Dot (Araminta Hall)

in me; a hot car, a huge tent, the smells of sawdust and sweat, sparkling ladies and men on stilts towering into the sky. But what the photo failed to do until that day was show me the obvious similarity between the two girls, who occupy it. They could be sisters, what with their chubby red cheeks and long ginger hair. And if you then look at Mavis’s dad, Gerald Loveridge, with his dumpy legs and short stature and ginger hair you would be forgiven for thinking that he was a father to both of them.
    Naturally the person I would have gone to with this theory was Mavis, who has listened diligently to all my father theories over the years. Even a few months ago I might have done, but like I said she’s changed so much recently I knew I wouldn’t get a sympathetic reception. Which is a shame really as it’d explain a lot to both of us; namely why our parents never speak and why both our mums are such freaks.
    After my little revelation I felt so shocked I went downstairs with the intention of confronting my mother and grandmother, who had quite obviously kept all of this a secret from me for ever. But there they were, sitting at our ridiculous dining room table with the shit-brown walls that Gran thinks are sophisticated but are really totally depressing and I felt like someone had punched me.
    ‘Didn’t you hear me calling?’ asked Mum, ladling some foul-smelling stew out of a pot in front of her. Did I mention that she is a completely disastrous cook? Of course she is, because food cooked without emotion is inedible. Who knows, maybe that’s where all the men in our family have gone, into the pot. Maybe we ate them all?
    I didn’t answer but instead went to stand by the fireplace, which has a mantelpiece laden with photos of my mother’s father, all in their individually polished silver frames. Not by either Mum or Gran, I hasten to add, but by Mary who’s cleaned our house twice a week for as long as I can remember. I picked up one of my grandfather bouncing my mother on his knee, a look of pure concentration on his face.
    ‘What on earth are you doing?’ asked Gran.
    ‘Just looking,’ I answered, willing one of them to make the connection.
    ‘Come and sit down,’ said Gran, ‘it’s getting cold.’ As if that would make any difference.
    So we sat and they ate and I fumed. ‘I’m going to learn the piano,’ I said finally, forming the idea as the words were leaving my mouth. ‘I’m going to ask Mr Loveridge to teach me.’
    Even my mother seemed to have heard this. ‘Why?’
    ‘Why? Because I want to learn.’
    ‘You’ve never said anything about that before,’ observed Gran.
    ‘Well, no, but I do. Seems silly to waste the opportunity of having a best friend with a piano teacher for a dad, wouldn’t you say?’
    My mother hummed something and my grandmother pushed her stew around her plate.
    ‘It’s quite odd, wouldn’t you say, Mum,’ I tried, ‘how Mavis and I are practically sisters but you and Sandra hardly speak.’
    Mum looked as though she might cry so Gran spoke for her. ‘For goodness’ sake, Dot, why on earth would anyone be friends with a drip like Sandra?’
    It was obvious that the information would have to come from Gerry Loveridge himself and, quite frankly, piano lessons seemed as good a way as any.
    It took Mavis about two weeks to remember to ask him as, like I’ve said already, she seems to have had her personality sucked out of her by aliens or something (you’ll have to take my word for this although I guess you could ask my mum), so that by the time she finally did I was feeling pretty wound up and desperate. The lessons were always disastrous, let me make that very clear. If Gerry is my dad (which I hope to God he isn’t) then he hasn’t passed on his musical talent to me. But we ploughed on for months, all through the winter, past Christmas. Me sitting there sweating, him taking more and more fag breaks and a build-up of tension rushing between us like a catastrophic tsunami. Of course I, like the idiot I am, thought that he was building up the courage to declare his parental claim on me, whilst God only knows what he thought I was building up to. Well, we do know; I’m just trying to make the point that I didn’t get it.
    Gran sighed every time I went for a lesson and even Mum said there were better ways to spend precious study time than learning the piano, which is about the only opinion I’ve ever heard her utter. Mavis got more and more surly