Clover's Child

by Amanda Prowse

  The water shimmered, reflecting the street lights and red and green flashes from the lamps on the boat decks. The girls took up their familiar seats on the dockside bollards.

  ‘It’s been a while since we came down here. We used to do it all the time, didn’t we; just sit and natter.’

  ‘Yep, it was all we did, Barb!’

  ‘But funny how it was enough. I’ve had some of my best times sitting here in all weathers mucking about with you.’

  ‘Same.’ It was true, before Sol, that was normal life and she had been happy.

  ‘D’you remember that Russian bloke, that day when I chucked a fag in your hair?’

  ‘Yes!’ The two rocked and giggled. That had been a funny day, one that would stay with them.

  When the laughter subsided, Barb coughed, gathered her courage. ‘I’ve been worried about you, mate.’

  ‘Oh, you don’t have to worry about me. I’m all right.’

  ‘I know you say that, but I have and I am. You ain’t yourself, Dot, and you haven’t been for a while.’ Barb fell silent. Having given her friend the cue to open up, she waited for the explanation. None was forthcoming.

  She tried again. ‘I’ve missed you.’

  Dot knew Barb was sincere. ‘I’ve missed you too,’ she replied, although in truth she had been so preoccupied over recent months that her friend had rarely entered her head.

  ‘I’ve been wondering, did that farmer do something to you?’

  ‘What?’ Dot momentarily forgot the lie that had been cast. The question caught her off guard.

  ‘That farmer at the hop-picking place, did he do something to you or someone else there? Were his kids mean cos you were looking after them and not their mum?’

  Dot sighed and gazed at the water. If only…

  ‘No, no. Nothing like that. I’m fine, honest!’

  ‘But you ain’t fine, despite what you say. I know you ain’t. You haven’t been fine since you were seeing that black bloke…’

  ‘Sol.’ Dot would only tolerate him being referred to by name.

  ‘Yeah, him. I’m trying to figure it all out, Dot. You and me was real close and then you started seeing him an’ it was like I didn’t exist, an’ I’m not moaning, I understand what it’s like when you just wanna be with someone, I do! But then you bugger off to work for the farmer bloke and I had to find out from me Aunty Audrey, you never even said, you just went and we were supposed to be best friends. And then you come back and it’s as if someone has put a Dot lookalike in your house, someone that looks like you and sounds a bit like you when you do eventually talk, but it’s like… it’s like someone turned your spark off, put out your flame, you look empty.’

  Dot was grateful for the encroaching darkness and the fact that she could cry into the night without being seen. That was exactly how she felt, as if someone had put out her flame – empty. She placed her hand on her flat stomach – empty. Her nipples tensed inside her cotton bra, desperate to feel the seeking mouth of her newborn, her son, her Simon.

  ‘I’m sorry, Barb—’

  ‘No, I don’t want an apology,’ Barb fired back. ‘That’s not what I mean. I just wanna know if I can do anything to make it better. I want the old Dot back.’

  Dot laughed; the old Dot didn’t exist any more. The old Dot had drifted along with her head full of inconsequential rubbish, preoccupied with how to make people laugh and the state of her fringe, working hard to get enough money to have fun, an easy life. The state in which she now existed allowed no space for frivolity; her experience had left her so changed, so broken.

  ‘I am sorry, Barb. I’ve neglected you, I know, but the thing is, I fell for Sol completely and I thought he was the one.’

  ‘I thought so too, never seen you so smitten and he couldn’t take his eyes off you! I was planning the bloody wedding!’

  Dot smiled, still unable to control the rising tide of happiness at having a second person in a week give her this sweet information. She had loved him so much, missed him so acutely that even this felt like a connection of sorts, a link across the miles and confirmation that even if their relationship had been only temporary, it had been real.

  ‘And then he left without saying so much as goodbye; no explanation, nothing. It broke my heart, mate, literally broke my heart and I don’t think it will ever feel better, I really don’t.’

  Barb crouched beside where her friend sat and placed her hands on her mate’s knees, like a mum trying to console a fallen toddler. ‘Look at me, Dot. It will get better, I promise you it will. We’ve all been there, love, and it does get better, it gets easier and the next amazing bloke that comes along will rub out the old bloke that you used to think about all the time, he’ll take his place. It’ll all be okay.’

  Dot knew this was Barb’s truth and she appreciated her friend’s concern, but she also knew that what she had felt for Sol was a once in a lifetime love that no ‘new person’ could ever come along and erase. And even if this wasn’t the case, the longing she felt for their child put her loss in a whole other league. Dot hoped that Barb would never know that sort of heartache.

  ‘Thanks, Barb, you’re probably right.’

  ‘I am right. I ain’t as stupid as I look!’

  ‘And what’s been happening with you, what’s your news?’

  Barb stood and plunged her hands into her pockets, facing the water with her scarf wound around her neck to ward off the chill.

  ‘Not much change, really, except I’ve been seeing quite a bit of Wally – he’s all right. We haven’t… y’know… but I reckon we will and then who knows?’

  ‘Be careful.’

  Barb turned her head and smiled. ‘I will, thanks for that, Mum!’

  ‘I just don’t want you to do anything silly, I don’t want you to mess up your life.’ Like I’ve messed up mine.

  ‘I won’t! Anyway, I could do worse than end up with Wallace Day. He’s never going to set the world on fire, but he’s reliable, earning, and it’s just easy, cos he knows me mum and dad and your mum and dad and it just feels… easy.’

  Dot pictured the tall, thin Wally Day who had worked with her dad on the sheet metal. She saw his gangly arms and legs, his almond-shaped eyes, small chin and large teeth. She couldn’t imagine kissing a mouth that wasn’t perfect like Sol’s. She didn’t want Barb to settle for ‘easy’, throwing her lot in with a strange fish like Wally, who rarely blinked, laughed or expressed an opinion that wasn’t a repetition of what the person before had said. She wanted Barb to know what it felt like to come alive when another human being said your name, touched your skin and promised you sunshine.

  But Barb wasn’t finished. ‘Anyway, what’s the alternative? I ain’t getting any younger.’

  ‘You’re only eighteen; you can do anything you want.’

  ‘Can I?’

  ‘Course you can. What would you do right now, if you could do anything, anything at all?’

  Barb considered this; her answer was already battering the inside of her lips, clearly not the first time she had thought what she would do if only she could.

  ‘I’d like to be a hairdresser on a cruise ship.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yep.’ Barb nodded. ‘I’d like to sit in a massive ship as it hurtled through the waves. It would have chandeliers and sparkling wine glasses – like the Titanic, but without the sinking. I’d do the hair of all the ladies before they went to posh dos in long frocks and they’d all be stinking rich and give me massive tips that I would spend when the ship docked wherever it was going!’

  ‘Knowing your luck, Barb, it’d dock right here in Limehouse Basin and you’d end up in the local chippie with a fist full of tips!’

  ‘That’d be all right, I’d treat everyone that came through the door to six a chips and a pickled onion!’

  ‘Generous to a fault!’

  ‘That’s me. And what about you, Dot, what would you do if you could do anything for a job, anything at all?’

 
Dot looked out over the water. ‘Well, it sounds daft, but I’d like to design and make clothes, not just any clothes, but posh frocks, beautiful gowns that ladies wear as they descend grand staircases before getting whisked around a shiny wood dance floor…’

  ‘Mate, I think you’d be brilliant at that. You’ve always had a good eye an’ I used to listen to the suggestions you made to girls who were getting dresses made, it was always perfect.’

  ‘I’d call it Clover Originals.’

  ‘Why “Clover”?’

  ‘Because clovers are lucky!’ Dot’s response was instant.

  ‘Well, I’d like to wear a Clover Original.’

  ‘Would you?’

  ‘Course, if I had enough money – you sound a bit pricey!’

  ‘Well, it ain’t going to happen, mate, but thanks for your custom anyway!’

  ‘D’you know, it’s been lovely tonight, just like old times.’

  Dot smiled. Yes it had, almost – if you didn’t count knowing that she would go home now and cry herself to sleep.

  Barbara stood up and dusted her palms against her hips. ‘Come on, I’m off to meet Wally up the Barley Mow. You come too.’

  ‘No, I don’t want to be no gooseberry!’ And I want to go home to be on my own and sit with my shell.

  ‘Don’t be daft! It’s only Wally. Please, Dot, c’mon.’ Barb took her friend’s hands and pulled her into a standing position.

  ‘All right then, just one drink.’

  Barb was delighted. ‘That’s my girl!’

  ‘I like being your girl.’

  ‘That’s good, because I am never going to let you go…’

  The three had been sitting around the sticky-topped table at the Barley Mow for a couple of hours. The girls watched as Wally flipped Ind Coope beer mats, adding one at a time until he had mastered seven, for which Barb gave him a small clap. Dot was sipping her third gin and orange of the evening. She was definitely out of practice – it had been a long while since she’d had a drink, but she enjoyed the fuzzy euphoria it brought. It was so pleasant to escape from the exhausting reality of everyday life, so she carried on. She slumped against Barb and as she struggled to angle the rim of her glass correctly, half of it slopped down the front of her shirt.

  ‘Oooh, Dot’s got wet boobies, again!’ She roared with laughter.

  ‘I think I’d better get her home!’ Barb chewed the inside of her cheek; this was not how she had envisaged their night out ending.

  ‘S’all right, Barb, you go get your bus and get on home. I’ll probably have to carry her anyway.’

  Barb looked at her wristwatch. ‘Shit!’ Her dad would have been expecting her home ages ago.

  ‘Are you sure, Wall?’

  ‘Yeah, go on, I know where Reg lives, it’s almost on me way anyway.’

  Barb stooped and gave him a big kiss that smacked against his cheek. ‘D’you know, you’re smashing, you are!’

  ‘Dot!’ Barb shook her friend’s shoulder. ‘Wally’s going to see you home. Will you be all right?’

  ‘I’m a disgrace, shameful!’

  ‘Yes you are!’ Barb laughed, thinking Dot was talking about her inebriated state.

  It took Wally twenty minutes to persuade Dot to leave the pub and not to spend the night with her head on the table. He placed one arm around her waist, hooked the other under her shoulder and the two of them wobbled along the cobbles like a couple of dancers whose fandango had left them in a horrible tangle.

  Dot stumbled, pitching forward and crushing Wally’s winkle pickers at least twice. ‘I think I’m gonna be sick…’

  Wally steered his charge up the alley at the end of Narrow Street and pointed her in the opposite direction. Dot bent over, breathed deeply and waited. No sick, yet.

  ‘Sorry, Wally… Imnotusuallylike this…’

  ‘No, I know. Don’t worry. I’ve heard you’ve been having a bit of a rough time. Although why anyone’d chuck over a girl like you, I don’t know.’

  ‘I don’t know either.’ Dot hung her head forward and wobbled on her heels. Wally reached up and caught her arm. She started to cry, doing nothing to stem the flow of tears.

  ‘I had to let him go! I didn’t want to, he was crying, I could hear him crying through the wall and I couldn’t do anything about it…’

  Wally pulled her into his chest and patted the back of her head. ‘Don’t worry about him now, Dot, he was probably just feeling guilty, the bastard! Don’t you feel sorry for him, he’s a grown man – crying, for God’s sake, whasamatter with him? It was his doing in the first place!’

  Dot looked up at Wallace Day, her face streaked with tears and mascara. ‘I’m sorry.’

  Wally didn’t hesitate, it was the moment he had been hoping for. Leaning forward, he bent his head and pushed his lips against hers. Dot was shocked and jerked backwards, smacking her head against the alley wall. His hand reached up to pull her head away from the wall, to try and make it better. Dot pulled back, banging her head again.

  ‘Gawd, Dot, mind your head!’

  ‘I don’t want to kiss you! Of course I don’t!’

  Dot retched as her drunken stomach finally decided to release its poison. She turned around and vomited against the wall, splattering her shoes and tights as her tears fell down her face.

  Wally Day placed his hand on her back. ‘It’s all right, Dot, you’ve just had a bit too much to drink. It’ll be all right.’

  ‘Fuck off, Wally! Leave me alone!’ She shoved him with both hands.

  Wally placed his hands in his pockets. ‘I was only trying to help you.’

  ‘No you weren’t. You tried to kiss me, you idiot.’

  Dot shook with equal measures of fear and anger. She was sober enough to know that he was supposed to be her best friend’s bloke. ‘How could you do that to me… to Barb?’

  ‘It’s got nothing to do with Barb!’

  ‘She’s your girlfriend!’

  ‘No she ain’t! She’s just some dozy bint that turns up all the time, she ain’t my type.’

  Wally stepped forward to take her arm and guide her home. Dot ducked under his arm; she didn’t want his help. Walking as quickly as her quaking legs would allow, she tottered up Narrow Street.

  Mrs Harrison took a drag on her fag and for once was speechless.

  Dot wobbled past as though her neighbour wasn’t leaning on the door frame staring at her.

  She paused before putting her key in the lock; she had never gone home drunk before. She wondered if they would be able to tell. Dot spat on a tissue, removed the smudged mascara from under her eyes and tired to fix her hair. She took a deep breath and opened the door. A more rational Dot might have gone straight up the stairs and into her bed, but this was no rational Dot, this was a Dot with a good measure of gin and orange juice sloshing around in her blood.

  Joan sat at the table in the back room with the standard lamp pulled close to her chair; she was sewing a name label into Dee’s gym knickers. Her dad was as usual face deep in the paper.

  Dot swayed, but would have sworn she was standing still.

  Her dad looked up from behind the Standard. ‘Look at the bloody state of you. Is that what we’ve got to look forward to now, you coming home in God knows what state, stinking like an old brass? Or am I not allowed to comment on this neither?’

  ‘Wh’as it to you if I do? It’s got nothing to do with you what I do with my life!’

  ‘Blimey! At least you’ve found your voice! And you’re right, Dot, it’s got nothing to do with me that you’ve buggered up your life, but if you think you can bring this behaviour over my doorstep, you’ve got another thing coming. How much more do we have to put up with, eh? We used to be a happy family!’

  ‘Did we? I don’t remember. I’ll never be happy here again, Dad, never. I won’t forget the names you called me and I won’t ever forget that you hit me. You hit me! When I needed help the most, you weren’t there for me!’

  ‘What did you bloody expect? You
nearly destroyed this family and you still can’t see it. Mum lost her job, we nearly lost our home. Do you know what that means? I mean really what that means? If you are in any doubt, my girl, go up the arches by the station. You’ll see families just like ours, with little Dees and old men with dicky chests just like me, they’ll be lying there covered in filth on a pallet, waiting for the cold to do its worst. They are homeless and helpless and we were one step away from that cos of you! And the worst thing is, you still don’t see it. It’s a disgrace!’

  Dot wobbled and put her hand on the wall to stop herself from falling. ‘Oh yes, I know I’m a disgrace! I had a spiteful nun telling me how much of a disgrace I was in that bloody place you sent me to. She was wicked and some of the things they made us do were horrific. They took Gracie and Sophie and Simon; I reckon Jude was lucky in some ways. D’you know that they make you take your baby to the people who are going to adopt it and then you have to wheel the empty pram back, like a walk of shame, while your tears fall and your heart feels like it has been ripped from your chest and your tits leak and you can hear him crying and you know he wants you, cos you’re his mum, but you know that you can never ever go to him and stop that crying, not just on that day but never ever for the rest of his life!’

  Reg scrunched the paper up and threw it on the floor. Joan looked on, pale and stricken.

  ‘And what’s the alternative, you cocky madam? Bringing the little bastard back here to live among us? How well would that go down, Dot?

  ‘Don’t call my son that! Do not! And in answer to your question, Dad, I don’t know how well that would’a gone down, because I was never given the choice! I wish you didn’t give a shit what anyone thinks, cos then I might have my boy!’