‘What?’ Dot sat down in the chair by the fire, trying to figure out what was going on.
Joan removed the soggy hankie from her eyes, which were red and swollen. Her speech came in breathless stutters. ‘I… I… I’ve lost me… me… job. What am I gonna do?’ Her tears fell again.
Dee placed her small hand on her mother’s arm. ‘S’okay, Mummy, I don’t want Christmas anyway and I’m not even a bit hungry.’
This made Joan’s tears fall even harder.
‘What d’you mean you’ve lost your job? Why?’
Joan slapped her palm on the table. Her voice was thin and reedy through her tears. ‘Why d’you think, you stupid girl? Fourteen years I’ve worked there! Fourteen years of my bloody life, scrubbing that massive bloody kitchen, cooking up whatever was asked of me. Putting in the hours. I have never moaned, never put one foot wrong. I’ve had nothing but compliments on my work this whole time and then you… you whip off your knickers for five minutes of fun and I’ve lost me bloody job!’ Her face, distorted from crying, disappeared behind her cupped palms.
Dee giggled into her palm and whispered to her rabbit, ‘Mummy said “whip off your knickers”!’
Dot felt winded, quite literally as though the breath had been knocked out of her. ‘It must be a mistake, Mum, I don’t understand…’
‘Neither do I! I don’t bloody understand. I don’t understand how I’m gonna pay the rent or put food on the bloody table. I don’t understand any of it, Dot.’
Her dad stood with his chest heaving, containing whatever it was that battered his lips, probably because he didn’t want to say it in front of Dee. Dot smiled at her little sister, glad that she was there.
Reg marched through the kitchen and they heard the back door slam shut. A fag might calm him down a bit.
‘I had no idea, Mum, I swear.’
‘That’s right, Dot, you have no bloody idea! You think life is some bloody game, where you can flounce around doing whatever you like, but this is the reality, we are now in real trouble. I don’t have the rent this month, cos I haven’t got a job and I haven’t worked till the end of the month so I haven’t been paid the full amount. And no rent means no house! And it’s all because of you!’
Dot placed her shaking hand over her mouth. She felt sick. What on earth were they going to do?
She couldn’t wait to get to Paolo’s, where they had agreed to meet that evening, as they often did. Partly she just wanted to get out of the house, but she also wanted to see if Sol could throw some light on the situation.
Sol sat down and took one look at her stricken face. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked nervously.
Dot stopped twirling the plastic tomato filled with ketchup and gave the man she loved her full attention.
‘My mum’s lost her job at the Merchant’s House.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean she’s been sacked, let go!’
‘Why?’ Sol shook his head in surprise.
‘I was hoping you’d know – well, I was and I wasn’t. I don’t know what to think.’
‘I didn’t know anything about it. Is she okay?’
‘What do you think? It’s her wage that keeps us afloat; I told you about my dad.’
Sol exhaled loudly and went into solution mode. ‘Do you need money? I can help.’
‘No, I don’t need money.’ Dot drew her arms around her trunk; she was uncomfortable even discussing it. No matter how bad things got, she would never accept money from him. Pride was pride.
‘But when we get married, we’ll share everything and it will be irrelevant where it originated.’
Dot stared at her lover. ‘To you maybe, and I do appreciate the offer, but trust me, it feels crap when you’ve got bugger all to share.’
‘Let’s go for a walk, walk off the worry!’ He smiled brightly.
‘No, I don’t think I’m up for a walk tonight, Sol. I’ll see you tomorrow, love.’ She kissed him softly on the cheek before she left.
Dot knew this worry would be a little hard to walk off.
Vida was on the sofa, reading by lamplight; the elegant room was bathed in a golden glow. The logs crackled in the fire - despite being mid-May, Vida felt the chill of the English weather. The record player spun its Motown beat into the room.
Her bare foot tapped in time against the sofa and her silk and lace negligée pooled like liquid over the pale cushion. She chose to ignore her son’s entrance, even though his foot-stamping and door-slamming told her he was keen to announce his arrival. She wasn’t keen to have her peace shattered.
Sol thundered into the drawing room. ‘Mumma, do you know anything about Joan… the cook… about the cook being let go?’
‘Good evening, Solomon, how lovely to see you. Have you had a pleasant day?’
‘I’m serious, Mum; do you know anything about it? Clover is so upset; her family needs the income, her father can’t work. It seems too much of a coincidence that you find out about us and then this happens.’ His chest heaved with the exertion of trying to stay calm, polite.
‘I have already told you that there is no “us” where that girl is concerned!’
‘Please don’t start with that again. I just want to know what’s happened with the cook.’
Vida turned over her copy of To Kill a Mockingbird and placed the flattened Harper Lee on the table. ‘Listen to yourself, son – you want to know what happened with the cook? Since when have our domestic arrangements been of interest to you? You are a soldier, Solomon and you are an Arbuthnott with a duty to perform. One day you will have to run the companies that Daddy has built up for you. You will have a lot of responsibilities taking up your time and trust me when I say that caring about who is preparing your scrambled eggs for breakfast will not figure.’
‘What duty, Mumma? I’m here kicking my heels so that Dad can have me close by, but there is nothing official for me to do here. If it wasn’t for Clover, I’d go crazy!’
‘So she is a distraction!’
‘No, not solely. I love her, I really do.’
Vida placed her hands in her hair. ‘I need a drink.’
‘You don’t drink!’
‘You are making me want to start!’
Solomon sank down on the sofa, his shoulders sagging, his eyes weary. Mother and son were silent for some minutes. The stylus scratched and hiccupped with a little jump at the end of the record, filling the room with the magnified crackle of static. Both were glad of the hiatus in which they could slow their racing pulses, calm their breathing and order their thoughts.
‘I love you, Solomon, you know that, don’t you?’
He nodded towards the carpet. Yes, he did know that.
‘Daddy and I only want what is best for you and if we thought that settling down with the first girl that has caught your eye, regardless of her background or status, would make you happy, then we would encourage you, welcome her, but this is not the case, darling. The sparkle with which you think she is covered will wear off, quicker than you might imagine, and when that happens, you will be less than satisfied with what you’re left with. This would not only be a tragedy for you, but for her also. Trust me when I tell you I am thinking of you both. What right have you to disrupt her life and leave her high and dry when the reality sets in?’
‘She does shine to me, Mumma, you are right, and she always will. That is the reality. It’s no different than it was for you and dad or James and Mary-Jane, it’s love and it’s unshakeable, it’s fate.’
‘For God’s sake, do you not listen to me any more?’
‘Is it because she is white?’
‘What?’
‘Is that why you don’t approve, because she is white?’
‘No! Partly. But it’s more about her, her life, her very small life! What do you have in common? How would being married to her help your career, your social life?’
‘You think I should marry to help my social life?’ Sol was incredulous.
‘Yo
u are making me sound like a monster, but the fact is that these things matter, they are important.’
‘They are not important to me!’
‘Well, Solomon they should be and it’s about time you realised what being an Arbuthnott means.’
‘If it means I can’t be who I want to be, with the person I love, then I don’t want to be an Arbuthnott!’
Vida flinched as though she had been struck. She slipped on her high-heeled slippers with their marabou trim and padded across the room. Pausing before she entered the hallway, she turned back to her son, slumped against the cushions. He looked like a boy.
‘I would have considered giving the woman her job back, but all things being equal, I think it best that she and her daughter are kept as far away from you as possible.’
Sol stared after her, struggling with three new bits of information. His mother was apparently not the sweet-natured woman he had always considered her to be. Secondly, it was his fault. If Dee was hungry in her bed and Clover’s family was struggling, it was his fault. And finally, Sol realised, all things were far from equal.
Reg and Joan were still awake when Dot returned from Paolo’s. They were sitting at the table in the back room. Dot doubted her mother had moved since tea-time.
‘Is Dee okay?’ She pictured her little sister’s wide eyes of earlier on.
Joan nodded.
‘I am really, really sorry, Mum, if anything I’ve done has led to this.’
‘Well, it’d be a bloody funny coincidence if it ain’t anything to do with you, wouldn’t it?’
Dot ignored her dad; she was too tired for a fight.
‘I’m going up Bryant and May tomorrow, see what they’ve got going.’
Dot sat down opposite her mum. ‘Oh no, Mum, surely not! It’s terrible up there.’
‘D’you think I don’t know that? It’s stinky, loud and dangerous, Gawd knows what it’ll do to me lungs, but you know what? It’s better than bloody starving.’
‘I wish you didn’t have to, Mum.’
‘Me too, I wish I still had me nice little job up the road, with all the food that we need and hours that suited, no boss stood over me. I know I used to moan, but I loved it really.’ Joan’s tears fell again. ‘Anyway, there’s no guarantee they’ll have me up there. I know a coupla girls who’ve been let go cos they got married, let alone an old codger like me with two kids in tow.’ She tried a smile.
‘You’re not an old codger, Mum.’
‘I feel like it, Dot, I really do.’
Dot’s heart beat faster as an idea came to her. It was obvious. She would go up Bryant and May tomorrow herself and try and earn the money that her family needed. Yes, she loved Selfridges, but what good was that if she couldn’t earn enough to help?
* * *
The next day Sol was anxious. He paced the pavement outside Paolo’s, retiring inside only to sip coffee and wait some more.
‘Stood you up, has she?’ Paolo was unused to seeing Sol without his pretty companion.
‘I hope not, Paolo!’
It was a full two hours before she appeared. Sol had drunk so much coffee, his fingers twitched with all the adrenaline.
‘Where have you been? I was worried!’
‘No need. I had a chore to run, but I’m here now.’
‘Yes, you are, and you look beautiful.’ He reached across the table and stroked her face. After any time apart, the sight of her always surprised him; she really was stunning.
‘Where have you been?’
‘After a job, actually!’
‘A job? Designing?’
She shook her head, embarrassed and delighted that he thought someone like her could simply waltz into a job as a designer. ‘Not quite! Up at the Bryant and May factory, packing matches. If I’m lucky, I might progress to dipping the boxes in the sand that coats the little strip – but no such dizzy heights for me initially.’
‘Why? Why are you trying to work in a factory?’
‘Why do you think, Sol? Not because I have a fancy for it; I need to earn money! My mum’s been laid off, remember? And it’s not as if they have savings – every penny that comes in goes straight out. I can’t earn enough in the store, there just aren’t the hours available and so this is what I have to do. It’s not so we can save up for a television or a holiday, it’s so that we can eat. You just don’t get it, do you?’ Dot hung her head; she hated revealing the level of near poverty in which they existed, always one wage packet away from being hungry and homeless.
‘I’m sorry. Is it really that bad?’
She nodded. ‘Yes, it’s really that bad. If Mum doesn’t get wages this week, we haven’t got the rent. Can you imagine what that’s like, Sol? Imagine Dee having no roof over her head, or me dad, who isn’t well, not having his bed to go to. I can’t let that happen.’
‘But you are coming with me to St Lucia?’
‘Yes I am and I can’t wait, trust me, but that’s not for a year and my family have to live now, right now, today. It’s the best thing for everyone.’
‘Best for you?’ He admired her work ethic, but did not want her toiling away in a factory; he couldn’t stand the thought of it.
‘It’s not all about me. And how can I moan? I’m going to live in a fairy tale with the man I love; a year of packing bloody matches won’t kill me.’
‘You are amazing, Dot, I think your mum and dad are very lucky to have a daughter like you.’
‘I’m not sure that’s how they see it right now.’
‘They’ll come around.’ He thought about his own mother and her defiant lack of acceptance.
Dot closed her eyes and sighed; she so badly wanted to believe him. In truth, though, she had been slightly disappointed by her parents’ lack of gratitude at her grand gesture. Almost as though she should have given up the job she loved in Selfridges and traded it in for forty hours of packing matches in a stinky factory. But she could tell by the relaxing of her mum’s shoulders that Joan was relieved. Miss Blight, on the other hand, had seemed not only relieved but entirely delighted, happy even, to receive Dot’s resignation. The cow. Dot was tempted to tell her about what her life would be like in a year’s time, and that while Miss Blight would still be fat and stuck in Personnel, harvesting joy from the misery of others, she, Dot, would be living on the beach and sipping fresh pineapple juice every day. But she didn’t want to tempt fate and besides, knowing how gossip spread like wildfire, whether issued confidentially or not, she couldn’t risk Barb informing her mum, who would relay it to Mrs Harrison, who would at the earliest possible opportunity tell Joan and Reg…
* * *
‘You look smart, son, off somewhere nice?’ Vida stopped filing her nails and cast her eye over her handsome boy, who had clearly made an effort with his appearance.
‘Yes, I’m taking Clover dancing. We’re going to Ronnie Scott’s.’
‘Well, how lovely.’
His mother’s clipped tone told Sol that actually she thought it anything but. He ignored her.
Dot shut the front door and tucked her scarf inside her coat.
‘Well, look at you all spruced up, where you off, Dot? Somewhere nice?’
Dot whizzed past her neighbour. ‘Truth is, Mrs H, I don’t know where I’m going!’
‘Well have fun when you get there!’
‘I’ll try.’ Nosey old cow.
Sol and Dot had jumped off the moving bus before their stop and with his hand on her lower back, he guided her through the streets of Soho.
‘Where are we going?’ Dot was edgy.
‘You’ll see.’
‘Sol, I really hate surprises, you’re making me nervous!’
‘Don’t be nervous.’ He swung around her and crushed her against him. ‘You trust me, don’t you?’
She nodded up at his beautiful face. Of course she trusted him.
‘You look beautiful.’ He ran his fingers over her hair, which she had scraped back into a ponytail and fastened with a width of
scarlet velvet ribbon.
‘You always say that!’
‘Maybe because it’s true.’
‘What did I do to deserve you, Mr Arbuthnott? How did I get this lucky?’
‘I don’t know. I ask myself the same.’
After one quick kiss, the two almost skipped along until they turned into Gerrard Street.
‘Ronnie Scott’s?’
‘Yup.’ Sol beamed.
‘Wow, I’ve never been before!’ Dot jumped up and down on the spot with excitement.
The hazy hum of a clarinet drifted up the stairs and out onto the pavement and the tinkling of piano keys started some seconds later.
‘Oh, Sol, I don’t believe it! Someone’s playing Etta!’
She grabbed his hand as the two of them ran down the stairs and into the darkened depths of the jazz club. Dot stopped in her tracks, transfixed by what she saw on the stage. It wasn’t someone playing Etta – it was Etta!
‘Oh my God!’ She placed her hand at her throat. ‘It’s Etta bloody James!’
Sol beamed. ‘Dance with me!’
Having dropped their coats at the bar, Sol guided her onto the dance floor. They stood staring at each other for the briefest of moments, unaware of anyone else in the room. And then Etta started to sing in that rich, velvet voice; she started to sing the words of their song.
‘At last
My love has come along...
My lonely days are over
And life is like a song’
Sol placed one hand on Dot’s lower back and held her other hand inside his, with her arm crooked against his chest. He pulled her close, until they were as one, swaying gently to the soundtrack to their love affair.
‘I love you so much,’ he breathed into her hair.
‘I love you too.’ She spoke to his chest.
‘Oh, yeah, at last
The skies above are blue
My heart was wrapped up in clover
The night I looked at you’
‘Don’t ever let me go, Sol.’
‘I’ll never let you go, baby.’
He pulled her closer still, holding her tightly against him.
‘I found a dream that I could speak to
A dream that I can call my own
I found a thrill to press my cheek to
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