The Forrests (8 page)

‘It was horrible,’ she said. ‘When you left.’

‘Dottie.’ He shook his head. ‘I couldn’t really handle it.’

‘No.’

Their knees were touching. She felt the air between them densely electric. It sent her moral compass on the spin, tocking lazily, directionlessly around as though she would do anything, he only had to say.

Daniel waved at someone down the road and the young man ambled towards them, curly hair and stone-washed jeans, and they raised chins at each other and started talking about the support act for the gig that was on that night. It was a skill she had noted since Daniel’s return, that he could pick up with people right where he left off. Dorothy bit into the apple that thank god was in her bag because she was constantly hungry and accidentally dribbled a little bit of juice on her T-shirt, and the boys kept talking and the guilty burn of the cigarette still tingled in her mouth.

Her parents kept laughing, like they just couldn’t believe it. Frank would shake his head and say how proud he was and then he’d set himself off again.

‘But you’re a baby.’

‘I’m twenty-five.’

She blamed Michael. Home still at nearly thirty, he had warped their expectations. Dorothy sat between him and their mother on the reunited family sofa, Andrew across the room on a kitchen chair. The doorbell rang and Ruth let Andrew’s parents in, each of them with new partners, awkwardly joking from their collision on the doorstep. Dot greeted them and went to sit with Andrew because it was hard for him, everyone in the same room, his defensive father and the sullen policewoman stepmother, his
mother overcompensating, her second husband oblivious, his mind on a hiking track somewhere, filled with tussock. ‘Lovely,’ said Andrew’s mother. ‘So what time is our booking at Chang’s?’

‘It’s not Japanese, is it? I don’t like Japanese food,’ said the stepmother, staring at the peace-sign badge on Dorothy’s cardigan. ‘What is that?’

‘She’s allergic to fish.’

‘It’s Chinese. Andrew,’ said his mother, ‘are you still vegetarian?’

‘Yes.’

‘A vegetarian!’ said the stepmother. ‘Whatever happened to a good steak?’

‘Arrest me,’ Andrew whispered in Dot’s ear, and she whispered back, ‘Fifteen to life.’

His mother shrugged and laughed around the room. ‘And yet he’s so tall!’

‘Listen, darling,’ Lee said to Dot as the Lazy Susan spun clockwise, moving the bowls of pak choi and flecky chilli sauce and pale, glistening chicken around, ‘let’s invite some of the Americans.’ Frank was negotiating a possible return to the States. Someone remote had ‘passed’ and there was more ‘moolah rolling about’. Dorothy wished she wouldn’t talk like that, as though money wasn’t real. Ruth wanted to move with their parents; she had always longed for that place she could not remember. ‘They won’t come,’ Lee said, ‘but you’ve got to invite them.’

‘Can I think about it?’ She wanted to be a good daughter. But no thanks, none of this I pay, I say. She and Andrew would front the wedding themselves. He’d taken a job in the caretaking division at
the polytechnic, since no one was interested in showing or buying his paintings. Everyone had their own definition of survival.

They were interrupted by the ting of Frank’s chopstick against his glass. Wine lurched close to the lip as he raised the glass and made a toast to the engaged couple and welcomed Andrew’s parents into their family, although he called Andrew’s mother by the stepmother’s name. She hooted gaily. ‘Wrong wife, dear, wrong wife!’ Evelyn hid her face behind Dot’s shoulder and snorted. Dorothy, the zip of her dress tight up her side, held back the laugh that threatened to rip out.

Andrew lifted his drink. ‘Thank you,’ he said, cutting Dot’s father off from a relaunch. ‘Thanks, everyone!’ One arm in the air, the other around his fiancée’s thickening middle, his lean face lifted, shadowed by the twisty red tassels that hung down.

At some point someone mentioned the new anti-nuclear policy and Andrew’s stepmother said loudly, ‘Totally ridiculous,’ and Frank, who hated any talk of politics, began to sing a tune from
My Fair Lady
. Other diners looked over. ‘My family,’ Dorothy said to Andrew’s father and stepmother, who were acting as though nothing was happening except the urgent need to get a pork bun split between them, the stepmother’s chopsticks sawing at the white fleshy dough. On the other side of the round table Michael sat next to the outdoor-enthusiast stepfather, and they were deep in conversation, ignoring the musical interlude too. Andrew’s stepfather was a gesticulator, and he flung a hand back into the approaching waiter’s white shirt so that the waiter dropped a tray of bowls and everyone startled at the crash apart from Frank, who continued singing without pause. Dorothy and Evelyn helped pick up the broken pieces. The zip on her dress did
bust a little bit, she felt it split and straightened up carefully, hands full of china. Andrew’s mother bobbed her head along to the song. When it finished she clapped, solitarily. More crispy spring rolls arrived, the wrappers like stiff brown paper spiralled at the ends, and there was the judder of the tinted glass door to the street opening and a wave of cold night air and Daniel was making his way to the table, hands thrust into the pockets of his denim jacket, hair hacked short in a home-made job, scruffy and uneven.

Evelyn flushed. Dorothy saw it. ‘Hi,’ she said, through a smile that couldn’t be controlled.

Lee rose from her seat and embraced Daniel warmly, ruffling his new hair. He sat down next to the stepmother, thrust a hand towards her and said, ‘You must be the cop.’

She scowled. ‘And you are?’

‘I instruct Andrew in the ancient art of karate.’ He gave a little bow.

‘Shut up, Daniel,’ Dorothy said, and made the proper introductions.

‘
Oh
,’ he said, staring at her waist as though it was finally dawning on him. ‘You’re
pregnant
.’ He nodded at Andrew and half stood from his chair, roughly aiming a congratulatory hand-slap that missed.

Dorothy wondered if he was high. She said to Evelyn, fixed on her sister’s pinkness, the way she ran her fingers along her collarbone while she looked at Daniel as though nobody could see, ‘We had the scan today. Andrew wanted it to be just us.’ And then Evelyn’s sweet smile melted and Dot said, ‘I’m sorry. I should have told you. I’m sorry.’

‘What are you eating?’ Daniel asked. Without thinking Dorothy leaned across the table towards him and held her chopsticks
forward, the piece of gingery chicken wedged between them. Her arm outstretched. It was just for a second but she knew the table froze. Family members poised motionless, watching. Daniel held Dorothy’s gaze, his eyes dark and steady as he ate the mouthful from her chopsticks.

‘Did anyone go to the Queen concert?’ Andrew’s mother asked.

Quickly Dot sank back into her chair, stared down at her bowl.

‘I did,’ said Michael.

Daniel went to the bathroom and after half a minute Dorothy followed, but the hand-stained white sliding door to the men’s toilet was locked. She thought about knocking. Out of control, she felt
out of control
and wanted to shout those three words through the door. She ducked her head round the corner to see if they were visible, and realised Andrew had a clear sightline to where she stood.

When Dot came out of the women’s bathroom Daniel was back in his seat, eating rice with a ceramic spoon. She shifted her mother along and sat next to Andrew, who looked intently at her, then away, with a sharp turn of his head.

‘What?’ she said.

A chair fell on its side. Andrew’s stepmother stood and retched into the potted palm behind the table. She rounded on them, eyes wide, her lips hugely swollen. Hives bloomed from her neck up her cheeks. A terrible noise came from the back of her throat, a hiss like a feral cat, and she pushed the table with the heels of her palms, retching again. ‘Fhihh.’

‘Oh my god,’ said Andrew’s father, scrabbling through his wife’s handbag. ‘Where’s your EpiPen?’ He tipped the bag upside down and spilled the contents over the table – a lipstick rolled off the
edge and onto the floor, a receipt floated onto a plate and absorbed the dark liquid of a beef sauce – then he snatched the pen about the size of a vivid marker and popped the lid and yanked up his wife’s skirt and jammed it through the black tights into her leg. A long look at the control-top pants. All of them held still while he counted to ten in one-thousands. The stepmother’s breathing came fast and shallow, but the internal war was calming as the epinephrine moved through her blood. Andrew’s mother offered her a glass of water and she held it with both trembling hands and drank.

The stepmother and Andrew’s father left for the ER and the remaining parents fake-argued about the bill and drove off, stale mints from the duck-egg blue bowl at the till 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 they
rounded 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 by the front door. He hadn’t seen them. It had to be in and out, get the last of her old stuff and leave. When Lee heard about the fight she rang up to say she was ‘very disappointed in Andrew’. It was too late. Dot had
chosen. They’d walked all the way home together after the Chinese restaurant and he’d asked her please don’t see that guy any more. She peered out, slowly straightening up as her brother double-checked that the front door was locked and headed down the street, away from the car, past the bus stop, to disappear round the corner.

‘He’s gone,’ said Andrew, and he opened his car door and stepped one leg onto the pavement. He held his palm out and Dorothy put her small silver house key in his hand. He entered the house. She exhaled, as nervous as if he were breaking in. Fluffy yellow pollen floated thickly from the plane tree. Dorothy got out and leaned against the car. Sunlight flared off the windowpane of her bedroom upstairs then vanished as Andrew lifted the sash and threw a bundle of her old clothes onto the pavement. Half of them would be too small now that her body was changing. She gathered the things and threw them across the back seat. A bra stuck in the hedge; Dorothy tore out a small branch as she yanked it free. Andrew was the one up there helping her get out and the baby was inside her and Daniel wouldn’t be in the house anyway, he didn’t live there any more, nor did Evelyn, nor did she. The owner, Osborne, was selling it. The estate agent’s sign showed a fish-eye photograph of the front room that made it look larger than it was, and a shot of the house from across the road at night-time, every light behind the plane tree blazing with comfort.