Dot (Araminta Hall)

without knowing what she was doing. She had never spoken to anyone outside of Druith before, apart from bus drivers and teachers. Dates had never been set, pubs never been entered, drinks never drunk. But this man had quite clearly been sent to save her. As if he had it written across his forehead, she knew that he was the real thing.
    ‘Come on then,’ he said, taking her hand, ‘I know a great little place just up here.’
    It was as if she was in a dream; nothing made sense as she was led up the streets of Cartertown by a man whose name she didn’t know on the way to a pub. The sights of the journey were the same as every other day but her new circumstances distorted everything into an approximation of what she thought she knew. She imagined Clarice watching, from some omnipotent position and realised that she conducted most of her life this way, sure that her mother was watching. Relatively quickly they turned into a small smoky pub where Tony found them a tiny table covered with grimy mats, redolent with spilt beer and surrounded by authentic red velvet stools.
    ‘So what can I get you?’ he asked, standing over her.
    ‘Oh, well, I think a gin and tonic.’ The champagne she’d had with Mr Jenkins seemed like too much and it was the only other drink of whose existence she had any real confidence.
    Tony smiled and she watched him glide his way easily to the bar where he made himself heard, waving a five-pound note between two fingers as if he was talking a hidden language. He brought their drinks back to the table and put them down, straddling his stool confidently.
    ‘D’you want one?’ he asked, proffering a packet of cigarettes. Alice shook her head as he lit one expertly, sucking deeply on the end. He smiled and extended his hand. ‘Tony Marks.’
    Alice blushed and giggled. ‘Alice Cartwright.’
    ‘Well, Alice Cartwright, what were you doing when I so rudely stepped on your foot?’
    ‘Oh, just going home.’
    He laughed. ‘Just going home? From where, to where?’
    She felt the flush on her face deepen and suspected her nervous rash was blooming on her neck. ‘I’m at Cartertown College, doing a secretarial course. I live about an hour from here.’
    ‘So you want to be a secretary?’
    No one had ever asked Alice this many questions and she wasn’t sure if her head was spinning from them or the gin. ‘No, not really.’
    ‘Why are you doing a secretarial course then?’
    His voice had an accent which Alice couldn’t place and she wanted to ask him about it, but didn’t know if that would be rude. ‘It’s complicated.’
    ‘Do you know what you do want to do?’
    ‘I’ve just been in a play at the village hall.’
    ‘Does that mean you want to be an actress then?’ His voice had a hint of amusement in it.
    ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘You’re certainly pretty enough. Has anyone ever told you that you look like Cindy Crawford?’ Alice shook her head. Tony looked at her a minute and then said, ‘You do know who Cindy Crawford is, don’t you?’
    ‘She’s a model, isn’t she?’
    ‘Not just a model, a supermodel. It’s a big compliment.’
    ‘Oh, OK.’
    ‘Don’t you read any of those women’s mags?’
    ‘No.’
    He drained his beer and Alice suspected she was boring him. But his tone was more relieved when he said, ‘I thought you were all addicted to Cosmo or whatever it’s called. How about music then, who are you into?’
    Alice felt herself sinking, it was no good. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t think …’
    But Tony laughed again. ‘Films?’
    She blushed and shook her head, smiling despite her embarrassment.
    ‘Shit, it’s like you’ve been airlifted in from a different century. Where do you live?’
    ‘Druith. It’s a village in the middle of nowhere, really. We don’t have a cinema or anything like that.’
    ‘But you have been to the pictures before, right?’
    ‘Oh yes.’ Alice didn’t think it would help matters to reveal that the one and only time she had been was to see Bugsy Malone with her father the year before he died. Of course she watched films on the telly, but she mainly loved the musicals with Marilyn Monroe and Doris Day and she knew she probably shouldn’t admit to that either.
    ‘Would you like to go again?’
    ‘Yes.’ Alice couldn’t be sure if he was asking or teasing.
    ‘How about I take your number then and maybe we could go at the weekend?’
    Alice wrote her number on the receipt Tony found in his jeans pocket but knew