Читать книгу Honeyville - Daisy Waugh - Страница 15

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!’