On Saturday morning Ben sent Tess a photograph of a ring.
She opened it before reading the words above it. Gold, green centre, little clear stones on either side. The angle was wrong, but her body had already begun to believe it.
She called him.
“Have you found it?”
“No. This is another one. A shop's got it.”
Tess sat down on the edge of her bed.
“Oh.”
“Look at the sides. They're different.”
She looked. The small stones weren't set quite the same way. She could see that now.
“I'll pay,” she said. “If she'll have it.”
“Tess—”
“No, I said I'd fix it. You shouldn't have to.”
“It's eight hundred and forty.”
She stopped.
There was the number. Real money, not the amount she'd imagined when she said another ring. She looked at the photograph again. It seemed like such a small object to contain that much.
“I can't pay that,” she said.
Ben said nothing.
“I thought it would be less. I shouldn't have said I'd pay all of it. I can do two hundred and forty. Not all today. Some today, the rest after payday.”
“Right.”
The word was short and flat.
Tess gripped the edge of the mattress. “I can come and talk to you.”
“I'm at home.”
“I'll come now.”
When she arrived, Ben was on the floor beside a half-filled box of table supplies. Mara had gone out to get groceries. Tess took off her coat and stood in the kitchen doorway.
“I don't want to stop you getting it,” she said.
He looked up. “You're not stopping me. You just aren't paying for it.”
“I will pay some.”
“Yes.”
She knelt beside the box. It held the jars she had cleaned and the little cards Mara had finished after she'd gone. Her own name wasn't among the loose ones. She didn't look for it.
Ben tucked a folded cloth around the jars and stood up. “They'll hold it without money until six tonight. After that they want a deposit. I said I'd ring back.”
Tess rose too quickly and knocked a jar with her knee. He caught it.
“Sorry.”
“Please stop.”
She stepped back.
Ben put the jar down with unnecessary care.
“We were trying to keep money aside,” he said. “You heard that. You were here.”
“I know.”
“And now it's the room deposit and this, and trying to get everyone to change what they're doing.”
“I know.”
“You don't, though. You went for tea. We were just here making your supper.”
Tess looked at the counter where she'd taken the ring. There was flour in a little ridge against the wall. Mara must have missed it when she wiped down.
“I was wrong,” Tess said. “I'm not saying I wasn't.”
“Then what am I supposed to do with two hundred and forty?”
She had no answer that wouldn't make her sound either careless or desperate. She could borrow money, but she'd still owe it. She could say she'd pay the rest in months, but she had already offered one thing she couldn't do.
“It's what I have,” she said.
Ben turned away. His hands rested on the edge of the sink.
For a moment Tess thought he would tell her to leave.
Instead he took his phone out and showed her a photograph of a smaller room. No long tables, just a few rows of chairs and a window with plain curtains.
“This is available Monday,” he said. “For the ceremony. Then we could go out to eat. A few people. Not all the tables, not all the drinks.”
“Does Mara want that?”
“I'm going to ask her.”
“She wanted the dancing.”
“Yes. She did.” His voice tightened. “And you cost her that. So don't stand here telling me what she'd like.”
Tess looked at him.
He rubbed his forehead. “I shouldn't have said it like that.”
But he didn't take it back.
Tess pictured Mara sitting on the chair, giving up the room on her phone. There wasn't anything she could say against it.
“It's a nice window,” she said, pointing at the photograph.
Ben glanced down. “It's all right.”
“We could still make it look nice.”
He lowered the phone.
“I'm not asking you to buy anything else.”
“I could use what we've got. That's what I mean.”
He looked toward the box. Tess crouched again and took out one of the small empty jars. In her hand it looked less like help than it had on Tuesday.
“I'll tell her about the room,” he said.
“What about the ring?”
“She knows I found the shop. She said not to spend the money yet.”
Tess put the jar back. “Then maybe wait.”
He looked at her. “I've been waiting. For it to turn up. For her to feel better. For you to tell me something I can actually do.”
She pulled a loose piece of cloth around the jar and tucked it in.
They carried the box into the spare room together. The exercise bike was still draped with clothes. Tess made room on the floor with her foot, and Ben lowered his end.
When they came out, he held the door for her.
“Tell Mara I came,” she said.
“I will.”
Tess went down the stairs carefully. She had come there wanting him to see she was trying. Now she couldn't stop hearing the number, eight hundred and forty, as if she might work out a different answer if she repeated it enough.