Dot (Araminta Hall)

sucking the fat out of her. Wait till you have your third, she’d laughed, grabbing a roll of fat on her own belly. Her mother was cooing over Rose in the garden, pointing up at trees which Rose had no way of seeing.
    ‘She’ll be smiling soon, in the next couple of weeks I imagine,’ her mother said as she handed the warm bundle back to Mavis. ‘Why don’t we go for a walk by the river in Tinmouth later? I’ll drive us over. It’s such a beautiful day.’
    ‘Yeah, there’s that nice café there, we could get some cake,’ said Mavis.
    ‘Lovely. I think she’s hungry again. Why don’t you feed her and I’ll bring you in a cup of tea.’
    No wonder Rose was hungry, it was nine-twenty and she hadn’t eaten for two hours. Mavis settled herself on the sofa in the sitting room, cushions bulked around her to take the weight from her arms. Her breasts were straining, one was leaking against her bra and it felt like a release when Rose started sucking, as if the milk was coming from deep inside her. The TV remote was just out of reach and she tried to pull it towards her with her foot, but her movement was making Rose restless so she lay back and shut her eyes for a minute, wondering when or if she might ever sleep for more than three hours at a time again. Everything about her old life seemed so far away, so unattainable, it sometimes made her heart race. She was completely in love with Rose and already could hardly remember life without her, but still she knew she was giving up a lot. Of course her life wasn’t going to stop, but it was undeniable that it was never going to be the same again, that she would never approach another situation with the carefree attitude of a teenager.
    Eventually her mother came in with the tea and some biscuits so Mavis asked her to turn on the TV. For a minute neither women could understand what they were seeing. At first Mavis thought they were replaying footage from 9/11; it was the only logical explanation for all the people emerging from smoke, limping and bedragged, covered in blood and soot. But the ambulances looked British, so did the streets, so did the people.
    Her mother sat down next to them, reaching out for Rose’s foot.
    A woman came on to the screen. She was standing on a street somewhere with people dazed around her, sirens blaring and smoke billowing from behind her head. She was fiddling with something in her ear, but suddenly jerked her attention towards the camera. Her voice was shaky and her eyes darted off screen.
    ‘The scenes in London are devastating. It’s like something out of a film with injured people everywhere. We’re not entirely sure what’s happened, we know bombs have gone off and people have been injured, but at the moment that’s all I can tell you. All public transport systems have been shut down and the police are advising people to leave central London by foot. We don’t know who is responsible, but suspicion has naturally fallen on al-Qaida.’
    The picture flicked back to a studio where a harried-looking man was reading a piece of paper, his eyes nervous and darting.
    ‘Thanks, Laura. Information is coming in so fast that it’s hard to get a handle on what is going on. To recap: all we know for sure is that bombs have been exploded on our public transport system. We’re getting unconfirmed reports of an incident on a tube train leaving Edgware Road. No news on fatalities as yet.’
    ‘What did he say?’ asked Mavis.
    Her mother looked round, her hand still on Rose’s foot. ‘What?’
    ‘Did he just say Edgware Road?’
    ‘Sshh, I can’t hear.’
    ‘I think he said Edgware Road.’ Rose was still sucking, but Mavis stood up anyway, handing her to her mother, so that the baby started to scream.
    ‘What are you doing?’ her mother called after her.
    ‘Dot’s there,’ Mavis shouted over her shoulder as she ran to the computer.
    Her mother followed with Rose screeching in her arms. They both leant over the screen as it took much too long to come to life. The news on the Internet was as shaky as on the TV but Mavis still saw the words Edgware Road.
    ‘What do you mean she’s there?’ Sandra was saying, somewhere over Rose’s screaming.
    Mavis reached for her phone and dialled Dot’s number, but it went straight to voicemail again. ‘She went to look at her birth certificate. She said she was staying at a B and B on Edgware Road cos it was an easy tube ride to Kensington, where she had to go.’
    ‘It doesn’t