Dot (Araminta Hall)

poster for the Russian circus in Cartertown, just before Christmas. She wrote the number on a receipt that she found at the bottom of her perpetually messy bag. She decided to buy tickets for her, Gerry, Mavis, Alice and Dot. It was exactly what they all needed.

8 … Confession
    In defence of Dot Cartwright
    16 April 2005
    (To be used as my defence if I do get arrested as I don’t think I’ll be capable of actually explaining any of this in words)
    (Also, please note the date – I am not eighteen for another four months (6 August) and so am still legally a child, I presume)
    The first point that I’d like to make is that I absolutely did not think I was committing incest when I slept with him. You might find that hard to believe, but I think I’m a bit slow emotionally and it really and truly was only afterwards that I figured it out. I don’t know if this makes any difference; it certainly isn’t giving me much comfort.
    OK, I think I need to explain something about my family to give you some idea as to how I got here – I believe they call it mitigating circumstances. My mother has never, and I really do mean never, told me anything about my father. I don’t even know his name. My grandmother did tell me a weird story about him running off with a barmaid called Silver on the day of my second birthday after saying he was going out to buy some extra balloons. But I mean, come on. Only a woman who has never been inside a pub would actually think that barmaids are called Silver, it’s like a boxer called Butch, and what sort of wanker would leave on his daughter’s second birthday anyway?
    If you knew my gran you’d get why she said it. She hates mess and chaos and anything resembling emotion. Her and my mum have the freakiest relationship you’ve ever seen. I mean, Mum calls her Clarice and if they accidently touch they sort of shiver, like they’ve given each other an electric shock. But sometimes I’ve wondered if they communicate telepathically or something because Mum’s never shown any desire to move out and they do seem to anticipate each other in quite a weird way.
    Gran has all these rules about life which took me years to figure out were bogus. Our house is like some giant shrine to her past and so everything she owns is, by her estimation, priceless. There are loads of chairs you can’t sit on in our house, some even round the dining room table. Almost all the china is only to be looked at and her room is completely sacrosanct. Daffodils are common, as are the words ‘pardon’ and ‘toilet’, which was pretty confusing as a child as if you say ‘what’ and ‘loo’ at school you tend to get told off for being rude. Most people outside of our family are ‘ghastly’ or ‘common’, although strangely ones she gets to know like Mavis then almost become family. Oh and (I am not making this up, check her bathroom wall) she thinks we’re related to God, thanks to some ridiculous family tree that an obviously mad uncle of hers had made that traces us right back to Jesus and Mary Magdalene, a theory which would probably still get you burnt at the stake in some countries.
    Then there’s my mum. Where to start with her? She’s one of those women who looks like she should be fantastic. I mean, she is really beautiful and I’m not seeing her through rose-tinted glasses because those came off many, many years ago – if they were ever on, that is. She was nineteen when she had me and the other day I realised that she is still younger than all those women on the pages of Hello and Heat who get described as yummy mummies and do the school run in leather trousers. She could be so cool my mum, but of course she isn’t. She has completely no idea of the effect she has on men, although I do, as I have not inherited her looks (we’ll come to this later as it’s an important part of this story). So I have to stand there as delivery boys stand open-mouthed or shopkeepers get tongue-tied as she glides past. Although maybe there’s a price to pay for the beauty because sometimes I think if they got to know her they might not be so impressed because she’s not actually real. I don’t know how to describe her any better than this. I know she loves me and would probably do anything for me, but it is so far from enough it’s a joke.
    Mavis, my best friend, used to tell me to just ask her who my father is, but she stopped years ago. And I know you’ll find that hard to believe. You’ll come and