Free The Forrests by Emily Perkins Page B

dissolving to granules in their mouths. The restaurant staff stood in their wake holding foil-covered plastic boxes of leftovers, concerned in white jackets.
    ‘Are you OK?’ Dorothy asked Andrew. ‘I think we better go.’
    He slid away from the hand she’d put on his forearm.
    Daniel passed the leftovers to Ruth. ‘You should take these home,’ he said.
    ‘Thanks. Eve? Can you give me a lift?’
    Evelyn was the only one with a car. She focused on Daniel’s chest as she asked whether anyone else needed a ride home, a hand twisting the rope of her long blonde plait.
    ‘No thanks,’ he said. ‘I’m into walking after that.’
    Dorothy hugged her sisters goodbye and watched them walk away towards the parking building, their matching light sashay, Eve’s arm suddenly around Ruth’s slim waist and Ruth doing the same thing back, the two of them holding onto each other as theyrounded the corner, heads close.
This is what happens
, Dot told herself.
You end up with men. It’s normal
.
    Michael crossed the road for a soft drink from the all-night service station and the strange girls passing had bare arms and legs and riding-up dresses in the chilly night. Dorothy was saying something, commenting on the short tight dresses, the bare thighs, when without warning Andrew pushed Daniel hard in the chest right there on the street outside the Chinese restaurant. Daniel pushed back. Andrew recovered his balance, lunged and wrapped an ankle around Daniel’s. They went down together and for a moment the two of them lay on the pavement violently hugging. But Andrew extricated himself fast, then cursed and kicked their old friend, this waif and stray, in the side as he began to rise from all fours on the ground.
    ‘Stop it,’ Dorothy yelled. ‘Just stop,’ and Daniel scrambled up against the wall outside the restaurant, tiled slippery white below spray-blasted concrete.
    Michael jogged across the road between oncoming cars and yelled, ‘What the fuck.’
    ‘What are you doing?’ Dorothy cried, and Andrew said, ‘I know, I fucking saw you,’ and he was shaking and strung out. ‘I saw you, I know,’ and she shouted, ‘Saw what, there’s nothing to see.’
    Daniel examined his palm where it was grazed from the rough concrete wall, and licked it.
    Michael pushed Andrew’s shoulder and he staggered backwards. A couple of bouncers from the club on the corner approached. Dorothy remembered the time Andrew had sent a random car tyre hurtling down the road; that was how they walked, unexpectedly heavy, not quite in control of their velocity.
    ‘We’re good,’ Michael said, ‘we’re OK, thanks.’
    ‘You all right, miss?’ one of the big men directed at Dorothy, and when she said, ‘Yes. Thanks. Sorry,’ they moseyed back to their spots either side of the Irish tavern doors, where bass thumped beneath people shouting to be heard.
    Daniel was still, watching them, a couple of fingers now up to his gums as though holding onto something. ‘Ha,’ he said, and wheezed. A finger came away bloody and he wiped it on his jeans. He shook his head at Dorothy. She moved towards him but his face made her stop. She held out the blue-and-grey plastic inhaler from her bag and said, ‘Do you need this?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Why the fuck,’ she said to Andrew.
    ‘Sorry,’ he said. He kicked the wall and his foot skidded on the tiles. A gritted-teeth roar came from him and he walked off down the street saying, ‘All right, I get it. All right.’
    ‘Anger management,’ said Daniel, and Dorothy said, ‘Don’t,’ and after she had half run, half walked down the road after Andrew, Daniel raised his arms priestlike to Michael and said, ‘That guy is a master of the fucking obvious.’
    Outside her family house, in the passenger seat of Andrew’s spray-painted car, Dorothy sat with an arm over her head like a bird’s wing, ducked down under the dash. That hard rolling sound was Michael wheeling the rubbish bin back to its spot