Honeyville by Daisy Waugh Page A

The sight of them there made me queasy.
    ‘What kind of stories?’ I said again.
    I denied everything as convincingly as I needed to. Not all her details were correct, in any case, but she had grasped the nub of the thing: namely that I was trying to leave the house, and to set up a separate existence right under her nose here in Trinidad, and in between the heartless tinkles and my denials, and the mouthfuls of cake, she succeeded in putting the fear of God into me. She made it quite clear: as long as I lived in Trinidad, I would be at Plum Street; and I would be at Plum Street until such a time as she decided I should leave.
    ‘I look after my girls,’ she said, brushing the crumbs from her lilac silk lap. ‘And my girls look after me.’
    I didn’t go near the Columbia Hotel after that, but Inez did. She told me she dropped in several times to find out if there were any enquiries. There were not. The rooms – and the piano – remained silent the entire week. I saw Cedric Hitchens, motoring up Sante Fe Avenue with his smiling wife beside him, and a picnic hamper in the trunk. I had no wish to be Mrs Cedric Hitchens. None whatsoever. And yet, just for that moment, her bovine complacency, her dumb comfort, left me breathless with lonesomeness.
    Inez took the precaution of avoiding me for a week or so, and for a while I wondered if her aunt had somehow winkled the truth from her and forbidden Inez from seeing me again. Inez might have disobeyed her, of course. But she would need to be careful about it. Without her aunt and uncle’s love and money, she was as vulnerable as the rest of us.
    And then, finally, she came to visit me. She let herself in through the back door early one morning, unannounced, and I emerged from my bedroom, in pale green silk kimono, to find her sitting right there on my couch.
    ‘I think it’s the safest place for us to meet each other for the moment,’ she said, by way of greeting. She glanced at my kimono. ‘Are you all right? You look dreadful.’
    ‘Well. I have only just woken up. Hello there … Good to see you. How long have you been sitting here?’
    ‘About a minute,’ she said. ‘I’ve been reading your filthy novel.’ She dumped it on the table at her elbow. ‘Where do you find that stuff?’
    I smiled. ‘I have plenty more if you like it. A client sends me a new one every couple of weeks. It’s a devil to keep up with them.’
    ‘No, thank you.’ She sighed. ‘Unless you have any in English? Your French must be a lot better than mine … Darling, I am so sorry.’
    ‘Sorry? Whatever for?’
    ‘We had them eating out of our hands, didn’t we? I swear, if that wretched man hadn’t walked in when he did.’
    ‘Did anyone say anything after I left?’ I nursed a childish hope that perhaps all was not absolutely lost.
    But Inez’s gaze slid away. ‘Oh, nobody said anything much,’ she said. ‘Mr Hitchens couldn’t exactly say much, could he? Not without giving himself away. But he hinted enough to ruin everything for everyone. By the way,’ she added, ‘I have been relieved of my duties at the library.’
    ‘No! Because of me? But that’s … Why? Did you not stick to our story?’
    I opened the door to the landing and shouted down for Simple Kitty to bring me my morning coffee. ‘You want some?’ I asked Inez.
    She shook her head. ‘I took mine hours ago. You’re up late this morning,’ she glanced again at my kimono, haphazardly fastened. ‘You’re not even dressed.’
    ‘I work late, Inez.’
    ‘Of course you do …’ She fidgeted, embarrassed. ‘Maybe I will have that coffee after all.’
    So I shouted out onto the landing a second time.
    It stirred the girl in the next room, who yelled at me from her bed to hush up, which (since she happened to be the noisiest of all of us, day and night) encouraged me to slam the door with enough force that the floor shook. As I plumped myself, silk kimono billowing, into the little couch opposite Inez, the