Honeyville by Daisy Waugh Page B

girl was still bellyaching at me through the wall.
    ‘Apologies for the neighbour,’ I said.
    Inez shrugged. ‘She sounds a little crazy.’
    ‘You’ve been fired from the library? But why?’
    ‘Well no, I haven’t been fired,’ she amended. ‘Not exactly …’
    ‘I don’t understand.’
    ‘I only meant to say … Oh! That I know how disappointing it must be for you – but that there were some sharp words directed at me afterwards too … Aunt Philippa was mad as a March hare.’
    ‘You didn’t tell her we were friends?’
    ‘Of course not. Dora, I’m not stupid. I told her we met in the library and I stuck with the story.’
    ‘Well then?’
    ‘Well then … So she said …’ Inez laughed self-consciously. ‘Well, she said she might have to have a word with Mrs Svensson.’
    ‘Mrs who?’
    ‘The lady who runs the library. I don’t need to tell you, Aunt Philippa’s still pretty puckered about that evening when – oh gosh, Lippian? Lippians?’
    ‘Captain Lippiatt.’
    ‘The night he was killed, and I rolled home half-corned.’ She giggled. ‘Poor Aunt Philippa. She doesn’t know the half of it, does she?’
    Simple Kitty arrived with the coffee. She placed it on the small table between us, staring in open-mouthed wonder at my respectable-looking female guest, and spilling sugar on my best silk tablecloth in the process.
    We waited until she had left.
    ‘So she had a word with Mrs Svensson?’
    ‘Well. No.’ Inez looked uncomfortable. ‘No. She said … she might. Because of the immoral people I might meet as a consequence of being at the library.’
    I laughed, but she didn’t.
    ‘In any case, I’m not so sure I really like working at the library any more. It’s sort of … restricting. It doesn’t feel right.’ Inez gave a great sigh and, spreading her arms, threw herself back onto the green silk cushions behind her. ‘So here we are, Dora. All day ahead of us … What shall we do? I tell you, nothing ever damn well happens in this town. And I wish … oh gosh … I just wish …’
    Lawrence O’Neill had been away on Union business for over a week by then. Inez had dropped by the offices to find out when he was due back, and been told by Cody that it wouldn’t be for another fortnight at least. His tour of undercover meetings in the mining camps upstate (mustering support among the men) had been extended.
    Cody reminded Inez that Lawrence had banned her from hanging around the Union offices while he was away.
    ‘“Mr O’Neill told you to keep away.” Those are the very words that impertinent young boy said to me, Dora! He said, “So you’d better git. Or you’ll have me in trouble.” He was terribly rude,’ she added, ‘especially considering I thought we were friends.’
    Inez had nothing to distract her. In the days that followed she would come to my rooms in the early mornings, and sit on my couch and sigh – until my work began and I would kick her out, and she would meander back across town to her other life of card evenings with Aunt Philippa and church fundraisers, and educational teas, only to return to me the next morning. She never seemed to go to the library. When I asked why, she just sighed and said, ‘Because there’s no fun in it any more.’ She was bored.
    ‘You need to find a husband,’ I told her. ‘Have some children before it’s too late. Don’t make the mistake I did.’
    She gave a lovesick groan. ‘But you have no idea how I long to have his children! Oh God where is he, Dora? Why doesn’t he return? Do you suppose something has happenedto him? Those company guards have no respect for life. You saw it for yourself … God knows, he might be lying in a ditch somewhere with a bullet through his chest. And I am just sitting here, killing time on your couch, wasting my life away, waiting for him.’
    She was accidentally ‘passing by’ when she saw his car pull up outside the Union office a week or so later. He must have been gone about