Dot (Araminta Hall)

‘Apparently they’ve turned the signals back on.’
    ‘Really?’ Dot took her phone from the front of her bag and dialled her number. It rang and in seconds it was answered. ‘Mum.’
    The words which gushed out of her mother were simply an expression of relief. ‘Dot! Dot, oh my God, Dot. Are you OK?’
    Dot could only cry down the phone. ‘I’m fine.’
    Her mother was shouting off-stage, ‘Mum, Dot’s OK,’ and it took Dot a minute to compute that her mother’s mum was her grandmother. ‘Where are you?’
    ‘Victoria coach station. There’re no coaches but I’m going to wait here until there is one.’
    ‘Oh God, we thought … What happened?’
    ‘I don’t know, I think I slept through it. Then it’s taken me all this time to get here and the phones weren’t working.’
    ‘I’m so sorry that you’re there.’
    ‘It’s OK, Mum. Listen, I’ll call you as soon as I know when I’ll be in.’
    ‘And we’ll come and get you.’
    ‘OK.’
    ‘I love you, Dot.’
    ‘Love you too. And Gran.’
    ‘Dot, I want to explain. I want to tell you about him.’
    ‘I know, Mum. They’ll be time.’
    ‘But I should have … I’m sorry … I …’
    ‘Mum,’ Dot could only think of one thing to say. ‘I found a photo of him under your bed, years ago. But then I thought it wasn’t him because of the hair.’
    ‘The hair?’
    ‘This man had dark hair and so do you.’
    ‘Your dad had brown hair.’
    ‘But, how come, I mean why is my hair red?’
    Her mother sighed. ‘That’s from Grandad. There are so many photos of him, I mean, I didn’t know you didn’t know that.’
    Dot saw their mantelpiece, she searched the photos. There they were, the young man bouncing her mother as a baby, marrying her grandmother, smiling on a boat. ‘They’re black and white,’ she said finally. ‘They’re black and white.’
    ‘Oh, Dot.’ said her mother.
    ‘It’s OK, Mum,’ Dot replied.
    The woman was smiling when Dot got off the phone. ‘They’ve called my coach,’ she said, getting up. ‘You know, it’ll be OK.’
    Dot looked at her. ‘What will?’
    ‘They want us to think that the world is bad, the people who did this. But it isn’t, you know. Most people are kind and most things are wonderful.’ She touched Dot’s hand as she spoke and her fingers were icy cold. ‘Keep calm. You’ll be home soon.’
    The woman disappeared into the crowd and only after she’d gone did Dot wish she’d asked her how she knew any of that to be true – how anyone could know that? –and whether or not life was wonderful or if that lady had simply had a wonderful life. Ultimately, it had been nothing more than a small act of kindness, one person’s attempt to make her feel better. And yet it had worked. Sometimes small acts were all you needed.
    The first two coaches to Cardiff were filled up before Dot could get on, so it wasn’t until midnight that she was able to take a seat on the vehicle that would transport her home. She’d spoken to her mother five times by then and Mavis once. Mavis told her that her own mother had gone to sit with Alice while they were waiting for news. That she had come home and wept on her father’s shoulder and he’d held on to her as though he’d meant it. ‘There’s so much I have to tell you, Dot,’ she’d said, ‘so much we didn’t know.’ And Dot had laughed at that and said, ‘No shit, Mave.’
    Dot sat in her seat and let the heating warm her tired toes, shutting her eyes against the brutality of the day. Her head felt unbearably heavy on her neck, and as her eyes relaxed against the lights on the motorway her body took her down while her mind pulled her back up. She occupied that moment between sleeping and waking more than any metaphysical poet on that journey and in those moments she forgot who she was. The wheels on the coach turned, propelling them over the concrete beneath their feet, each revolution taking them further away from the chaos and closer to home. You couldn’t worry for all those left behind that night, you could only be thankful that you were saved, that you had a chance to start again.
    Dot woke to the light of dawn, which she saw out of the window of the coach as it rushed along the motorway. Up ahead the hugeness of the Severn Bridge loomed like a child’s drawing. The traffic pulled them along, on to the heavy metal structure held together by gigantic bolts and titanic feats of engineering. The houses on the hillsides were