Dot (Araminta Hall)

with me, so that by the end whenever I turned up she’d just push past me in the horrid huge black jumper she’s taken to wearing every day, like I’d asked her to go out, when I’d have far preferred her to stay in anyway.
    So we wound our sad, pathetic way around to last Monday, when I turned up as usual to squeak my way through scales I should have learnt months ago. Gerry, as he’d asked me to call him, seemed especially nervous; I could certainly smell the smoke on him. Mavis was long gone.
    ‘Do you know what’s wrong with her?’ he asked, rather desperately I felt, as we sat next to each other on the too-small piano teacher’s stool.
    ‘No,’ I answered truthfully, but relieved to hear it wasn’t only me she’d gone off.
    We started on a faulty C scale, but my brain felt like a sieve, totally unable to contain any of the information he was imparting. In the end Gerry sat back and sighed. ‘What are you really doing here, Dot?’ he asked.
    I couldn’t look at his face and so kept my eyes fixed on his hands, which were resting on the white keys. For the first time I noticed that his fingernails are long and filed, which is surely all wrong for a piano teacher. (Not sure why this is relevant, but it feels like it is.)
    ‘I think I know,’ he went on. ‘And I can’t pretend that I’m not flattered, but very surprised, I suppose.’
    To say that my heart was galloping is too much of a cliché, it was more gambolling like a little fawn on a warm spring day, which might not be a cliché but is certainly a very naff metaphor. This is it, I was thinking, oh my God, he’s going to tell me the news I’ve been waiting to hear all my life. He’s going to tell me how hard it’s been, how he’s been watching me all these years, how he couldn’t ever say anything because Mavis and I were born only a month apart and Sandra is obviously very delicate.
    ‘Why don’t we go upstairs,’ he said.
    I followed him up the staircase. He led me into his bedroom, which I did find a bit strange, but thought maybe he had some memento of my birth hidden in a secret place close to his heart.
    The bedroom itself was a bit of an assault on my senses as well, if I’m being honest. As I stood there looking at the sunflowers on the walls and the doilies on the dressing table and the swirling carpet at my feet I was so distracted by the thought of Gerry and Sandra standing in a shop and actually choosing this stuff that I hardly noticed when he started to slip my cardi off my shoulders. I think I even wondered if this was some strange father/daughter ritual that I didn’t know about.
    But then his breath was hot on my neck and he started gyrating against me so I could feel his erection like a rat in his pants. And let me make this very clear: I absolutely know that I could have said no at any time. I remember not making one sound, not even trying to push him off or anything. I didn’t encourage him, but I also didn’t try to stop him. I can’t tell you why I didn’t. The closest I can come to an explanation is, you know that feeling when you are so scared you can’t move (I get it when I’m watching horror films)? Well, I wasn’t scared, but I felt paralysed in the same way. This was a man I’d known all my life, father of my best friend and until a few minutes before presumed father of myself. AND THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT AS WELL. As soon as Gerry started breathing all over me and putting his hand up my skirt and shoving his tongue down my throat I took it that he obviously wasn’t my father. I clearly remember thinking that all of this palaver had been another bloody blind alley, like the stupid TV-watching or bogus photograph and that Gran had been right and if I don’t do as well as expected in my A Levels I can always blame my real dad. I thought about my mother a lot during the actual sex, which I know doesn’t sound right, especially when I’m trying to form a defence against incest, but I don’t mean it like that. I just kept thinking: Look what you’ve driven me to, you mad, stupid woman, are you happy now? Is this what you wanted?
    The sex was over so quickly I’m not sure we could be prosecuted anyway, and it hurt, like someone rubbing sandpaper inside me. I certainly derived no pleasure from it, if that makes it better. Afterwards Gerry seemed amazingly pleased with himself.
    ‘I hope you enjoyed that, Dot,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry it was a bit quick. But I can’t really get over all