Dot (Araminta Hall)

been too long.
    ‘Where were you?’ she asked. ‘And why have you come out? I didn’t call.’
    ‘Under Mum’s bed …’
    ‘What? But that’s not fair, you know I wouldn’t go in there.’
    Dot pulled Mavis into the bathroom and locked the door behind them. ‘Look what I just found under there.’ She handed over the photograph, which already felt like a precious possession to her. She watched Mavis look, studying her face intently, praying that she’d come to the same conclusion. Mavis sat on the side of the bath and Dot copied her so that they could both stare into the face of the handsome man.
    ‘Where did you say you found this?’
    ‘Under Mum’s bed. It was sort of trapped against the wall by the bed.’
    Mavis looked at Dot and her little face was so serious. ‘Do you think it’s him?’
    ‘Who else could it be?’
    ‘I think you’d know anyway,’ said Mavis authoritatively. ‘I mean, you must have some sort of bond.’
    ‘I was really excited when I felt it. I knew it was a photograph straight away.’
    ‘Well, you see.’
    They both looked again until Dot felt she wasn’t really sure what she was looking at any more, until the colours ran into each other and the background washed over the man’s face.
    Eventually Mavis handed the photograph back to Dot. ‘He must be.’
    Dot felt as if something was stuck in her throat, but the releasing tears refused to come. Instead she said, ‘I think it definitely is him.’

2 … Concealment
    Mavis switched off her mobile because it was easier to ignore Dot when she didn’t actually have to know that she was calling. The girl did not know when to let something go and if she had to tell her one more time that nothing had happened after the stupid sixth-form disco then she would scream. It had been six sodding weeks ago and still she was having to go through all the ridiculous details on an almost daily basis. Mavis had never lied to Dot about anything before and she wasn’t enjoying it now, it was just that the whole thing with Clive was a lie and she didn’t know how to make Dot understand any of it.
    Clive was nothing more than a poster on a wall, a pathetic schoolgirl crush, which Dot in her naivety called love. Mavis wondered if Dot would ever speak to her again if she were ever to reveal that after they’d dropped Dot home she’d sucked his dick and then let him fuck her in the back of his car. Dot still thought Mavis was a virgin: until that night Mavis had been a virgin. Dot still thought that one day Clive would see the error of his ways, dump Debbie and declare undying love on a moonlit night to her. Yet the reality was that he didn’t love anyone as much as himself and he hadn’t spoken to Mavis once since that night.
    Mavis was a clever girl, much brighter than her surroundings. She had lowered her sights and persuaded herself that she didn’t really even want to try for Oxford and that Manchester suited her so much better, for no other reason than that was where Dot was headed. She couldn’t wait to take Dot away from this dump, to show her that there were places where being clever didn’t get you ignored for ten years, that there were people out there who would love them and listen to them.
    She lay back on her bed now and curled herself into a ball, trying to erase the knowledge of the sickness that was relentlessly washing through her body. Her mother had complained the night before about the smell of vomit in the bathroom, if you could call meekly mentioning anything complaining. Any other mother might wonder why her teenage daughter had been sick every day for the past week or at least ask her if she felt OK. And if her mother didn’t ask then maybe her dad might or even her best friend. Mavis thought that she had been surrounded by selfish people all her life and it made her want to punch a few walls.
    She calmed herself with the thought that Dot wasn’t really fundamentally selfish, she had been made that way. If you asked Mavis it wasn’t Dot’s lack of father that was the problem, more her lack of mother. You would never meet anyone who seemed more like a replica of a person than Alice Cartwright. She reminded Mavis of the last sheet you print out of an ink cartridge; pale and blotchy with missing words. Last Saturday night they’d all been at Dot’s as per watching X Factor . Clarice had been groaning at everything that was said, which Dot found highly annoying, but which amused Mavis. Sometimes Clarice