Dot (Araminta Hall)

cold February air, which obviously wasn’t going to work for a baby, but was the best he could manage right now. He parked down the road and fortified himself with a fag before going in, wishing he had something stronger. A strange need to see himself overtook him and so he flicked down his sun visor and looked into the mirror, which was tiny and cracked but still showed the sweaty, white face looking back at him.
    Eventually there was nothing to be done other than get out of the car and ring on the baronial bell. It was self-evident that this afternoon would put paid to his dreams, pathetic as they were. He’d have to get a proper job, probably cut his hair, start wearing a suit. He’d come home to his tea cooked and, if they were lucky, look forward all year to two weeks on the Cornish coast. His money would go on nappies and milk and Alice would never work because it was simply impossible to imagine her doing so. His hand hovered over the bell. It could be easy to forget this had ever happened. The baby wasn’t even real yet. Alice might miscarry. But his father’s red, bloated face swam before his eyes and so he pressed hard on the brass ball.
    Alice opened the door so quickly he wondered if she had been standing behind it. Her eyes were shining and she pulled him into the house, which seemed dark and cold.
    ‘Bloody hell,’ he whispered, ‘you didn’t tell me you lived in a mansion.’
    She looked around her and it seemed to Tony that she was seeing it for the first time, which made him feel even colder. She shrugged. ‘Mum’s in the drawing room. We’ve got the fire lit.’
    At least that sounded nice and friendly, so Tony let himself relax slightly. He touched her arm to hold her back for a second. ‘What was she like when you told her?’
    ‘Told her?’
    ‘Yes, you know, about us, the baby.’ Very occasionally Tony wondered if Alice was simple, because even when she said very clever things she didn’t seem to know what she was talking about.
    ‘Oh, I haven’t said anything yet,’ she answered, smiling brightly, as if it was completely normal to get him to come here with their news without preparing her mother in advance.
    ‘You’re joking, right?’
    She looked puzzled. ‘No. I thought that’s why you were coming.’
    ‘Christ, Alice.’ He really wished he’d had a drink now.
    ‘Come on,’ she said, taking him by the hand and leading him into one of the rooms off the hall.
    The drawing room – or lounge as he would have called it, although he could immediately see why the word was all wrong to describe such a room – was not nice and friendly. It was too big for a start, with a massive fireplace surrounded by what looked like marble, supporting a huge gold mirror. And the paintings, Christ, he’d never seen so many paintings, all worth a fair packet in Tony’s estimation and all of such peculiar subjects, like dogs and old women sitting by fires and country paths leading nowhere. The walls were the deep red of blood that has been exposed to the air for a while and the carpet was lush, folding over his feet. Disconcertingly there were also things everywhere; a multitude of silver and china perched like butterflies on little tables so that his head spun with all the reflected light.
    Then there was Clarice Cartwright herself, the woman who was going to become Tony’s mother-in-law and grandmother to his child. The thought ran into his feet and he wondered if he was going to faint. She was sitting very straight in a high-backed blue velvet chair, with a china cup and saucer on her lap. Tony hadn’t known that people actually used them outside of the TV costume dramas his mother had favoured; he couldn’t imagine drinking tea out of anything other than a mug. And the expression on her face was so – what was the word? – unforgiving, as if nothing he could say or do was of any consequence to her.
    ‘Clarice,’ said Alice, ‘this is Tony.’
    Tony jerked his gaze away from Mrs Cartwright for a moment. Surely he’d misheard? Surely she’d said Mum or Mother or Mama even?
    ‘Hello, Tony,’ said Mrs Cartwright. ‘And to what do I owe this pleasure?’
    Tony held out his hand. ‘Pleasure to meet you, Mrs Cartwright. I’ve heard lots about you from Alice.’ He knew he was getting everything wrong because her smile was too small and flat.
    ‘Please sit down.’
    Alice put her arm out to stop him. ‘No thanks. We won’t be long.’
    They wouldn’t be long? Tony looked