Dottie Read online

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  True to her word, the social worker came to see her every one or two weeks. At first Dottie said nothing, looking away from the woman with a blank expression on her face, and suffering her fussy ministrations with the dumb surliness of the oppressed. She was afraid of her, as she had been of the teachers and the supervisor at work and the policewoman. They talked to her so firmly, and made her feel silly and inept. It was worse than that, really, she thought. They made her feel dirty: grubby and covered with mud and ochre like the savage. And although she knew nothing, or only a little more than nothing, about her history, she was ready to give it all up to escape that kind of contempt. Somebody else could have all that. Why could she not be the same as everyone else?

  While the woman was there Dottie listened to her questions and her words of encouragement without bothering to make a reply. Afterwards, when she had gone, she thought of her own cowardice with remorse and self-pity. The woman made her feel so small and pathetic that she had been ready to feel contempt for what she was, to wish herself one of them. It was wrong of her to wish that, she told herself. It gave in to their injustice of wanting to exclude her, of wanting to make less of her than she already was. She belonged here. So did Sophie and Hudson. And they all belonged as they were. Yet in her heart she had conceded to them, and had agreed to let them make her a foreigner. She tried to remind herself that she belonged here when the supervisor at work was telling her off for sitting down when she was tired. You people can’t be trusted to do anything right. Dottie tried to take no notice of the she-goat, but she could not help dropping her eyes with shame.

  One Saturday in the autumn, the social worker brought news of Hudson. Dottie had been sitting by the window, feeling wretched and alone as she watched leaves torn from the elm tree swirling in the high winds of the season. Mrs Holly said Hudson had started in his new secondary school and was having a good time in Dover. She showed Dottie a letter from the foster mother with a photograph of Hudson on a donkey. Husdon was grinning from ear to ear, holding a stick high in the air as if he was a jockey. The social worker left the photograph behind, saying that it should go in the file really but Dottie could have it for a while. She studied it carefully when she was on her own.

  It must have been taken on the cliffs earlier in the summer, she thought, because she could see the sea in the background. The sun was shining, making Hudson squint in one eye as he looked into it. Another boy about Hudson’s age was holding the donkey’s tether, and he too was grinning. She thought it was a lovely picture and, even though she could not fully dispose of her suspicions that perhaps the photograph had caught the only happy moment Hudson had had since being taken away from London, she could not resist a smile whenever she looked at it. She hid the photograph in the biscuit tin that contained her meagre hoardings, birth certificates and one or two old photographs, hoping that the social worker would forget about it. Mrs Holly did ask for the photograph back but Dottie said she had lost it. The social worker gave her a long look, and then shrugged with exaggerated indifference. Dottie saw the beginnings of a sly, friendly smile on her face and could not supress her own grin.

  Mrs Holly had brought with her an abridged copy of David Copperfield which she had taken out of the library. She told Dottie the outline of the story, how the unhappy orphan boy was taken in by a relative who lived in Dover and grew up to find fame and fortune. ‘Just like Hudson will,’ she said, her nostrils flaring with emotion. The book was illustrated, and Mrs Holly opened it on a page that showed a picture of a thin woman chasing a boy on a donkey across the cliff. Behind her the boy David was watching the scene with a comical look of horror on his face.

  The picture of Hudson on a donkey made me think of the book. I had a vague memory of that illustration,’ the social worker explained. ‘And both boys are in Dover.’

  ‘Is that David Copperfield?’ Dottie asked, pointing at the picture of the horrified little boy. She smiled as she thought to herself how like Hudson he looked.

  ‘That’s better!’ cried Brenda Holly. ‘You should smile more! Do you know that’s the first time I’ve seen you smile since . . . oh, I don’t know when!’

  Dottie wiped the smile off her face and waited for Mrs Holly to go. Once she started the book she read it all the time she could spare: in her room in the evening, on the bus to work and on her way home. There were times when she was so angry with the way that everybody was mistreating David that she shut the book and shook it with frustration. She did not like Mr Micawber one bit, thinking him a useless old man who was always bombasting about things and then getting into debt. She was not too delighted with Emily or Dora either, such useless creatures, although the latter was saved from Dottie’s utter contempt because her love for David was so true. She was filled with joy when the poor boy became a rich and famous man. Just like Hudson would. She had had no idea that books contained such riches. It took her a few days to work up the courage, but one Saturday morning after buying her vegetables and meat at the market, she walked across the road and joined the library. She had meant to do this before, and seeing the library there every time she went shopping made it easier in the end.

  She borrowed other books by Charles Dickens and was at first delighted by their size. They turned out much more difficult to read than the abridged David Copperfield. She tried taking out smaller books but they were just as difficult. In the end she asked the social worker for advice. Mrs Holly flushed with a mixture of pleasure and embarrassment, her smiles jostling with her anxiety about the answer she had to give. She told Dottie that she had found the book in the children’s section. Dottie swallowed her pride, and the following Saturday went to the children’s section to look for books she could read.

  A kind of friendship began to grow between them. Sometimes Mrs Holly rushed in on her way to somewhere, with a small present or just a word of greeting. She found Dottie a better paid job in a factory off Kennington Park Road. She made the Cypriot landlord decorate the room and repair the window. He had, in any case, taken to treating Dottie as one of his charitable enterprises, and brought her gifts of philosophy and whatever worldly wisdom he could spare. He told her his name was Andreas, and he came from a beautiful fishing village not far from Larnaca. He and his brother left Cyprus to make their fortunes. The brother went to Canada and now cleaned toilets in Toronto. Nobody heard anything from him any more. He, Andreas, had become a businessman, with seven houses from Camden to Brixton, and without his help a whole crowd of useless relatives in Cyprus would have to work for a living.

  Now and then Andreas brought small things for the room: a framed picture of an Arctic landscape which had been left behind by a tenant in one of his other places, a porcelain figurine of a country girl dancing which he had picked out of builder’s rubbish in the street. He never came into the room, but delivered his discourses and his gifts at the door when he came for rent. Before he departed, he usually managed a gallant remark, more as an expression of his virility and manliness than because he admired any of Dottie’s meagre attractions. Mrs Holly encouraged Dottie to make the most of the landlord’s goodwill, but Dottie found it difficult to overcome her mistrust of him.

  With Mrs Holly, sooner or later in their conversations, Dottie would bring up the subject of Sophie and Hudson. When were they coming back? Mrs Holly tried to argue with Dottie, telling her that the present arrangement was for the best, that Dottie should take the opportunity to sort something out for herself instead of looking to shoulder those old burdens. ‘Honestly, my love, they are better off where they are,’ she pleaded. But she saw the grim look return in Dottie’s face and knew they would have to talk again.

  Mrs Holly got an invitation for Dottie to spend Christmas with a Quaker family in Wimbledon. They did not know Dottie, they just wanted someone who was on her own over Christmas and who would appreciate company. Dottie refused, saying she wanted to spend Christmas with her family. She was eighteen, she had a good job, a place to live. Why could her brother and s
ister not come to live with her? Mrs Holly left without a word, leaving her present for Dottie on the chest of drawers as she went out. It was a pair of pillow-cases and a bed-sheet. Inside the folds of the bed-sheet was a Penguin paperback copy of Brave New World. She wrote her name proudly in it – Dottie Balfour – and spent a lonely Christmas reading and then re-reading the book, weeping whenever she reflected on the sadness of her life.

  By the late spring Brenda Holly was weakening. Dottie had been living on her own for nearly a year, and had shown every sign of being able to cope. In all that time she had not been allowed to see her sister or her brother once. She had not been allowed, she reminded Brenda, when there was not one good reason to justify this prohibition. Mrs Holly could not resist in the end, and she arranged for Dottie to visit Sophie in her school in Hastings. The school’s matron – matron was preferred to headmistress to emphasise a caring ethos – did not approve of the visit, and only agreed to allow Dottie to come because she was persuaded that the elder sister was on the point of cracking up for a sight of Sophie. The matron thought they had done a good job of saving their charge from the wayward ways of her past, and she did not want her upset by reminders of that life so soon after her redemption. In her Sussex school, Sophie had found God, although she could hardly have missed Him in an institution run by the Church of England. This knowledge of God, however, had not done anything to disturb the normal tranquillity with which she regarded the vicissitudes of life.

  The school was a long, converted terrace of small, three-bedroomed houses. Most of the front doors and back doors had been pulled out and bricked up. The doors that remained, one at either end and another one in the middle, had been widened and been made more grand. Above the middle door was a stone plaque carrying the name of the institution, the Archbishop Lanfranc School for Girls, but none of this diminished the appearance the school had of being jerry-built and insubstantial. Rows of small-paned sash windows were fixed at frequent intervals in the brick wall. The small gardens in front of the terrace had been joined together to make a long narrow strip of lawn, cut off from the pavement and the road by an ornamental chain. The front obviously did not receive much sun, for the lawn was bare in places and covered with moss. Dottie had been preparing herself to expect a prison, with blank walls and barbed wire, to be intimidated by guards and iron bars across windows, perhaps even fierce dogs patrolling the courtyards, but was faced instead with this grubby and dingy block that looked more like the offices of a small family business than a prison.

  She used the middle door and found herself standing in a cramped hallway with a door leading off on either side. Against the inner wall and facing the front door was a gas fire, burning fiercely and very quickly making Dottie steamy in her damp coat. The door on her right was labelled Office, and below that label was another sign that said Please Knock and Enter. A notice board beside the door displayed a copy of the fire insurance and details of mustering points in case of fire. An assortment of other notices enjoined their readers to brush their teeth, join the St John’s Ambulance, and to be sure to wipe their feet when entering the building from outside. The floor-boards rocked under her feet as she moved forward, and she thought she heard a movement behind one of the doors.

  Dottie knocked on the door that said Office, and after a moment a short, pleased-looking woman appeared. She smiled brightly, her eyes twinkling as she shook hands and introduced herself as the matron. ‘Of course Matron is not my real name. My name is Mrs Temple, but I’ve given up trying to tell the girls that and now I call myself Matron with what grace I can manage. It’s a terrible day for May, isn’t it?’ she said, unbuttoning Dottie’s coat without further ado. Dottie was taken so completely by surprise that she made no protest, and forced herself not to cringe as the Matron’s fingers fumbled with the buttons. ‘You must’ve had a terrible journey, my dear. All the way from Sidcup or something, wasn’t it? Come in here and sit down in front of the fire. You must be frozen!’

  Another gas fire was roaring even more fiercely in the matron’s office, in front of which an old and fat corgi was stretched out. The dog turned its head round curiously, then as if it had recognised Dottie it got up and waddled over to greet her. Dottie froze while the dog sniffed round her. ‘Go back to sleep, Issy, there’s a good boy. Go on, you lazy old brute!’ the matron said, leaning down to slap the dog affectionately before pushing it away. ‘You wouldn’t know it to look at him now but when he was a puppy he had such a fur on him that we called him Isfahan. Like a Persian carpet, you know. Have you ever been to Persia, my dear? My husband went there once, just a private visit. He brought back one of those beautiful rugs from Isfahan. No, Issy, I wasn’t calling you. Look at the poor old boy, he’s so threadbare and tired. Sit down, my dear. Don’t be frightened of him, he’s nothing but a big baby. Nearer the fire, don’t be shy.’

  Having settled her guest comfortably, the matron sighed with satisfaction and offered Dottie a gentle smile. She sat like this for a long moment, her face inscrutable with kindness. Dottie found the pose intimidating, and began to wonder if she was expected to open the conversation. The fire was making her hot and the air in the room was stifling, a fug of dog smells and old carpets, and underneath that just a hint of perfume or medicine. At last the matron smoothed the smile from her face and leaned towards Dottie. ‘Now then, you’ve come to see Sophie, haven’t you?’ she said. Like someone writing a title at the top of a page and underlining it, Dottie thought. ‘She is such a sweet creature, such a friendly, natural child. The other girls have been magnificent with her. They’ve adopted her as a kind of mascot, I think. She seems to be very popular, and is always surrounded by crowds of them. I thought you might like to know that. At this school we believe that the most effective remedial therapy we can offer our children is affection and care, and we encourage that creed in all the girls at the school. I am glad to say that Sophie has taken to it with pleasure, and has benefited immeasurably from the experience. I know you’ll be as pleased with that news as we are.’ The matron paused in what she was saying, her eyes smiling distantly.

  ‘Which brings me to what I have to say next,’ she continued after a moment. She leaned forward to stroke her dog, which growled playfully as if it had been disturbed in tricky reveries. The matron glanced at Dottie to see if she had noticed Issy’s mischief. Then she picked up a file that was lying on a table beside her and opened it. On a label pasted on the front of it were the names Sophie Balfour, written in a large flowing hand. The matron glanced at the label, then put the file down beside her. In the dramatic silence that followed she sat still for a moment, then looked up and started to speak. ‘I won’t pretend anything with you, and I hope you won’t mind what I have to tell you. I was not pleased when I heard from your social worker. I knew that in due course such a meeting as this was bound to take place, but I feel that now is too soon. I think Sophie is doing very well here and I am not convinced that she has had enough time to pull herself together after all those years of being neglected. This is no fault of yours. You yourself were as much a victim as poor Sophie, perhaps even more so. From what Sophie has told me, I can tell you that you have my warmest sympathy. It must have been impossibly difficult for both of you.’

  The matron glanced at Dottie’s scrawny frame with mild pity, and looked into her eyes briefly before looking away with a sigh. ‘I understand why you want to see her. You are her sister, after all, and I can tell you she is terribly excited at the thought of your arrival. None of which is at all surprising, of course. Don’t imagine that I am unable to understand that . . . However, I still feel that for Sophie’s good you should make such visits extremely infrequent, until the poor child is completely out of danger. I hope you understand me, my dear, and will see that my sternness is for your sister’s own good. And perhaps, if you don’t mind my saying so, for your own good too. Your social worker speaks highly of you, but I know that she too is concerned that this meeting is taking place, when your own circumstances are so
fraught with uncertainties. Of course, you are not my problem, your sister is. You are probably aware that Sophie is a little backward. This is nothing to be ashamed of. We can’t all be the same. She will not become a great inventor or anything wonderful like that even if she stays with us for a hundred years, but there is no reason why, with proper remedial care, she should not be able to learn to look after herself. But she needs expert care! And she needs time! So forgive me, my dear, but I must absolutely insist that your visits, such of them as I may allow, should occur only rarely.’

  The matron had got progressively sharper as she spoke, so that when she reached the end of her speech, her teeth were bared slightly and her eyes were flashing with anger. Dottie nodded meekly, although what she wanted more than anything else was to reach across and slap the woman across the face for the cruel things she was saying. She should have somebody my dear her while she listened to a sermon about her useless sister and why she should be locked up in a prison and see how she liked it. Dottie kept silent, afraid to reply in case the matron refused to have Sophie meet her. After another moment’s silence, the matron shook her head. ‘Did you understand what I said to you, my dear?’ she asked, her voice a mixture of perplexity and kindness. Dottie guessed that she was not expected to notice the meanness that lurked under the fussy warmth of the matron’s manner.