Dot (Araminta Hall)

and daughter and for a second felt unworthy of even breathing the same air as the people who brought life into the world.
    Alice rolled her head to the side and smiled at him. ‘Are you happy she’s a girl?’
    ‘Of course. Are you?’
    ‘I didn’t mind,’ she answered, which Tony thought was probably true. Secretly he’d hoped for a son, but now the baby was here he could see that it didn’t matter. Alice winced as Dora sewed her up.
    ‘I can’t believe how amazing you were,’ said Tony. ‘I lost it when we got in here.’
    She laughed. ‘Don’t worry, I didn’t notice.’
    ‘Were you scared? What were you thinking about?’
    ‘I can’t remember. Actually I can, but it’s so strange. At one point I thought about, you know, how sometimes you see beetles lying on their backs with their legs waggling in the air?’ Tony nodded. ‘Well, I’m never leaving one like that again.’ He laughed. ‘And then I thought about my mother. I thought about her doing all this and it seemed impossible.’ She shook her head as if ridding herself of the thought.
    ‘I can’t believe how’ – he searched for the word – ‘how violent it was. Did it really hurt?’
    Alice nodded. ‘D’you want to hold her? I think she’s finished.’
    Tony looked down at his daughter, so small it was ridiculous. He stood up and lifted her into his arms and she was so light it was almost as if she didn’t exist. Alice shut her eyes and he went to stand by the window, looking down into the car park as the sky over the hills broke into a pinkish dawn. A cacophony of emotions knocked at his heart and it felt dangerous to let them all in. I will be a better man, he promised himself as he held his daughter in his arms. I am a lucky, blessed man. We’ll get through this together, I won’t let you down.
    ‘So,’ Dora said from behind him, ‘has baby got a name? I like to know the names of all the babies I deliver.’
    Tony looked over at Alice, who opened her eyes. He’d been trying to discuss names with her for weeks, but each time he’d made a suggestion, she’d shrugged him off.
    ‘You’ve got some ideas, haven’t you?’ she said and so Dora looked at him.
    He ran through his top three girls’ names in his head: Holly, Jasmine and Isabella. None of them were right, none of them captured what it meant to be standing here holding this little life.
    ‘Dot,’ he said, surprising even himself.
    ‘Dot?’ repeated Alice.
    He blushed. ‘Well, Dorothy, I suppose, but we’ll call her Dot.’
    ‘Dot,’ Alice said again.
    ‘Obviously only if you like it.’
    Alice wrinkled up her nose. ‘How did you think of it?’
    Tony worried that she was playing for time. He could feel the midwives busying themselves and he felt suddenly self-conscious, so he lied. ‘Oh, I had an Aunt Dot. She was lovely and I just thought, you know …’ Dot, he thought, let her be Dot. Because she is a beginning. A tiny dot of a life that will grow into something wonderful. The need for her to be Dot tugged at his heart.
    ‘Well, I think it’s a lovely name,’ said Alice, shutting her eyes again.
    Tony smiled and looked down at his daughter. At his Dot.

15 … Recklessness
    Alice’s heart sank when Sandra called her on the morning of their circus trip to say that she’d been up all night being sick and didn’t want to risk going anywhere because of the baby, but that Gerry would take Mavis and drive them all there. It had seemed too rude to balk at this after Sandra had gone to all the trouble of organising the trip and buying the tickets and, besides, Dot was very excited.
    So Gerry picked them up at the appointed hour in his battered white Chrysler and the girls giggled in the back while Alice asked him polite questions about his teaching and music as he drove them to Cartertown. Once they got there the girls were so overcome with the bright bodies throwing themselves around the big top and the huge animals within touching distance that Alice only had to smile occasionally at Gerry from behind Dot’s bobbing head.
    It was getting dark by the time they filed out into the night, a group of excited people who dispersed into a cold evening, all going back to warm homes and cups of tea. The girls pulled on their parents’ hands, tired out by the excitement. Alice strapped them both into the back seat and then settled herself into the front. Gerry turned on the heating and put the Police into the tape deck. Both girls were asleep before