‘You want me to spell it out, Dot?’
‘Yes, Dad, I do.’ She tilted her chin upwards, projecting a defiance and confidence that she did not feel.
‘Wog meat. That’s what I’m talking about. My own daughter reduced to wog meat!’
Dot’s mouth fell open. Her arms weakened, lost their grip and fell from her chest, dropping limply into her lap. The colour drained from her face as the breath faltered in her throat. Tears pooled instantly and threatened to fall from her eyes, wide with fear.
‘I… Dad… I…’
‘No. Don’t even try and deny it. You’ve been caught. My own fucking daughter.’ He shook his head in dismay. Standing, he gripped the fireplace and stared into the dying coals that glowed and ebbed.
‘I wasn’t going to try and deny it. I love him.’ Her voice was small, but loud enough.
‘Do what?’
This time she spoke a little louder. ‘I love him, Dad, I really do!’
‘No. You don’t! How can you? Urgh, it turns my bloody stomach, it’s not natural. It’s disgusting!’
‘Please don’t say that, Dad! I don’t care about the colour of his skin, or anything else. I love him and that’s just how it is.’
Reg Simpson moved quickly, his arm describing a perfect arc as it flew from the fireplace to the side of her face, catching her mouth with the back of his hand.
Dot held her breath. He had hit her! Her dad had hit her. She saw herself sitting on his lap in her winceyette nightie, a little girl.
‘Who you gonna marry, little Dot?’
‘I’m going to marry you, Daddy.’
‘Well that makes me the luckiest daddy in the whole wide world.’
‘Well you bloody should care! “That’s just how it is!” What’re you talking about? You think the colour of his skin doesn’t matter? Let me tell you, it matters a great deal. What d’you think my mates’ll make of this? I’ll be a bloody laughing stock! How could you? You are a fucking disgrace, if I even think about it I am sick! So don’t tell me it doesn’t matter – I’ve never heard the like! What decent bloke is going to want to lay a finger on you after this? Eh? Tell me that?’
Dot struggled to draw breath through her tears, feeling the sting of her dad’s slap and the swelling of her bottom lip against her teeth. ‘I have a decent bloke and I don’t want any other to lay a finger on me.’
‘Well that’s a good job, cos they won’t! You disgust me. Fucking wog meat – my own daughter!’ He was shouting now.
The altercation had brought Joan downstairs and she stood in the kitchen now, out of sight, clutching her dressing gown to her neck and with her eyes closed. She wanted to offer comfort to her daughter but knew this needed to be said.
‘How could you think that this might turn out all right? You’d have to be stupid or mad – I can’t decide which you are, maybe both!
‘You’ve never even met him, never even seen him, so I don’t know how you can make a decision and be so bloody horrible when you don’t even know the person that you are trying to keep me away from. He’s lovely to me, Dad, really lovely and he will make me happy. You always said all you wanted was for me to be happy!’
Reg sank down into his chair and rubbed his face with his shaking hand. ‘Does Gloria Riley’s story not mean anything to you?’
Dot shook her head. No it didn’t, she was nothing like bloody Gloria Riley.
‘You think you are so different, but you’re not. She was just an ordinary girl like you, from an ordinary family like ours. Let me tell you how her story ended. She was just a bit of fun for her bloke, a distraction. Her mum and dad were finished with her, filled with the shame of it and I can’t say I blame them. When the bloke wasn’t interested any more, she knew no one else’d want her so she lay on the line between East Ham and Fenchurch Street and was decapitated. I worked with her dad. The funeral was the saddest thing I’ve ever seen. Her family were relieved that she’d done herself in. It was easier to grieve for her than live with what she had done to herself, done to them. It will ruin you, Dot, it will ruin us, and I’m not about to sit back and let that happen to my family.’
Dot didn’t try to stem the tears that ran down her face. ‘Please, Dad!’
‘There is no “Please, Dad”! I am warning you!’
‘Are you saying you’d rather I was dead than seeing Sol? Is that what you are saying?’
Reg looked at his daughter’s tear-stained, bruised face. ‘What I’m saying is—’
The back room door opened and Dee stood in the doorway in her vest and pants. Dot tried to smile at her little sister so as not to alarm her. Aware of her fat, bloodied lip, she blotted at her tears with the end of her sleeve.
‘I heard Dad shouting.’ Dee looked close to crying too; her small chest heaved beneath her thin cotton top.
‘It’s okay, darling. Go back to bed, tin ribs.’ Dot tried to use her soothing voice, but speech was difficult.
Reg ignored both his daughters and continued to stare at the mantelpiece.
‘What does wog meat mean, Dot?’ Dee looked up in sad-eyed confusion.
Dot stood up and ran from the room. It was the final push she needed; she would leave with Sol and go to St Lucia. She would drink fresh pineapple juice and swim in the sea and if ever she felt homesick, she would recall this evening’s events and know that she had made the right decision. Her dad didn’t understand because he didn’t know Sol and it would appear he didn’t know her either. She wasn’t Gloria Riley, she was different, they were different.
The next morning, Dot hauled her legs over the side of the bed and slipped her nightie over her head before reaching for the black skirt and white blouse she wore for work. She had watched the hands of her alarm clock inside its red leather travel case shuffle around until dawn, trying to fathom how such a revelation of pure joy and happiness could turn into a nightmare within a few hours.
She applied a little lipstick and rubbed a smear of pan-stik across the dark shadows under her eyes and over the slight bruising on the side of her jaw. A slick of black eyeliner and she was all set. She trod the stairs and went straight out of the front door, unable to face any of the family, especially her dad.
‘Dot! Dot!’ Her mum’s calls echoed down the street. Joan tiptoed across the cold pavement in her stockings and drew her quilted housecoat around her body, trying to protect her modesty.
‘D’you not want any breakfast, love?’
Dot shook her head, no, she didn’t want any breakfast. What she wanted was to hear her dad’s apology and to walk to work with a spring in her step because Sol had asked her to marry him! She loved and was loved in return and that should have been cause for joy and celebration.
Her tears gathered and spilled over her pale cheeks, and she dashed them away with the back of her hand.
‘Oh, love, come here.’ Her mum stepped forward and held her against her chest, kissing her scalp. ‘I know it feels like the end of the world, but it ain’t. This will all pass, love, mark my words. Your dad’s mad and you can’t blame him. But he’ll calm down in time and we can put it behind us.’
Dot pushed her mum away and stood facing her from the kerb.
‘He hit me, Mum.’
Joan nodded. ‘I know. He’s under a lot of strain at the moment, Dot; it isn’t easy for him, with his chest ’n’all. He loves you really. This is for your own good, trust me; no good would come of this, no good at all.’
‘I love him.’
‘No you don’t.’
‘But that’s just it, Mum, I do! I love him!’
‘Don’t talk rot! Course you don’t. You don’t know about love! You might think you do, but it’s just a bit of excitement, a bit of a distraction, that’s all. You’ll know the difference when you really love someone, you wait.’
‘I don’t wanna wait, Mum. I DO love him and he loves me.’ Despite her desperate sadness, Dot couldn’t help but smile at this.
‘No he doesn’t, Dot! He can’t! Yo
u’re too different. It isn’t right.’
‘Not right? How can loving someone and wanting the best for them not be right? I’ve told him all my dreams, Mum and he doesn’t laugh at me. He thinks I can be someone!’
‘Does he now? Well, I’ve met him, don’t forget, he’s got the gift of the gab all right, but you can tell him from me that the only way you will be someone is if you stop hanging around with a black man!’
Dot’s tears fell freely again. ‘I can’t believe you are saying that, Mum! I can’t. First Dad and now you – I can’t believe it. I’m so ashamed.’
‘And so you should be, your dad’s right, it’s a disgrace!’
‘No! I’m not ashamed of me or Sol, I’m ashamed of you! You an’ him!’ Dot pointed back towards the house.
‘Don’t you get it? You’re ruining your future and you’re dragging us down with you. We’ve never had much, but we have always, always been respectable and you are undoing that with one careless fling! There are landlords that would turf tenants out for having anything to do with them – do you know what sort of landlord we have, Dot? Cos I don’t know where they stand on it. Are you willing to take that risk on our behalf? Would you see us on the bloody streets, see Dee on the cobbles because you can’t keep your pants on? What’s your dad supposed to do? Sit back and see if that happens without speaking out?’
‘He’s never even met him! And yet he feels free to judge him, to judge us. But you, you have, you know he ain’t a bad person; you can see that he’s smart and clever and he loves me, Mum, he really does!’
‘Does he? I tell you what I see, a bloke with the gift of the gab and more money than sense and as if that wasn’t warning bell enough, he’s black! He’s not like us, not like you!’
‘I don’t want him to be like us, or like me – that’s why I love him. He’s different and he’s amazing and we will have a good life!’
‘Oh, grow up, Dot, here’s a newsflash for you: life ain’t no fairy tale – welcome to the real world!’
The two women were unaware that they were shouting. Mrs Harrison opened her front door, carrying two empty milk bottles that had taken her some minutes to locate, giving her a legitimate reason to open the door,
‘Morning, Joan. Dot. Everything all right?’
‘Everything’s perfect, Mrs Harrison, just bloody perfect.’
Joan trotted in one direction, towards home, and Dot in the other. Mrs Harrison lit a fag and smiled. Some people needed to be brought down a peg or two and that Joan Simpson was too smug by half.
The day could not go by fast enough. By three p.m., when the two young lovers were finally reunited at Paolo’s, Dot had worked herself up into a frenzy. She was agitated, angry and sad.
Sol held both her hands inside both his, across the table top in their booth. She had given him the outline of her dad’s words, but had decided not to divulge that he had hit her.
‘It’s not a surprise, but still upsetting none the less.’
‘It’s a bloody surprise to me!’ Dot countered.
‘Then you must have had your head in the sand. I see this every day here, every day. Like that taxi driver that drove us up to the West End, remember?’
Dot cringed. She’d thought the cabbie’s vile comments had gone unheard. ‘How do you put up with it, Sol?’
‘I put up with it because I know change takes time. I can’t take on the whole world, but I can change my bit of the world, by challenging prejudice and standing up for what is right when I can. Just like my great-great-grandfather did with his beloved Mary-Jane. But it’s hard in the face of ignorance.’
Dot felt her cheeks flush, she knew her dad was ignorant.
‘Has it put you off me, Sol? I’ll understand if it has.’
He laughed and stroked his thumb along her palm. ‘How could it put me off you? I love you. It’s not conditional, not love in measures. It’s just love, one hundred per cent, unshakeable and steadfast. I love you, in all circumstances and whatever may come. In fact, even if you didn’t love me back, I would still love you forever.’
‘I do love you back, Sol, forever.’
‘Well, forgive me for being so blunt, but that’s all that matters, isn’t it? Not what your dad or some taxi driver thinks.’
‘I guess so.’ She nodded, wanting desperately to believe him.
‘I know so. I’m not after approval or acceptance, I just want you. I want to wake up with you every single day and I really couldn’t care what anyone else thinks about that.’
‘You make it sound so easy.’
‘It is so easy. When we are on the other side of the world, sitting on our beach in the sunshine, we won’t care how many people in Ropemakers Fields disapprove, we won’t think about any of them. It’ll be like living in paradise.’
‘Or like a fairy tale.’ Dot smiled.
‘Or like a fairy tale,’ he agreed. ‘Anyway, good news – my parents are in Paris; fancy another duet?’
The two ran hand in hand through the rain-soaked streets, jumping over puddles and slipping on cobbles like children. They laughed at the sheer joy of being together and Dot knew that she had never been happier. He was right; loving each other was all that mattered.
With her naked form wrapped in a soft blanket, the two sat on the floor in front of the fire.
‘I feel like no one can get to us here, we are in a little bubble.’
‘That’s what it’ll feel like when we’re in St Lucia.’
‘I can’t imagine it, Sol – is there enough room for me?’
He smiled at the memory of the Jasmine House and its grand proportions. ‘Yes, it’s a very large house with plenty of guest bedrooms and a formal and informal lounge, but the best thing is the incredible view. It’s like nowhere else you have ever seen.’
‘I can guarantee it’s like nowhere I’ve bloody seen, cos I haven’t seen anything!’
‘You’ll love it. It sounds weird but my nanny, Patience, lives with us. She cleans up and cooks and just potters around in the garden.’
‘Like a housekeeper or a cook? Like my mum?’
‘Not exactly, we have a housekeeper and a cook; she is more there for me.’
‘You are spoilt! Well, you’ve got another thing coming if you think I’ll be running around after you n’all!’
‘Ha! You’ll be like the bad housemaid who poisoned the king when he stayed at Jasmine House.’
‘Oh shut up, you are winding me up now!’
‘No, I swear it’s true, the story has been passed down through the years. Many, many years ago the Arbuthnotts were invited to Carnival, along with the whole household. The lady of the house politely refused as she had a royal delegation staying with her, but that meant she refused on behalf of everyone. A young kitchen maid was so angry and frustrated to be missing the celebrations that she grabbed a handful of nutmeg and shoved it into the cake mix. Too much nutmeg is never a good thing and legend has it that the royal party spent the evening hallucinating. The king was convinced that the floor was the sea and stood on a table, refusing to dive in, before being confined to his bed with violent sickness.’
‘Get away!’
‘Oh, Dot, it’s a lesson not to upset a woman on a mission!’
‘You’d better believe it. I’m a woman on a mission, to marry you.’
‘That’s not a mission, it’s your destiny.’
‘You make it sound like I didn’t choose it, like it chose me.’
‘That’s exactly right. I didn’t choose you, I found you. I feel like I’ve been waiting for you my whole life without really knowing it.’
‘I feel the same. I’m a very lucky girl.’
Sol pulled her close to him and held her fast inside her blanket.
5
It was Monday morning and Vida Arbuthnott was already looking immaculate in a cream trouser suit and orange high-heeled boots. Her outfit was a little bit heavy for May, but she had learnt not to take any chances with the fickle British climate.
She closed her eyes for a second and leant back on the overstuffed, chintz-covered cushions. She squared the three copies of Vogue on the coffee table in front of her until their edges were aligned. Twisting the large diamond solitaire on the third finger of her left hand, she tried to compose herself, rehearse for the conversation that was about to take place. It would be uncomfortable, of that she was sure, but entirely necessary. She stared at the grey, so called summer’s day beyond the window and overlaid it with an image of her view from the dining room terrace at home. She missed it. The novelty of stepping through puddles on damp cobbles and breathing in the smog was already wearing a little thin.
The creak of a bedroom door roused her from her musings.
‘Good morning, Solomon.’
‘Morning, Mumma! Didn’t expect to see you up so early, everything okay?’
‘Come and sit down, darling.’ She patted the chair next to her.
Solomon tied his dressing gown around his waist and sat on the sofa opposite his mother, preferring a bit of distance.
‘Are you all right, Mum? You look a bit nervous.’
‘Nervous? No, no, but this is a little delicate and so I shan’t beat around the bush.’ Vida clasped her hands on her knees.
‘Oh no, what have I done? Is it the toilet seat thing again?’
‘No, Solomon. I want to talk to you about the cook here or more specifically her daughter.’
‘Her name is Clover. Yes, what about her?’
‘I believe that you may be conducting a little affair with her, Solomon, is that true?’
‘Well, it depends what you mean by “little affair”…’ He gave a small laugh to hide his nerves.
‘What I mean, son, is that rumours have reached my ears and I can’t say that I’m particularly happy about what I’ve heard.’
‘Wow, okay, well… I can only guess at what you’ve heard, but I am seeing her, Mum and I like her, I like her a lot.’ Sol sat forward and looked his mother in the eye. ‘It’s more than a little affair, Mumma, much more.’
Vida ran her tongue over her front teeth before she spoke. ‘Listen to me, Solomon, whatever is going on stops now. Right this minute. It’s embarrassing for Daddy and me, awkward for the staff and certainly not why we dragged you all the way over here. You can entertain yourself with a cook’s daughter at home!’
No Greater Love - Box Set Page 72
