am Rudolf Nureyev.’ Three could play at that game. ‘Maybe I take you not for drink, maybe I take you for movies?’
The girls stood and linked arms. Dot cleared her throat. ‘That’s very kind, Mr Nickabollockoff, but we’ve got to get home for our tea!’
The two girls ran past him along the dock, laughing and howling, shouting ‘GracebloodyKelly?’ at each other as they trotted along, homeward bound.
Half an hour later, the Simpsons’ front door bell buzzed. Its grating drone was pitiful, like a bee in its dying throes. ‘Coming!’ shouted Dot, sing-song fashion, casting the word over her shoulder in the direction of the hallway, once again making a mental note that the bell needed fixing. She would ask her Dad to have a look at it.
Dot licked the stray blobs of sweet strawberry jam from the pads of her thumbs, smiled and looped her toffee-coloured hair behind her ears. It was probably Barb. Either she’d decided to come round to the Simpson household for her tea after all, or she’d locked herself out of her own house. She felt a swell of happiness.
The front door bell droned again.
‘All right! All right!’ Dot tossed the checked tea towel onto the work surface and walked past her dad, who was engrossed in his newspaper as usual. She stepped into the hallway, with its narrow strip of patterned carpet, and walked past the glass-fronted unit in which her mum displayed her entire collection of china Whimsies. Looking through the etched glass panels in the door, opaque through design and a lack of regular dusting, she saw her mum staring back at her through the glass in a peering salute. Spying Dot, her mum tapped impatiently at the space on her wrist where a watch would live.
Dot eased open the front door and her mum bustled in from the pavement, filling the narrow hallway with her presence. She used the toe of her right shoe against the heel of her left to ease her foot out of its pump and then reversed the process before stamping her cold feet on the floor and wiggling her stockinged toes. She dumped her shopping bag by the door and shook her arms loose from her mac, making her ample chest jiggle under her chin, then whipped her chiffon scarf from around her neck and rubbed her hands together.
‘Blimey, Dot, take your time why don’t you. I forgot me key and it’s bloody freezing. I’ve only got a little while to get changed and get back to work!’
‘I was just making some toast, do you want some?’
‘No, love, I’ve been surrounded by grub all day, I couldn’t face anything. Eat quickly, mind. Don’t forget you’re coming in with me tonight.’
Dot groaned as she sloped off towards the kitchen. ‘Do I have to?’
‘I’m not even going to answer that. Do me a favour, Dot, stick the kettle on!’ This was code for make me a cup of tea.
Joan watched her daughter tease her roots with her index finger and thumb pinched together. ‘You’ll never get a brush through that!’
Dot chose to ignore her mum; she wasn’t particularly bothered if she never brushed her hair again as long as it was bouffant enough at the back. She yanked the lid from the large, dented, flat-bottomed aluminium kettle, filled it with water and plonked it on top of the gas cooker. As she waited for the whistle, she walked through to the adjoining back room, her hand now pressed flat against her forehead and her arm sticking out at a right angle. ‘Mum, do I really have to come to work with you tonight?’
Joan sank down into the chair across from her husband’s and delved into her make-up bag. She juggled the magnifying mirror in her left palm and her mascara in her right. She spat onto the cracked cake of black until some of it stuck to the clogged bristles of the brush and proceeded to comb it onto her lashes. She spoke with her lips tucked in, trying to keep her eyes still.
‘Yes, you do have to come with me! It’s not as though I ask much of you, Dot, and not as if anything you might have planned in your hectic schedule can’t wait an hour or two!’
‘But, God, it’s Friday night!’
‘I’m sure the Lord above knows what night it is and using his name in vain won’t help you, Friday night or not! Now go and wash your face and make that tea.’
Dot trudged through the