On Thursday Ruth asked Leah to choose between two frames for the photograph.
‘The plain one,’ Leah said.
Ruth put the carved frame on the hall table. ‘It was a present from your aunt.’
‘Then you choose.’
‘I'm asking you.’
‘The plain one.’
This time Ruth picked it up. Leah felt an unexpected satisfaction in sticking to so small an answer.
Anna was at the theatre. Daniel had gone into town to buy a replacement part for the greenhouse door, after saying the scrape had finally become too much even for him. Leah and Ruth had the house to themselves.
Ruth had brought a list of people coming on Saturday. She smoothed it on the table and began making calls. Leah went upstairs to put her painting things away, then came down wearing the orange jacket Mira had found.
‘Oh,’ Ruth said, covering her phone. ‘That's bright.’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you going out?’
‘Cinema with Mira.’
Ruth looked at her for a moment. ‘Good. Of course. It'll do you good.’
Leah stood in the doorway while her mother finished the call. A second phone, a small grey one, lay beside the list.
‘Have you broken yours?’ Leah asked.
‘No. This is the one I use for the singing group. People ring it about lifts and rehearsals. Otherwise my proper phone never stops.’
‘Doesn't it just mean two phones ringing?’
‘Only when I turn it on.’
Ruth switched it off and put it in her handbag. Then she held out a folded note.
‘For the cinema.’
Leah shook her head.
‘Let me.’
‘I've bought my ticket.’
‘Then something afterwards.’
Her mother did not look offended. She looked eager to find a thing she could give. Leah almost took the money because refusing it felt needlessly cruel.
‘Keep it for Saturday,’ she said. ‘You keep saying there won't be enough flowers.’
‘There won't.’ Ruth put the note away. ‘That's a nice thought.’
Leah kissed her before leaving.
Mira waited outside the cinema with her hands deep in the pockets of a purple coat. She pulled one out when she saw Leah and gave a loud whistle.
‘Turn round.’
‘We're in a queue.’
‘We're next to a queue. Nobody will die.’
Leah turned round. Mira applauded once.
‘I was right. Insufferable.’
‘You're wearing purple.’
‘And suffering beautifully. Come on.’
Inside, Mira refused to discuss Owen until Leah did. She had brought two pairs of earrings to show her, and one had a clasp she couldn't work. They spent the time before the film passing it backwards and forwards in the dim light. When it finally opened, Mira dropped it and they both crouched under the seats.
Leah found it beside a shoe. For a moment the old pleasure of going somewhere with no reason beyond wanting to be there returned. She wanted more of that. Then the cinema darkened and she was glad nobody could see her face.
The woman in the film made three terrible decisions in the first twenty minutes. Mira leaned close after the second and whispered, ‘Even I wouldn't.’
Leah laughed into her hand.
Afterwards they walked to the bus stop. The evening was cold enough to make the jacket a mistake, but Leah wanted to wear it all the way home.
‘How are Anna and Daniel?’ Mira asked.
‘Kind.’
‘That was a very small answer.’
‘It's a relief being there. It feels like somebody knows what they're doing.’
Mira kicked a stone off the pavement. ‘My sofa knows very little, but it's still there.’
‘I know.’
‘I'm away most of Saturday. Photographing an old house with my cousin, then dancing if I can still move. You can come to the second bit.’
‘It's Dad's birthday thing.’
‘All right. Offer stands if you escape.’
The bus pulled in. Leah hugged her, then climbed aboard. Through the window she saw Mira put up her hood and set off towards home.
Leah checked her messages. There was nothing from Owen. She had begun to check without realising she was doing it. She put the phone away before she could open their old conversation.
At Anna's house the hall light was on. The chosen photograph stood on the table in its plain frame. Anna's keys were beside it, with a strip of green fabric caught in the ring.
‘I'm back,’ Leah called.
‘Up here,’ Anna answered.
Leah heard the sewing machine start again. Daniel was in the sitting room, watching something with the sound turned low. He lifted his hand as she went past.
Her phone vibrated while she was taking off the jacket.
The number was unfamiliar.
Your sister knows what happened to your fiancé. Ask her.