‘Open your eyes.’ It was a whisper.
Dot slowly raised her lids and it was as if it had been seconds and not more than a year since she had seen his face. He shone, this beautiful man. He stared at her in disbelief. His skin was darker than before, there were new lines etched around his eyes and he had lost weight; some of the muscle had slipped from his bones.
He continued to whisper. ‘I dreamed about you last night. I wished you to me, just like I’ve wished you to me every night since I last saw you. Am I going mad? Are you really here? How—’
‘It’s a long story…’
‘Oh, your voice! Your voice! I’ve missed it. I’ve missed you… every second.’
Sol pulled the chair away from the table and almost fell into it as the strength left his legs. He was wearing a shirt with the collar up and the buttons undone and tennis shorts. He gripped her hands and held them inside his own, crushing them to his face; it was almost painful.
Dot looked up into the face of the man she loved, the man she would always love. ‘You broke my heart.’ She cried, unable to stop the flow of tears.
Sol nodded and let his own tears fall. ‘I broke my own.’
‘You said you’d never let me go, but you did.’
‘Oh, Clover, my Clover, I never let you go in my head or my heart, never.’
I had a baby, I needed you. He was perfect, he was ours.
He shook his head. ‘We can’t talk here, where can we go?’ He was thinking aloud, not really asking her.
‘I’m staying along the beach…’
Sol stood and reached for her hand and just like that she placed it inside his palm, where it fitted snugly; it felt like coming home. The two walked along the beach as though they had never been apart, able to breathe and think for the first time since they had been parted, without everything being filtered through the grief of separation.
Cilla watched them from the kitchen window. ‘Oh dear, oh dear, there’s gonna be big trouble up at the Jasmine House.’
Dot pushed open the door of her little hut and Sol followed. They had walked in silence; there was so much to be said that it was difficult for either of them to know where or how to start.
The moment the door closed, Sol stepped forward and pulled her to him, holding her tight against his chest with her head under the crook of his chin. He kissed her scalp and breathed in her scent. She reached up and placed her fingers against the skin at the base of his throat, feeling the pulse of his heart.
‘I can’t believe you’re here, I keep thinking I might wake up and you’ll be gone. I’ve imagined holding you so many times.’ He smiled as he spoke.
The two made their way over to the sofa and sat at either end, facing each other. She gripped his legs and he her arms, entwined on the cosy space, unable and unwilling to be separated.
Sol continued. ‘And if this is all I ever have, these few minutes of seeing you, touching you, hearing you, then I will die happy. I’ve prayed for so long for one more touch, one more kiss.’
Dot reached up and ran her fingers over his face, confirming he was real. She bent forward and kissed his mouth, a sweet kiss that sent a ripple of joy through her entire body. Sol lifted her until she lay flat against him, her dress open, allowing her skin to touch his along their legs, faces and chest where her swimming costume dipped away. He ran his hands over her form, kissing her hungrily and with a need that he had forgotten he possessed.
‘I love you.’ His words were a magic salve that confirmed what she thought she had known. She hadn’t imagined it: he loved her. He loved her!
‘I love you too, always.’ She looked into his face, just inches from her own. Then she placed her head on his chest and spoke into the air. Safe in his arms, words now flowed with ease.
‘I came to find you, y’know; I thought you must be poorly. I saw your mum, and she told me you had gone.’
‘You did? I didn’t know that.’
‘She didn’t tell you?’
Sol shook his head.
‘She told me that if you had loved me, you wouldn’t have gone without saying goodbye, and that made sense to me – you wouldn’t, would you?’
‘I had no choice.’ His voice was small.
‘Everyone has a choice, Sol.’
Dot remembered a conversation she’d had with Susan at Lavender Hill Lodge. ‘I wish I felt more like that, but truth is I don’t want to chase the fun. I think I’d be happy forever with a little house and a child to care for. I’m finding it really tough. I don’t want to give my baby away, but I’ve got no choice.’
‘Surely you must have a choice?’
‘No I don’t, not really.’
‘Not always, my darling. Sometimes you are presented with information or an ultimatum so compelling that you can’t choose what you want.’ Sol recalled his mother’s dogged determination to ruin Dot’s family; he was still convinced she would have done it. But Dot clearly did not know about the bargain he had struck, didn’t know about the rent in Ropemakers Fields, and he didn’t want to divulge any confidences; it was up to her parents to tell her, not him. And if he was being honest, it now felt as if he had given up a little too easily and that thought was harder to stomach than any other. ‘I promise you that any decision I made, I did it because I believed it was for the best and never, not for one second because I wanted to leave you.’
‘Was it because of your mum? Did she make you go?’ The idea occurred to Dot as she remembered the cool way Vida had delivered the facts in the study at the Merchant’s House.
‘Yes.’ It was all he could say. ‘I have barely spoken to her since; she and my father have moved to another house on the island.’
Dot sat up. ‘So you’re living in that big house all on your own?’
Sol drew himself up on the sofa and Dot caught sight of it, glinting in the sun. She didn’t know how she hadn’t noticed it before. On the third finger of his left hand, a shiny gold band.
He shook his head. ‘No, I live there with my wife.’
Dot flinched. It was as if she had been punched. She held her breath and tried to allow the information to seep into her brain. A wife, ‘my wife’. He was married. He had married someone that wasn’t her.
‘You got married?’ Her voice was a squeak. Hot tears flowed again.
He nodded. ‘I sort of had to.’
Dot looked up suddenly, as if remembering for the first time. ‘I did too.’
‘You married someone?’ It was Sol’s turn for the kick in the stomach.
She nodded. ‘I don’t love him, I can’t. I can only love you.’
Sol pulled her against him and held her close. He stroked her toffee-coloured hair. ‘I don’t love her either. I can’t.’
‘Me dad more or less kicked me out and I couldn’t think of another option. It felt like my only chance and so I took it. I haven’t been able to think straight at all since you went.’
Sol’s story was similar. He thought about the weeks spent drunk and isolated, unable to function sober as the memory of her hurt too much. ‘Oh, my love.’
‘We live in a shitty flat and I can’t bear to be in the same room as him and when I do look at him, I realise all over again that he is not you and I can’t stand it.’
Sol pictured the long table piled high with food at the Jasmine House, where he and his wife ate with the finest silver, in silence. How he longed for the easy chatter over a sticky table top in a cafe in damp, dark London. He pictured the bed and its fine Egyptian cotton, how he hovered on the far side until his wife fell asleep, leaving him free to relive every moment of lying with his Clover, replaying every word, every flick of the hair, every giggle until they were indelibly etched on his mind.
‘Does he know you are here?’
Dot nodded against his chest. ‘Yes, he bought me a ticket and said I had to sort meself out. He said that the way we were carrying on wasn’t fair on him or me, and he was right.’
‘I’m very grateful to him – which
sounds ridiculous, because I would also like to punch him in the face for marrying you. And yet I have no right.’
‘No you don’t, Sol, not really, and he ain’t a bad man, he’s just not you and never will be, which in my eyes is a crime. I feel sorry for him, really, poor sod. Oh God, Sol, it’s such a mess.’
‘It is a mess. I only know one thing and that is I love you, my Clover. I worried that it was all in my head, the way I felt, the way you made me feel; I worried that I might have imagined it or I thought that you might hate me after running out on you. I couldn’t bear the idea of it, but the second I saw you again today, I knew, I knew that it was real, that we are real and that nothing will ever come close to this feeling, nothing ever. You are the love of my life now and for always.’
‘Don’t ever let me go Sol.’
‘I won’t ever let you go, baby.’
Dot didn’t know if this was true or even possible, but her heart swelled with joy upon hearing those words again, just the same.
By the time he left, the day had once again sunk into the ocean, and the night animals were coming out to strike up their tune. Dot felt a mixture of elation and exhaustion. She lay in the middle of her big brass bed and ran her palm over her form, where his hands had touched.
‘Sweet dreams, my darling boy.’ She slipped into slumber with a smile on her face, feeling as she had before, before he had broken her heart, before Simon had ripped it out.
The next morning she was woken by a rapping on the door. Grabbing a sheet and swirling it over her underwear, she ambled into the sitting room, where she caught sight of herself in the square mirror above the sink. She was smiling, her cheeks held the apple-pink blush from the first kiss of sunshine and her hair was messy; she had never thought she looked so pretty. She beamed as she answered the door.
‘Cilla! Come in! What time is it?’
‘Early. I brought you some breakfast.’ Cilla dumped a basket of hot rolls onto the little table with a glass of pineapple juice and a mug of hot coffee.
‘Oh, bless, that’s so kind of you.’
‘I was also a bit worried – you didn’t resurface yesterday…’
Dot noted the twitch of Cilla’s eyebrow, the smirk around her lips and felt her cheeks flush. Nothing – well, nearly nothing – had happened yesterday between her and Sol, but she could see how it might look to the outside world.
‘We had a lot to catch up on; it’s been a while.’
‘I’ll say! My God, you could have lit up St Lucia with the electricity coming from you two. Y’know he’s married, right?’
‘Yes. I am too.’ She didn’t know why she divulged this, as if it made any difference.
‘Look, Clover, I don’t know you very well. In fact I don’t know you at all, but what I do know I like. You seem like a sweet girl and I’m telling you to be careful. You don’t want to mess with the Arbuthnotts and their like, they are powerful people.’
‘I think I’m quite safe with Sol!’ Dot laughed at the idea of her beautiful man being feared.
‘Oh him, yes! But his wife’s people are not so nice. They own most of Martinique and let’s just say they didn’t get it by playing nice. Okay?’
Dot nodded, but felt far from okay.
Sol found her dressed and ready for the day. No sooner had she opened the door than he swept her up and carried her to the bed. He threw her down on the white counterpane. Ignoring her squeals and yelps, he kissed her hard, running his hands through the hair she had spent twenty minutes styling and smudging the lipstick off her face and onto his own.
‘I missed you! God, I feel like a child. I slept so well last night. I woke up laughing! Actually laughing, because I knew you were close by. I love feeling like this and I love you. I can’t stop telling you: I love you, I love you!’
Dot kissed him back. ‘I love you too!’
The two kissed and held each other tight, resisting the overwhelming urge to strip off and find comfort as they had in his grand bed in the Merchant’s House. It was as if the rules had changed and both were aware of what was at stake.
Finally, jumping up, Sol gripped her wrists and pulled her from the bed. ‘Come on, we are going on an adventure!’
Dot just had time to grab her sunglasses and the glass of pineapple juice before they jumped into Sol’s scarlet open-topped sports car.
‘Ooh, this is flash! And there was me thinking you fancied that little Mini in Ropemakers Fields. What’s this then? I like the colour.’
‘It’s an AC Shelby Cobra, the only one in the Caribbean!’
‘Fancy! Think I’ll stick to the bus.’
‘God, I’ve missed you.’ Sol kept glancing to his right as though to confirm that she was sitting in his car. He placed his hand on her thigh as if to anchor her and stop her disappearing at any moment.
Dot sipped her pineapple juice and tried not to spill it as they rounded corners and bumped over dips in the road. The roads got narrower and narrower, until Dot began to worry what might happen if they met another car coming from the opposite direction. The thick canopy of leaves made a roof over the track that dripped with the recent rainfall. The two chattered and laughed, each queuing up the next item on the agenda – so much needed to be said. The car stopped abruptly at the edge of a small forest.
‘Here we are.’
He smiled at Dot, his beautiful open smile that gave her a glimpse of the man behind it, a good man who would have made a wonderful father to their son.
He strode with confidence through the forest. Dot followed in his wake, tripping as her urban feet, more familiar with the grey slabs of English pavements, struggled with the alien terrain. She trod gingerly over tangled roots and fallen branches.
It was worth it. One more step forward and she found herself in paradise.
The bay was horseshoe shaped, on a gentle incline that allowed the crystal-clear blue water to lap its shore. The fine sand was undisturbed. The trees of the wood behind them cast gentle shadows and shady pockets over the beach. Mother Nature had dotted palm trees where the jungle met the sand. It was perfect.
‘Oh, Sol! This is like something out of a film, but even better! I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s beautiful.’
He lowered his frame onto the sand and Dot sat next to him, bunching up her frock to tan her calves. She was self-conscious about stripping off to her swimming costume, preferring to keep herself a bit covered. There was no need for a towel or a blanket; this was the way to do beach life. She ran her fingers through the sand and let the gentle wind lift her hair and her spirits.
Sol lay back on his elbows. ‘You have no idea how many times I have dreamed of showing you this place. I often come here on my own and, as mad as it sounds, I talk to you. I chat about my day and I wonder what you are up to and I like to remember things we did together, walking along the Serpentine…’
‘It doesn’t sound mad at all. In fact I’ve been talking into a bloody shell, one of them big conch shells that you told me were on the beach. I thought you might be able to hear me, so I used to tell you all about my day and about our s—’ Dot’s tongue tripped over the words, but this was not the time. ‘About our days together, our Sundays, strolling and drinking coffee.’
Sol stood up and peeled off his shirt and unzipped his shorts to reveal his swimming trunks underneath. ‘Come on.’ He pulled her up from the sand and helped her ease her arms from her dress, letting it fall in a heap.
‘You look beautiful.’ He ran his hands over her shoulders.
‘So do you.’ His beauty had not faded and to be this close to his almost naked form was enough to make her forget that they were both married and weren’t still the free and hopeful couple that had loved with abandon in another time zone under a rainy sky.
Grabbing her hand, he galloped down to the shore; she had no choice but to keep pace with him. The two ran into the sea. Instantly her head went under the water; it felt incredible, invigorating and healing. The two splashed and ducked beneath the
waves, squealing like toddlers before coming together to hold and be held in the warm current. Sol kissed the salt water that sparkled on her eyelids, and peppered her face with small kisses. He lifted her in the water and twirled her around, causing the water to ripple and froth around them.
‘I want to take you back to the beach hut and I want us to spend the night together. I need you, Clover, my wonderful girl.’
Dot nodded and, closing her eyes, placed her head on his shoulder. ‘Yes. That would be wonderful. We can sit in the quiet and talk. There is something I want to tell you, something I have to tell you.’ She tried to think of how she might begin. ‘His name is Simon…’
They lay in the sun and laughed at the memories of traipsing around the West End like lovesick puppies, caring little for anyone or anything. Neither mentioned the last few days they had spent together; it was still too painful to recollect what came next.
‘How is Barb getting along? You haven’t mentioned her.’
‘We kind of fell out and I don’t see her any more.’ Dot swallowed the lump in her throat; she missed her mate.
‘Well, you need to put that right at some point. Friends are precious.’
Dot nodded, knowing that it was very unlikely she would ever see Barb again and if she did, God only knew how they would find a way back to friendship.
‘Where do you live now?’ He couldn’t bear to picture a marital home.
‘Walthamstow, in a modern block of flats. They’re ugly and I don’t have a garden.’ She didn’t want him to envisage the place she shared with another man and avoided giving him too much detail.
‘You don’t have a garden?’ This for him was unthinkable. He shook his head. ‘I don’t like to think of you living somewhere ugly.’
‘It makes no difference to me. If I can’t live with you, then it’s all irrelevant.’
‘I’d live in the ugliest ditch in the world if I could curl up with you every night.’ He meant it.
Clover's Child Page 27