Free Dot by Araminta Hall Page A

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