Mae asked Ruby to come to the hall with her.
Ruby looked up from the box she was packing. ‘Why?’
‘I need to tell Bev what I did. Properly. I don't want you wondering what I've said when you're not there.’
Ruby set a jug down in its nest of paper. ‘She knows you cancelled him.’
‘She knows from you. She should know from me.’
Ruby considered that. She didn't want another conversation about what Mae had meant. She did want Bev to stop wondering whether Ruby and Jonah had somehow changed their minds without admitting it.
‘All right,’ she said.
They walked there without talking much. Mae was wearing plain black trousers and the shoes she'd bought for her trial shift. Ruby recognised neither as something she'd chosen for pleasure.
At the hall Bev was taping numbers to tables. Mae waited until she had finished the one in her hand.
‘I need to correct the message I sent,’ she said.
Bev stood up. She didn't invite them to sit down.
‘Jonah hadn't asked Ruby to cancel,’ Mae said. ‘Ruby hadn't asked me to pass anything on. I made it up because I didn't want him there.’
Her voice shook on the last sentence. She repeated it more clearly.
‘You had every reason to think I was passing on what they'd asked. I'd sent the measurements. I used that. I'm sorry.’
Bev looked at Ruby, then back at Mae.
‘You made a mess of my bookings.’
‘I know.’
‘I've had to move things. Someone else had to agree to less space.’
‘I'm sorry for that too.’
Bev pressed the roll of tape against her palm. ‘I'll deal with Ruby and Jonah from now on.’
‘Yes.’
There wasn't anything else to say. Ruby had expected Mae to try to explain herself. She didn't.
Instead she handed Ruby the small folder containing the hall information, the table plan and the hire details she'd printed. Ruby took it. They were ordinary papers. She hadn't known Mae was still keeping them.
Bev moved on to the next table. Mae stepped out of her way.
Outside, Mae took out her phone.
‘There's one more thing,’ she said. ‘He messaged this morning.’
Ruby waited.
‘The last two hundred. He's offered it again. Even after you told him to stop. He wants me to help with the bakery classes on the day.’
‘How?’
‘He thinks the returning customers will ask for the bakery. That you'll change your mind if you hear it from them. He asked me to encourage it.’
‘You know my answer.’
‘I know.’
Mae called him. Ruby stayed beside her, looking through the doors at the rows of numbered tables.
‘Dan,’ Mae said. ‘I'm not taking it. The last payment. I'm not helping you get Ruby back.’
He spoke for a while. Mae listened, eyes on the ground.
‘No. I should have said it sooner. And don't bring that sign.’
Ruby turned.
Mae lifted a hand, finished listening, then said, ‘I won't use it. She's got her own. You need to hear that.’
She ended the call.
‘What sign?’ Ruby asked.
‘The names from his proposal. Yours and the bakery. He had one printed. It's at the bakery.’
Ruby looked through the glass again. Her empty table was the third in the middle row.
‘Did he say he wouldn't bring it?’
‘He said he'd think about it.’
Ruby rang him herself. He didn't answer. She sent a message saying the joint sign had no place at her stall. Then she told Bev, who came to the door and read the message over her shoulder.
‘Your booking is yours,’ Bev said. ‘I've got no joint stand on the plan.’
Ruby put the phone away. It was enough to have told the person who could do something on the day.
Mae was standing a little farther down the path. ‘I've got somewhere,’ she said when Ruby came back. ‘A woman at work has a spare room. Four weeks, to start with. Seventy a week.’
‘Can you afford it?’
‘With the shifts. I've got enough for the first week. I'll start looking for something longer.’
‘When?’
‘I can move properly the day after the market. I've got a key now. I can take some things this afternoon.’
Ruby nodded. The day after the market. She had thought about Mae leaving without letting herself picture an empty spare room.
They went home. Mae packed her work clothes and the shoes she'd worn to the hall. Then she put a few toiletries in the side of the bag and looked round the spare room.
Ruby stood in the doorway. The little blue print Mae had brought with her was propped on the chest of drawers. Beside it was a photograph of the two of them at twenty-one, windswept and grinning.
Mae took the photograph first. She wrapped it in a shirt.
‘I will pay him back,’ she said.
Ruby didn't ask for dates or amounts. She wasn't willing to become the person who checked whether Mae had done everything she should.
‘That's for you to sort out.’
Mae nodded. She zipped the bag, tested its weight and lifted it.
Ruby moved aside to let her through. At the front door Mae paused.
‘I'll be back later for tonight,’ she said.
‘I know.’
‘I don't know whether to say that I'm sorry again.’
Ruby looked at her tired face. ‘You've done something today.’
Mae's eyes filled. She nodded once and went down the stairs with the bag.
Ruby stayed by the open door until she couldn't hear her any longer. Then she went back to the stock.
The green jug was still out. Ruby checked the price, wrapped it and lowered it carefully into the box. She marked the top with a red arrow so she'd know where to find it first.