Dot (Araminta Hall)

she grabbed and thrashed with her conversation. ‘I wish we could meet more often,’ she said, longing for him to ask her to run away with him.
    He lit a cigarette and she could see frown lines between his eyes. ‘It’s hard, what with your mother, my shitty room, no money, sodding life.’
    ‘But maybe it doesn’t have to be hard.’
    Tony grunted. ‘Life’s always hard, Alice. Maybe not in your fairy tale castle, but for the rest of us it is.’ His voice sounded gruff and something curdled in her stomach.
    Besides, the insult had stung her and she felt tears popping at the side of her eyes, which she wiped furiously away. Somehow, somewhere, she’d always known that it could end this way and everything about the fact that she would die without him gave her courage. ‘Come on,’ she said, pulling him up and leading him into one of the many thickets on the east side of the hill. Once there she started to take off her clothes, pulling at his, standing on tiptoe to reach his mouth.
    ‘Steady on!’ Tony laughed. ‘What’s got into you?’ But Alice didn’t answer, kneeling before him instead and taking him into her mouth, feeling him harden against her tongue. ‘Fuck,’ he said from somewhere above her. Now she pulled him down so that he was on top of her, panting with the same desire that she felt. ‘Wait a second,’ he moaned, fishing a condom out of his pocket and every second that he wasn’t inside her was too long so she pushed her hips towards him. But once he was she found that nothing was enough, he could not get far enough inside her so that she was almost crying with rage at the inadequacy of the human body’s inability to turn itself inside out. She sucked him into her, pulling all of him, wanting part of him inside her for ever.
    He came with a cry. ‘Fuck,’ he shouted, ‘fuck, where did you learn to do that?’ But he was laughing as well as he rolled off. He sat up and then he said it again and this time the word sounded different. Alice sat up and saw the condom shredded in his hands.

4 … Trying
    I know I’m not perfect, my goodness no one needs tell me that. But I have tried my best, really I have, and yet all the evidence would suggest that I’ve failed pretty spectacularly. She should have told her years ago; in fact it never should have been something that needed telling, it should have simply been part of her knowledge, like the fact that I like marmalade for breakfast or that summer comes after spring. But I have known for years that my daughter is not going to; she’s not going to do anything much more than function. I don’t really blame her; I don’t think I gave her much of a start in life or much to hang on to in the way of understanding about love and relationships. In my defence I would say I found it very hard after Howie died to be properly present in anything, which I do realise is a poor excuse, but is at least true. I know she hates me and thinks I’m ridiculous and stuffy and maybe she’s right, but I do care, if only I could find the right words.
    I decided to tell Dot this morning because it’s her fourteenth birthday today. I don’t know why it suddenly seems the right thing to do, but I think she’s started wondering about things like who you are and where you’re from and I don’t want her to waste time wondering about things that should be obvious. Goodness, we all have a hard enough time working the rest out, we don’t need to start off on a losing foot. I sat on my bed, dressed and ready, waiting to hear her get up. When I heard her on the stairs I opened my door and asked her to come in for a minute. Of course she was surprised enough by this request not to question me. I know they both think I’m ridiculous about my things, but I have to keep them safe. Possessions are not just materials stuck together to make something, they hold time in their structure, meaning in their make-up. We are the guardians of their knowledge and without them we might as well all crumple up and accept the dust swirling around our feet. I appreciate this is an outdated concept in our disposable society, but I don’t see life getting any easier by virtue of the fact that we can throw everything away. And besides, when you understand all of this, you realise that you are only a guardian in life, which somehow makes things easier, or at least it has for me. What you do and how you behave matters because that is what carries our history, we are what makes up