Dan collected the risers at eleven.
Ruby didn't mean to be there. She'd gone to the hall to measure the table again, but when Bev opened the store she saw his car through the glass doors.
‘You can wait in the kitchen,’ Bev said.
‘It's all right.’
Ruby stood beside the table while Dan came in. He looked as if he hadn't slept well. She knew she looked worse.
‘Hi,’ he said.
She nodded.
He folded the grey cover over his arm and carried one riser out. On the second trip he stopped beside her.
‘You can change your mind. About using them.’
Ruby shook her head.
Dan looked at the bare table. ‘Fine.’
He took the second one. Bev locked the store behind him, then came back to Ruby.
The equipment was gone. Ruby had been able to picture using it until the moment the car drove away. Now she had the familiar folding table and a sign she didn't want to look at.
‘Right,’ Bev said. ‘What are you going to put on this?’
‘Crates from the studio,’ Ruby said. ‘A board over them. I think.’
‘Test it with something breakable that isn't expensive.’
‘I make things. Those are generally the same things.’
Bev gave a small snort. ‘Then test it carefully.’
She had some news about Jonah. One stallholder could use a shorter table, leaving space at the side of the hall. It would be smaller than the one he'd booked, but it had room for a decent display if he wanted it.
Ruby looked at her quickly. ‘Have you told him?’
‘I've left a message. It's his choice. You don't need to get involved.’
‘I won't.’
Bev spread the new plan on the table. Ruby didn't point at Jonah's possible place. She looked at her own, still in the middle row.
‘I'd like to book the little room for a class,’ she said. ‘The Thursday we talked about. Four weeks after the market.’
Bev booked the Thursday evening, four weeks after the market, for six people. Ruby paid the forty-five pounds and folded the receipt into her bag. There would be less for the display, but she had a class to offer.
At the studio she borrowed a trolley, rolled her storage crates into the open floor and emptied them. Old tools, dry cloths, odd unfired pieces she'd never finished. She put those carefully to one side.
One crate had a cracked slat. One was sound but too narrow. The largest looked promising until she turned it over and found the corners weren't level.
Ruby sat on the floor beside them. This was what Dan had meant by making things harder. His risers had opened cleanly and stood straight at once.
She got up, fetched a length of board from the communal offcut shelf and asked before taking it. It was more than long enough, not quite wide enough. She loaded everything on the trolley and pushed it to the door.
It took two trips to get it home. On the second, a wheel jammed at the bottom of the stairs. Ruby got the trolley free with her foot, smearing dirt on her trousers, then carried the board up by itself.
Mae came out of the spare room at the noise.
‘Do you want—’
‘I've got it.’
Mae stepped aside. Ruby carried it into the sitting room.
She wanted Mae to see how awkward it was. That feeling embarrassed her enough to stop it becoming an accusation.
Mae picked up her bag instead. ‘I've got an interview. At the clothes shop on the high street.’
Ruby looked round. ‘For shifts?’
‘Yes. They need someone. They might be able to start me this week.’
‘All right.’
Mae waited, perhaps for more. Ruby put the board down.
‘Good luck,’ she said.
‘Thank you.’
After Mae left, Ruby put the crates on the kitchen table and balanced the board across them. Too high. She turned the crates over. Better. One corner still moved.
She laid a tea towel beneath it, then took it away again. She needed something that would stay in place, something she wouldn't have to fold perfectly every time.
Her phone rang. Jonah had finished work.
‘Bev offered me a different space,’ he said.
‘She told me she would.’
‘I'm going to go and look at it tomorrow.’
Ruby sat beside the crates. ‘I've got a problem with something that won't stand straight.’
‘What is it?’
She explained. He asked for a picture. She took one from each side, including the bad corner, and sent them.
He didn't say he'd come and fix it. He asked whether she'd like him to look with her after he saw the hall.
‘Yes,’ Ruby said. ‘I would.’
She wrote down the time they'd meet. Then she lifted the board off again so it couldn't fall in the night.