Dot

by Araminta Hall

  ‘So what’re you going to do? Go to Cartertown College of Further Ed with Debbie?’

  ‘Maybe I won’t do anything.’

  ‘Are you depressed or something?’

  ‘Probably.’ Mavis felt something bubbling, as if her insides were itching, as if there was no way out any more. ‘Look, I’m not depressed like that. I don’t need Prozac or anything. I just think it’s all a bit pointless. Three more years studying when I could be …’

  They both waited for what Mavis could be doing, but her mind was blank. In the end Dot said, ‘You’re not making any sense.’

  It was raining now, the drops streaking the window like grease, the road looking sleek in front of them. If you would only ask the right question, Mavis said, but not out loud. She was struck by a vision of herself in ten years’ time, bumping into Dot on the street in Druith when she came back for a visit, because of course by then Dot would be living in London or Paris or New York. She’d be glowing and tanned and well dressed, her hand lazily holding an equally attractive man. Mavis would try to hurry on past them, but Dot would stop her, wanting to reminisce because the past is fun if your present is great. Finally Mavis would be able to get away and she would hear the man asking Dot who she was and Dot would say, Oh we used to be friends once, a long time ago. And Mavis was suddenly filled with the knowledge that life is only moments, that the thing we are doing now is past as soon as it is done, that nothing is real, nothing guides us, nothing holds us. Her heart pumped with the fear of the knowledge.

  The bus stopped on the high street, which was a new development, born out of the fact that this was the only reason anyone went to Cartertown any more. The industries were long gone and factories and offices lay abandoned on stretches of concrete wasteland where disaffected youths went at night to sniff glue, drink cider and break windows. They raced stolen cars in the weed-infested car parks, played music too loudly and fucked in cold rooms if they were lucky. In another time, when Mavis had still been interested in the news outside of herself, she had read in the Cartertown Gazette how residents from the nearby estates, both private and council, formed groups and lobbied the police, but nothing was ever done. The police simply didn’t have enough officers to approach these children who roamed in packs like animals and were so emboldened by their mass that they were capable of any wrongdoing. Instead the police resorted to responding as quickly as they could to the muggings and burglaries and intimidation that found its way out of this feral environment, as if acting after the event was as good as preventing it in the first place. Mavis suspected that this was a more accurate vision of the city of the future.

  Topshop had always reminded Mavis of a joke, if that was the right word, one which she had heard being played on Primrose Duncan in the first week of secondary school. Primrose Duncan who was so badly bullied that her father found a new job, sold their house and moved her hundreds of miles away to a school with a great reputation. Primrose Duncan, who Mavis had read about in the Guardian last year, was the youngest solo cellist to play at the Royal Albert Hall. Two year nines had approached Primrose and told her a complicated story about a fish riding a bicycle, and then they’d started to laugh. Primrose had obviously copied them and they’d stopped as suddenly as if she’d slapped them and asked her what was funny, a question she’d been unable to answer because nothing was and so they’d started laughing again, but this time most definitely at her. Dot and Mavis had watched them walk away and Primrose cry and they had assured each other they’d never have fallen for such an obvious prank, but now Mavis wondered who they had been kidding. She imagined Primrose telling this story to an interviewer in years to come; she imagined turning on the television to find her laughing over it with Graham Norton or Alan Carr. Now that’s what you called revenge.

  The clothes on the rails wilted under Mavis’s touch and she found herself simply following Dot, sucked into an ennui so deep she feared she might never have another useful thought again. Of course the Grazia dress was nowhere to be seen, the shop assistant didn’t even recognise it and Mavis thought it probably only existed on the pages of magazines. Dot ploughed on until she found another, infinitely inferior version of the dress which she held in front of her, held away from her, wondered at, rubbed between her fingers, squinted at.

  ‘Just try it on,’ said Mavis wearily.

  ‘You really not going to try anything?’

  ‘No.’ The changing rooms were being guarded by Stacey Young from their class and Mavis felt the last vestiges of energy drain from her body.

  Stacey lazily handed Dot a tag, her expression doubting the wisdom of trying on the dress, of them even being in the shop. ‘You can’t go in without something to try on,’ she said to Mavis.

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘It’s policy.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ Mavis grabbed the nearest thing to hand, a pair of lime-green hot pants, and held out her hand for a tag.

  Stacey laughed. ‘You’re never trying those on.’

  ‘Give me the fucking ticket, Stacey. Or shall I call your manager and tell her you won’t let me try on any clothes?’

  Stacey slapped the numbered plastic circle into Mavis’s hand and mimicked a Jamaican gangsta accent to say, ‘It’s not my fault you is mingin’.’

  ‘And it’s not my fault you’re too thick to even speak properly,’ answered Mavis.

  ‘There are some parts of the new you I could get used to,’ said Dot as they made their way inside. But Mavis didn’t agree. Dealing with people made her feel sad now.

  The changing room was bright and there didn’t seem to be any other option than to take your clothes off in full view of everyone, so Mavis slumped on to the floor by the mirror as Dot struggled out of her jeans and into the dress. She looked quite pretty in it really and Mavis was moved by the slight rounding of her stomach and the curve of her unblemished upper arms. But at the same time none of it seemed real. Dot looked like one of those cardboard dolls Mavis had played with as a child, with the cardboard clothes that never stayed on however hard you pressed on the ineffectual tabs which were meant to hold them on to the body. You would try a dress, then a skirt and shirt, move on to a pair of jeans, try in vain to get any footwear to stick, end up with a hat. The memory of dressing up simply for its own sake made Mavis laugh.

  Dot looked down at her. ‘Problem?’

  Mavis shook her head, but the laughter was rumbling inside her, as though it was riding a rollercoaster in her body. She held her hand to her mouth but the sound bubbled out, escaping like a naughty child. The other occupants of the changing room were looking round and Dot had gone red.

  ‘What the hell’s your problem now, Mave?’

  ‘It’s not you,’ she managed to spit out before the laughter erupted, unbidden, inappropriate.

  ‘Thanks a bunch,’ said Dot, struggling out of the dress so quickly that it stuck, exposing her mismatched bra and pants, until she emerged sweaty and fuming.

  Mavis stood up, composing herself. ‘Dot, it looked great. It wasn’t you. I was remembering something.’

  Dot was dressed now and she marched out, pushing the dress at Stacey who shouted after them for the hot pants. They didn’t stop to answer and were outside in minutes with Dot walking fast so that Mavis had to run to catch up with her. She pulled on her friend’s arm and Dot turned round, anger flickering in her eyes.

  ‘Dot, I’m sorry, really it wasn’t you.’

  ‘I don’t know if I care any more.’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Look, I’m starving. I really fancy a Maccy D’s.’

  ‘You hate McDonald’s.’ But they started to walk towards it anyway. ‘You went on that protest in year eleven, remember? You stood outside this very McDonald’s and handed out leaflets about how they were ruining our environment and our health.’

  ‘Yeah, I know.’ They walked through the doors and the smell of reheated grease assaulted their nasal passages.

 
‘So, what’s changed?’

  ‘Nothing I expect, I just want a Big Mac.’ Mavis heard Dot sighing. ‘Look, who am I to change anything? Me not eating a Big Mac isn’t going to change the world. I was a prat for thinking it would.’ Mavis recognised this argument as dangerous and was shocked to hear it coming from her own lips.

  They stood in the queue behind a girl their age with a crying toddler and a gaggle of spotty young boys. ‘If we all thought like that nothing would ever change,’ said Dot.

  ‘Nothing ever does change, Dot, or hadn’t you noticed?’

  ‘Nothing will change if you don’t go to university and stay here all your life, that’s for sure.’

  ‘Look, it’s not possible.’

  ‘Not possible? What are you talking about?’

  They reached the front and Mavis ordered a Big Mac meal with Coke, knowing that Dot would refuse to eat anything. She leant against the plastic counter. ‘Just drop it, OK?’

  ‘Not really. But guess I don’t have a choice as you don’t tell me anything any more.’

  Mavis’s meal was put on to the counter way too quickly for any proper cooking to have occurred and they went to sit at a sad table for two by the wall. The toddler was eating chips and his mother chicken nuggets as she stared out of the window. Mavis wished she’d thought to sit with her back to them. She bit into the foamy bun, her teeth connecting with air and cattle innards, sugar-sweet condiments and limp lettuce. Her desire faded as suddenly as it had arrived, her stomach repulsed by what she was asking of it. She imagined the factory, the meat-recovery process, the chemicals, the lack of air, the underpaid workers and then Dot was swimming in front of her, her vision shaky and disconnected. She stood up.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Dot was saying from the other side of the room. ‘You’ve gone white.’

  Vomit was travelling up her gullet and all Mavis could do was stumble to the loo where she retched into the toilet, its rim dotted with someone else’s piss. Her body contracted, sending heat pulsating through her in waves again and again until she thought she was finished and leant weakly against the wall of the cubicle. Dot was on the other side of the door, knocking and asking if she was OK. Mavis flushed the loo and emerged into the dingy bathroom. She splashed some water onto her face and then drank some but it tasted of the sweetness of sickness.

  Dot rubbed her back. ‘Hey, are you OK? Is this what’s wrong?’

  Mavis looked at herself in the mirror and was surprised by how pitted and pale her skin was, how deep the black circles under her eyes, how greasy her hair, how chapped her lips. ‘I’ve been feeling shit for a while now.’

  ‘Maybe you should see a doctor.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Come on, let’s get you home.’

  ‘But your dress?’

  ‘It’s fine.’

  They had only been in Cartertown for just over an hour and Mavis couldn’t shake the feeling they were somehow leaving in disgrace as they waited on the opposite side of the road for their bus home.

  ‘I could call my mum if you can’t face the bus. Or your dad,’ said Dot.

  ‘No, I’ll be fine.’ Mavis’s head was too tight, as if her skin had shrunk or her bones had grown. But Dot was being so nice when she had no reason to even like her any more. She wanted to be nice back. ‘How’re the lessons going with Dad?’

  ‘OK. You don’t have to go out every time I come, you know. In fact, I wish you wouldn’t.’

  ‘He’s so fucking embarrassing though.’

  ‘He’s not too bad to me.’

  ‘Come on, they’re freaks, my parents.’

  The bus came and they got back on, climbing the stairs again. For all Mavis knew it could have been the very same bus in reverse. ‘D’you think your mum’s OK?’ Dot asked when they were sitting down.

  All Mavis wanted to do was sleep and so she laid her head against the window, which felt wonderfully cool. ‘I don’t think she’s ever been OK. Imagine living like that. So scared and meek and so … so fucking nothing.’

  ‘Our mums would probably like each other.’

  ‘We’ve been down that road, Dot. One of them would have to leave the house for more than a trip to pick up industrial amounts of cleaning products for that to happen. I don’t know what Dad sees in her. And as you well know, he’s nothing special.’

  ‘Our mums are both so weird. D’you think they realise it?’ Dot was drawing hearts into the condensation of the windows, which annoyed Mavis unduly.

  ‘No, how could they? I don’t think you set out in life trying to be weird. We won’t ever understand them, Dot, we might as well accept it.’

  ‘So why’re you staying around here then?’

  The question hung in the air.

  Dot snorted, probably annoyed but wanting to prolong the old familiarity which had surfaced between them like a drowning man: ‘What on earth do you think’s made them both like that?’

  But Mavis’s brain felt as mushed as her insides and she couldn’t do anything more than shut her eyes.

  There are plenty of things, she wanted to say to Dot, countless scenarios in which you could become a shell of a person, eaten up with regret and longing for a life you couldn’t have. And mostly it was your own fault, the place you found yourself was made by your path, by the way you dealt with shit. Because we all have shit in our lives. Maybe that was the lesson Dot still had to learn, Mavis thought as the bus took them home in the wrong direction. Her friend was like a child, always convinced she had it worst, that nobody else ever had to live through the things she did. Which was absurd when you thought about it; about her big house and her mother and grandmother, who might be weird and not exactly what you’d choose, but who loved her. The rage Mavis had felt so often recently tightened around her stomach again and the nausea rose inside her. Dot had fallen silent herself and Mavis pushed her fingers into her eyes, trying to blot out her view of her friend’s complacent profile set against the frame of the bus window. Dot didn’t understand anything.

  Mavis must have slept because the next thing she knew Dot was shaking her awake and they had to stand up quickly so that the blood rushed from her head and she banged her arm on the rail as they went downstairs. It was cold and unforgiving when they got off, the sky a dark slate grey and the trees bending against a bitter wind. It was a day to be inside next to a fire, with someone cooking you tea and toast, except that her mother would never light their fire because of the dust and no one was ever allowed to eat or drink in the lounge. They set off on the same road together.

  ‘D’you feel any better?’ Dot asked.

  Mavis grunted. The anger seemed to have been solidified by her sleep, thickened like a good stock. She knew that she needed to be on her own.

  ‘D’you wanna come back to mine?’ Dot tried.

  ‘No.’

  ‘OK.’

  They came to the place where they had to part, Dot going up the hill and Mavis down. Mavis half lifted her hand, not even meeting her friend’s eye. But she heard Dot following her, felt her hand on her arm.

  ‘Mave, have I done something to upset you?’

  Mavis kept her eyes on her feet. ‘No.’ But it felt as though she had.

  ‘So what is this then?’ The wind was whipping Dot’s words away.

  ‘Please, Dot, nothing, I just wanna go home.’

  ‘I’m sick of your bloody nothing.’ Her friend’s voice was harsh.

  Mavis looked up at this and saw the pink on Dot’s nose, her bright lips, a sanctimonious glint in her eye. It made her speak. ‘You’re not the only one who has it hard, you know, Dot. You are so unbelievably selfish.’

  Dot threw her hands up at this and turned to walk away. But then she turned back. ‘I can’t take this any more, Mave. You obviously hate me for some reason you’re not prepared to divulge. And fine. But I’m bored of banging my head against a brick wall.’

  Mavis set off down the hill. She wasn’t crying, it was the wind working its way into her eyes. Her limbs felt s
o heavy, she wondered if she’d make it home. She tried to see herself from above, to get some perspective as to why she was pushing away the one person who could help her. She had no understanding of herself any more, was unsure what she was going to do next, worried she was turning into someone she didn’t recognise. Maybe she was going mad. Her mind certainly felt disconnected from her body, as if she was watching herself on TV, as if reality could jar out of place at any moment. Anxiety rushed around her unbidden and for none of the usual reasons. It prickled inside her veins until the sweat seeped onto her skin and dried, leaving her smelly and greasy.

  She sat on the bench on the green. She didn’t want to go home but she couldn’t stay out in this cold. Her toes felt like ice even through her boots and socks and her hands ached. She took out her phone and bashed out a text to Dot.

  Sorry, don’t know what’s up with me at mo.

  She set off again but her phone beeped in her pocket almost instantly.

  It’s OK. I’m here if you wanna talk xxxx.

  7 … Friendship

  Sandra Loveridge, née Powell, felt that she had been born to be a mother. Which is an odd thing to think about a baby: that their sole purpose in this world could already be simple procreation. But Sandra not only consistently failed to think of herself as anything other than the person she was now, she also didn’t think there was anything simple in growing a whole other person inside you and then being the best mother you could be so that they became confident, kind people. Besides, she couldn‘t find meaning in anything much else and the first time she held Mavis she fell so deeply in love the rest of the world had fallen away. She wished that her parents had been alive to see her baby, but made do with giving the little girl her mother’s name.

  Of course Sandra had known about Gerry’s reputation when they met. Most people thought he was too big for his boots, and he’d had to leave his job at Cartertown Secondary after an ‘inappropriate relationship’ with a pupil. But they were so young themselves, it hardly seemed that much of crime to Sandra. Then he got the job at the music college in Darlington, which was an hour in the other direction from Cartertown, where nobody she knew ever went and Sandra could almost pretend didn’t exist. And besides, he’d loved her so completely, everyone had commented on it, how he couldn’t take his eyes off her and how he laughed at all her jokes. And best of all, he was completely happy for her not to work and to go on producing babies year after year. They’d had Mavis when they were young, both only twenty-three, and even as she’d lain in her hospital bed, her face still red and blotchy from pushing their baby out, she’d told him that she wanted one every two years until they had at least six. And he’d laughed and kissed the top of her head and said, Why stop at six, why not make our very own football team.