Frog Music by Emma Donoghue by Donoghue Emma

Author:Donoghue, Emma [Donoghue, Emma]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical, Mystery, Crime, Adult
Amazon: B01K91WLGA
Goodreads: 139193455
Publisher: Picador
Published: 2014-04-01T07:00:00+00:00

“Question: Who put you on the town in the first place?”

Eastern light slants in the window, stabbing Blanche in the eye. It’s been a long night since she fled from the apartment. That medicinal cognac she let Jenny buy her when they bumped into each other in a dive off Clay Street, and then some cocktails, and more recently a bottle or two of Durand’s inimitable wine. “Nobody put me on the town.”

“Oh, come,” says Jenny, thumping the long table at the back of the brasserie, “are you telling me you took to it spontaneous-like, for pure fun, when you stepped off the steamer?”

They’re the last customers breakfasting; the others have all gone about their business or crawled off to bed. A lone waiter tosses sawdust on the floor behind the women. Blanche is past needing sleep. She just wants another glass of wine. “It wasn’t like that either.”

“So how was it?”

“I don’t quite remember now,” admits Blanche, the words tripping over one another.

“You sound bored of the game, that’s all I mean,” says Jenny.

“Do you think it was ever interesting?” snaps Blanche, contemplating the stain on her polka-dot skirt. “Seen one swollen cigare, seen them all.”

“Ever think of throwing the whole thing over, then?”

She struggles to focus her eyes on Jenny. “You have some objection to girls on the town?”

“Not to the girls, just to what the town does to them.”

Blanche shrugs. “It’s as good a trade as any.”

“Maybe, for a while. Till it trades them in. All I say is”—Jenny points one brown finger at Blanche’s forehead, right between her eyes—“there’s more to you than cul.”

Blanche can’t decide whether to feel irritated or flattered. “How can you be sure?”

Jenny grins, as if that’s an answer.

“What, should I give it all up and take to the vagabond life, like you?” Blanche scoffs.

A shake of the crop-haired head. “Nah, you don’t have the calling. I can’t see you bedding down under a tree. I picture you as your own boss, or bossing other folks.”

Blanche laughs at the word boss.

“What would you say to setting up your own dancing academy,” proposes Jenny, “and knocking all those so-called Professors into a cocked hat?”

Blanche rolls her eyes at this ludicrous notion. “To steal their customers, I’d have to be the crème de la crème. And where should I set up this academy of mine—on a stretch of gravel in Union Square?”

“You could rent a hall.”

“I can just imagine what Arthur would say to that.”

Jenny sits up straighter at his name. “Question: Which—”

“Enough of your questions!”

“This is my last, then: Would you prefer to have one child on your hands, or three?”

Three? Ah, Blanche sees what she’s getting at.

“Those connards,” Jenny marvels. “A pair of fat skeeters swollen up with your blood.”

Blanche’s mind zigzags with fatigue. “I keep wondering which of them’s changing P’tit’s diapers—Arthur or Ernest.”

Jenny guffaws. “Maybe they’ve tossed a coin.”

“Serve them right, to have to look after him for one night, at least. Puddles on their pants!” But despite her flippancy, Blanche is feeling sick.

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