Authors: Amanda Prowse
‘She does shine to me, Mumma, you are right, and she always will. That is the reality. It’s no different than it was for you and dad or James and Mary-Jane, it’s love and it’s unshakeable, it’s fate.’
‘For God’s sake, do you not
listen
to me any more?’
‘Is it because she is white?’
‘What?’
‘Is that why you don’t approve, because she is white?’
‘No! Partly. But it’s more about her, her life, her very small life! What do you have in common? How would being married to her help your career, your social life?’
‘You think I should marry to help my social life?’ Sol was incredulous.
‘You are making me sound like a monster, but the fact is that these things matter, they are important.’
‘They are not important to me!’
‘Well, Solomon they should be and it’s about time you realised what being an Arbuthnott means.’
‘If it means I can’t be who I want to be, with the person I love, then I don’t want to be an Arbuthnott!’
Vida flinched as though she had been struck. She slipped on her high-heeled slippers with their marabou trim and padded across the room. Pausing before she entered the hallway, she turned back to her son, slumped against the cushions. He looked like a boy.
‘I would have considered giving the woman her job back, but all things being equal, I think it best that she and her daughter are kept as far away from you as possible.’
Sol stared after her, struggling with three new bits of information. His mother was apparently not the sweet-natured woman he had always considered her to be. Secondly, it was his fault. If Dee was hungry in her bed and Clover’s family was struggling, it was his fault. And finally, Sol realised, all things were far from equal.
Reg and Joan were still awake when Dot returned from Paolo’s. They were sitting at the table in the back room. Dot doubted her mother had moved since tea-time.
‘Is Dee okay?’ She pictured her little sister’s wide eyes of earlier on.
Joan nodded.
‘I am really, really sorry, Mum, if anything I’ve done has led to this.’
‘Well, it’d be a bloody funny coincidence if it ain’t anything to do with you, wouldn’t it?’
Dot ignored her dad; she was too tired for a fight.
‘I’m going up Bryant and May tomorrow, see what they’ve got going.’
Dot sat down opposite her mum. ‘Oh no, Mum, surely not! It’s terrible up there.’
‘D’you think I don’t know that? It’s stinky, loud and dangerous, Gawd knows what it’ll do to me lungs, but you know what? It’s better than bloody starving.’
‘I wish you didn’t have to, Mum.’
‘Me too, I wish I still had me nice little job up the road, with all the food that we need and hours that suited, no boss stood over me. I know I used to moan, but I loved it really.’ Joan’s tears fell again. ‘Anyway, there’s no guarantee they’ll have me up there. I know a coupla girls who’ve been let go cos they got married, let alone an old codger like me with two kids in tow.’ She tried a smile.
‘You’re not an old codger, Mum.’
‘I feel like it, Dot, I really do.’
Dot’s heart beat faster as an idea came to her. It was obvious. She would go up Bryant and May tomorrow herself and try and earn the money that her family needed. Yes, she loved Selfridges, but what good was that if she couldn’t earn enough to help?
* * *
The next day Sol was anxious. He paced the pavement outside Paolo’s, retiring inside only to sip coffee and wait some more.
‘Stood you up, has she?’ Paolo was unused to seeing Sol without his pretty companion.
‘I hope not, Paolo!’
It was a full two hours before she appeared. Sol had drunk so much coffee, his fingers twitched with all the adrenaline.
‘Where have you been? I was worried!’
‘No need. I had a chore to run, but I’m here now.’
‘Yes, you are, and you look beautiful.’ He reached across the table and stroked her face. After any time apart, the sight of her always surprised him; she really was stunning.
‘Where have you been?’
‘After a job, actually!’
‘A job? Designing?’
She shook her head, embarrassed and delighted that he thought someone like her could simply waltz into a job as a designer. ‘Not quite! Up at the Bryant and May factory, packing matches. If I’m lucky, I might progress to dipping the boxes in the sand that coats the little strip – but no such dizzy heights for me initially.’
‘Why? Why are you trying to work in a factory?’
‘Why do you think, Sol? Not because I have a fancy for it; I need to earn money! My mum’s been laid off, remember? And it’s not as if they have savings – every penny that comes in goes straight out. I can’t earn enough in the store, there just aren’t the hours available and so this is what I have to do. It’s not so we can save up for a television or a holiday, it’s so that we can
eat
. You just don’t get it, do you?’ Dot hung her head; she hated revealing the level of near poverty in which they existed, always one wage packet away from being hungry and homeless.
‘I’m sorry. Is it really that bad?’
She nodded. ‘Yes, it’s really that bad. If Mum doesn’t get wages this week, we haven’t got the rent. Can you imagine what that’s like, Sol? Imagine Dee having no roof over her head, or me dad, who isn’t well, not having his bed to go to. I can’t let that happen.’
‘But you are coming with me to St Lucia?’
‘Yes I am and I can’t wait, trust me, but that’s not for a year and my family have to live now, right now, today. It’s the best thing for everyone.’
‘Best for you?’ He admired her work ethic, but did not want her toiling away in a factory; he couldn’t stand the thought of it.
‘It’s not all about me. And how can I moan? I’m going to live in a fairy tale with the man I love; a year of packing bloody matches won’t kill me.’
‘You are amazing, Dot, I think your mum and dad are very lucky to have a daughter like you.’
‘I’m not sure that’s how they see it right now.’
‘They’ll come around.’ He thought about his own mother and her defiant lack of acceptance.
Dot closed her eyes and sighed; she so badly wanted to believe him. In truth, though, she had been slightly disappointed by her parents’ lack of gratitude at her grand gesture. Almost as though she
should
have given up the job she loved in Selfridges and traded it in for forty hours of packing matches in a stinky factory. But she could tell by the relaxing of her mum’s shoulders that Joan was relieved. Miss Blight, on the other hand, had seemed not only relieved but entirely delighted, happy even, to receive Dot’s resignation. The cow. Dot was tempted to tell her about what her life would be like in a year’s time, and that while Miss Blight would still be fat and stuck in Personnel, harvesting joy from the misery of others, she, Dot, would be living on the beach and sipping fresh pineapple juice every day. But she didn’t want to tempt fate and besides, knowing how gossip spread like wildfire, whether issued confidentially or not, she couldn’t risk Barb informing her mum, who would relay it to Mrs Harrison, who would at the earliest possible opportunity tell Joan and Reg…
* * *
‘You look smart, son, off somewhere nice?’ Vida stopped filing her nails and cast her eye over her handsome boy, who had clearly made an effort with his appearance.
‘Yes, I’m taking Clover dancing. We’re going to Ronnie Scott’s.’
‘Well, how lovely.’
His mother’s clipped tone told Sol that actually she thought it anything but. He ignored her.
Dot shut the front door and tucked her scarf inside her coat.
‘Well, look at you all spruced up, where you off, Dot? Somewhere nice?’
Dot whizzed past her neighbour. ‘Truth is, Mrs H, I don’t know where I’m going!’
‘Well have fun when you get there!’
‘I’ll try.’ Nosey old cow.
Sol and Dot had jumped off the moving bus before their stop and with his hand on her lower back, he guided her through the streets of Soho.
‘Where are we going?’ Dot was edgy.
‘You’ll see.’
‘Sol, I really hate surprises, you’re making me nervous!’
‘Don’t be nervous.’ He swung around her and crushed her against him. ‘You trust me, don’t you?’
She nodded up at his beautiful face. Of course she trusted him.
‘You look beautiful.’ He ran his fingers over her hair, which she had scraped back into a ponytail and fastened with a width of scarlet velvet ribbon.
‘You always say that!’
‘Maybe because it’s true.’
‘What did I do to deserve you, Mr Arbuthnott? How did I get this lucky?’
‘I don’t know. I ask myself the same.’
After one quick kiss, the two almost skipped along until they turned into Gerrard Street.
‘Ronnie Scott’s?’
‘Yup.’ Sol beamed.
‘Wow, I’ve never been before!’ Dot jumped up and down on the spot with excitement.
The hazy hum of a clarinet drifted up the stairs and out onto the pavement and the tinkling of piano keys started some seconds later.
‘Oh, Sol, I don’t believe it! Someone’s playing Etta!’
She grabbed his hand as the two of them ran down the stairs and into the darkened depths of the jazz club. Dot stopped in her tracks, transfixed by what she saw on the stage. It wasn’t someone playing Etta – it
was
Etta!
‘Oh my God!’ She placed her hand at her throat. ‘It’s Etta bloody James!’
Sol beamed. ‘Dance with me!’
Having dropped their coats at the bar, Sol guided her onto the dance floor. They stood staring at each other for the briefest of moments, unaware of anyone else in the room. And then Etta started to sing in that rich, velvet voice; she started to sing the words of their song.
‘At last
My love has come along...
My lonely days are over
And life is like a song’
Sol placed one hand on Dot’s lower back and held her other hand inside his, with her arm crooked against his chest. He pulled her close, until they were as one, swaying gently to the soundtrack to their love affair.
‘I love you so much,’ he breathed into her hair.
‘I love you too.’ She spoke to his chest.
‘Oh, yeah, at last
The skies above are blue
My heart was wrapped up in clover
The night I looked at you’
‘Don’t ever let me go, Sol.’
‘I’ll never let you go, baby.’
He pulled her closer still, holding her tightly against him.
‘I found a dream that I could speak to
A dream that I can call my own
I found a thrill to press my cheek to
A thrill that I have never known’
‘It will all be okay, won’t it?’
‘It will all be okay, baby.’
Dot smiled into Sol’s crisp white cotton shirt. He pulled the ribbon from her hair and watched her shiny locks fall in a curtain against her shoulder.
‘Oh, yeah and you smile, you smile
Oh, and then the spell was cast
And here we are in heaven
For you are mine
At last’
The applause was rapturous. People rose from their seats and whistled and whooped and for the first time Dot and Sol realised just how crowded the place was.
‘The two young lovers!’ Etta James held out her hand and gestured her appreciation in their direction. Dot blushed and laughed into Sol’s shoulder. He gave an impromptu bow.
‘That was our first dance!’ she gushed
‘But not our last.’ He kissed her knuckles, her fingers knotted inside his.
He kissed her again at the end of Narrow Street. ‘I love you, Clover Arbuthnott.’
‘You can’t call me that!’ She beamed as she said it.
‘Why not? You’re going to have to get used to it.’
‘I shall introduce you to everyone. I’ll shout at anyone that will listen, “This is my husband!” Imagine that, me having a husband and not just any old husband – you. The best bloody husband in the world!’
‘I love you and I shall see you tomorrow.’ He kissed her scalp and watched her wiggle towards Ropemakers Fields.
‘I love you too and I’ll see you tomorrow!’ she half whispered back over her shoulder.
Sol crept into the Merchant’s House apartment and loosened his tie. He was relieved that his parents had already retired for the night. He stood in front of the mirror above the fireplace in the hallway and punched the air; he felt invincible! He had danced with his girl in front of Etta James and it had been incredible.
Dot pulled her bedspread up under her chin and kicked her heels against the mattress, squirming with joy and excitement. She didn’t care that she was starting work at the match factory tomorrow, she’d forgotten for the moment about Selfridges and giving up the job she loved. She had danced in front of Etta James and she had felt like a film star. She had felt like someone called Lady Clover Arbuthnott.
Sol cleaned his teeth and splashed his face with cold water before changing into his pyjamas. He raked his hair and looked over his reflection in the mirror; he pictured his girl standing behind him. He remembered her in her slip, the way she had looked on their first night together. That’s what it would be like when they were married; they would prepare for bed in a shared bathroom with the shutters thrown wide and swap details about their day. He could almost smell the night-flowering jasmine. The very thought sent a judder of expectant joy along his spine.
Dot turned on her side and imagined her lover lying facing her. She pictured his shoulder gently rising and falling in sleep. She pulled the pillow from under her head and placed it against her chest; wrapping her arms around the ticking-covered feathers, she whispered into its softness, ‘Good night, my darling, sweet dreams, my beautiful man,’ although how she would sleep with the bubbles of excitement that rose from her stomach and filled her throat was beyond her.