Dot (Araminta Hall)

pregnant?’
    ‘No.’ Then Dot was crying. ‘I can’t believe she didn’t tell me.’
    Her mother stroked her hair. ‘I expect she wanted to, Dot. Some things are very hard to say.’
    ‘What sort of friend am I? Too wrapped up in myself to even notice.’
    ‘It explains why she’s been acting strangely. Why she said she wasn’t going to university.’ Dot nodded, tears flicking round her face like fireflies. Her mother got out of bed, an air of purposefulness invading the air. ‘Come on, I’ll drive you.’ Dot looked up at her quizzically. ‘I take it that’s why you’re dressed, to go and see her. I’ll drive you.’
    Dot thought it was a beautiful day to be born: 12 June 2005. The air was soft and warm, with neither the suffocating heat of summer nor the bite of spring. The sun was shining out of a clear blue sky and the ground seemed to be pulsating with the presence of life. The roads were quiet, curtains were still drawn across windows and only industrious dog walkers watched them drive away. Her mother opened the car window and turned the radio on, Dot presumed to drown out the questioning silence between them. It was as if, now they found themselves in this unusually intimate situation, they didn’t know how to act. What was the weather like on the day I was born? Dot wanted to ask, but the words held too much weight to force them out of her mouth. What was my father like? Was he a nice man? Is he standing right now in Cartertown General taking a first look at his new granddaughter?
    They drew into the car park just before eight and Dot’s mum told her she’d wait in the car, to take as long as she needed. Even though the hospital obviously never slept, it still retained an early-morning atmosphere as Dot followed the signs towards maternity. The air felt still and close, expectant almost, as if it was trapped, marking time until someone opened a window. Two nurses in navy-blue uniforms, clipboards under their arms and smiles on their faces, were chatting by the reception desk.
    ‘Can I help you?’ one of them asked as Dot approached.
    ‘I’ve come to see my friend, Mavis Loveridge. She just had a baby.’ The words felt too unlikely, too real.
    ‘Oh yes,’ said the nurse. ‘But I’m afraid it’s not visiting time till eleven.’
    ‘But …’ Dot’s eyes misted with tears; she had to get a hold of herself.
    ‘Are you family?’
    ‘Yes. No, but nearly. Her dad just called me.’
    ‘What’s your name?’
    ‘Dot Cartwright.’
    ‘Hang on a sec,’ she said and disappeared through the double doors. Dot heard babies crying and women screaming, but the other nurse just smiled at her and looked down at her clipboard. Things were changing all around her, whole new worlds opening up, but to these women it was all nothing more than a working day. One person’s life is another’s pay packet, after all. The first nurse came back a few minutes later. ‘I really shouldn’t let you go through. She’s not even been moved to a ward yet. But she does want to see you. Ten minutes, OK?’
    Dot nodded, her head bobbing like a waving cat in the window of a Chinese takeaway. The nurse held open the door for her. ‘Second on the right.’
    All she had to do was walk. It was easy and yet her legs refused to move. It was preposterous to imagine that she was a few steps away from meeting Mavis’s baby, from seeing her friend so altered, for this newest of beginnings. Mr and Mrs Loveridge came out of the room and started to walk towards her so she had to do the same.
    ‘We thought we’d go and get a coffee, give you girls a minute,’ said Sandra and Dot was amazed by her. She looked as if she was shining, like someone had come in the night and polished her skin. In contrast Gerry looked grey, his mouth set in a downturn, his eyes ringed in angry black.
    The room containing Mavis and her baby was bright and much larger than Dot had anticipated. A wall of windows looked over the hills behind Cartertown and a strange-looking mini swimming pool stood in the centre of the room, filled with what looked to Dot more like blood than water. The bed stuck out of a wall and Mavis was lying on it, pale and blotchy, her face stained with something that Dot thought might be effort, a tiny white bundle in her arms. She looked up as Dot approached, her face breaking into the smile of her old friend.
    ‘Oh my God, Mave,’ said Dot, sitting down on the chair which had been pulled up next to the bed. The