Manda checked her watch. 09:08. Late again.
Francesca bounced down the road, rubber like any other five year old, first on one leg and then the other, her bunches, one high, one low, shoogling with a life of their own. At the gate she turned and waved, the curve of her pink schoolbag pulling on her shoulders. Manda waved back. Other more doting parents lingered by the railings, but Manda had better things to do.
She undid the string of her trackies and pulled it tight again so that a bumfle of blue nylon protruded like a balloon below her waist. She patted it flat with a certain satisfaction that progress had been made, her middle-aged spread receding, and hurried home.
Dotty was asleep, tired from a night on the town, or the tiles, or whatever she called it. She was in the upstairs bedroom buried beneath a pile of clothes, dirty, clean, hers, Francesca's, whatever. On top of Dotty and the pile of clothes was Manda's fluffy old leopard skin coat which Dotty had found in a box the week before and been sleeping under ever since. Manda perched beside her and stroked it. At the back of Dotty's hair two blue plastic baubles were struggling to hold some brown curls out of her face. They were like eyes on the back of her head while the eyes at the front were hidden beneath a shock of dark hair.
'I wish you wouldn't sleep there,' said Manda.
'The bed's broken,' Dotty murmured.
'You could at least bring the mattress down, and the covers.'
Dotty hummed.
'Shouldn't you be at work?' said Manda. 'You're stashing biscuits again,' she said, noticing some digestives under the bed.
'Hmm,' said Dotty.
'I'll do it later,' said Manda. 'Yes, I'll do it later. I'll fix the bed.' She nodded, willing herself to make it happen. 'I wish you wouldnt sleep there.'
Dotty slept like the family cat, half-there, half-not, her smile just visible between the pullovers, her head resting against a chest-of-drawers, her nose against the furry coat. She drifted up and down, in this pile of clothes they have called the holding bay, down and up from the depths to the surface, in slow and perfect sleep, oblivious even to oblivion, oblivious to Manda shrugging there beside her.
Beyond Dotty was a bunk bed with an orange duvet flung down at one end. The sheet beneath it was lurid pink, the pillow lurid yellow. Some dolls and pencils were strung out from one end to the other. This was Francesca's domain and on the top bunk a faded mattress sagged through a gap where slats were missing. Manda opened the curtains.
'Ooo,' she said, wincing into the light. She covered the screaming pink sheet with the orange duvet and left the room as soon as she was finished, forgetting what she was in there for in the first place.
Time was slipping away. In the kitchen she searched for keys. They'd fallen into the sink along with the tea bags and the washing up. She squeezed the leather toggle and threw the back door shut, the car door open. She was gone, with five hours and seventeen minutes if she wanted; she was gone, and no-one could stop her.
Continued ...