Authors: Amanda Prowse
The next morning, Dot woke with a clearer head. She decided that it was time to try harder. She could never go back to how she was before, she knew that, and despite all her prayers and wishes, her life was not going to stop – her darn heart just kept on beating. The idea of spending the rest of her days under a cloak of misery was too awful to contemplate. Bracing herself against the sink in the bathroom, she tried out a smile in the small square mirror at which her dad shaved and her mum applied her night cream.
Dot headed to Paolo’s, as agreed with Barb a few days before. She couldn’t wait to get inside and have a good natter, secretly hoping that Paolo might again make reference to her and Sol; that would brighten her day. She had also decided to tell Barb of the significance of the little coffee shop, let her share in some of the magic.
Barb was standing outside with a fag clamped between her two raised fingers and one leg bent, her foot flat against the wall.
Dot waved as she approached. ‘Hello, mate. Blimey, it’s taters, inn’it?’
Her friend stared at her.
‘What?’ Dot waited for the punch line, the quip. What was Barb looking at? ‘Y’all right, Barb?’ There was an uncomfortable second or two of silence. ‘Barb? Say something!’
‘You are a bitch, Dot, a fucking bitch and I want you to know that I ain’t stupid.’
Dot was speechless.
‘I’ll never forgive you, never, not in this lifetime. You know everything about me and you have been laughing at me all this time. Well, let’s see who’s laughing in a few years’ time. I’m going to make something of my life; I will be a bloody hairdresser and I will go on a cruise ship and you will still be stuck in this shit hole. I won’t give you a second thought, either of you. It’s a low trick, Dot, and I never had you down as someone like that!’
‘What are you talking about?’ Dot was still undecided if this was a joke.
‘You know what I’m talking about. I stood by you through your little love affair, I let you make out you was with me all them nights when you was with your bloke.’
‘And I was grateful! I am!’
‘Yeah, so grateful you upped and pissed off to bloody Kent without so much as a by your leave. I had to find out from Aunty Audrey, like I didn’t count, wasn’t even important enough for you to tell.’
‘That’s not how it was, Barb, even though that’s how it seems. I needed you then and I need you now, more than you know.’ Dot wanted to tell her more, but she couldn’t risk the truth being made public.
‘Yeah, looks like it! You’ve got a bloody funny way of showing it.’
‘What d’you mean? When you need me, I’m there for you and it’s the same for you with me. It’s always been like that and it means the world—’
‘Is that right? I can’t believe I sat there the other night, with you telling me to go for it, get trained, have an adventure. What was it you said?
Cos you loved me too much for me not to have a bloody brilliant life!
More like you couldn’t wait to get me out of the way. I can’t believe I fell for that shit. You and Wally must have been pissing yourself behind me back. I’m so angry, I’ve never been so angry! You lost your lover boy a long time ago, Dot, and congratulations, you just lost your friend.’
Dot laughed out loud. ‘Me and Wally? Are you mental?’
‘Yes, I must be not to have seen it before. Are you going to try and deny it?’
‘Barb, I don’t know what to say to you. You can’t think that me and Wally—’
‘Are you telling me he hasn’t been to yours for Sunday lunch or for tea last night or out with your dad and God knows what else behind my back?’
Dot was stunned. ‘Well, no, I’m not going to deny it. Yes he did and I was going to tell you but—’
‘There is no fucking but! He told me what’s been going on and I am finished with you. Just fuck off, Dot, fuck off and leave me alone. You are welcome to each other!’
Her friend broke into a run and disappeared up the road.
‘But, Barb, please, it’s not true! I love Sol and there’s no room for anyone else, let alone someone like Wally. Barb, please, you’re all I’ve got… you’re all I’ve got…’ Dot doubted that her whisper had reached her friend’s ears.
Dee spun round and round in a circle until she felt so dizzy that she had to lie with her eyes closed on their mum and dad’s bed. It had been pushed to one side, giving them the maximum space to get ready in. After a few seconds the room stopped spinning and she assumed the same position with her arms spread wide and started twirling again.
‘Look, Dot! I’m a bally dancer! ’Cept Miss King said I can’t do bally cos I’m a fairy elephant. I don’t care anyway cos I’m going to be a air hostess. Look, Dot, look at me petticoat, it’s like a bally petticoat, all sticky out. I’m going to jump off the stairs and see if my frock makes me float down. How high up shall I jump from – shall I go halfway? Dot, how high shall I jump from? Dot?’
Dot sat at the dressing table under the window in her parents’ room and stared at the reflection of her sister in the triptych of mirrors. The plastic daisy headdress had slipped from the crown of Dee’s head and now sat half under her chin and half around her face. Dot felt exhausted watching her as she twirled and jumped, all the while emitting her incessant babble of chatter and questions. She was like a hyperactive meringue.
‘Be careful, tin ribs.’
‘I’m always careful, and I’m strong, Dot. Punch me in the arm as hard as you can and I won’t even cry!’ Dee slipped her arms from her white hand-knitted cardigan and pushed a scrawny bicep towards her sister. ‘Go on, punch me as hard as you can and I won’t cry, I promise. Go on!’
‘Dee, I am not going to punch you.’
‘Shall I punch you first and then you punch me back?’
‘Dee, I’m not going to punch you, ever. And please don’t jump down the stairs, you won’t float, you’ll only break your bloody leg.’
‘If I break my bloody leg, can I still be your bridesmaid?’
Dot hated the word ‘bridesmaid’. It reminded her that she was a bride. If Dee broke her leg it would only delay proceedings. She was quite sure that even if she broke
her
leg – or her neck, come to think of it – her parents would find a way to cart her up the aisle and get her off their hands.
It had all happened so fast and she’d had precious little chance to stop it. ‘Wally is a good bloke and he wants you,’ her mum had said after another of those interminable Sunday lunches. ‘It’s time you started to look at the glass as half full. We ain’t gonna let you sit around here with a face like a smacked arse all day, doing bugger all and looking miserable. We’ve got to act while there’s a chance, Dot, or you will be an old maid. It’s not as if you work…’
Dot had bitten her bottom lip at that. The shame – even more shame ladled onto the pile of shame that filled her gut. She had been unable to hold down the job at Bryant and May, unable to walk past the gates where she had thrown up on that first morning without feeling so distressed and panic-stricken that her legs wouldn’t carry her forward. She had been pregnant with their baby and had wasted precious hours thinking she had a bug, that
he
had a bug. Why had she not legged it round to the Merchant’s House and shaken Sol awake? It might have made a difference.
Her parents were right. Wally wanted her and she had no other options. And Barb had been right: take the easy route.
Dr Levitson had said it was her nerves. Dot knew it was no such thing, but she sipped thrice daily at the tonic meant to calm her nonetheless. It wasn’t nerves; it was heartbreak. Her broken heart looked for every opportunity to remind her of what she’d nearly had. The bus that wound its way to the factory in Bow was the very same bus she’d sat on the morning after the most magical night of her life, when she had danced in front of Etta James. Thoughts of the West End sparked memories of her fabric rainbow, then of the hand-stitched romper suit and the moment Mrs Dubois had pushed her ever so pretty Christian face up against the grill while she held Dot’s son. These terrible, painful thoughts were only ever a postal district, a street, a mention away.
‘But does it matter that I don’t love him?’ she’d asked her mum.
To Dot it seemed obvious: just like in the song, love and marriage went together. To her parents, however, love had nothing to do with it.
Joan’s face had puckered and her nose wrinkled as though Dot’s sentiments had a stench about them. ‘Love? Listen to yourself, Dot. What makes you think love is so important? Cos I’m here to tell you it isn’t. Love is what happens in the films, love is a little spark of fancying that dies, Dot; it dies. What matters is security, having a roof over your head and food in your belly. That, my girl, is real life, not chocolates and flowers and a quick fumble that gets your heart racing. Your dad and I are the exception, he knew what he was getting with me and I did with him. For you it’s different and what you and that fella had was different, it was a fling.’
‘We had so much more than that!’ She wanted to tell her mum how sometimes when she looked at his face it was as if she’d discovered happiness for the first time; of the way her hand fitted so snugly inside his, it was the closest she had ever felt to coming home. But she had neither the confidence nor the audience for such a speech.
Joan wasn’t done. ‘Did you? Did you really, Dot? Where has this “love” got you? I’ll tell you, shall I?’
Dot had known she would.
‘It’s got you in a whole heap of trouble, shredded your nerves and put me and your dad through the mangle. And all for what? A bucketful of memories and regrets. It has nearly ruined your life and smashed my family. No, my girl, we have tried doing things your way and that hasn’t worked out. This time, you’ll listen to us and we are telling you that you will marry Wally.’
Dot nodded. It was easier. Marry Wally, grow old and die. She couldn’t see anything else.
Her dad lowered the paper to add his tuppence worth. ‘And just so we are clear, you are packing up and leaving my house in three weeks’ time and that is either to marry Wally or to go on the street, as you put it. Thems is your choice!’
‘Nice to see you being as supportive as ever, Dad.’
‘Don’t you dare cheek me! I’ve told you your choices and that’s the bleeding end of it. I can’t believe we are even having this conversation. You should consider yourself very lucky that a decent bloke like Wally wants you and that we didn’t chuck you out months ago. It’s not only what you’ve done, it’s the fact that you weren’t sorry or embarrassed, not even a bit. Trust me, I thought about chucking you out, it was only because of your mother that you stayed.’
Oh I trust you.
‘And you are also very lucky that we’ve taken an interest. Lucky that someone, anyone, wants to take you on. In my day you’d have been on the scrap heap after your bloody antics.’ He gave an exaggerated shudder of revulsion.
‘I don’t feel very lucky.’
‘And whose fault is that?’ Joan chipped in with her arms folded high across her bust and her lips set in a thin line.
Mine. It’s all my fault. I thought love was important.
‘Can I have lippy on like you, Dot?’
‘What?’ Dee’s question brought her back to the present.
‘Can you do my lips like yours?’ Dee pushed her mouth forward into a grotesque pout.
‘Sure.’
Dot dabbed the lip brush on her sister’s mouth, then placed a bit of loo roll between her lips. ‘Press them together.’
Dee closed her mouth on the paper, leaving the smallest, palest cupid’s bow.
Dot stroked her little sister’s face. ‘You look lovely.’
‘You don’t, you look fed up. And you’re s’posed to be radiant and gay today.’
Dot couldn’t help but giggle. ‘Is that right? Where did you hear that?’
Dee shrugged and twitched her head. ‘Will you do sexing when you’re married?’
‘What?’ Dot hoped she’d misheard.
‘My friend Marcia says you can do sexing when you get married. Her sister got married and has done sexing three times and she’s got three babies. Mum and Dad have got us two so they have done it twice. So are you and Wally gonna do sexing?’
Dot shook her head and thankfully was spared from responding as Joan bustled in, already wearing her turquoise shantung coat with matching mini-dress underneath.
‘You nearly ready?’ Her tone was coaxing, trying to put a happy spin on the day. Her anxiety manifested itself in impatience: grabbing the hairbrush from the dressing table, she pulled Dee over to the bed and, wedging her youngest child between her knees, she started to brush at her curls, trying to rearrange her headdress.
Dot spoke to her mother’s reflection. ‘I don’t know if I am ready, Mum. I can’t think straight.’
Joan pointed the hairbrush at her oldest daughter. ‘I’ll tell you now, Dot, don’t you dare start, don’t you dare! Cos I’ve had it up to here!’ Joan indicated her exact level of exasperation by placing the hairbrush against her chin. ‘I’ve worked day and night on that spread and I’m not about to see it all go to waste because of more of your bloody shenanigans. You have to try, Dot, you do. This is your chance.’
Dot stood up in her under-slip and stockings, her face a little more made up than usual, but not much. ‘My chance for what exactly?’
Joan paused from her brushing and swallowed. She looked near to tears. ‘Please let’s not go over this again. Just try, that’s all I’m asking.’
‘You’re quite right, Mum. Far better I spend me life in abject misery than you let your ham sandwiches and cheese and pineapple on sticks spoil.’
‘D’you know what, Dot, I’ll be bloody glad when I wake up t’morra and you are not under my bloody roof!’ Joan yanked at Dee’s defiant curls and pinned plastic daisies where the fancy took her.
‘You’re hurting me!’ Dee squealed. ‘Ow!’
‘Me too, Mum. It’s the one thing that makes this whole pile of shit in which I find myself bearable – the fact that I can get out from under your bloody roof!’
Joan leapt up and stood inches away from her daughter. ‘I don’t know what’s happened to you, I really don’t!’
Dot stared at her mother. ‘Don’t you? Do you really not know what’s happened to me? Cos I do wonder sometimes. You act as if nothing has, but it has, Mum, something so big that I will never ever get over it.’