Every footstep, creak of door and rattle of window seemed extra loud, as though betraying her illicit visit to an interested ear. Dot entered the grand ballroom in which they had first met and looked up at the ceiling; strange how she had never really noticed the painting until that eventful night. She walked to the middle of the room and lay on the wooden floor. The more she stared, the lower the image came, as though God and the angels were descending to meet her. She felt warmth flood through her body and took this as a sign, a blessing. She felt at peace, happy beyond measure and optimistic about her future.
Dot jumped up, dusted off her dress and sat at the piano stool on its raised platform. She pressed several keys down at once. The loud thrum resonated in her chest and echoed around the room, bouncing off the majestic military men captured in oil and tinkling the crystal droplets of the vast chandelier.
‘There you are!’
‘Here I am.’
‘Okay, budge up.’
Dot scooted along on the wide, shallow stool to make room. Sol placed two mugs of hot chocolate on the silver coasters on top of the piano.
‘I’ll play and you sing. We shall recreate the moment I first saw you.’ Sol cracked his knuckles and flexed his fingers. ‘Ready?’
‘No! God, not ready! I can’t sing, I’m rubbish, really rubbish. Please don’t make me do that.’
‘Clover, everybody can sing.’
‘Not everybody, not me. I sound like a cat in pain, it’s horrible!’
‘When is the last time you sang?’
‘I sing all the time, but only when no one can hear, in the bath and stuff.’
‘Well, just make out you’re in the bath then. Come on! No one is listening, you are all alone…’
His long fingers stroked the keys and the magic notes of Etta James’s classic tune rose up and danced about Dot’s head. She closed her eyes and listened until the whole song had been played through. Sol continued, starting over, and she began to hum.
After a while, it felt perfectly natural to turn the hum into words, so she started to sing.
‘At last
My love has come along…
My lonely days are over
And life is like a song
Oh, yeah, at last
The skies above are blue
My heart was wrapped up in clover
The night I looked at you’
With eyes closed, she massacred the beautiful ballad that had provided the background music to the first night they met.
Sol put his fingers in his ears. ‘You’re right! Stop! Enough! You really can’t sing!’
‘Oi!’ Dot made to swipe at him. He caught her wrist mid flight, surprising them both into stillness. Dot could hear the blood pulsing in her ears, felt the irregular flutter of her heart in her chest. It was always this way when he touched her. Her breath came in shallow bursts and her senses were magnified. It was as if time slowed.
‘I think this is it, Clover,’ he whispered, only inches from her face.
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means that you and I have stumbled upon what most people will spend their whole lives looking for, it means that we will be together. You and me – if that’s what you want.’
‘Blimey, Sol! You have to slow down! You’ve only known me for a little while, it’s a bit fast, isn’t it?’
‘I know, it is and I promise you that I am usually so patient; this is totally out of character for me. Just ask my mum, she’ll tell you! She’s been watching me try and feed a peahen in our garden for what must be years now; every day I call to the hen, offer her a little grain, but she never takes it. I am patient even though she is bad tempered, sneaky and snappy.’
‘She sounds like Mrs Harrison.’
‘Who’s Mrs Harrison?’
Dot shook her head, it didn’t matter. Sol sat still and fixed her with his stare, his expression earnest. ‘It is a little fast, very fast, that I accept, but here are the facts. I’m nearly twenty-two and, assuming I live until I’m eighty-five, this means we have approximately sixty-three years left on this planet together, no more. The idea of having only sixty-three years with you horrifies me, frightens me. Because it’s not enough, not nearly enough.’
He ran his hands over her shoulders.
‘How long would be enough?’ She hardly dared ask.
‘Eternity. I’d settle for eternity.’
Dot bit her bottom lip and felt her heart jump. This was a feeling that she had not known existed.
Sol reached out with trembling fingers and hesitated, trying to calm his breath, which leapt and stuttered in his throat. He stared into her face, trying to fathom the misty-eyed stare. His touch was no more than a fraction away from her milky skin; they both knew what was about to happen, but being forewarned didn’t make it any less daunting. His fingers breached the space between them. Dot ached to feel him against her.
It was done.
An invisible barrier had been broken, a milestone reached, a curiosity satisfied.
Dot raised her head to receive the kiss that was delivered firmly, squarely on her mouth. It was perfect. Sol lingered afterwards for the right amount of time, allowing her to inhale the scent of him and feel the heat of his body against hers.
Slowly, she moved her face forward again, closing in. He grazed her cheek with his fingertips, igniting a jolt from the point of contact to her core. She kissed the pads of his fingers, before taking his palm and placing it against her chest. Sol stood up from the piano and, still holding her hand, he steered her towards the sweeping staircase that led up to his apartment.
‘Supposing your mum and dad are back?’
‘They’ll be hours yet, but I’ll check if you like?’
Dot nodded. Sol opened every door in the spacious flat, while Dot hovered anxiously in the hallway, marvelling at the plush drapes in the tall sash windows and the sumptuous sofas that sat around the enormous marble fireplace. She let her eyes roam over the fancy carpet and the books that probably nobody read, cos they were all ‘inbred and illiterate’… She cringed as she remembered uttering those very words. Had it really been not much more than a month ago?
‘The coast is clear!’ He beckoned her into the inner corridor.
‘Are you sure your mum and dad aren’t coming back soon?’ She didn’t want this to be how she was formally introduced, sneaking in after hours through the back door.
‘They are at a formal dinner, long and boring and far away. We’ve got all the time in the world.’
‘All the time in the world sounds good!’ She slipped her arms around his neck and kissed him on the lips; it felt wonderful to be able to kiss him with abandon, out of sight and in these very grand surroundings. Sol put his arm around her waist and guided her towards his bedroom door. The two stumbled and kissed as they made their way along the elegant hallway.
‘Are you sure this is what you want?’ Sol stroked her cheek.
‘I’m totally sure, I want my first time to be here and I want it to be you.’
‘Me too.’ He held her tightly and pushed open the door.
Dot vaguely took in the detail of the room. The large walnut bed with its gold counterpane and bolster pillows. The fancy swags with matching tie-backs and the heavy brocade wallpaper.
She unzipped her dress and let it fall to the floor. Standing before him in her silky slip, she didn’t feel exposed in the way that she had expected; instead she felt warm, alive and certain that this was exactly what she wanted.
Sol placed his hands inside her petticoat and tried to find the clasp of her bra. His fingers gripped at the wide elastic and fumbled and twitched against the back of her underwear. He ran his long fingers over the strap, but without success. ‘I can’t find the hook!’
Dot pulled away from him and looked him in the eye. ‘What do you mean, Mr Soldier Boy? I thought you’d been trained. Is my bra hook above the permanent snow line?’
The two young lovers laughed their way towards the
bed and landed on the soft mattress in a jumble of arms and legs. Their pace was measured, the two novices finding their way without awkwardness.
Sol whispered into her hair, ‘This is perfect. You are perfect.’
Dot smiled against his skin. For the first time in her life, she felt perfect.
The two dozed for an hour or so. Waking, Dot reached out and took Sol’s hand between both of hers. A feeling of pure joy coursed through her veins and left her trembling. She watched his long fingers interlace with her own, his brown skin against her pale palm.
‘You know, Clover, every choice has a consequence, a price, and you should always ask yourself if it is a price worth paying.’ He spoke while transfixed by their fingers, joined together.
‘I don’t care what the price is, Sol. I will pay anything to be with you. I didn’t know I could be this happy, I didn’t know it was possible for anyone to be this happy!’
‘You are a stubborn little thing, aren’t you?’
‘I may have been told that before!’
‘I’ve been thinking, about when I leave here…’ He waited for her to comment, but she didn’t. ‘I want you to come to St Lucia. I want to take you home with me. I know it’s a long way and I know that it means leaving your family. You don’t have to think about it for a while, but these next few months will fly by and I want everything in place when that time comes. I want you to know that I am committed to you, that this isn’t some holiday fling.’
‘Well I’m glad to hear that!’ She laughed and kissed his cheek.
Dot considered the house she shared with her mum and dad and thought about her commute up West three days a week in the rain to sell material and sewing bits and bobs to people that could afford what she could only dream of. In truth it wasn’t much of a life.
Sol wasn’t finished. ‘I want us to live on the island. I can see exactly how it will be. We will live at the Jasmine House and Patience will help you settle in – once she’s given you a hard time for having snared the most eligible man in the West Indies and not having a title.’ Dot punched him on the arm; he pulled her closer until her head was on his chest. ‘You can spend your days designing clothes and then sewing them from the fabric that I will fetch for you from every corner of the earth. The first shop selling “Clover Originals” should be in the islands, with others to follow in America and then Europe. We will get married, and have a very lavish wedding in the garden, when the flowers are just right and then in a couple of years when our children are tucked up at night, sleeping soundly in the nursery with Patience on her bed in their room, I will sit with you in the garden. It’s my favourite part of the day, when the sun sinks into the ocean and the day has lost its heat, and we shall bask in the warm breeze that blows across the beach from the Caribbean Sea, watching the lights twinkling from Reduit Beach on the curve of the horizon.’
Dot closed her eyes and lay perfectly still, visualising the scene in its every detail. ‘Crickets’ll chirp in perfect time,’ Sol continued, ‘providing our nightsong. There might be the gentle whir of a fan overhead in the great hall or the creak of wood as our rocker lulls us like babies, rocking us back and forth so we have to fight sleep. There is no place like it on earth, Clover!’ She smiled dreamily, not wanting him to stop. ‘Your stomach will be full of warm, peppery callaloo, proper one-pot cooking. We will feast on a bowl of bouillon made from pig snout, green lentils, onions, maybe some peas. Oh, it’s so tasty and filling that you will eat until you can barely move. I will hold your hand in mine and we’ll sit on the deck and smell the jasmine that will fill the air around us. We will sleep with the shutters thrown wide open and the warm wind will flow over us as I hold you tight in my arms, keeping us cool.’ He squeezed Dot even closer. ‘In the morning we’ll drink fresh pineapple juice and feast on mangoes from our trees. We’ll run barefoot across the spiky grass and down to the beach where we’ll dive into the crystal-clear water and swim all morning, tasting the salt on our tongues and feeling it burn on our skin as we lie under the shade of a palm tree. At lunchtime, we’ll eat fresh fish and drink sweet coconut milk straight from the shell. This is how we shall live, getting older and slower with each passing year, but we won’t care because we will be happy and we will be together. What do you say, Clover? Will you come with me?’
She reached up and touched his face. It sounded perfect. His description filled her with a warmth that drove the sense of foreboding from her bones. She wouldn’t miss the dark mornings, the dirty buses, the rude customers or the cold. She never imagined that there might be a life like that for a girl like her. She swallowed to flush the hard ball of tears that had pooled at the back of her throat. Yes! Yes, she would go with him. Dot wanted to feel the salt water burn on her skin, she wanted to lie in his arms and sleep with the shutters thrown open and the promise of fresh pineapple juice for breakfast. She rolled over until she was cocooned in the white linen sheet and propped herself up on her elbows. Sol ran his fingers through her hair and over her fine, straight nose.
‘Some might think that you were trying to propose to me, Mr Arbuthnott.’
Sol pulled his body free of the blankets and dropped to the floor by the side of the bed. He knelt on one knee and took both her hands inside his. ‘Some might be right…’
Dot’s eyes filled with tears and her heart beat loudly in her chest. This was it.
‘Lady Clover, beautiful woman, I never expected to feel this way. I’ve played music my whole life without really understanding the words, but then you came along and now suddenly they do make sense to me – I found a dream that I could speak to/A dream that I can call my own. In fact everything makes sense to me. Like my whole life has finally come into focus. I love you and I will always love you. There will only be you, always you, for my whole life, and if I can’t have you, then I will grow old a very lonely man, tending my garden and thinking about this moment. So, will you marry me?’
‘Oh, Sol, yes! I love you. I love you so much!’
He beamed at her teary-eyed face. ‘I love you too.’ He brought her fingers up to his mouth and kissed the back of her hand. He couldn’t wait to make it all happen.
‘It’ll have to be our secret for a while longer,’ Dot murmured, trying not to picture her dad’s reaction. ‘I need to drip-feed the idea to my mum and dad, let it settle with them. I need their approval and it might take a while.’
‘We’ve got all the time in the world, my beautiful Clover.’
4
Dot beamed as she eased the front door shut behind her and slid the top and bottom bolts. Even a whole twenty-four hours after her magical evening at the Merchant’s House, she couldn’t stop smiling. She’d just come from seeing Sol again; they’d been at Paolo’s for hours and had then taken a very leisurely walk home.
Her mind felt ordered; for the first time in her life she could see her future and that future was wonderful. She bit her bottom lip to compose her expression; it wouldn’t to do be walking around grinning like an idiot. As Sol had said, timing was everything; they would firm up their plans and then tell the whole world! She didn’t know what she was most excited about, her marriage to Sol or waking every day with a view of the Caribbean Sea and having her breakfast on the beach. Maybe even a bath in the sea; she wondered if they bothered with bathrooms with so much water around. She pictured herself in the sea with her loofah.
She crept into the hallway and eased her shoes off, picking them up and tiptoeing in her stockings across the floor; she didn’t want her heels clicking on the lino to betray the fact that it was well past eleven o’clock. Pushing on the back room door, she was startled to see her dad sat in his chair. It was unusual to find him awake at this hour and even more unusual to find him without his newspaper shield over his face.
‘Oh, hello, Dad, I wasn’t expecting to see you up! Cuppa tea?’ She smiled at him; it was quite nice to have a bit of company as midnight loomed and the dark filled the windows and whistled down the chimney.
&nbs
p; He didn’t answer. ‘Dad? I said, do you fancy a cu—’
‘I heard you the first time and no I don’t want no cup of tea.’
Dot heard the reedy tone to his voice, noticed for the first time his sinewy arms, flexing in their vest, like a spring coiled and ready to launch. He was angry.
Dot tried to placate him; she knew she was late and that he worried. ‘I’m sorry I’m late, Dad. You shouldn’t have waited up. I missed the bus and then—’
‘Is that what you think this is about, missing the bleeding bus?’
She didn’t recognise his aggressive sneer, so unlike him. Her stomach shrank around her intestines; he had never spoken to her like this or looked at her like this. It felt horrible.
‘Well, I did! But now I don’t.’ She gave a small laugh – that was usually enough to lighten her dad’s mood.
‘Let me ask you something, do you think I’m stupid or blind or both?’
She shook her head. No, no she didn’t…
‘Cos I’m not and I’m not deaf either and I don’t like what I’ve been hearing.’
Mrs Harrison…
Dot braced herself. She sat down in the chair and carefully placed her shoes on the floor with the heels together before folding her arms across her chest as though this could somehow protect her from the verbal blows that she thought were coming. She was right.
‘I always thought you might make something of yourself, Dot, but now I’m not so sure.’
She looked up at him, wanting desperately to tell him that she would make something of herself. She wanted to share her plans, her designs and Sol’s idea for shops all over the world. She wouldn’t spend the best part of her life sitting in a chair fighting off the cold.
‘Your mum and I have always done our best by you, always made sure you never went without.’
Dot decided not to comment that she had frequently ‘gone without’ and that if anyone had made sure she had anything at all, it was her mum.
‘And you repay us by doing this?’
‘Doing what?’ Dot wondered how much her dad knew.
No Greater Love - Box Set Page 71