Cal had cut a protective sheet to the size of the proposed work corner by the time Nora arrived the following morning. He was on his knees, one hand smoothing it, the folding knife open in the other. He made a short cut at the edge, closed the blade and set it on the counter.
“Too wide?” he asked.
Nora looked from the doorway. The corner extended beyond the space she'd imagined, though not beyond the one he'd shown her. She'd let the gesture become smaller in her head overnight.
“A bit.”
He took it in without arguing, folded one side under and moved the sample table.
“There.”
It was better.
“I've got to finish the window,” she said.
“I know.”
“The bench needs to be here.”
“I know that, too.”
“When are we going?”
Cal sat back on his heels. “We?”
“I'll come.”
“You can't lift.”
“I can get in a van.”
“I'll get someone to lift.”
“And I can be there to decide where it goes.”
“Here, under the window. You told me.”
Nora put her bag behind the counter. The green-ring key lay in the inner pocket where she'd put it after Mina took the cabinet. She didn't take it out.
“I'm not asking you to take me so I can supervise lifting,” she said. “I'd like to collect my piece.”
Cal rose. He rubbed his hands on his trousers, leaving a light streak of dust which she would once have brushed off without asking.
“I've got things to do first.”
“What things?”
“The things everyone keeps asking me for.”
“The receipts?”
“I sent some.”
She opened the email. There were real bills, timber and fixings she recognized, work which had happened while she waited at home. She put the phone down before the account could become the whole morning.
“And the rest when you've got them. I'm asking about the bench.”
“After tomorrow.”
Nora waited for him to amend it.
“What?”
“After I've dealt with Hannah.”
“She wants you to look for something.”
“She's coming to talk.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
“Have you found the folio?”
“I haven't been through everything.”
“Then tell her that.”
Cal looked at her. “I said I'd look.”
“I heard.”
“Then why are you saying it as if you didn't?”
“Because you're putting my collection off to deal with a thing you don't know you've got.”
He turned toward the window. A bus passed, filling the room briefly with its shadow. Nora watched him wait for it to leave, as though he could use the small change in light to become less angry.
“The bench isn't going anywhere,” he said.
“That's the problem.”
“I'm not taking you there to hurt yourself,” he said.
“You've already said that.”
Nora felt the temptation to give him the arm as an answer. It hurt. She could let him tell her when and how something happened because doing it another way took more work than she currently wanted to admit.
“I won't lift,” she said. “I'll sit. I'll tell the movers where it's going. It doesn't have to be difficult.”
“It is difficult when you keep deciding I'm doing it wrong before I do it.”
“I'm trying to find out when you're doing it.”
“After tomorrow.”
He said it firmly enough that they had returned to the beginning. The demonstration piece stood on the table, its hinge neatly fixed. The corner looked like a little job he could finish before anyone else was entitled to ask for anything.
Nora looked at the little fitting board. Yesterday Hannah had stood beside it and nodded at her word.
“I shouldn't have backed it like that,” she said.
Cal's mouth tightened.
“What does that mean?”
“I said you knew what you had. I haven't seen it.”
“Then stop saying things you don't mean.”
“I meant it then.”
“And now you don't.”
“I mean we need to tell her what we actually know.”
He took the little fitting board off the table. Nora thought he meant to demonstrate something. Instead he put it with his tools.
“Fine,” he said. “Do it.”
“I'm asking you.”
“You can ring her. You're good at explaining what's wrong with everyone else's answer.”
Nora wanted to say it was his answer. She was tired of arguing about the name of a thing which still had not happened.
“I'll ring her.”
“And the corner?”
She looked at the protective sheet. Its folded edge was exactly where she'd asked him to put it.
“I can't keep this arrangement if everything comes when you decide I can have it.”
“You've got a room full of things I brought.”
“I know.”
“Then stop talking as if I'm hiding your life from you.”
The sentence struck harder than she expected. She had not told him the details of the offer to Iris. She knew what he sent to her while Nora lay under care. It was possible to love him and feel that each practical concession made the question harder to ask next time.
“I want the room back,” she said.
Cal nodded once. He picked up the sheet and shook the folded edge straight. The small sound was more hostile than shouting would have been.
“Pay the firm, then.”
“I cancelled them.”
“Because you wanted me to do it.”
“Yes.”
“And now you don't.”
“Not like this.”
He rolled the sheet tightly and put it against the wall. The fitting corner ceased to exist except for the table, the chair and the marks on the floor.
She had no customer booked to sit on the bench. She could let it wait. Cal stood beside the rolled sheet, waiting for her to relent.
“I'll arrange it,” she said.
“Good.”
He took the folding chair from the corner and put it beside the counter. For a moment Nora thought he was leaving with it. Instead he set it down open, where he always sat.
“You don't have to keep proving things,” he said.
“Neither do you.”
He looked at her, and she saw how much he'd been hurt. It made refusing harder; it did not make the bench arrive.
“I've got a job,” he said.
“So have I.”
He gathered the tools he needed, leaving the knife closed on the work surface with the remaining packaging. At the door he paused, then went without adding the familiar instruction to ring him.
Nora stood beside the space they'd made and unmade. She pulled the folded card from under the sample-table leg. It rocked immediately. She put the card back.
Then she rang Hannah.
“Have you heard from Cal?”
“He said he'd speak to me tomorrow. Has he found something?”
“I don't know.”
Hannah was quiet.
“I need to correct what I said yesterday,” Nora continued. “About him knowing what's there. I haven't seen your folio. He hasn't shown me anything of your father's.”
“He said he was going to look.”
“Yes. I let it sound more certain than that.”
“Has he told you he won't?”
“No.”
“Then why are you ringing?”
Nora sat in the green chair. She wanted to give the warning enough force that Hannah would act on it, but she didn't know what she'd be warning against beyond another unfulfilled promise.
“We've fallen out about the collection. About how he handles things. I can't vouch for what he'll tell you.”
“That's different from saying he hasn't got anything.”
“I know.”
“You want me not to go?”
“I want you not to think I know it's all right.”
Hannah took a breath. There was a voice near her, someone asking about a proof, and she told them she'd be a minute.
“Nora, I'm asking everyone. The police know I'm asking him. I'll tell them what he says. If he hasn't got it, he can say so to me.”
“You don't have to take his word.”
“I don't intend to. That's why I'm asking questions.”
Nora looked at the empty space, the table held steady by Cal's card. She hadn't given Hannah another lead. She had only taken back her word.
“I'm sorry I made it sound certain.”
“Thank you for telling me.”
“Let them know what he says,” Nora said.
“I will. I need to get back to this.”
They ended the call. Nora remained in the chair until the silence began to feel like another postponed job.
The delivery firm answered on the second attempt. She asked for the provisional slot she'd cancelled.
“Gone,” the man said.
“Already?”
“It was a gap. Someone wanted it.”
Nora looked at the note she'd made two days earlier. A price, a time, an alternative she'd given up because her brother had shown her something good.
“What have you got?”
“Tomorrow morning, possibly. Depends on where the lads finish. I'd need it ready. Photos of the piece and the access before I confirm.”
“I can get those.”
“Can't have them waiting while someone looks for the key.”
“I have the key.”
He gave her the number for the photographs and told her when he needed them. Nora wrote it down. She would have to check the bench before anyone else could collect it. The job no longer consisted of asking Cal to bring something; there were people to book, a room to reach and a piece she hadn't seen since it went into storage.
She left the showroom and bought lunch near the station. Eating with one hand was slow. She did it anyway, then booked a car for that afternoon and a return journey, leaving herself time at the unit.
Cal didn't know the itinerary. She didn't tell him. The green key remained in her bag as she went home for the coat she could put on without help.