Clover's Child (12 page)

‘All right, Dot?’

‘No, Barb, not really.’

‘What’s the matter? You look like you’ve lost half a crown and found sixpence.’

‘Why did you tell your aunty about me and Sol?’

Barb looked skywards, as though seeking the answer from above, then chewed the ends of her hair. ‘I dunno, I was just talking to her and me mum over a cuppa, we always talk about you, you’re my best mate! Did I do something wrong? I didn’t know it was secret!’

Dot sighed, she couldn’t take her anger out on her friend. ‘No you didn’t. It’s not your fault, they’d have found out sooner or later. I guess I was just hoping it would be later.’

‘Have they gone mad?’

‘A bit.’

‘What, cos he’s black?’

‘No, Barb, cos he wears odd socks! Whaddya think?’

‘All right, sarcy cow, don’t have a go at me! I really like him.’

‘Oh, I know, I’m sorry. God, I seem to be apologising to everyone at the moment. I never thought life could be this complicated. I wanted to fall in love and for everyone to be happy for me; I never thought it could lead to so much grief.’

‘You love him?’

It was the only bit that Barb had heard. Dot nodded.

‘Oh my God! You do, don’t you?’

‘Yep, I really, really do.’

‘Have you done it?’ Barb asked, all ears.

Dot remained silent, running her finger through the buttons.

‘You have! I can tell, otherwise you would have said no. Did it hurt?’

Dot shook her head and smiled. ‘No, it was lovely, he’s lovely.’

‘I’m pleased for you, Dot! Best offer I’ve had is six o’ chips with Wally, who used to work with your dad!’

‘Ooh, he’s a bit quiet, isn’t he?’

‘He may be quiet but he ain’t half a looker and you know what they say about the quiet ones!’

Dot shook her head. No, she didn’t.

‘Well, anyway, going out with Wally is better than sitting in with me mum all bloody night while she moans about her corns.’

‘I guess.’ Dot realised how lucky she was to have the love of a man like Sol. Poor Barb. If the best she could do was a date with Wally Day, then she was to be pitied.

‘One favour though, mate, if my mum and dad ask, then I’ve been with you. I tell them I’m meeting you when I go to see Sol, d’you mind?’

‘No, course. It makes me feel like I’m part of this fabulous love affair! How exciting!’

‘It is, isn’t it!’

The two girls giggled into the button trays.

‘D’you think you’ll get married?’

Dot looked over her shoulder to make sure Miss Blight or anyone else wasn’t in earshot. ‘I don’t
think
we will, I
know
we will.’

Barb gasped. ‘Has he asked you?’

Dot nodded. It felt wonderful to be able to share the news that had been bursting to escape.

‘Oh my God!’

Barb stepped around the counter and hugged her mate tightly. ‘This is mental! I can’t believe it. You’re getting married! It feels like minutes ago we were playing weddings up on the docks, do you remember? Taking it in turns walking up and down with a net curtain on our head, being the bride, and now you’re really doing it!’ Barb squealed and clapped her hands together. ‘Can I be your bridesmaid?’

‘Well who else? Of course you can!’

Barb squealed again. ‘Right, we need to start planning this. She grabbed a spool of French lace and held it to her face. ‘I’m thinking lace-edged white silk, with back button detail and a large hat, like Britt Ekland.’

‘I don’t think I want a hat.’

‘Not for you, for me, you dozy cow! No,
you
need a headpiece with a bit of crystal and flowers to match your bouquet. Ooh and velvet, you know I love a nice bit of velvet.’

‘I was thinking something quite classic, fitted, with long sleeves and a bolero, and I have to admit, I fancy satin.’

‘Okay, we’ll go with satin, but you need a good girdle, it shows all your lumps.’

‘Good point. One thing I am fixed on is how I arrive at the church. I want to arrive in a horse and carriage. I want big horses with flowers up their reins and I want to be sat in the back of a big open carriage, looking like a princess.’

Barb clutched her hands under her chin. ‘I can see it, Dot, you’ll look beautiful, just like a bloody princess!’

Dot pictured Sol’s face turning and watching her walk up the aisle towards him. The truth was, if she was marrying Sol, she wouldn’t care what she wore.

Dot walked slowly up Narrow Street and turned into Ropemakers Fields. The sky was bruised with purple clouds. People walked home with collars turned up and hats pulled down. She had loitered at work, offering to stay after hours and sort the stock cupboard. Next she had window-shopped her way along Oxford Street, unable to decide between the green knee-high leather boots that she couldn’t afford or the black patent leather ones that she couldn’t afford. Eventually she reached her bus stop; she let one bus go, but she knew she had to go home. Delaying the inevitable conflict was only making her stomach more nervous, it was probably better to get it over with. She wasn’t sure what to expect, possibly more insults fired in her direction. Her mum would fuss around the table, trying to make out all was well, and her dad would probably sneer at her from behind his paper. Well let him. Sol was right, when they were sitting on a beach in the sunshine, none of this would matter.

‘Evening, Dot, miserable night, innit?’ Mrs Harrison stood smoking, like the sentinel of Ropemakers Fields, puffing away up into the night sky.

Dot nodded, lacking either the energy or the inclination to engage with her.

The key eased into the lock, Dot slipped off her shoes and put them, heels together in the space under the stairs. She hung her mac on the hook next to her mum’s in the hall. It was then that she heard the unmistakeable sound of crying, more specifically her mum crying. She threw her eyes up to the heavens.
Here we go again…
She wondered what the opening shot would be; her money was on shame – ‘
Oh, the shame!’

Taking a deep breath, she pushed open the door to the back room. Her mum was sitting at the table, with Dee to her right. Her sister’s little hands fidgeted with the ear of a soft toy. Her dad stood with his back to the fireplace. His lower jaw twisted to the side when he saw her, his nostrils flared slightly.

‘Hello, everyone.’ She tried to adopt the right tone: warm, not too sarcastic and contrite enough for them to cut her a bit of slack.

‘Oh, here she is. You happy now?’

Dot sighed. And so it began. ‘I am happy, actually, Dad.’ She had decided that defiant and confident was the only way to get through this, even though her stomach still flipped with nerves.

‘You are some piece of work! Waltzing in here all high and mighty. What did you do? Have a little word with your boyfriend’s mum? It’s low, Dot, even by your standards and who do you think will suffer the most? Not me or your mother, it’ll be Dee. You can forget Christmas, you can forget tea! How do you propose we keep a roof over our bloody heads?’

‘What?’ Dot sat down in the chair by the fire, trying to figure out what was going on.

Joan removed the soggy hankie from her eyes, which were red and swollen. Her speech came in breathless stutters. ‘I… I… I’ve lost me… me… job. What am I gonna do?’ Her tears fell again.

Dee placed her small hand on her mother’s arm. ‘S’okay, Mummy, I don’t want Christmas anyway and I’m not even a bit hungry.’

This made Joan’s tears fall even harder.

‘What d’you mean you’ve lost your job? Why?’

Joan slapped her palm on the table. Her voice was thin and reedy through her tears. ‘Why d’you think, you stupid girl? Fourteen years I’ve worked there! Fourteen years of my bloody life, scrubbing that massive bloody kitchen, cooking up whatever was asked of me. Putting in the hours. I have never moaned, never put one foot wrong. I’ve had nothing but compliments on my work this whole time and then you… you whip off your knickers for five minutes of fun and I’ve lost me bloody job!’ Her face, distorted from crying, disappeared behind her cupped palms.

Dee giggled into her palm and whispered to her rabbit, ‘Mummy said “whip off your knickers”!’

Dot felt winded, quite literally as though the breath had been knocked out of her. ‘It must be a mistake, Mum, I don’t understand…’

‘Neither do I! I don’t bloody understand. I don’t understand how I’m gonna pay the rent or put food on the bloody table. I don’t understand any of it, Dot.’

Her dad stood with his chest heaving, containing whatever it was that battered his lips, probably because he didn’t want to say it in front of Dee. Dot smiled at her little sister, glad that she was there.

Reg marched through the kitchen and they heard the back door slam shut. A fag might calm him down a bit.

‘I had no idea, Mum, I swear.’

‘That’s right, Dot, you have no bloody idea! You think life is some bloody game, where you can flounce around doing whatever you like, but this is the reality, we are now in real trouble. I don’t have the rent this month, cos I haven’t got a job and I haven’t worked till the end of the month so I haven’t been paid the full amount. And no rent means no house! And it’s all because of you!’

Dot placed her shaking hand over her mouth. She felt sick. What on earth were they going to do?

She couldn’t wait to get to Paolo’s, where they had agreed to meet that evening, as they often did. Partly she just wanted to get out of the house, but she also wanted to see if Sol could throw some light on the situation.

Sol sat down and took one look at her stricken face. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked nervously.

Dot stopped twirling the plastic tomato filled with ketchup and gave the man she loved her full attention.

‘My mum’s lost her job at the Merchant’s House.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean she’s been sacked, let go!’

‘Why?’ Sol shook his head in surprise.

‘I was hoping you’d know – well, I was and I wasn’t. I don’t know what to think.’

‘I didn’t know anything about it. Is she okay?’

‘What do you think? It’s her wage that keeps us afloat; I told you about my dad.’

Sol exhaled loudly and went into solution mode. ‘Do you need money? I can help.’

‘No, I don’t need money.’ Dot drew her arms around her trunk; she was uncomfortable even discussing it. No matter how bad things got, she would never accept money from him. Pride was pride.

‘But when we get married, we’ll share everything and it will be irrelevant where it originated.’

Dot stared at her lover. ‘To you maybe, and I do appreciate the offer, but trust me, it feels crap when you’ve got bugger all to share.’

‘Let’s go for a walk, walk off the worry!’ He smiled brightly.

‘No, I don’t think I’m up for a walk tonight, Sol. I’ll see you tomorrow, love.’ She kissed him softly on the cheek before she left.

Dot knew this worry would be a little hard to walk off.

Vida was on the sofa, reading by lamplight; the elegant room was bathed in a golden glow. The logs crackled in the fire - despite being mid-May, Vida felt the chill of the English weather. The record player spun its Motown beat into the room.

Her bare foot tapped in time against the sofa and her silk and lace negligée pooled like liquid over the pale cushion. She chose to ignore her son’s entrance, even though his foot-stamping and door-slamming told her he was keen to announce his arrival. She wasn’t keen to have her peace shattered.

Sol thundered into the drawing room. ‘Mumma, do you know anything about Joan… the cook… about the cook being let go?’

‘Good evening, Solomon, how lovely to see you. Have you had a pleasant day?’

‘I’m serious, Mum; do you know anything about it? Clover is so upset; her family needs the income, her father can’t work. It seems too much of a coincidence that you find out about us and then this happens.’ His chest heaved with the exertion of trying to stay calm, polite.

‘I have already told you that there is no “us” where that girl is concerned!’

‘Please don’t start with that again. I just want to know what’s happened with the cook.’

Vida turned over her copy of
To Kill a Mockingbird
and placed the flattened Harper Lee on the table. ‘Listen to yourself, son – you want to know what happened with the
cook
? Since when have our domestic arrangements been of interest to you? You are a soldier, Solomon and you are an Arbuthnott with a duty to perform. One day you will have to run the companies that Daddy has built up for you. You will have a lot of responsibilities taking up your time and trust me when I say that caring about who is preparing your scrambled eggs for breakfast will not figure.’

‘What duty, Mumma? I’m here kicking my heels so that Dad can have me close by, but there is nothing official for me to do here. If it wasn’t for Clover, I’d go crazy!’

‘So she
is
a distraction!’

‘No, not solely. I love her, I really do.’

Vida placed her hands in her hair. ‘I need a drink.’

‘You don’t drink!’

‘You are making me want to start!’

Solomon sank down on the sofa, his shoulders sagging, his eyes weary. Mother and son were silent for some minutes. The stylus scratched and hiccupped with a little jump at the end of the record, filling the room with the magnified crackle of static. Both were glad of the hiatus in which they could slow their racing pulses, calm their breathing and order their thoughts.

‘I love you, Solomon, you know that, don’t you?’

He nodded towards the carpet. Yes, he did know that.

‘Daddy and I only want what is best for you and if we thought that settling down with the first girl that has caught your eye, regardless of her background or status, would make you happy, then we would encourage you, welcome her, but this is not the case, darling. The sparkle with which you think she is covered will wear off, quicker than you might imagine, and when that happens, you will be less than satisfied with what you’re left with. This would not only be a tragedy for you, but for her also. Trust me when I tell you I am thinking of you both. What right have you to disrupt her life and leave her high and dry when the reality sets in?’