Nora told Cal she was home. He asked whether he should come round; she said she was tired and wanted to sleep. That much was true. She waited until he had said goodnight before opening Iris's messages again.
She typed a sentence and erased it. Then another.
I need to speak to you.
It sounded like a summons. She hadn't offered Iris much else since the night of the theft.
Can we talk?
Too small for what had happened. A person could ask it over a missing parcel.
Nora set the phone down and went to wash her face. She was still considering the words when she returned. Washing had not made her a different person, or given her a kinder reason for contacting a woman who'd been told not to reply.
She sent: I know you're not supposed to contact me. I'm asking. I want to understand what happened. Come here tomorrow. Just us.
The message left the phone. No one stopped it.
For a while nothing happened. Nora made tea she didn't want and looked out of the kitchen window. A light was on in the apartment opposite; someone walked past it carrying a plate. There were people who could choose an evening without having to change the account of another evening first.
Her phone sounded on the counter. She came back too quickly, knocking her injured arm against the door frame. The pain made her eyes water.
They said you never met me.
She sat down.
I was scared.
The reply came almost at once.
Of what?
Nora looked at the screen. She couldn't answer with a list. Of the police. Of Cal being blamed. Of the room being taken from her. Of what Iris had done, and what Nora had done before it. The truth was long enough to need a place where Iris could see her while she said it.
I've told them you stayed. I've told them I was there.
The typing sign appeared, vanished, returned.
What did Cal tell you?
Nora's mouth went dry. Here was a question which could not be answered with the confession she'd already heard.
About when?
Iris didn't reply. Nora could feel her own evasiveness beginning the conversation badly. She rang the number.
It rang for long enough that she expected it to end. Then Iris said, “Don't do that.”
Her voice was quieter than Nora remembered. Rough, as if she'd spent the day not speaking, or speaking too much to people she didn't want to.
“I'm sorry.”
“You know what they said.”
“You answered.”
There was silence. Nora hated herself for the sentence before she could take it back.
“I mean I know,” she said. “I'm asking you to come.”
“And when they find out, you'll say you didn't ask.”
“No.”
“You said you never met me.”
“I shouldn't have.”
Nora held the phone against her right ear, the good hand beginning to ache from gripping it. She wanted Iris to hear her properly, wanted something in her voice to do work the words could not.
“I've changed that,” she said.
“You can't change that.”
She was right. Nora could correct the account. She could not remove the moment when Iris heard a woman she'd lived with had denied her.
“I know.”
On the other end there was a noise, a door or a cupboard closing. Nora imagined a room she'd never seen and resisted making it pitiful. Iris had found somewhere to be. Nora had no right to assume it was miserable because she wasn't there.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
Iris laughed once, without pleasure.
“You're asking me?”
“Yes.”
“I thought you were dead.”
Nora closed her eyes. It was the first time Iris had said it to her. Bell's account had made it a thing somebody had claimed. In Iris's mouth it was an experience Nora had not been there to share.
“I'm not.”
“I know that now.”
“Cal took me to hospital.”
Iris said nothing.
“Iris?”
“I heard you.”
“Then what?”
“Not on the phone.”
Nora looked toward the bedroom. The wall patch was hidden from the kitchen, but she knew where it was, knew how much room two women had made around something so small.
“Come here,” she said. “We can talk. I won't tell Cal.”
“That doesn't mean no one knows.”
“I know.”
“Do you? It's my bail. Not yours.”
Nora let the silence stay. An apology was not consent from the police, and wanting Iris in the apartment was not an answer to the risk. She could retract the invitation. She did not.
“I can't force you,” she said.
“You can make it sound like you're the only person who's going to help.”
Nora looked at the tea she'd poured. It had developed a skin around the edge, something she would usually remove before someone else had to see it.
“I want to help,” she said.
“You want to know what I've said.”
“Yes.”
Iris was quiet. The admission changed the sound of the call. Nora could feel the other woman listening more closely because at last she had offered something unattractive which was true.
“And I want to see you,” Nora said.
The words made her afraid in a different way. She'd told the police about the stay and the shove. She had not told anyone how badly she wanted Iris to walk through the door knowing Nora was alive.
“I won't come to be shouted at,” Iris said.
“I'm not going to shout.”
“You don't know that.”
“I'll try not to.”
A small breath on the other end. Nora could not tell whether it was amusement or exhaustion.
“Tomorrow,” Iris said. “Late morning. I won't stay long.”
They agreed a time. Iris ended the call first. Nora remained with the phone beside her face, then set it down carefully, as if a hard movement could undo what she'd been given.
Nora fetched the scarf from beside the bathroom door. She could put it away, make the apartment look less like it was waiting. Instead she folded it again, badly with one hand, and laid it over the chair by the window where Iris would see it.
Then she cleaned the kitchen. She stopped herself before putting Iris's mug beside her own. The old arrangement would be an invitation she hadn't earned.