Dot let her tears fall. What did it matter, it was the truth.
‘Still got nothing to say?’ Wally stood and stared out of the window at the concrete nothingness that was their view. ‘I knew you was damaged goods, as they say, but I had no idea that you were mental. You are, y’know; you are bloody loop the loop. Jesus, I reckon even that Barb would have more about her. I mean she weren’t no looker but, Christ, it’d be better than this!’
Dot remained silent. Maybe he was right, who knows? Maybe he and Barb would have been happy. How had it all gone so bloody wrong?
He turned towards her. She watched his expression, saw him deciding what to do next. Where could they go from here?
He reached forward and grabbed at the shell. She raised her elbows, making it hard for him to get a grip, clutching it to her chest. ‘No! Get off! Leave it alone, Wally, it’s mine!’
The two tussled over it like toddlers.
‘We is married, love, what’s mine is yours and all that… Let go!’
‘No!’ she shrieked, louder than he would have thought possible. ‘Don’t you touch it, Wally, it’s all I’ve got left of him! It’s all I’ve got left!’
These words gave Wally the impetus he needed. With one hand he hooked the shell from her grip and with the other he pushed her head back against the chair.
‘Is that right, all you’ve got left of him? You’ve taken the piss out of me for the last time. Apple crumble? I’m your fucking husband!’
Wally stood, slightly encumbered by the bulky shell in his hand.
Dot jumped up after him. ‘Please, Wally! Please give it back to me… please. My grandad gave it to me.’
Wally hesitated for the briefest second before opening the front door. Dot ran behind him but was too slow. He stood on the walkway and hurled her precious shell out into the daylight. Dot watched with her hands outstretched, as though she could somehow prevent the inevitable. The shell seemed to fall in slow motion, allowing her to follow its course out into the middle of the empty space below, turning and falling before it hit the concrete floor, shattering into a million pieces. For the rest of her days, Dot would be able to picture that moment with clarity; closing her eyes, it would always be there for perfect recall. She watched the shards splinter and bounce with a violent pitter-patter.
Wally stormed off, angry and embarrassed by what he’d done. Dot stood transfixed by the fragments of shell that littered the greyness below, the sun glinting off the tiny slivers of pink. She slid down the wall and sat in a ball at the base of the walkway. She felt calm and strangely disconnected. She knew that she would never talk to Sol again. And finally she had the answer to the big question: three months and five days. It had taken three months and five days for her to start to lose her mind.
As night began to fall, she crept back inside the flat and crawled on all fours across the hallway and onto the greasy mattress. She heard the laughter of kids outside, knowing that never again would she laugh with joy. Never again would she kiss the lips of the man she loved or place her hand upon a male chest with longing. Her heart had split, would never heal; her broken spirit meant she would exist as a husk, all feeling and vitality stripped away forever. She would grow old and lonely inside this marriage with a heart that yearned for the man she could never have. Her body would cherish the memory of the times their skin had touched and that magic spark that had ignited within her.
She closed her eyes and pictured the two of them sitting in Ronnie Scott’s sipping champagne with fingers entwined, staring into each other’s eyes; they had been unaware that these were the last few hours they would have together. What would she have said had she known? What could she have done? It probably would have made little difference. The universe had conspired and Dot and Sol were reduced to mere pawns that had no option but to go with the situation that forces bigger than them had decreed. She lay her head on her childhood pillow and fell into a deep, exhausted sleep.
The front door slammed against the wall in the early hours, waking her with a jolt. Wally bumped along the hallway, muttering to himself before walking into the door frame of the bedroom and tripping over his shoes. He entered in a cloud of alcoholic fumes; the pungent odour stung her nose – beer and whisky, if she had to guess. He removed his trousers and fell onto the mattress in his shirt and socks. Dot lay still, staring into the manmade orange glow. She became aware of a movement on Wally’s side of the bed; his shoulders shook and his body heaved as he cried into his pillow. Unable to speak words of comfort, she placed her hand on his back and patted him, the way one might a child that was distressed but whom you didn’t know.
Wally’s words were muffled against the feather-filled ticking, but Dot heard them loud and clear.
‘Enough. I’ve had enough.’
Dot’s heart leapt. He was right: this was no way to live. The last part of her functioning heart had been thrown over the balcony along with her shell. She didn’t know where they could go from here, but she felt sorry for them both.
* * *
It was a bright, frosty morning, the kind on which, not so long ago, she would have stomped the streets of Limehouse, wandered down to the docks and into the cafe for a cuppa, chewed the fat with Barb. Dot dashed the tears from her cheeks and placed her hands on the worktop. She bit her top lip with her bottom teeth; she wanted to make this sadness stop, but she didn’t know how. In one palm was the bunched-up striped tea towel with which she had been drying up last night’s chip plates. Her fingers formed little pyramids that supported her weight along rigid arms. Her hair hung forward, enabling her to hide behind the toffee-coloured curtain. It was three days since her shell had been destroyed and yet still the memory of it tumbling through the air was enough to make her tears spill. It was ridiculous, really; he had never touched it or even seen it and yet it was an object that she felt linked her powerfully and magically to the man she loved. It was also the last link to her childhood, and her grandad, although she had to admit this fact had been thrown onto the heap of misery for good measure – its connection to Sol was the reason she cried.
‘Come on, Dot, get a grip.’ She’d been doing this more and more recently, speaking in a quiet yet commanding tone, trying to self-soothe, take control.
Her husband crept into the kitchen, his black-socked feet making his entrance almost silent. She turned to see what it was he wanted: a cup of tea? Sandwich? She noticed the dark bruises of consecutive sleepless nights that sat above his cheekbones; his pinched face and sallow skin. But there was something else: he looked as if he had been crying again, though she didn’t know him well enough to mention it.
‘What we gonna do, Wally? We can’t go on like this, can we?’
It felt strange to cleave the silence that sat between them like a block of ice and even stranger to break it with a topic of such gravity when their usual exchanges were about cups of tea and passing the tomato sauce.
Wally looked her in the eye. This itself was progress; he had been avoiding eye contact with her since they had exchanged vows. He leant against the wall and studied her from top to toe. Running his hands through his hair, he kept his fingers on his scalp as he closed his eyes and breathed deeply. Finally, he rubbed his palm over his face and chin before swallowing noisily.
‘Come and sit down,’ he said quietly.
Dot followed him into the lounge, throwing the tea towel on the worktop and wiping her hands down her skirt as she walked across the small square of lino that covered the floor.
The gas fire gave off a gentle hiss as the two sat on the squeaky vinyl chairs. Dot placed the thin crocheted cushion over her lap and put her clasped hands on it, a barrier of sorts; Wally leant forward. With his shirt sleeves rolled high against his biceps, he placed his elbows on his knees; his upturned face was only feet from hers.
‘I’m sorry about your shell. I shouldn’t have broken it.’
‘S’okay.’ Although of course it wasn’t.
‘You’ve met me mum and dad…’ He
spoke slowly, in a considered fashion; he was calm.
Dot nodded, unsure where this was going.
‘They’re bloody useless. Always have been. I remember when the letters came home from school about the eleven-plus, my teacher thought I could do well. I put it on the mantelpiece and told my dad that there was an open day at the Grammar; I asked him if he’d take me. He looked up and said to me “Wha’for?” As though the very idea of me going to a place like that was so ridiculous there was no point. He’s very political, my dad, and has always banged on about the responsibility of the working man. He told me that if I went to the Grammar, I’d get ideas above me station. I wanted to ask what my station was exactly, but it wouldn’t have got me anywhere. My life was pretty much mapped out, I guess. They’re not only useless with me; they’re rubbish for each other. Never supported each other, never made the other one happy. And then I went to your house one day with your dad, when he was on the metal. I couldn’t believe it, Dot. I stepped through the door into that warm hallway and before I’d hung me coat up, your mum was rushing around making cups of tea and getting the fruitcake out the tin. I felt like a bloody king. They were laughing at something on the radio, I can’t remember what now—’
‘Probably something stupid,’ Dot cut in, thinking of all the little private jokes and shared joys that used to fill the back room while the fire roared. It had been a happy place, a refuge, before…
He continued as though she hadn’t spoken. ‘I remember thinking, I want to live like this. I want someone at home that’s pleased to see me and gets the fruitcake out when a visitor comes though the door and who laughs with me and dances to any old rubbish on the radio.’
Dot suppressed the image of dancing in Sol’s arms – the pictures of him holding her were like little daggers that hurt every time they jabbed at her heart and mind.
‘Then I met you and you were so beautiful and so sparky. I never thought you’d look twice at me, like me…’
I didn’t. I don’t.
‘But your dad said you were a bit shy, really, and that you’d had a rough time and that you just wanted someone to look after you.’
I did want someone to look after me, but it wasn’t you.
‘And I thought, I can do that, I can look after her and I s’pose I thought that we’d end up with a house like your mum and dad’s, a happy house, with the radio on.’
‘Wally, I—’
‘No. Let me finish. I ain’t good at talking and I need to say this, Dot, while I can. I thought you’d be grateful to me somehow and I know how that sounds, but I thought it. I thought you’d be glad to be getting married after that other bloke did a runner and that we’d grow together, if you like, get to know each other a bit and then who knows… But that’s not how it’s working out and I never knew I’d be this lonely being married and I know you’re lonely too.’
Dot nodded. Yes, I’m lonely, so lonely.
‘I’m awkward and embarrassed. I don’t know where to stand or sit, what to say or how to say it and this flat feels small and I feel big in it. That’s why I go out all the bleeding time, just to give us both some space. I sit in the park sometimes and I sit on me tod and I breathe out and my shoulders unknot and I don’t feel so sick or uptight like I do when I’m here, cos I know you don’t want me here, but the trouble is I live here! It’s my home!’ Wally realised that he had raised his voice. He waited a second and then continued, quiet again and under control. ‘I know this situation ain’t really your fault, but the thing is, it ain’t really my fault either. And you’re right, this is no way to live, it’s no life. And so we need to talk about things. We need to sort things out.’
‘We do, Wally, I know.’ Her stomach flipped at what might come next.
‘There’s lots you don’t know about me, Dot. In fact, you don’t know anything about me. I’ve been saving and saving; that’s why I ain’t bought stuff for the flat, because I always wanted to own me own house and I’ve got enough for a deposit. I don’t know if that will make you happy, but it would make us more secure. I wanted to go looking at places together and make a plan for our future, but I can see that there isn’t any point. The fact is, you’re my wife, Dot; we are married and that means that we will be together for a very long time, probably for the rest of our lives, but I don’t want to spend the rest of my life with someone that doesn’t wanna be with me. I can’t.’
They were both silent for some minutes, allowing the enormity of his words to sink in.
‘What do you think, Dot, is that fair enough?’
She nodded. It was more than fair enough.
‘So, I’ve come up with a plan of my own. The way I see it, we either make a go of this marriage and live like a normal husband and wife or we call it a day. And the only way we can make that decision is if you sort out what’s going on in your head.’
Dot’s pulse raced; was he asking for a divorce? The thought of being a divorced woman who had been an unmarried mother… What would she do? Where would she go? But could she continue living tethered to a man she didn’t love, a man that repulsed her because he wasn’t Sol? No, she couldn’t. He was right, it wasn’t really his fault and that wasn’t fair.
‘So instead of putting a deposit down, I’ve gone and spent the money.’
Dot stared at him; why was he telling her this? What did it matter, it was his money. He had probably frittered it down the pub, up the bookies, so what? Owning a house wouldn’t have changed a thing, of that she was sure.
Wally lifted his bottom from the chair, making his bony thighs rise up against the slack of his black cotton trousers as his hand snaked into the back pocket. He pulled out a white envelope that wasn’t sealed. Holding it by the edge, he bounced it against his upturned palm as if considering whether to give it to her not.
Oh my God, divorce papers… Where will I go?
‘I want you to go away, Dot, for a week or a month, whatever it takes. I want you to sort out what it is you need to sort out and when you’ve sorted it you have to make a decision. You either stay where you are and make a life there or come back here and make a life with me. Not just a make-do life, but a proper life, like a proper married couple, with the radio on and proper dinner and intimacy.’ The last word hung in the air, the glue that would bind them or the reason they would part.
He held out the envelope. Dot reached out and grasped it with the tips of her fingers; he gripped on to it for a fraction of a second before releasing it into her care. She turned it over and lifted the loose flap. Her fingers delved inside and touched the stiffened card. As she drew it out with caution, her eyes scanned the words, the text, the figures, the facts… Wally had indeed been saving and had used his house deposit money to buy her a ticket, a return ticket. A ticket to St Lucia.
Dot stared at the piece of card that at three inches by ten inches was so much bigger than the sum of its parts. She bowed her head to her chest and inhaled deeply until her breath had returned to its normal rhythm.
She considered reaching out to touch his knee or give him a hug, but decided against it.
‘Thank you! Thank you, Wally.’ She smiled at her husband, then jumped up and kissed him hard on the mouth. He pulled her towards him and kissed her back; it left them both breathless.
Wally almost leapt from his seat, grabbed his coat from the back of the door and was gone. There was a flicker of disappointment in his eyes. She realised that deep down, despite his brave rhetoric, he had probably hoped that she would refuse it and stay in Walthamstow.
Dot studied the ticket and documents in her hands. BOAC-Cunard would whisk her off to New York, then Barbados, with several short stops at islands en route and finally a little island hopper would take her to the beaches where her lover swam. It was as if a dark cloud had been lifted from her mind. Her spirits soared and her heart pounded. She placed the pieces of paper against her chest. ‘I’m coming, Sol! I’m coming!’ She jumped up and twirled around the room like a ballroom dancer who had lost her partner
.
12
Her little case had been packed without too much deliberation. It wasn’t as if she had a winter and summer wardrobe. She put her summer frock in, a couple of fine-knit cardies, her vests, pants, socks, a nightie and one pair of cropped trousers. In London, any variation in the weather simply meant wearing more or fewer layers: the actual clothes remained pretty much consistent. It was therefore without heed to the heat of the Caribbean that she folded her dress and underclothes and laid them on top of each other. If it was too hot, she would simply leave off her stockings. Her one concession had been the purchase of a bathing suit. It was navy with large white spots on it and a pretty bow that sat just beneath her bust. As she fingered its thin straps and high-cut legs, her breath blew out like cold smoke in the chill of the autumn morning; she couldn’t imagine wearing it.
The first plane was big and noisy – not that she cared; she had far too much to occupy her mind. It was amazing and unbelievable to think she was actually making the journey. The only people she had seen getting on and off planes, acting as though they were boarding a bus, were film stars and pop groups that had been snapped on the steps and plastered on the front of the Standard; to be among their number was surreal. The excitement was tinged with awkwardness and embarrassment at travelling alone – she didn’t know the routine, where to go, what to do and wished that she had someone to share the little things with. A wave of guilt swept over her as she realised how much Dee would have loved it; then, when her thoughts finally turned to her husband, who had sacrificed his dream to make this possible, that sent another wave of guilt shooting through her veins.
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