and Meg pointed upwards, crying, ‘Daddy.’ She thought he flew them.
Dorothy tried to remember putting the keys in her skirt pocket or in her bag, or locking the car or unlocking the car. She looked at the floral, plastic-coated nappy bag slung next to the bright pink bag over Grace’s shoulder and envisaged it sitting in the well below the passenger seat, or on the bench seat in the back. Certainty was ungraspable.
When she had come back from the car Meg was next on the list to be called in, and there was hissed panic in the white-tiled, corporate bathroom as Grace fumbled the nappies out of the bag and balanced the baby half on a raised knee and half on the bench that housed the basins, and Dorothy handed her a perfumed plastic bag and wipes in the wrong order, a nurse in surgery fucking up her first day. Grace had lobbed the taped parcel of dirty nappy across the room and into the swing-top bin, and Dorothy applauded her daughter’s aim, left standing in the bathroom with the baby-changing implements all around her feet, the door that Grace and Meg had bolted through already sliding shut.
‘Are you sure we haven’t gone past the car?’ she said now. ‘Are you sure we came out in the right direction?’
Grace growled between her teeth, a surprisingly underworld sound.
‘Let me take her.’ Dorothy hoisted Meg into her arms. The child’s towelling playsuit was moist with sweat. They were all sweating. On Grace it looked like a sprayed sheen of lacquer. ‘Poor little thing, what a big morning.’
The road took a slight bend, which seemed to speak to them as they approached, the curve of lined buildings leaning in confidingly, You didn’t come this far, and they turned and walked back towards the casting agency, the distance shorter in reverse. On the other side of the road, a bus pulled out into the traffic and revealed the boxy profile of Grace’s car. ‘Thank God,’ Grace said.
When the traffic stopped for the lights they picked their way between idling cars, Grace darting her head forward and leading, Dorothy raising one arm to wave thanks to the drivers for letting them cross. The baby was heavy, and soggy, and the skin of their arms glued together and made a very faint sucking noise like worn-out Velcro when it peeled apart. Dot dabbed at the creases in the girl’s neck with a tissue from the floral bag. The keys were dangling from the lock on the driver’s side. ‘For fuck’s sake,’ said Grace.
‘Oh dear,’ said Dot. ‘God, really?’
‘It’s not funny,’ said Grace. She nudged past her mother with a hip in order to unlock the passenger door. From a gilt-curlicued boutique, a very tall young woman in tight jeans emerged, a man with corrugated grey hair behind her. They swung rectangular shopping bags from plush tassels and spoke together in a language that might have been Russian. As they passed Dot, and Grace, and the baby, the young woman said something sideways to the man and threw her head back merrily and laughed. Grace threw the car keys to the gutter. ‘You used to laugh whenever I lost my temper. Laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh. I hate my life,’ she cried. Tears broke from her.
‘Don’t be ridiculous. I take you seriously!’ But Dot had a memory. Having to leave the dinner table when one of them – who? – pushed yet another plate away, knocking over yet another glass of water, and she was unable to control her erupting giggles at the sheer fucking hopelessness of it all, the child wailing louder, real tears now, betrayed. She had stood in the hallway, wheezing with laughter, waiting till all this didn’t seem just completely ridiculous again.
Dot clicked Meg into the car seat and handed her a plastic bottle of water from the bracket in the door. The little girl drank then waved it around so that droplets sprayed everywhere, spotting Dorothy’s shirt. ‘Get in the back,’ Dot said.
Grace was under the wheel, retrieving the keys, sniffing. ‘But you’re not allowed to drive. It hasn’t been six months yet.’
Without seeing anything, Dorothy stared at Meg. There was an unspoken rule not to mention the loss of her licence and Grace had just broken it. Five months ago she’d been busted for speeding. In court she had been described as a recidivist and held in contempt for expostulating to the judge,