have to spend another ten minutes listening to you.’
I laughed.
She looked at me curiously. ‘If it’s not too silly to ask,’ she said, ‘do they talk about their automobiles with you?’
Just then
