Dot (Araminta Hall)

her mouth hanging open so that dribble was escaping on to the pillow. He shook her shoulder. ‘Come on, man, it stinks in here.’
    ‘I can’t move.’
    ‘Shit.’ Clive scanned the room and decided that a few copies of Heat would do the job as well as anything else. He scooped the sick off the floor, releasing more of the acrid smell, which made him retch until his eyes filled with tears. He wrapped the disgusting bundle up a few times and then stuffed it into her bin, which he put outside the door. He couldn’t hear any noises from downstairs, but he didn’t want to risk running into Debbie’s mother and all her jolly questions about the party.
    He was sweating and every time he bent over it felt as if his brain was going to roll out of his stinging eyes, so he opened the window and lay back down on the bed. Debbie’s eyes were open now, red and streaked in black. Her pillow was brown, smeared by her foundation. She smiled.
    ‘Good night anyway.’
    ‘Can’t really remember.’
    ‘You were pretty wasted.’
    ‘Unlike you, right?’
    ‘Nah, just, you know.’
    They lay in silence for a while. Clive didn’t think he could let his body go through this now, all his limbs felt like glass and his heart was heaving uncomfortably. He toyed with the idea of another drink to put the hangover off by a few hours.
    ‘Did you see Kai and Tash?’ Debbie asked.
    ‘No.’
    ‘They were going for it. Went back to hers.’
    Debbie always talked about other people; sometimes it made Clive feel dizzy, her ability to be so involved in lives other than her own. He reached for his BlackBerry and flicked on to Facebook: already a couple of people had written about the party, one of their friends had even uploaded some photos. It was hard sometimes to remember that he hadn’t yet become as famous as he knew he would be one day; especially when he was tired or hungover like now he forgot he wasn’t who he thought he was, forgot that he was reading about his own life.
    ‘Oh yeah,’ Debbie said, breaking into his thoughts. ‘Who the fuck invited Mavis and Dot?’
    Clive put his phone back down, looking at the small screen was hurting his eyes. ‘Dunno.’
    ‘How come they came then?’
    ‘I dunno, babe.’ He wished he was asleep.
    She sat up and he could feel the air prickle around them. If he’d been capable of it he’d have stood up and left. ‘It’s just Tash and I bumped into them in the toilet and she said you did.’
    ‘Who?’
    ‘Mavis said you invited them.’
    ‘Shit, Debs. What are you going on about?’ Clive felt too ill to decide what the best approach was to any of this.
    ‘They pissed me off. Standing by the wall all night like the losers they are. And she was so drunk, Mavis. She was caning it and, like, I just thought why the fuck should she drink all our booze and so when they went to the toilet I followed her and asked her what the fuck she was doing there and she looked at me, bold as fucking brass, and says, Oh, didn’t you know, Clive invited us. Made me look like a prize wanker.’
    Clive groaned. ‘Are you seriously gonna do this now?’
    ‘Just answer the fucking question.’
    ‘What fucking question?’
    ‘Did you invite her?’
    ‘No. I mean – maybe. I dunno. I invited everyone in my mobile, maybe I did by accident.’
    Debbie lay back down at this. ‘I hate her and her stupid ginger friend. They think they’re so much better than the rest of us, just because they’re clever.’
    Clive wondered what being clever did mean, but the thought was too much for his addled brain. ‘Don’t sweat it, babe.’
    ‘But Dot was really rude to me. I just commented on how much weight Mavis was carrying and she told me I had a net-curtained future or some shit like that. What d’you think that means?’
    ‘Shit, how should I know, they’re freaks.’ But Clive had to suppress a smile, his head suddenly filled with an image of Debbie peering out of a window from behind net curtains, worried by what people were doing, worried by what others thought of her. He knew he didn’t want to be in the room behind her.
    Then it clicked into place: that was what had been different about Mavis; she’d piled it on. A shiver went through Clive, he hated fat birds. They had no respect for themselves and if you didn’t respect yourself then who the hell was going to respect you? Rappers were all big on respect and so Clive was big on respect as well. Fat men were all right, obviously, lots of