No Greater Love - Box Set

by Prowse, Amanda

  ‘Yes?’ Her tone was clipped. Dot wasn’t sure if this was because she had been in the middle of doing something or because she’d taken an instant dislike to her face.

  ‘Hello, I’m Dot Simpson, I’m sorry to bother you, but I’ve come to see Sol. Solomon?’ Dot had adopted her posher than usual waitressing voice.

  The woman opened the door wide and beckoned Dot inside. ‘Wait here,’ she said and, without turning her head, strode purpose­fully towards the back of the house.

  Dot stood in the middle of the great hall, which was almost as big as the entire footprint of their little house in Ropemakers Fields. The tiled floor gleamed and the brass door plates shined, fingerprint-free and reeking of Brasso. She glanced at the wide stairs that wound their way up and was tempted to run up them and find her beloved; sick bed or not, she wanted to be with him. She remembered her and Sol climbing the stairs hand in hand, unable to keep their hands off each other, stop­ping on every other tread for a kiss. She bit her bottom lip and smiled at the secret.

  The housekeeper reappeared. ‘Follow me.’

  Dot was surprised not to be led up the staircase towards the apartment. Instead she was shown into the library at the back of the house, a room she hadn’t been in since she’d popped into it by mistake when she was a little girl.

  Double doors opened into the imposing room, whose pan­elled walls were lined with bookshelves that were fit to bursting. Small tables were placed beside leather wing-backed chairs and were littered with beautiful sparkling things: a crystal fruit bowl sat alongside heavy brass curios that looked like ships’ instruments.

  There was a leather-topped bureau with a stack of papers sitting neatly and squarely in one corner. A large leather-bound blotter and an oversized brass lamp dominated the desk space.

  Two tall sash windows afforded a perfect view of the garden and the staircase outside the grand ballroom where she and Sol had loitered on that magical night when they first met. She recalled the first time she had touched his hands and how she had almost disliked him, wary of his skin colour and defensive in the face of his intelligence. Yet look at her now, they were going to get married!

  Dot tried to focus, to calm her nerves. She hadn’t known what to expect, had tried in fact not to conjure an image that was too detailed or to imagine the interaction, it would have made her too nervous. The door opened and in walked Vida Arbuthnott. She was tall, muscular but slim, elegant and beauti­ful, wearing a shirtwaist dress of red cotton, and red patent-leather square-heeled boots that came to her knee. Dot swal­lowed the bile of inadequacy that rose in her throat. She tried to imagine what it would be like when Joan and Vida met as equals. She’d have to tell her mum to get her hair done and wear her good shoes.

  ‘Come and sit down.’ Sol’s mother’s tone was neither wel­com­ing nor dismissive.

  Dot took her place on the little chair in front of the desk. Vida sat on the other side, as if it were an interview.

  ‘You must be Clover?’

  ‘Yes.’ Dot smiled and nodded, happy that Sol had given that as her name; it made her sound like someone significant.

  ‘I expect you are here to see my son.’

  Dot nodded again. ‘Yes, I hope he’s feeling better. I’ve had a rotten bug and expect he’s got it too.’ Her cheeks reddened at the thought of how the bug might have been transferred: contact, dancing, kissing…

  Vida adjusted the large diamond earrings that nestled in each of her lobes and clasped her hands on the desk in front of her.

  ‘A bug? No, no, I believe he’s quite well. Thank you.’

  ‘Oh.’ A furrow of confusion appeared at the top of Dot’s nose. She didn’t know what to say. She ran through her next sentence in her head: ‘I know this is a little bit awkward, but I think you and I need to get to know each other a bit, Mrs Arbuthnott. I’m really not as bad as you might think I am! I will treat Sol brilliantly because I love him and so I don’t want you to worry. After all, we will be related one day.’ She knew it was a lot easier to begin a conversation like that inside her head.

  As Dot drew breath, Vida elaborated. ‘No, Solomon is not ill, he’s gone home.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘My son is not here, he has gone.’

  ‘Gone? What?’

  ‘He has gone home, to St Lucia.’

  ‘Whaddya mean “gone”? How can he have gone to St Lucia?’ Dot gave a nervous laugh.

  ‘I mean that he is no longer in London, he is homeward bound. Did he not tell you?’

  The smile slipped from Dot’s face as she shook her head; it took a while for her brain to register what Mrs Arbuthnott had just said.

  ‘How long’s he gone for? When’s he coming back?’ She stared at the woman who would be her mother-in-law.

  Vida gave a small laugh. ‘Oh, that Solomon is such a naughty boy! I thought he might have informed you. He is not coming back; not at all. He’s gone home for good.’

  Dot felt her body weaken and slump down into the leather seat. Her breath came in irregular pants. ‘Not coming back? Whaddya mean? That can’t be right… But… he… we were…’ She pictured the two of them dancing in Ronnie Scott’s.

  ‘Don’t ever let me go, Sol.’

  ‘I’ll never let you go, baby.’

  Dot didn’t realise that she was crying – hot, heavy tears that trickled into her mouth and dripped from her chin. She rubbed her eyes, smearing her eyeliner into a panda-like smudge.

  ‘I think there must have been a mistake! He wouldn’t just… He wouldn’t… We…’

  Vida’s voice was calm. ‘There is no mistake, Clover. He has returned to St Lucia and he is not coming back. Not ever. He has a life there, a very important life.’

  Dot looked at Sol’s mother through the fog of tears. ‘He said he’d take me with him.’ Her voice was small. Her shoulders heaved as she breathed through her sobs. ‘He… he said we would get married…’

  ‘Did he now?’ Vida shook her head and gave a small tut. ‘Can you really imagine him taking you back to St Lucia?’

  Dot shook her head. No, no she couldn’t. Not really. Not if she was being honest, she couldn’t. The beach was no place for someone like her, the girl from Ropemakers Fields.

  Vida continued. ‘He has the gift of the gab, that’s for sure, but for him it was just a little fun. He told me so himself, he said you were a distraction.’

  ‘He said that?’ Dot’s mouth hung open, her eyes closed tight. She thought of Gloria Riley.

  ‘Yes he did.’

  ‘He said that about me?’

  ‘Yes. And I only tell you this, Clover, so that you can put it behind you and move on. I’m sure it’s been a fun adventure, but it’s over. You must put it behind you and move on.’

  ‘He told me he loved me, and I love him. I love him, I really do.’ Dot twisted the bottom of her coat in her hands.

  ‘No you don’t, dear. It just feels that way right now. Trust me.’

  ‘I can’t believe he never even said goodbye…’ This Dot said to herself, as though speaking it aloud might help her under­stand. She felt so confused.

  ‘That tells you all you need to know, doesn’t it? If he loved you, would he simply disappear without speaking to you first? If he had wanted you to go with him, he would have made provision for that, but he didn’t, did he?’

  Dot shook her head. No he didn’t. The two sat without speak­ing for a few seconds, the silence punctuated by Dot’s sobs.

  ‘Can I call you a taxi?’ Vida was keen to bring the meeting to an end.

  Dot shook her head again. ‘No… No thank you.’ No more taxis for her; she could just about afford the bus fare.

  Vida Arbuthnott watched as, for the second time that week, a young person with a broken heart trod wearily down the front steps. She swept her hand over her face, trying to wipe away the guilt that threatened to settle on her. It was for the best.

  * * *

  Dot lay on her bed and cried for forty-eight hours. It wasn
’t the small trickle of tears that a stubbed toe or soppy film might provoke – this was different; this time she had absolutely no control. Her tears continued to fall despite the fact that her eyes were sore and swollen shut, her face was peppered with purple blotches and her pillow and the yoke of her nightie were sodden. Every time she closed her eyes she saw the two of them swaying as one, in time to Etta. Every time she opened her eyes, she heard his words, his lies, ‘… the lights twinkling from Reduit Beach on the curve of the horizon. Crickets’ll chirp in perfect time, 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…’

  She left the confines of her bedroom only to venture to the loo and this she did on the wobbly legs of a drunk and with the headache of someone who had been on mother’s ruin all night. Waves of nausea swept over her, which made eating impossible.

  At some point Dee had crept in and placed her small hand on her big sister’s cheek. ‘Don’t cry, Dot, I made you something!’

  Dot forced her eyes open and looked at the picture of a rainbow that Dee had painstakingly coloured in with crayons. It reminded her of their day in Selfridges; she thought about the brown paper bag nestled in her chest of drawers and her material that was almost the colour of the St Lucian sky.

  ‘Thanks, tin ribs,’ she managed, through a mouth twisted with distress.

  It took two weeks for Dot to pluck up the courage to visit Doctor Levitson. He was known throughout Limehouse. He had delivered her and tended to her every ailment since she was a baby, from whooping cough to chicken pox and most things in between. He was the same doctor that had helped deliver Dee, ministered to her nan when she was sick, diagnosed her Dad’s dicky chest and lent an ear to her mum when times were darkest. It was going to be an awkward encounter. Dot plodded up the surgery steps and sat in the square waiting room with all the old ladies who sniffed into tissues, rubbed at joints or exhaled deeply for no apparent reason.

  Doctor Levitson had always been ancient. He had prominent features, wide-set eyes and large ears from which tufts of grey bristle peeked. The furrows on his forehead were deep and his eyes disappeared into them when he smiled, which he did a lot. Before applying his large hands to his patient’s skin, he always warmed them by placing them up his jersey first, and when Dot was little he could make a coin appear from behind her ear, which was quite impressive.

  ‘Mum okay?’

  ‘Yes.’ Dot didn’t want to discuss her family; it made them seem present in a way that made her uncomfortable.

  ‘Dad resting up?’

  Dot nodded.

  ‘Good, good and what can I do for you, little Dot?’

  She swallowed. She liked being little Dot, but knew that in approximately twenty seconds she would vault the line from child to woman.

  ‘I’ve not been too well, Doctor.’

  ‘You do look tired, a little peaky. Your mum said you are up at Bryant and May? How’s that working out?’

  ‘S’okay. Nice bunch of girls…’

  ‘Good, good.’ He smiled again and was silent, clasping his hands in front of him on the desk. Dot focused on a small hole in the sleeve of his hand-knitted jersey; it had been darned with orange cotton, forming a little nub that drew your eye. Surely Mrs Levitson could have found a better match.

  ‘Thing is, Doctor Levitson…’

  He stared at her, waiting.

  ‘The thing is, I think I might be in trouble.’

  ‘I see. What kind of trouble, Dot? The police are chasing you and you need to take refuge in my cupboard under the stairs, or the pregnant kind?’

  Dot nodded as her tears spilled. ‘The pregnant kind.’

  It was the first time she had said the word aloud and it felt terrifying. Two syllables with such a terrible connotation, two syllables with the power to destroy her whole life. She shook inside her coat. Oh God, Oh God…

  ‘Okay. Well, first things first, let’s do a test and make sure of the facts; otherwise we could be getting in a lather over nothing.’

  Dot nodded. Yes, a test would be good.

  ‘And then if you are, Dot, we can take it from there. If you are, is marriage an option, does the father know?’

  Dot shook her head and closed her eyes; it was somehow easier to voice the facts without being able to see anything. ‘No. He’s done a runner. I thought he loved me, we were going to get married.’

  ‘Oh, Dot, if I had a shilling for every time I’ve heard that.’

  She opened her mouth to protest, to explain that she and Sol were different, that they had been in love and she was not like all the other girls who got caught with the promise of a ring and happy ever after, but stopped when she realised she was exactly like that.

  ‘And if you are, you will have to tell your mum and dad, you know that, don’t you?’

  Dot nodded and could only imagine how that conversation would go.

  Four days later, Dot sat in the same chair in front of Dr Levitson and he confirmed what she had suspected for some time. She was having a baby, she was having their baby.

  ‘Promise me, Dot, that you will tell your parents.’

  She nodded.

  ‘And sooner rather than later?’

  Again the nod. Too stunned to speak and too frightened to move. What on earth was she going to do?

  Dot decided to wait until she had got her head around the situation before she faced her mum and dad; a couple of days would make little difference. She considered going to see Sol’s parents, but decided against it. Her humiliation at the last visit still caused her cheeks to flame. She would just have to fig­ure some­thing out, although quite what, she couldn’t begin to imagine.

  Joan wasn’t sure if there was a magic potion that could cure a broken heart, but she trotted up the path of the doctor’s surgery nonetheless. She flicked through a copy of Woman’s Own until it was her turn. Dr Levitson beamed, seemed pleased to see her.

  ‘Ah, Joan, how are you?’

  ‘Oh you know, Doctor, bearing up.’

  ‘I expected to see you—’

  ‘Yes, I need a tonic or something for our Dot. I’m worried about her. She’s got no energy at all and she can’t go on like this, not eating, sleeping all the time.’

  ‘I am delighted that you are being so supportive, Joan. It’s not something I see every day and it’s a credit to you and Reg.’

  ‘Of course I’m supportive. I’m worried about her, tha’sall. She’s me daughter!’

  ‘Yes, she is and, once again, Joan, you are to be commended for your attitude, truly. It’s not something I see very often, I’m afraid. The good news is that the heavy fatigue and nausea, loss of appetite and so forth will all fade as she gets further into the pregnancy. It’s the first few months that can be the trickiest, I’m sure you remember!’

  The next sound was Joan Simpson’s body hitting the lino­leum floor. She had fainted.

  7

  Dot was halfway up the stairs with a glass of water when she heard her mum’s key in the door. She turned and waited, ready to see if she needed any help with the tea. Her mum clicked the door shut behind her and stood with her back against it. Her skin was ashen, her eyes wide. Dot noticed the tremor of her hand as she removed her scarf. She fixed her daughter with a stare and it was in that single second that Dot knew her secret was out. Joan undid the top buttons of her coat as though des­per­ate for air. As she slipped down and sat on the door mat, she looked broken.

  Approaching her slowly, Dot reached out to help her mum stand. ‘Mum, I…’

  ‘Don’t touch me!’ Joan managed beneath gasps. And then, ‘What have you done?’

  For Dot it was a full ten days of going through the motions. Working, sleeping and waiting. She spent hours sitting on her bed in the wee small hours, listening to her parents’ shouts and whispers, which came in alternate waves as they tried to figure out what to do for the best. Finally she was summoned.

  Dot trod c
arefully down the stairs, placing one foot after the other on the worn runner that ran up the middle of each step. She padded along the hallway and eased open the door of the back room. It felt incredible that she had known the room and the people in it – her family – her whole life. This was the room in which she had opened eighteen sets of birthday gifts, blown out the candles on eighteen home-made cakes and rushed in barefoot and breathless to find Father Christmas’s offerings on eighteen separate cold December mornings. Yet pushing the door open tonight, she felt no kinship. These people had become strangers and in its way this was more scary and lonely than being upstairs by herself, where she could pretend that there were people in the house that cared about her.

  Her dad sat in his vest and concentrated on rolling cigarettes ready to stack neatly inside his old tobacco tin. His braces hung down to his thighs. His flat, broad thumbs had a ring of black grease under the fingernails. He’d probably been fixing his bike. He did not look up from his task, content to let her mum talk on behalf of both of them. Dot noted how his fingers shook as he brought the sticky paper up to his mouth for its lick. Trembling hands that contained the anger and distress that he fought to control; for this she was grateful. He flicked his head occasionally, not to acknowledge her, but to get his long, brilliantined fringe out of his eyes.

  ‘Sit down, Dot.’ Her mum’s voice was soft. If there was the slightest bit of empathy in her tone, this was cancelled out by the set of her mouth and the narrowing of her eyes, as though having to look at something as unsavoury as her pregnant daughter revolted her. She pointed at the chair opposite Dot’s dad. Joan stood slightly behind her husband, with her hand resting lightly on the back of his seat. Dot drew a deep breath and opened her mouth, but then closed it again. It was a further minute before she finally found the courage to speak.