I unpacked my suitcase on Saturday afternoon.
Not all of it. Only enough to get at the envelope behind the folded winter things. I sat on the floor with the envelope in one hand and my phone in the other, looking at rooms in Eastmere.
The one with the blue curtain wasn't an option I could afford on my own. Callum was still going there, unless he changed his plans. I hadn't answered his calls since the kiosk.
My wrist ached when I pulled a jumper free. Tess noticed and took the next folded pile out for me.
“You could ask Mara,” she said.
“About staying?”
“A bit longer. You don't have to leave tomorrow just because you were going to.”
“My new job starts Monday.”
“Ask them too.”
She said it simply. I was looking at Sunday as if it had already arrived and locked every door behind it.
Downstairs, Mara was at her desk. The tin was no longer on top of it.
“It's locked away,” she said when she saw me look. “An officer rang back. They want to speak to you, Ruby and Callum. I've told them about your wrist too. They've asked me to keep the watch safe for collection.”
“Oliver knows?”
“I've been back through the old correspondence with him. He's confirmed the inscription and the photograph. It was the watch his wife gave him. He knows we have it. I've told him we're waiting for the police to collect it first.”
I nodded. I would have liked to tell him I was sorry, but I didn't want to turn receiving his watch into looking after my feelings.
“Will I have to tell it all again?” I asked.
“Probably. I've given them your number.”
I looked at the marks on my wrist. Telling Mara had been hard enough. I nodded.
Then I asked for something I hadn't wanted a week ago.
“Could I work here for another week? Keep the room until next Sunday?”
Mara leaned back.
“One week?”
“If my new job will let me start late. I need time to find somewhere that isn't with him.”
She checked the rota, then looked at me.
“I can give you a paid week at your current rate. Same room. We agree the finish now, though. Next Saturday's your last shift.”
“Yes.”
“You'll tell me what the new employer says?”
“I will.”
Upstairs, I called the Eastmere hotel. I had the job, but I still felt like someone asking to be allowed in when I explained that my accommodation had fallen through. I asked whether I could start one week later than planned.
The woman I'd dealt with before checked, then came back to the phone.
“We can do that. The following Monday.”
I asked her to send the new date in writing. She said she would, and the email arrived while I was still sitting on the bed.
I forwarded the new start date to Mara. She confirmed my paid week and room by message, and I saved it beside the email.
Then Callum rang again.
I answered.
“How's your wrist?” he asked.
I looked at it.
“It hurts.”
“I'm sorry.”
I could hear the sea behind him. He was still at the kiosk, finishing the last hours of his work there.
“I didn't mean to grip you like that,” he said.
“You wanted to stop me.”
He didn't answer.
“I wanted you to stay,” he said eventually.
“I told you to let go.”
“I know.”
I sat down beside the open suitcase. There was a T-shirt of his mixed into my winter things. I hadn't noticed when I'd packed it. I put it on the other side of the bed.
“I'm not coming with you tomorrow,” I said.
“We can put it off.”
“I'm ending this, Callum.”
The sounds behind him seemed to grow clearer. A paddle knocked against something. He moved away from it.
“Don't say it like it's decided.”
“It is.”
He breathed into the phone. I held it away for a moment, then brought it back.
“I love you,” he said.
I pressed my hand against the shirt on the bed.
“I still want you,” I said. “That hasn't gone away today.”
“Then—”
“I'm still ending it.”
He stopped.
I had expected to need a longer speech. There were so many things he could ask me about, so many moments I'd loved him in. The soup. The first plaster. Tuesday's ridiculous trainers. None of them was a sentence I had to answer before I could leave.
“I've got a little of your stuff,” I said. “A shirt. Your mug. I'll leave it with Mara. You can arrange to collect it.”
“I don't care about a mug.”
“I know.”
“Will you see me before I go?”
“No.”
I could hardly make the word sound firm, but I said it.
“Lena.”
“I'm cancelling our journey. My plans will be separate.”
He didn't say anything else before I ended the call.
I sat there with the shirt under my hand until Tess knocked. When I let her in, she saw my face and held me for a minute.
Then we looked for a room.
The cheapest places I found were too far from work or only available for a night. One asked me to send money before the owner would tell me the address. I closed that one and kept looking.
Finally, I found a small furnished room with a shared bathroom, a walk away from the new hotel. It was available for two weeks from the following Sunday. The photograph showed a single bed and a window facing another building.
It wasn't the room I'd imagined. It was enough to start with.
I called, checked the dates and total cost, and booked the two weeks. I paid from my own moving savings. The confirmation arrived with the address, the amount paid and the day I could move in. I booked my journey for the following Sunday, one ticket.
Tess watched me write the dates on the back of the envelope.
“Done?” she asked.
“Done.”
I put the phone down before I could reopen the blue-curtain photograph.
Later, I found Ruby by the kitchen table, putting her savings into her bag. Mara had checked with the officer before giving her the £180.
“I'm leaving,” she said.
I stood in the doorway.
“For your friend's?”
“Yes. Mara's taken me off the rooms. I've told her I won't come back to the job. I'll collect what I'm owed for this week, but I'm staying with my friend tonight.”
Her holdall was on the floor again, with the pillow tucked through its straps. A week hadn't even passed since I'd first seen it there.
“I wanted to sell it,” she said.
“I know.”
“I wasn't trying to return it when I asked you to bring it.”
“I know that too.”
She looked at the table.
“I couldn't watch him hold you like that.”
I moved my sore wrist a little. The marks were fading, but I could still feel where his hand had been.
“Thank you for getting his hand off.”
Ruby nodded. She didn't smile.
“I need some distance from you too,” I said.
She picked up the holdall.
“Fair enough.”
I moved aside to let her through.
Upstairs, I wrapped Callum's mug and put it with his T-shirt in a separate bag. I took them down to Mara, then came back and closed my red suitcase.
This time the zip went right round.