‘I think we should start in Topshop,’ Dot said, pulling out a copy of Grazia in which she’d marked a page depicting an impossibly beautiful girl wearing a dress that their Topshop would never stock. Mavis groaned.
‘Any other ideas then?’ Dot asked, turning to her friend.
Mavis shook her head. ‘I’m not buying anything so it’s your call.’
‘Seriously?’
‘Seriously.’
The bus puttered onwards or backwards, depending on how you looked at it. Cows and horses were eating grass, birds were flying in the sky, cars were overtaking them; Mavis had to swallow back her tears.
‘You are still coming though, right?’ asked Dot and Mavis hated the whine in her voice. She had to pinch the inside of her hand to stop herself from screaming.
‘I said I would, didn’t I?’
‘I don’t want to force you.’
‘For fuck’s sake, Dot, I’m coming, don’t ask me to be happy about it as well.’
‘Mave, what’s wrong?’ Dot’s tone was tender and concerned, so that without planning it, Mavis turned to her friend to tell her. This was the perfect moment, this was the point that could make it all better. Dot might even have a solution.
But the words slipped and slid around her head; saying them out loud would make it real and she didn’t know if she was ready for that yet – ever. She chickened out. ‘What colour’s the sky?’
‘What?’
Mavis knew she was starting to piss Dot off and who could blame her. ‘What colour’s the sky?’
‘Blue? Are you on something?’
‘Ha! Why d’you say blue?’
‘Mave, you’re scaring me.’
‘Because the sky’s always blue, right? Because that’s what all the fairy stories tell you, because you painted it blue with your mum.’
‘What?’
‘Look, just answer the question.’
‘OK.’ Dot looked out of the window. ‘Right, it’s completely grey. So?’
Mavis sat back, pleased with herself but lost as to how she might go on now.
‘Are you trying to say something?’ Dot asked and the question made Mavis want to punch her.
‘We don’t all spew our feelings everywhere you know, Dot.’
‘Are you talking about me and my dad?’
‘Fuck, no! Not everything’s about him. He left, Dot, and you need to get over it.’ Mavis knew she’d gone too far, could feel the tension radiating off her best friend like electricity. ‘Sorry, ignore me, I’m a bitch. But I mean, what do you want from him now anyway?’
Dot shrugged. ‘I dunno. I wonder that myself sometimes. Like, it’s probably too late, right?’
Mavis wanted to put her arm round her friend because they were both alone, really. ‘I’m sure it’s not.’
‘I wouldn’t mind asking him why he called me Dot.’
‘What?’
‘Come on, it’s such a crap name. A dot is the smallest, most insignificant thing there is. And it’s a full stop, so an ending. I mean, who on earth would call their child Dot?’
‘How d’you know it was him? Maybe your mum thought of it.’
Dot snorted at this. ‘Come on, Mave, can you imagine my mother doing anything as definite as choosing a name?’
‘Fair point, but at least you’re not called Mavis after your dead gran.’ Dot laughed and for a moment they could have been anywhere, but the thought scared Mavis in its possibilities and she shook her head, trying to shake the tears away from the corners of her eyes. Her fear mutated into a desire to sabotage her life. ‘Look, I’ve been meaning to tell you. I’m not going to go to Manchester.’
‘I said you should go for Oxford. I don’t mind, really.’
‘No, no. I’m not going, to university at all.’ Mavis fixed her eyes on her hands; she could feel her face reddening under Dot’s persistent gaze.
‘What are you talking about? We’ve only just applied and you’ll easily get in. I’m the one who should be worried.’
‘I’m not worried. I’m just not going.’
‘Even if you get in?’
‘Yeah.’
They sat quietly now, all the intimacy gone, the rough seats of the bus vibrating gently beneath them.
‘I don’t get it,’ Dot said finally.
‘There’s nothing to get.’
‘So what’re you going to do? Go to Cartertown College of Further Ed with Debbie?’
‘Maybe I won’t do anything.’
‘Are you depressed or something?’
‘Probably.’ Mavis felt something bubbling, as if her insides were itching, as if there was no way out any more. ‘Look, I’m not depressed like that. I don’t need Prozac or anything. I just think it’s all a bit pointless. Three more years studying when I could be …’
They both waited for what Mavis could be doing, but her mind was blank. In the end Dot said, ‘You’re not making any sense.’
It was raining now, the drops streaking the window like grease, the road looking sleek in front of them. If you would only ask the right question, Mavis said, but not out loud. She was struck by a vision of herself in ten years’ time, bumping into Dot on the street in Druith when she came back for a visit, because of course by then Dot would be living in London or Paris or New York. She’d be glowing and tanned and well dressed, her hand lazily holding an equally attractive man. Mavis would try to hurry on past them, but Dot would stop her, wanting to reminisce because the past is fun if your present is great. Finally Mavis would be able to get away and she would hear the man asking Dot who she was and Dot would say, Oh we used to be friends once, a long time ago. And Mavis was suddenly filled with the knowledge that life is only moments, that the thing we are doing now is past as soon as it is done, that nothing is real, nothing guides us, nothing holds us. Her heart pumped with the fear of the knowledge.
The bus stopped on the high street, which was a new development, born out of the fact that this was the only reason anyone went to Cartertown any more. The industries were long gone and factories and offices lay abandoned on stretches of concrete wasteland where disaffected youths went at night to sniff glue, drink cider and break windows. They raced stolen cars in the weed-infested car parks, played music too loudly and fucked in cold rooms if they were lucky. In another time, when Mavis had still been interested in the news outside of herself, she had read in the Cartertown Gazette how residents from the nearby estates, both private and council, formed groups and lobbied the police, but nothing was ever done. The police simply didn’t have enough officers to approach these children who roamed in packs like animals and were so emboldened by their mass that they were capable of any wrongdoing. Instead the police resorted to responding as quickly as they could to the muggings and burglaries and intimidation that found its way out of this feral environment, as if acting after the event was as good as preventing it in the first place. Mavis suspected that this was a more accurate vision of the city of the future.
Topshop had always reminded Mavis of a joke, if that was the right word, one which she had heard being played on Primrose Duncan in the first week of secondary school. Primrose Duncan who was so badly bullied that her father found a new job, sold their house and moved