No Greater Love - Box Set

by Prowse, Amanda

  Son,

  I love you and while it may not always appear so to you, like Daddy, I have your very best interests at heart. Your stubborn refusal to see sense leaves me with no other option than to act before you make the biggest mistake of your life, a mistake that could ruin everything that I have worked for, everything that I have planned for you.

  In this envelope are the deeds to a certain house in Ropemakers Fields that I have acquired very recently and not, I can assure you, without considerable trouble.

  I am giving you two choices, Solomon. If you go back to St Lucia on the first available flight, these deeds will be locked away and the Simpson family who currently reside there will be able to do so until their deaths, rent free.

  If you refuse, I already have new tenants waiting and the Simpsons will be given twenty-four hours to leave the premises.

  If you speak to anyone of this, or communicate with that girl in any form, I shall invoke the second option without hesitation.

  Mother

  Sol placed his hand on his heart, which was thumping irregu­larly. He swallowed hard, trying to take a full breath. The paper trembled in his hand. He jumped from the bed and ran along the corridor towards his mother’s bedroom. But there was lamp­light in the drawing room.

  Vida sat in the wing-back chair with a cashmere throw over her knees. Sol felt weak beyond measure, too distressed for anger.

  He stood in front of her. ‘What is this?’ He brandished the letter in her direction.

  Vida looked unfazed. ‘Well, assuming that you have actually read the contents, I would have thought that with your level of education it was all quite self-explanatory.’

  ‘Is this for real?’

  ‘It is absolutely one hundred per cent real.’

  ‘I don’t believe you; this has to be some kind of joke. You wouldn’t do this, I know you wouldn’t.’

  Her face was solemn. ‘I can assure you that this is no joke.’

  Sol sank down onto the floor and sat at the foot of her chair.

  ‘How… how can you do this to me?’ He was breathless.

  ‘I am not doing it to you; I am doing it for you.’

  ‘Mumma… Mum… please, please do not do this to me. Please!’

  He swallowed and fought the urge to cry, a feeling that was unfamiliar to this young man who in his short life had had very little to cry about. He folded the paper into his lap and breathed deeply, trying not to weep.

  ‘Listen to me, Mumma, please. I love her! I love her! And you can’t change that. I will find a way, I will, because I love her.’

  His mother looked over his head towards the fireplace and spoke into the middle distance. ‘And that is precisely why I am forced to take this action.’

  ‘Why? Why are you doing this to me, to us?’

  ‘There is no “us”, Solomon, how many more times must you make me say that? It is madness.’

  ‘I’ll do anything, anything. Please! I can buy the house…’ His eyes widened as an idea occurred to him. ‘I’ve got my own money, we don’t need you and Dad, Clover knows how to survive! She is starting work at a match factory tomorrow, just to get money, we will be okay.’

  ‘Perfect – a little match girl, good grief.’ Vida pinched her nose and closed her eyes. ‘And just so that we are clear, you are mistaken, Solomon, your money is my money and I shall see that you don’t get a penny.’

  Solomon’s tears finally broke their banks and coursed down his face. It felt like a never-ending river of sorrow; great gulping sobs shook his shoulders and pulled his vocal chords taut.

  ‘I can’t believe that you would do it, Mum. I can’t believe that you would put a family on the streets, a little girl on the streets, just so you can have your own way!’

  ‘You would be amazed, Solomon, at what I would and would not do to protect my family, to protect you.’

  ‘I am begging you, do not make me do this, please.’

  ‘You will thank me one day.’

  ‘No… no I won’t. Things will never be the same between us. I will never, ever forget this. I will never ever forget.’ Sol’s pupils shrank as his eyes flashed with anger. His body shook and his throat throbbed with the hidden sobs that fought to escape.

  ‘You are young, so young. I accept that things will not be the same between us for a while, but when you marry the girl that you are supposed to and the Jasmine House is full of tiny children, you will thank me then. You will, you will thank me.’

  ‘The girl that I am supposed to marry? Don’t you get it? If I can’t marry her then I shan’t marry anyone, ever.’

  ‘Those are dramatic words for a twenty-two-year-old, but trust me, Solomon, you will marry and you will be happy. This will pass.’

  ‘I must be able to do something. I’ll speak to Dad.’

  ‘If you bother your father with this, I will give the order, Solomon and they will be on the streets with their boxes piled around them.’

  Sol pictured Dee and Dot with their belongings on the wet cobbles.

  ‘But if you go back to St Lucia, that house is theirs until they die. And judging by the state of the father, that might be just the thing the mother needs. You are giving them a great gift, a roof over their heads, worry-free for as long as they need it. It is more than they could ever have hoped to achieve.’

  ‘Can I… can… can I say goodbye to her, please? I need to see her once more, to explain. I can’t just disappear.’

  ‘No. You pack, you get on the plane tomorrow that’s head­ing to New York and you go from New York home and we never speak of this again.’

  Sol stood and wiped at his red and swollen eyes. He con­sidered all the options, his thoughts whirring, confused by the cloak of grief.

  ‘You will give them the house?’

  ‘You have my word.’

  Sol breathed deeply and wiped his running nose and tears on the sleeve of his pyjama jacket.

  ‘Mum, I just want you to know, my heart is broken. It will never, ever be whole again. I hope that you are happy now. You have what you want. I’ll leave, but she’ll have my heart forever, my broken heart.’

  Sol walked slowly along the corridor, touching his fingers to the wall where the two of them had so recently bumped and kissed. He wailed like a cat mewling in distress; he couldn’t help it. It was as if his soul was weeping.

  Vida listened to her son and tucked the blanket around her legs. ‘Hearts mend, my son, they mend.’

  6

  Dot poured a cup of tea from the pot and bit her lower lip, concentrating on hiding the smile that threatened to split her face every time she remembered the previous evening. Joan placed a plate in front of her, two poached eggs and a slice of toast.

  ‘You need to eat breakfast, love.’ This she delivered with a small smile. ‘Are you all set?’

  ‘Think so, don’t really know what to expect. I’m a bit nerv­ous, tell you the truth, Mum.’

  Joan cupped her hand over her daughter’s. ‘Course you are, but it’ll be all right.’

  Dot was grateful for the gesture. It meant understanding, an apology, a peace offering of sorts.

  ‘It’ll have to be, Mum, won’t it.’

  ‘Yep, it will, Dot. But I promise you, as soon as I’ve got some­thing that pays half decent, you can go back to Selfridges. I’m not saying I’m happy about the situation, but I do appreciate you trying to fix it.’

  Dot smiled at her mum and thought about a beach and pine­apple juice; she knew that she would never be going back to Selfridges and until she went to live in her fairy tale, trying to fix things was the least she could do.

  She looked at the eggs on her plate and felt a wave of queasi­ness wash over her. ‘Sorry, Mum, don’t think I can face breakfast. Reckon I must be more nervous than I thought.’

  Solomon had not slept. He had spent the night crouched on his pillows with his arms looped over his hunched-up knees, ponder­ing on how to resolve the wretched situation in which he found himself. Every idea he
had, every possible solution led him up a dark alley with no prospect of success and the Simpson family on the streets. In the early hours, he haphazardly packed up his belongings for the trip back to St Lucia, inhaling the vest he had worn the night before, unwashed and bearing the faintest trace of her scent. He knew that what he felt for Clover was deep and pure love, but to see her and her family made destitute as the price for that love was too much for him to contemplate; he loved her far too much for that. Unshaven, eyes swollen and with a pain in his heart and chest that he thought might kill him, he trod the stairs to the awaiting taxi and left London before his beloved had woken. He tried not to notice the swing of the lace curtain on the upper hallway, unable to look his mother in the eye.

  It was a beautiful May morning, the cherry trees were in flower and the hawthorns that flourished in many a front garden were drooping under the weight of the pink and white blossom. The sun was bright if not warm and Dot felt a swell of happiness in her tummy, despite the fact that she was off to work in a factory. She had so much to look forward to; it was difficult to contain it all. She had to fight the urge to tell anyone that caught her eye of their plans. If she could, she’d have run down the middle of the street with her arms spread wide, shouting, ‘Last night I danced in front of Etta James with my fiancé! And this time next year I will be sitting on a beach in the sunshine!’

  Dot caught the bus to Bow and hummed all the way, ‘At last/My love has come along…’ She alighted with several other girls, all of them heading for Bryant and May. The previous night filled her thoughts, leaving little room to worry about what her first day in the match factory might hold. She pictured a girl with a red velvet ribbon in her hair, in the elegant arms of the man she loved, being serenaded by Etta James. It seemed unbelievable that the girl was her, plain old Dot Simpson of Ropemakers Fields.

  Stepping into Fairfield Road, Dot spied the red-brick build­ing up ahead. This was it. A gust of wind picked up and Dot was hit by a wall of sulphurous odour that drifted from the factory and went right up her nose. Before she had time to react, her gut constricted, sending a wave of vomit from her mouth and out onto the pavement, splashing across her shoes. For the second bout, she managed to find her way to the kerb; holding her hair in a bunch with her right hand, she retched and heaved until her stomach was empty.

  ‘You all right, love?’ a woman asked.

  Dot, bent over at a right angle, nodded at the ground. ‘Yup.’

  ‘You don’t look all right.’

  Strands of her hair had stuck to her face with sick; Dot pulled them loose. ‘I’ll be okay in a minute. I’m starting work here today.’

  The woman chuckled. ‘Oh, love, you want to get yourself up the docs.’

  Dot stared at the tarmac and felt as if the ground was rush­ing up to meet her.

  It was a long day. Working in the factory was the exact oppos­ite of life in the Haberdashery Department. She missed the genteel hum of ladies chatting as they browsed, and the sight of her fabric rainbow. Mostly she missed Barb – they rarely went a day without seeing each other.

  The noise was deafening, the smell offensive and her role monotonous. She learnt the job quickly and proved capable, if a little slow. On the plus side, when engrossed in the fiddly task that she could complete with ease, fourteen times a minute, her mind was free to wonder to warmer climes than Bow and inside her head, she replayed the previous magical night. She watched it over and over like a movie, saw it from every angle, and each performance ended with Etta’s outstretched arm and the phrase ‘The two young lovers!’

  The best thing about the factory was the group of girls in her section, especially the cousins Milly and Pru, who informed her that this was only a stop gap for them, as both were plan­ning on seeking fame and fortune up West. It was only her first day, but already she was included in the banter, privy to gossip and offered fags, tea and sandwiches by the others. She felt right at home, and while she did miss the refined atmosphere of Selfridges, not having to look at Miss Blight’s miserable phizog was a definite plus.

  As the bell clanged for knocking-off time, Dot’s feet throb­bed inside her pumps; the ball of her left foot had stood on a wrinkle in her stockings all day and her scalp itched inside the elasticated hair net. But all things considered, the prospect of going back tomorrow wasn’t that bad.

  Dot scrubbed her hands and face in the washroom, applied a slick of lippy, patted and teased her hair into place and then walked to the bus stop. She decided to go straight to Paolo’s and not waste time diverting to home; if she carried a slightly sulphurous air, then too bad, nothing a lifetime of bobbing about in the warm Caribbean sea wouldn’t erase!

  She eased into the booth, stretching and flexing her stock­inged feet under the table.

  ‘Coffee, love?’

  Dot exhaled through bloated cheeks. She didn’t feel like coffee, she didn’t feel like anything. ‘Actually, just a glass of water please, Paolo.’

  ‘Coming right up. Lover boy running late?’

  She looked at the door, waiting for the little brass bell to herald his arrival. ‘Must be.’ She smiled at the prospect of their reunion.

  Dot waited for just over an hour, then the fatigue finally caught up with her; she was exhausted. Her head lolled forward onto her chest. Rising wearily, she decided to head home.

  ‘Paolo, I’m too tired. Can you tell Sol I had to go home?’

  ‘Sure, bella. You look exhausted.’

  ‘Yeah, late night last night and a busy day. Can you give him a note?’

  Paolo shook his head. ‘Do I look like the postman? Go on then, just for you.’

  Dot grabbed a pen from the pot on the counter and scribbled on a napkin: See you tomorrow, soldier boy. Exhausted, but happy! Your Clover xxxxx She folded it and passed it over the counter.

  She sat on her bus and pictured him turning up only to find her gone. Her heart leapt with longing at the thought of him, but she felt dead on her feet. She remembered her sickness earlier, maybe it wasn’t the smell that had made her sick, maybe it was a bug; that would certainly explain why she felt so awful. Her bed beckoned and she smiled, still high on the memory of the previous night.

  She traipsed up the hallway and into the back room. Joan was palming crumbs from the tablecloth, scooping them into her hand and launching them into the fireplace, where they sizzled and popped.

  ‘Well, that’s your first day done. How’d it go?’

  ‘All right, Mum, actually. Nice bunch of girls and that makes all the difference, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Yep. Here you are, love.’ Joan put a plate of chicken, but­tered spuds and greens on the table. She’d been keeping it warm on top of a simmering pan of water for a good forty minutes.

  Dot stared at the plate. ‘D’you know, Mum, I’m really sorry, but I’m too tired to eat. Think I might have a bit of a bug.’

  ‘Oh, Christ, don’t give it to your dad, that’s all I need.’

  ‘I won’t.’ She had no intention of interacting with her dad any more than was absolutely necessary. It didn’t matter how much time passed, his words and the fact that he had hit her were there for perfect recall whenever she closed her eyes.

  The next day at the factory passed much like the first, albeit her hands and wrists ached from performing the small nimble task with her fingers. After her shift, Dot jumped on the bus and thought she might burst if Sol wasn’t waiting for her; it had been too long since he had last held her hand in his. She checked her reflection in her compact mirror: a little pale but otherwise okay. She practically ran to Paolo’s, not caring how ungainly she looked as she galloped along the pavement, eager to get inside.

  The door bell gave its familiar ring as she pushed it open with her shoulder. No Sol, their booth was empty. Dot took her drink and sank down onto the vinyl upholstery. Please come soon; I miss you so much.

  Paolo popped up from the cellar. ‘Ooh just the girl! I couldn’t pass on your note cos he didn’t come in yesterday!’
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  ‘Oh! That’s odd.’ Dot was surprised and worried in equal measure. She sipped her Coca-Cola slowly, making it last. With each creak of the door or ring of the bell, she straightened her shoulders and smiled in expectation. But still no Sol. It occurred to her as the counters were wiped down for the night and the Burco boiler was switched off that it was so unlike him to miss two dates in a row, it must be something pretty major to keep him away. As the bus chugged up the road, it clicked – the bug! Of course, she still felt rotten and had even been sick the day before. He must have it worse than her, poor thing. She wished that she could make him tea and snuggle him better in that big old bed at the Merchant’s House. What was the saying – absence makes the heart grow fonder? Weren’t that the truth. She ached for him.

  Sol failed to show at Paolo’s for the next two days as well, leaving Dot with a nervous flutter and a disappointed tummy. By Saturday morning, she was beside herself, agitated and snappy. There was nothing else for it; she would have to go to the Merchant’s House. She put on her best coat, cleaned her shoes and flattened her fringe. She took care with her make-up, careful not to overdo it; there was a fine line between sophisti­cated lady who had made an effort and tart.

  Dot marched up towards the front door that she had walked in and out of as the cook’s daughter since she was four years of age, and as a lover for the last couple of months. She boldly took the stairs, coughed, then reached out confidently for the brass knob, before shoving her hand back in her pocket and running back down the stairs and around the corner.

  Her heart thundered in her chest and she fought the urge to be sick again. Come on, Dot, you can do this, just knock on the bloody door.

  Slowing her breathing, Dot once again trod the steps, this time at a slower pace and with more caution.

  She heard the bell tinkling inside as she hovered on the wide stone steps. Dot smoothed her blouse to rid it of any creases but also to soak up the sweat that peppered her palm. She exhaled through bloated cheeks, trying to calm her erratic pulse. After what felt like an age, the door was opened briskly and widely. Dot lowered her eyes until her gaze settled on the face of the diminutive housekeeper. The woman had to be in her seventies, a new addition who didn’t know Dot, which made it both easier and harder. She had a bird-like demeanour and bright, fearless eyes that shone from her crêpe-skinned face; her dress was of the palest pink cotton and was starched to within an inch of its life.