Clover's Child (35 page)

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.

‘Me too.’ She reached over and kissed his mouth. Trying not to think of the torturous nights she spent feigning sleep and avoiding contact with Wally, poor Wally.

‘Your mum and dad doing okay? Dee?’

She nodded, unwilling to allow them entry into this little slice of paradise. This was Clover’s world.

‘Are you still proper soldiering?’ She laughed.

‘You are so cheeky!’ Sol dived on top of her, kissing her face and rolling her in the sand, squashing her beneath his frame.

When the sun had dried them, they jumped back into the car, which was cool from sitting in the shade.

Sol revved the engine and reached over for one final kiss before they drove off. ‘I need to make a stop-off on the way, is that okay?’

‘If you like. Where d’you need to stop off?’

‘I want to pick something up from home, but don’t worry, I can park at the back and nip in and out in minutes.’

‘Is your wife there?’

He nodded at the floor, unable to hide his guilt and nerves and yet so powerfully driven by the love he felt for his Clover that it overshadowed both of these negatives.

‘Oh God, Sol, it feels horrible to be sneaking around like this.’

‘I know, but it doesn’t feel like sneaking around, it feels right. I love you and if I hadn’t been forced to leave you, I wouldn’t have to sneak around, married to someone that I don’t fucking like, because I would be married to you and I would never have to sneak anywhere, ever in my whole life. I would be happy!’ He smacked his palm on the steering wheel. It was the first and only time she would hear him swear, see him lose his cool. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that word in front of you. I’m just angry at what I have had to miss and having you with me again has made me realise how very miserable I’ve been. So, forgive me for swearing, but I want no forgiveness for grabbing at the life I should be living, the life I could have had if other people had not interfered and ruined things for us. You asked if I am still a soldier – yes, I am, but in truth I’ve been at home, struggling. I almost lost my reason because of my grief at losing you, and I’m not better yet.’

Dot stroked the side of his face. ‘It’s okay, it will all be okay. I love you and that’s enough, isn’t it?’

He kissed her on the mouth. ‘I hope so, I really do.’

Sol stopped the car in a leafy lane, high up and surrounded by jungle. The grey roof of the house could be seen poking above the trees. It was huge. No wonder his mum had thought she wasn’t good enough; maybe she was right. Dot would have loved to have gone inside and had a look at where her beloved lived. She wanted to see the veranda that she had imagined on so many nights, picturing the two of them rocking in their swing seat, just as he had described it. She wanted to climb the staircase down which Sarah Arbuthnott had fled and up which Mary-Jane had skipped. Instead, she sat alone in the front seat of the car, all but hidden from view by the abundance of surrounding trees, waiting like a thief on the look-out, which in a sense she was. She began to fidget, taking the pins out of her hair and retwisting her bun.

‘Hurry up, Sol!’ she whispered as her sense of foreboding grew. She heard a noise approaching from behind her on the track; it was distinctive and yet took her a few seconds to recognise the sound of horses’ hooves. Two huge horses plodded up the lane. She could see them in the rear-view mirror and prayed that they would turn off before they reached the car; how she would explain her presence she didn’t know. She angled the mirror so she could see better.

One of the women she recognised instantly. ‘Oh shit!’

Vida wore a full riding habit despite the heat and laughed loudly with her mouth open as she patted the flank of her horse.
‘Can I call you a taxi?’
Dot’s heart raced. The girl on the horse next to her looked young. Dot felt her bowels turn to ice. The dark-skinned beauty with the flawless complexion and beautiful face was undoubtedly Sol’s wife. She held the title of Mrs Arbuthnott, something Dot knew she would never be called. But that was not what caused her heart to race. The young wife of the man she loved was also very pregnant.

No! No… Oh my God.
This changed everything.

The two women broke into a gentle trot and turned off right, towards the stable block. Dot placed her head in her hands and wanted to run away, but she was trapped, as she so often was, in a situation over which she had very little control. She was thinking about her baby, big brother to the child the girl was carrying. Life was cruel. For want of a different mother-in-law with a different set of tolerances, she would be the one living in this big house, on this paradise island and her little boy would be swimming with his dad instead of living in another country with two people that weren’t his real parents.

Sol made her jump as he raised the boot and placed a box inside it. He clambered into the driver’s seat before noting her expression.

‘What’s the matter? Don’t look worried – I wasn’t seen and I’ve left a note. We have the whole night together.’ He held her hand and kissed her fingers.

‘What’s your wife called?’

‘It’s not important.’

‘It’s important to me.’

Sol sighed. ‘Her name is Angelica.’

‘Is she pretty?’

‘Where is this heading, Clover?’

‘Please just answer me.’
I’m testing you.

Sol paused, considering how to respond. ‘Yes, she is very pretty and everyone tells me how lucky I am. But it makes no difference to me; I am in love with you and so she could be the prettiest girl on the planet, what does it matter? All I know is that she is not for me; you are.’

Dot nodded. ‘Is she pregnant?’

Sol pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, then nodded. ‘Yes, she is.’

‘Is she happy?’ Her mouth quivered, although no tears fell.

‘I don’t see how she can be. I think she is distracted by being pregnant, but I don’t see how she can be happy when her husband is a stranger to her and spends most of his time thinking about someone else. It’s a farce. Her parents are keen to be a bigger part of St Lucian life and I am the means to that. It’s an arrangement.’

‘Don’t you want to be a dad?’ This she whispered. Biting her tongue to stop from saying,
‘This will be your second child – you have a son, a beautiful son! They took him away from me.’

‘Please don’t make me say it.’

‘Make you say what?’

Sol turned until he was facing her and cupped her hand in his palms. ‘I don’t want to have a baby with anyone other than the woman I love and that woman is you. Every time I look at her pregnant state, I picture you and I dislike her a little bit more each time for tying me into this sham of a marriage. So help me God, that is the truth and it makes me a monster.’

‘Take me home, Sol.’

The car wound its way down towards the beach as the day slipped into night and the huge golden sun sank behind the sea. Dot stepped over the threshold of her little hut and lit the candles that were placed on every available flat surface. The room glowed with the flickering lights as her shadow loomed large against the wall. Sol lifted the cardboard box from the boot of his car. He came into the shimmering cabin and smiled at his love. It had been an unforgettable day.

He sat next to her on the sofa and held her hand. ‘You didn’t say a word on the way back.’

‘No, I know, just thinking.’

‘What were you thinking?’

‘That when happiness is taken at the expense of someone else’s and the consequence is misery for them, it’s not right. It’s too high a price.’

‘But shouldn’t people think of themselves sometimes? Don’t we deserve happiness?’

‘I don’t know. I know that I love you; I love you more than I ever thought possible and I know I always will. But can I hurt Angelica, can I hurt her little baby? I don’t think so.’ She shook her head and once again pictured Barb’s distraught face, followed immediately by Gracie’s mum being dragged along the shingle driveway.