The Forrests Read Online Free PDF Page B

around their parents, eyelashes thick and dark and spiky, Michael’s nose straight and fine, a white gleam brush-stroked down the centre. Daniel should have been in the picture. Sometimes at night Dorothy thought she could make out his shape behind her shoulder, hidden beneath a layer of paint. The woman sighed as her gaze left the painting and fell on Dot. ‘Miss Forrest?’
    A hand on the bottom newel post of the banister. ‘Yes.’
    ‘May we talk with your parents?’
    ‘They’re not here.’
    There were teenagers somewhere, behind doorways, breathing. From upstairs, the glug of draining bath water.
    ‘May we talk to you?’
    ‘Yes. Of course.’
    Dot opened the door to the front room. The loose rosette jiggled on the protruding screws so that she put a hand to it to stop the sound. It was dark; the couple stood tentative in the space before she drew back the heavy tasselled curtains and the room came into view. Nestled in a wooden bowl, dried petals of potpourri sweetened the air.
    ‘That smells nice,’ said the woman.
    ‘My sister’s got a stall at Cook Street Market.’ Dot gestured forthe man and woman to sit on the grey corduroy sofa, and moved the ashtray with the acrid remnants of her father’s
one luxury
cigarettes onto the bookshelves on the other side of the room.
    The front door slammed. Michael passed the window in his work overalls. Dorothy tucked the bathrobe in around her legs and sat on the cracked maroon leather of her father’s chair. The woman wore an olive-green skirt suit; the man was in a double-breasted pinstriped jacket and trousers, with a brown tie. His hair had been stuck down with some sort of cream but tufts of it pushed upwards, giving him the look of a boxer on his day off. He gripped his briefcase between his calves.
    ‘What’s it about?’ Dorothy asked.
    ‘We’re from the collection agency.’ There was a pause in which he might have extended a hand for shaking, but didn’t. ‘May I confirm your age, Miss Forrest?’
    ‘I’m eighteen. Sorry, I’m not sure what you want?’
    The woman gave a small shake of the head. ‘We’re here to take possession of your father’s car. Where is he?’
    ‘He’s out.’ Sun glinted across Dot’s line of vision and she straightened her back to look over it. ‘Why do you need his car?’
    ‘Does he have it with him?’
    ‘Probably.’ Her mother had driven it to work. She’d be home before long. Dot imagined running to the street corner, intercepting her – ‘Hide the vehicle!’
    The man spoke. ‘All right. Miss Forrest, we need you to sign a walking possession agreement.’
    The woman nodded at the dead green screen of the television in the corner. ‘Is there a second TV in the house?’
    ‘Debt has been incurred,’ said the man, ‘and we are here to remove property as payment.’
    Parts of Dot lifted and floated around the room. ‘Debt.’ A moment went by. She blinked. ‘Can you do that?’
    ‘There is a series of complaints. Court costs arising from various unpaid fines dating back several years, water bills, hire purchase payments. Consolidated’ – this nasal recitation – ‘and to be dealt with by us.’
    ‘Court costs.’
    She leaned forward with the powerful, irrational urge to explain the joy of driving hard out with no headlights while Daniel sat in the passenger seat singing, the music as loud as the 8-track would go. The way the intense, furious guitar calmed the air, released what pressure was inside him, or inside her. The blinding joy of it, even when dread trickled down like an egg cracked over her scalp that first time she realised the flashing lights and the siren of the cop car were actually directed at her.
    The man was checking the file. ‘Yes, we have the car registered in your father’s name and the fines are addressed to him.’
    Now the broken bits of Dot reassembled, stuck back together like guilty tar. When eventually the envelopes had come with Frank’s name on them, the Crown