made the water swirl and bubble in a circle over the plates. Dot handed her another one off the dirty stack.
‘Did you have some food?’ Maya asked.
‘No, I’m fine. I ate with the kids.’ Feeling suddenly that there might still be cheese sauce on her top or a globby seed from the raspberry jam sticking to her hair she bent down to check herself in the side of the espresso machine. The unfaced marble of the sink bench was rough beneath her fingers. ‘So is everyone going on to the school?’
‘Yeah. We’ve got to show up otherwise it’s that whole thing again, like last time.’
‘What happened last time?’
‘You were here.’
‘No. Have you got any tea towels?’ Dot pulled the handle of one of Maya’s kitchen drawers, and it opened so glidingly that she staggered backwards and had to clutch Maya’s arm for balance and Maya nearly fell on her. ‘Sorry.’
‘I’ll just leave them to drain.’
The drawer sat open like a projected tongue. Dot bumped it shut with her hip.
‘Whoa, Big Chill!’ Mandy grabbed Dot’s hands and swung their arms around in a kind of dance. ‘Yeah, I’m the younger dark-haired one they all want to fuck.’
Dorothy extracted her hands under the guise of doing a cosmic sort of dance move then crossed the expanse of the kitchen to the water jug. The genteel doorbell chimed. She poured a glass and held it to her lips, lightly bit the rim.
‘That might be him,’ Maya said. ‘Fucking late as ever.’
The party noise obscured any footsteps that might have sounded up the polished hall. Daniel would be wearing trainers anyway. Here came the figure appearing in the kitchen doorway and it was a middle-aged woman, no, Dorothy was a middle-aged woman, this was an older woman with short greyish-blonde hair and wearing a brightly coloured dream coat. There had been a production of that musical when they were at school and although, or because, their father disdained ‘Lloyd Webber’ the Forrest children all auditioned, but Ruth was the only one who got a part. Maya greeted the woman, who was here to mind the sleeping daughter, and clapped her hands and said, ‘Doors are closing!’
‘Is everyone here?’ Dorothy asked. ‘Who you invited?’
‘Too late now,’ Maya said. ‘We’re O for outta here. Time to kick this party to the kerb.’ Horror struck her face and she said, ‘Oh – sorry – I didn’t mean,’ and shook her head and shouted, anger in her voice now, ‘Come on, you guys.’
Dorothy said, ‘It’s all right.’
‘Did you see the photos?’ Maya asked. ‘I was going to do an In Memoriam but then I couldn’t find a good picture, and I didn’t know if I should, and . . .’
‘Oh Maya,’ Dorothy said. ‘Thanks. It’s fine.’
In the hallway by the stairs a small table housed a telephone and its charger. Dot stepped up onto the bottom stair to make room for Monique and Ian in his wheelchair. ‘Coming through,’ Monique sang out. ‘Don’t want to run you over.’
The night was warm, close, and the Victoriana lamplight was soft and tawny. The new houses rose like cardboard cut-outs from their blank sections. Apart from one carload of boys and their wives, crushed into the back sitting on knees, heads bent under the low ceiling of the Ford station wagon, everyone walked down the gently curving slope like a wedding procession. In the boot of the Ford a couple who were both married to other people did fake waggly-tongue kissing as the car drove away. People whooped at them. The car suddenly braked and the couple jerked forwards and everyone laughed. The man with hard shoes and Dorothy helped Monique lift Ian into her car and collapse the wheelchair and stow it in the boot. ‘Actually, John,’ Monique said, placing a slim hand on his arm, ‘would you mind driving us?’
Dot waved them off and said, ‘Just checking in with the kids.’
The car disappeared around the corner, leaving the smell of exhaust and the optical print of tail lights. At home, Andrew answered the phone, TV commercials playing loudly in the background. ‘Sorry hang on.’ He pressed the mute button on the remote, cursing as the low battery did nothing to the volume.
‘They only sound louder,’ Dot said. ‘How’s Donald’s temperature? Should I come home?’
‘You mean bottle out? No.’
‘We’re just leaving Maya’s now.’
‘No rush.’
‘I don’t want to go.’
‘And yet there you are.’
‘Ha.’
‘Aha.’
She hung up the phone and checked that it was hung up, and checked that it was hung up