Dot (Araminta Hall)

mean she was on that tube,’ said Sandra, a sickness registering in her voice that made Mavis want to howl like her daughter. Her mother was holding Rose tight against her chest. The screaming had become background noise.
    ‘She wanted to get there for nine.’
    ‘Her birth certificate?’
    ‘Yeah.’
    ‘Doesn’t Alice have a copy?’
    ‘I expect so. But she’s never shown it to Dot.’ Sometimes Mavis found there was too much to explain, too many words needed to get you where you wanted to be.
    ‘Are you saying she doesn’t know who her father is?’
    ‘I thought you knew that.’
    ‘No, I mean obviously I know she doesn’t see him. I presumed she didn’t even know where he was. But, my God, are you serious?’
    Mavis nodded, trying to work out how it was possible that her mother didn’t know something that was so fundamental to the knowledge encased within her own life.
    ‘Does Alice know where she is?’
    Mavis started to cry. ‘No. She thinks she’s at an open day in Manchester.’
    ‘We have to let her know.’
    ‘Oh God, Mum.’
    Her mother was already leaving the room so Mavis followed her back into the sitting room, where the television was showing increasingly terrible pictures of ambulances and stretchers and bodies lying on pavements covered by blankets. The television was getting good at this now, practised at rolling over the images of destruction in foreign lands that filled their screens nightly, images which now belonged at home.
    Her mother gave Rose back to her. ‘Finish feeding her so she stops crying.’ She walked over to the phone and Mavis did as she was told, her daughter choking on her first few mouthfuls, whimpering and scrabbling at her breast, her own tiny tragedy coming to an end, making Mavis sure that she would never, ever let anything bad happen to her.
    ‘Alice, it’s Sandra.’ Mavis wondered absently how her mother knew the number to dial. ‘Yes, yes, it’s been wonderful. Look, I’m calling with some bad news. Well, not necessarily bad, but – have you seen the news? … Mavis has just told me that Dot’s there … No, she’s not in Manchester. Hang on a sec …’ Sandra held the phone away from her face. ‘Mavis, how sure are you that she’s really in London?’
    ‘She’s there, Mum. It was after she came with me to register Rose’s birth and she realised she’d never seen her own birth certificate. She was going to look it up at some place called Charles House.’
    ‘Did you hear that?’ Sandra said into the phone. ‘Don’t say that, that’s not true. Alice, do you remember that day in the hospital when you told me I hadn’t killed my baby? … Well, you were right, it’s just taken me all this time to work it out … No, of course that hasn’t happened. I’m sure she’s fine … No, Mavis has tried, it’s switched off … That won’t do any good, you won’t even be able to get there. It’s best that we all stay by our phones and then she’ll call us when she can. She’ll be fine … Call if you hear anything … OK, bye.’
    Rose had fallen asleep on Mavis’s breast and so she lifted her on to her shoulder, her totally trusting body warm and soft. Sandra came and sat heavily down on the sofa.
    ‘I’m going to call Dad and get him to come home to be with you. I think I should go and sit with Alice.’
    ‘What did you mean about the baby and the hospital?’
    ‘It’s a long story.’
    ‘I want to know.’
    Mavis’s mother then told her a story as outlandish as the one enfolding on the screen in front of them. She had met Alice just before Dot’s father had left, they’d become good friends and she’d helped her after Dot’s dad had walked out without a word. To make her feel better she’d organised a trip to the circus for all of them, but on the day she’d come down with a sick bug so she’d stayed at home. She had been five months pregnant at the time. When Gerry got back on the evening of the trip he’d told her that Alice had tried to kiss him. She’d known it was a lie, something which Alice confirmed, and they’d had a terrible row which had culminated in her driving off too fast and crashing into a tree. She’d lost the baby and damaged her womb so badly that she’d destroyed her chances of ever having any more children, which had felt pretty much the same as destroying herself as all she’d ever wanted was a house filled with children and chaos and noise and life. Alice had come to see her in