‘There is no end to the sugar on your tongue, I see,’ Loveness said with a smile as she relaxed into his touch.

Spokes gratefully smiled too before he said, ‘I promised you that I would retire, and I will. My application is sitting on Griffiths’ desk. Any day now it will start going through the process.’

‘Oh, I know you will do the right thing,’ Loveness said. ‘I have never doubted it.’ She allowed him to touch the soft folds of her gown and gently pull her closer still until their bodies touched.

‘You know Wives and Daughters is still unread,’ Spokes said, not quite able to keep the hope from his voice. ‘Maybe we can read it together tonight.’

‘Maybe. But it seems to me that there is no better time than the present,’ Loveness said, slowly raising an eyebrow.

‘So you think we can start reading the book now?’ Spokes said.

She looked at him and smiled her dimpled smile. ‘I don’t see why not,’ she said, leading him towards their bedroom.

Spokes leaned over and kissed the back of her neck in appreciation of all the softest and gentlest things.

Much, much later, carrying the His Master’s Voice gramophone he had inherited from his mother, Spokes followed Loveness as she took one of the kitchen chairs out of the house. She looked absolutely breathtaking in a turquoise chiffon dress, and Spokes would have followed her anywhere.

Together they walked towards the untarred road that was the street where they lived. She, in all her loveliness, put the chair on the ground and he placed the gramophone gingerly on top of it. He put his hand on the crank handle and wound it several times. The record started rotating, and the needle lifted its head briefly before gently settling on the black vinyl. As the needle travelled along the grooves of the record, ‘Hamba Hamba Madala’ by the Los Angeles Orchestra filled the air. When Spokes held out his hand and the lovely Loveness placed a beautiful brown hand in his, he could not help but marvel at how absolutely radiant she looked in the blush of dusk.

Man leads with right. Forward. Side. Close. Side. Back. Side. Close. Side. Slow … quick, quick … slow … slow, quick, quick … slow … slow …

As the Molois danced the quickstep in a promenade up and down the road, a light trail of dust following them like stardust, Loveness beamed her love up at Spokes, and he knew without a doubt that he was the luckiest of men.

In time, a small crowd gathered and watched the Molois dance into the twilight, and all was right again with Spokes’s world as he gazed into the eyes of his one good thing … his best thing … his truest thing.

February 1980

FEBRUARY 1980

Spokes

SPOKES