When Tess invited her to the rooms, Anna asked if she should bring anything.
“No. Just come.”
She bought four bottles of water anyway, then saw the crate beside the rehearsal-room door and wished she'd trusted the answer. Eli took the bottles without commenting and put them with the others.
Ruby was on the phone in the passage. Anna waited until she moved aside, then went in.
Tess sat on the rug beside a low drum. Jo was at the keyboard, coat still on, playing a little pattern too softly for Anna to recognize. The chairs had become tables for bags and notebooks. The room looked less like the place where music happened than a place being emptied before anybody knew how to leave.
“Hello,” Anna said.
Tess looked up.
“Hi.”
“I spoke to him.”
“I know.”
“He didn't listen.”
Tess held a drum key between two fingers. Anna had watched her use it on Sunday, tightening something until the sound became right.
“It's not your fault,” Tess said.
Anna wanted the sentence to be about every part of their lives. She accepted it for this morning.
“I did say I was angry about the tour. Yesterday. I told Rachel I wanted more time.”
“I know.”
“But I didn't—”
“Mum. I know.”
Anna stopped. Tess turned the little key and watched it catch the light.
“Sorry.”
Tess nodded. There was no room to keep proving a thing which didn't return the van.
Ruby came in and put the phone down.
“We have a price for something we can actually use.”
“How bad?” Eli asked.
“Enough to make us very attached to the idea of small vehicles.”
“Can it fit us?” Tess asked.
“Yes. If we don't behave like we're moving house.”
Jo played the same pattern again, then stopped.
“It's the deposit as well?”
“Separate. We have to leave money which isn't ours to spend while we still need money to spend.”
Anna could see the effort behind Ruby's casual tone. She was older than the others, the one qualified to drive, the one whose name would go on things if someone needed to be found. She hadn't volunteered to be responsible for a mother's return.
“Could I help?” Anna asked.
Ruby looked at her.
“With which bit?”
Anna looked around the room and realized she had offered before finding anything she could give.
“I have shifts.”
Tess lowered her head.
“Don't.”
“I meant—”
“I know what you meant.”
Ruby put a hand on the notebook.
“We're making a plan. We can tell you when there's something.”
Anna nodded and stood back.
They discussed the route. Places they could reach by rail if the hired vehicle wasn't ready for one particular stretch, gear they could leave out, a night they might drive after the gig instead of paying for another room. Anna followed enough to know none of these changes left the wanted trip intact simply because it still happened.
“Can you move the first dates?” she asked.
Everyone went quiet.
“Only if we want to stop being the support,” Ruby said.
“I meant a little later.”
“So did I.”
Anna looked at Tess. Tess's face had tightened.
“Sorry.”
Ruby pushed the notebook toward Jo.
“The event fee goes here. Shirts here, but we're not writing a fantasy number. If the shirts don't sell, we still need the vehicle.”
Jo nodded and began working something out on her phone.
“Eli's taking Friday morning,” Ruby said. “We rehearse later.”
Eli looked at Tess.
“Sorry.”
“It's fine.”
“It's not fine. It's coffee money. We need it.”
Tess gave a little nod. Anna wanted to know whether she minded losing the morning with him and knew the question would make the room impossible.
Tess leaned forward and touched the low drum beside her.
“This could go.”
Ruby looked down.
“You wanted to keep that.”
“I want to go more.”
Anna could feel the force of the sentence.
“Which is it?” she asked.
“Floor tom. The low one.”
“Would you play without it?”
“For now.”
“And get another?”
“Someday.”
Tess set down the key. The little drum looked like everything else until she placed her palm against its side. Then Anna could see it was an object someone had chosen, learned, carried.
“Ride as well,” Tess said.
Jo looked up.
“Are you sure?”
“No.”
“Then wait.”
“We can ask.”
They moved the drum from the rug to make space. Anna stepped toward it, then stopped.
“Can I carry it?”
Tess nodded.
“The handles. Not that rim.”
Anna bent, took the handles and lifted. It was heavier than she expected but manageable. She put it where Tess pointed, beside a case near the door.
“Thanks.”
Anna liked the particular thanks better than being told it wasn't her fault. She could do something with the sentence.
Ruby said they needed to play. Jo had another hour before work, and there were changes to make if the low drum wasn't coming. Tess climbed onto the stool. She left the space where the drum had been empty.
The first song sounded wrong.
Anna knew only because she'd heard it in Ashcombe. A part near the end ought to have become heavier. Instead the music passed over the place as if it had lost a word.
Tess stopped.
“No.”
Ruby lowered the guitar.
“Try bringing it up instead. Don't look for the same thing.”
“I don't want it up.”
“I know.”
Jo played a chord, held it, then changed one note.
“Like that.”
Eli tried something beneath it. Ruby came in quietly. Tess listened, then played a short pattern on the higher drums.
The song began to become another version of itself.
Anna sat on the chair Eli freed for her. She'd thought innocence ought to give her something here, a way to make everyone know she could help. All it had done was leave the problem visible. The people in the room still had to change things they liked.
When they took a break, Tess came to sit beside her mother.
“It wasn't bad.”
“No,” Anna said.
“You looked as if it was.”
“I was listening.”
Tess put the key in her pocket.
“Me too.”
Anna wanted to tell her the first version was better. She hadn't learned enough to know whether it was true. She asked instead, “Will you miss the drum?”
“Yes.”
“Can you borrow one?”
“Maybe. Not that one.”
Anna understood that more readily than she understood the sound.
“I'm seeing Rachel tomorrow.”
Tess looked at her.
“About this?”
“Yes.”
“Will she tell him?”
“I hope so.”
“Even if she does, we still need a plan. Ruby can't keep waiting.”
“I know.”
Tess rubbed her thumb against the soft skin at her wrist, where she'd been holding a stick too hard.
“I don't want you going there to scream at her.”
“I don't want to scream.”
“You might.”
Anna nodded reluctantly.
“I might. I don't think it would help.”
Tess looked down.
“She said she'd pay something.”
“Rachel?”
“Yes.”
Anna could see the offer in the shop: gentle voice, a choice made convenient, the bill another woman could settle if Tess let her.
“Would you take it?”
“I don't know.”
There was a great deal of feeling in the answer. Anna couldn't dismiss the help without dismissing the years in which her daughter had needed it.
“I'd rather she told the truth,” Tess said.
Anna looked at the empty place beside the kit.
“So would I.”
Jo stood, put on her bag and apologized because work would still happen if the band couldn't rehearse. Ruby thanked her. Eli went to the passage to make a call about Friday's shift.
Tess picked up a stick and tried the changed phrase again, softly enough for Anna to hear each separate strike.
“Is that the bit?”
“Yes.”
“Do you like it yet?”
“No.”
“Will you?”
“Maybe.”
Anna listened until the pattern became something she could recognize when it returned.
At the guesthouse later, Rachel's message was waiting.
Eight tomorrow. Before opening. We won't be interrupted.
Anna wrote yes.
She put the phone on the chest beside the lipstick. Then she took the blouse down from the window and folded it carefully, holding the cloth which Rachel had helped her choose.
She would ask the woman about the words she hadn't said.
She would ask until the answer stopped being something somebody else could call a misunderstanding.