Dot (Araminta Hall)

I was going to tell anyone about what had happened and anyway, I know hardly anyone, which was another thing I realised as I lay simmering in that bath. I wrapped a towel round my body, picked up my clothes filled with my misdemeanour and opened the door. Grandma was sitting in the wicker chair that we have on the landing, looking strangely at me.
    ‘Do you know what time it is?’ she asked pointedly.
    I didn’t but realised it must be past nine-thirty, which is when she takes her bath, at the same time every night, and woe betide anyone who gets in her way. There are two more bathrooms in our house, I’d just like to point out, but for some reason the landing bathroom is Grandma’s. ‘No.’
    ‘It’s my bath time.’
    ‘I’m sorry, I forgot.’
    ‘I don’t ask for much in this house, Dot. I don’t make many demands, when by God I could. But I do take my bath at the same time every night and have done for so long I’m quite surprised you’ve never noticed.’
    ‘Of course I’ve noticed. It was a mistake.’
    ‘A mistake? Oh, so that’s OK then, as you might say.’
    I felt like something was falling through my body, like a lift plummeting through floors. ‘Gran, I’m not feeling great, I’m really not in the mood for this.’
    She stood up at this and for a second I thought she was going to say something important. ‘What are you in the mood for then, Dot, because you don’t seem very well at the moment?’ I tried to detect something caring in her voice but couldn’t. Wasn’t it obvious anyway?
    At that moment Mum came silently up the stairs, surprising both of us. ‘What’s going on?’ she asked.
    ‘Dot decided to have a bath when it’s my bath time and now she’s not in the mood to talk about it.’
    ‘My God,’ I said, ‘why is it such a big deal?’
    ‘It’s not a big deal in itself,’ said Gran. ‘It’s the principle.’
    ‘What principle?’ I shouted.
    ‘Dot, please,’ said Mum and we both looked at her but she didn’t seem inclined to elucidate.
    ‘God,’ I shouted, ‘look at us. What’s wrong with us? There’s a whole world out there you know, getting on with life, having fun.’ Then I stamped upstairs to bed where I cried myself to sleep and woke up this morning in my towel with my hair like a scarecrow’s round my head.
    I got that feeling when you wake up where you feel OK for a minute and then you remember and you want to put your head under the pillow and go back to sleep. I had never been rude to my grandmother before and I couldn’t imagine what was waiting for me downstairs. I lay in bed for a while but then decided that I either had to face them now or later and so I might as well get it over with.
    Mum was in the kitchen washing up when I got down and she looked jittery and nervous when I came in.
    ‘Sorry, for last night,’ I said.
    She turned round at this, letting her soapy hands drip all down her skirt and on to the floor. ‘I do get it you know, Dot,’ she said. ‘I mean, Druith is very small. There was a time I wanted to leave, you know.’
    This was news to me and I wanted to know more. ‘There was? When?’
    She turned back to the sink. ‘It doesn’t matter. I just mean I know it can be frustrating. But you’ll be leaving soon, going off to university. You don’t have to put up with it for much longer.’
    There were, I realised, many unsaid words circling in the air, but I didn’t know how to access them. ‘Is Grandma really angry?’
    ‘She’s under the apple tree.’
    I knew Mum wasn’t going to help any more than that so I went out, walking across the lawn as if I was going to the gallows. Gran was in her chair, sipping tea. She watched me approach.
    ‘I’m sorry, Gran. I didn’t mean those things I said last night.’
    She replaced her cup in its saucer and looked up at me. ‘It’s all right, Dot, you don’t have to apologise,’ she said and I was more shocked by this than if she’d shouted. ‘I know it’s hard for you. It’s probably always been hard and I’m sorry.’
    I didn’t know what to say to that and so I smiled and walked away. I walked across the grass and wondered how long we would all go on not saying his name. I wondered if I would reach my mother’s age and my mother my grandmother’s and whether we still wouldn’t have talked about him. I wondered if I’ll make it to university without that knowledge. If I’ll be able to hold down a relationship or a job without the knowledge of half