Dot (Araminta Hall)

Mavis would ask Dot when she was still too young to understand the impossibility of the situation. Of course she’d understood for years now; she’d worked out long ago that families, unless they inhabit American TV shows, do not communicate when they speak. Now her hopes for redemption for both of them centred on late-night conversations in student digs illuminated only by fairy lights and candles in which they’d amuse their fellow students with tales about their lunatic mothers, making themselves sound so much more interesting in the process.
    Mavis and Dot had often speculated whether they’d been drawn together because of this; they’d even made themselves blood sisters at some single-figured age and then had their noses pierced together in a shabby tattoo parlour in Cartertown when much too young. Dot’s grandmother had been the only adult in their lives to comment on this and even she had limited her disapproval to a shake of the head and a sharp intake of breath, something which had pleased them less than an observer might have thought. Two weird lonely little girls feeling their way through life without any real guidance. The thought was enough to make Mavis turn her phone back on, but as soon as she did it bleeped the arrival of a message. She pressed the screen and her heart flipped pathetically when she saw it was from Clive.
    Yo! Debs n C r havin a hip hopping NYE party. Druith Cricket Club. 8 till late. Respect.
    It was enough to make Mavis want to cry, although she never would have done. He thought so little of her he was happy to fuck her, not speak to her for six weeks and still invite her in a group text to his party. Why not shit on her doorstep while he was at it? Although probably she only had herself to blame. He’d been joined at the lips to Debra Paulson since year nine and she had the wardrobe of Kylie Minogue and the body of a porn star, as well as the reputation for never refusing anal sex. And Mavis had gagged. She’d been trying to block out the memory since it had happened but it refused to leave her alone, worrying her like a bad dream. She had been reassuring herself by repeating the mantra, ‘It had only been for a second, maybe he hadn’t noticed?’ Mavis groaned and lay back heavily on to her bed; of course he’d noticed. He’d noticed and told all their friends; right now boys she had known since primary school were doubling over at the tale of that frigid freak Mavis. But it had been a shock. She’d read enough Anaïs Nin and Nabokov to expect his dick to taste salty and fishy like the sea, but it hadn’t, it had tasted of sweat and even (faintly) of urine and she’d been overwhelmed by the thought that she might as well be licking a toilet seat, which had made her gag, just for a second.
    Her phone rang and it was inevitably Dot.
    ‘Hello.’
    ‘Mave, did you just get a text?’
    Her friend sounded so over-excited she wanted to put the phone down again, she even contemplated lying, but knew it was useless. ‘You mean the one from Clive?’
    ‘Like, hello? Of fucking course.’ Mavis felt herself sink lower, as if her body was melting into the sheets. ‘I mean I didn’t even know he had our numbers.’
    ‘Of course he’s got our numbers. We’ve sat in small classrooms with him for most of our lives.’
    ‘Yeah, but …’
    ‘He’s gotta fill the cricket club.’
    ‘But still.’
    ‘Yeah, well.’
    There was a pause and then the question Mavis had been dreading. ‘You are going, aren’t you?’
    ‘I sort of thought not.’
    ‘But why?’
    ‘Cos he’s basically a dick.’
    ‘Clive’s a dick? When did this happen?’
    ‘It didn’t happen, he’s always been a dick, I just hadn’t noticed before.’
    ‘Fuck.’
    ‘Fuck what?’
    ‘I mean, what’s got into you, Mave? You’ve got so moody lately and now you’re saying Clive’s a dick when I’ve sat up with you on many nights discussing the fineness of his arse.’
    ‘Yeah, well, you can be fit and still a dick, so.’
    ‘Right.’
    ‘I mean, fuck, we live in the middle of fucking nowhere and he’s having a hip hop night and in the fucking cricket club. I mean, please. He’s probably never even been to London, it’s so far on a fucking coach. And New Year’s Eve. That’s like ten weeks away or something. It’s tragic.’
    ‘OK, don’t come then, I’ll go on my own.’
    ‘Come on, don’t guilt trip me.’
    ‘Whatever. Have you asked your dad yet?’
    ‘Shit, I hoped you