Tessa opened the door with a pillowcase over her shoulder.
‘Sorry. I thought I had time to do the bed.’
‘I can wait.’
‘Then I'll make you help. Come in.’
Ruby followed her up a short flight of stairs. The sitting room had a bay window, two wide chairs and washing laid across a rack in the middle of the floor. A pillow lay on one chair, still without its cover.
Tessa caught Ruby looking.
‘That's the difficult one. It won't go in.’
‘Want me to try?’
Tessa handed it over. Ruby squeezed the pillow from both ends, pushed it into the case and shook it down. A corner sprang back out.
‘I've been doing that,’ Tessa said.
They tried once more, together, and got it in. Tessa took it from her, looking briefly satisfied.
‘Thank you. Sit down.’
Ruby sat in the chair they'd cleared. Tessa took the other one and pulled the pillow onto her lap. She had Jonah's dark eyes, but Ruby couldn't find the rest of him in her face.
‘I told him I'd see you,’ Tessa said. ‘I haven't agreed to tell you he's wonderful.’
‘I wasn't going to ask that.’
‘Good.’
Ruby looked at her own bag. She'd brought nothing she could offer. Turning up with a gift would have felt wrong, and turning up empty-handed felt rude.
‘I'm sorry about asking you to go through it.’
‘I said yes. I wanted to know what you've been told.’
Ruby described Mae's post, Jonah's accusation and the lost work that followed.
Tessa listened without interrupting. When Ruby finished, she picked her phone up from the arm of the chair.
‘Mae wasn't paid. It advertised her work. Jonah had no business saying she sold it.’
She opened a picture and held out the phone.
‘This is what she posted. You don't need to read all of it.’
Ruby read the first few lines. There was an account of a woman dressing for a family celebration after losing a pregnancy, and the relief she felt after a fitting. It was written gently. That made Ruby feel worse, somehow. She could imagine Mae thinking gentleness was enough.
She handed the phone back.
‘I told her because I didn't want her wondering why I was being difficult,’ Tessa said. ‘I was paying someone to help me choose clothes. I didn't think I needed to say she couldn't use the conversation in an advert.’
‘No.’
‘I sent a message when I saw it. She took it down within the hour. But she kept telling me nobody would know. I knew. That was quite enough.’
Tessa's fingers tightened round the phone. ‘It was already gone when Jonah posted. I made him delete his. He apologised about the sale claim. There are still screenshots.’
‘Mae showed me one.’
‘I thought she might.’
Tessa looked towards the window. Below them a car door slammed, then a child laughed. Ruby stayed quiet.
‘I won't go into the rest,’ Tessa said. ‘What happened to me, what the party was like. It's nothing to do with whether you should go out with my brother.’
‘I don't want you to.’
Tessa put her phone down. ‘That's all I can tell you, then.’
It didn't feel like a cue for Ruby to leave immediately, but she wasn't sure what should follow. She looked at the pillow.
‘That corner's coming out again.’
Tessa looked down, swore softly and pulled it back in. Ruby smiled. So did Tessa, reluctantly.
They talked for a few minutes about the hall market. Tessa knew where it was but not that Ruby would be there. She asked whether the pottery was ornamental or useful. Ruby described the blue bowl, pleased to have a subject she could answer without hurting anybody.
She didn't invite Tessa to come and decide anything else for her.
Outside, Ruby walked past the bus stop instead of waiting. She wanted the time on her feet.
She could choose not to see him. There would be reasons. But she had sent him a message that sounded as if she knew everything about him, when she had been frightened by one terrible thing he'd done.
At the sea wall she took out her phone and rang him.
He answered after several rings. ‘Hello?’
‘It's Ruby.’
‘I know.’
She winced. ‘Yes. Sorry. I saw Tessa.’
‘How was she?’
‘Fed up. She was kind to me.’
‘Right.’
Ruby pressed her free hand against the cold stone.
‘I'm sorry about my message yesterday. I decided what you were like without asking you. That wasn't fair.’
She could hear a little movement at his end, then the noise stopped.
‘It wasn't,’ he said.
‘I'd like to see you again. If you still want to.’
For a moment she thought the call had dropped.
‘I'd rather you hadn't sent that,’ Jonah said.
‘So would I.’
‘Seeing Tessa doesn't undo it. What I did.’
‘I know.’
Another pause. A gull landed near Ruby's hand and eyed her phone, apparently hopeful.
‘Tomorrow?’ Jonah asked.
Ruby let out the breath she'd been holding. ‘At six?’
‘Six. You might get put to work.’
‘Fine. I'll bring my very expensive opinions.’
His laugh was small, but she heard it. She stayed at the wall after they said goodbye, watching the gull give up on her.
Mae was home when Ruby got back, a magazine open on her knees. She put it down as soon as she saw Ruby's face.
‘How did it go?’
‘She confirmed it. Both parts.’ Ruby took off her coat. ‘I've asked Jonah to see me tomorrow.’
Mae stared at her. ‘After all that?’
‘Yes.’
‘I can't pretend I'm happy.’
‘I don't expect you to.’
Mae looked away. Ruby waited, then went to hang up her coat. She heard the magazine being lifted, pages shifting under Mae's hand.
‘What time will you be back?’ Mae asked.
Ruby looked round the doorway.
‘I don't know yet.’