Anna was kneeling on the dining-room floor when Leah returned just after two. She had the green costume spread before her, with a ruler balanced across one knee.
‘Did you see Owen?’ she asked.
Leah took off her jacket. ‘Yes.’
Anna waited.
‘I'm not going to tell you everything we did.’
‘You don't have to.’
It was difficult to hear that without suspecting her sister of trying to sound better than she had yesterday. Leah hung the jacket over the chair and looked at the costume.
‘What's wrong with it?’
‘It has to fit two people. One thinks she's shorter than she is, and the other thinks she's taller. The dress is suffering.’
Leah knelt beside her. She had intended to go upstairs, but the green fabric was beautiful when it caught the light. Anna had pinned a band of gold trim down one side.
‘Isn't that crooked?’
‘Yes. Deliberately.’
‘Does the dress know?’
Anna looked at her, then gave a brief laugh. ‘Probably not.’
She pushed the ruler aside. ‘Would you put it on? Just so I can look at the fastening.’
Leah slipped off her shoes and stepped into the costume. Anna held it up while she put her arms through. The sleeves fell past her wrists.
‘We can hide your hands,’ Anna said. ‘Most performers become less troublesome without hands.’
‘You were a performer.’
‘Exactly.’
Leah faced the hall mirror while Anna pulled the back together. There was a strange pleasure in becoming someone else without having to invent a new life. The costume's waist sat higher than her own. Its skirt shifted heavily around her feet.
‘Walk,’ Anna said.
Leah took three steps. Anna made a dissatisfied noise.
‘Like you own something.’
Leah lifted her chin and walked towards the stairs. The skirt swept round her. In the mirror she looked like a woman who would never be left by text.
Anna clapped her hands once. ‘There. That's what it needs.’
Leah turned sharply and the hem caught beneath her foot. Anna grabbed her elbow. They both laughed, breathlessly, while Leah found her balance.
Then Leah looked at Anna's hand round her arm and the laughter faded.
‘It's so easy to do what you say.’
Anna let go.
‘You make it easy,’ Leah said. ‘You make the next thing sound obvious.’
‘I shouldn't have done that with Owen.’
‘You wanted me to come here and need you.’
Anna stepped back. ‘No.’
‘You said you wanted me to keep wanting to be with you.’
‘That's not wanting you helpless.’
Leah turned towards her. ‘Isn't it?’
‘No. It's me being afraid you'd find out what I'd done and hate me. It's ugly enough without that.’
Anna was flushed. Her voice had gone quick, the words almost running into one another. Leah could see that she had hurt her. Part of her was pleased. Another part recognised the pleased feeling and disliked it.
‘Get me out of this,’ Leah said.
Anna undid the fastening. They returned to the dining room in silence. Leah stepped free of the heavy skirt and sat down to put on her shoes.
Anna folded the costume carefully across the table. She picked up the spare trim and went to put it into the trunk nearest the window.
As she lifted the lid, a blue lamp tipped against the side. There was a framed photograph beneath it, wrapped in a faded towel. Leah knew the lamp. Anna kept it on her bedside table.
‘Why is that in there?’ Leah asked.
Anna stopped with the trim in her hand.
‘I'm taking it with me.’
Leah looked at the trunk again. Beneath the towel were books, a pair of everyday shoes and the little box Anna kept her earrings in. These were not theatre things.
‘Taking it where?’
Anna put the trim on the table. ‘To my room.’
‘What room?’
‘I've found one to rent. I'm moving tomorrow, after Dad's thing.’
Leah stood up so quickly that the chair scraped the floor.
‘You're leaving Daniel?’
‘Yes.’
The word was quiet. Anna did not look towards the hall to see who might have heard.
‘Does he know?’
‘He knows. I told him six weeks ago.’
Leah glanced through the window. The garden was empty. Daniel had said he was going to the post office when she came in. It had seemed so ordinary that she had hardly listened.
‘Six weeks?’
‘He asked me for time. I agreed to stay until after Saturday. We didn't want Mum having to change the gathering too.’
‘Mum knows?’
‘Yes.’
Leah sat again. She could still feel the weight of the costume on her shoulders, although she was only wearing a T-shirt now.
‘You've been letting me think everything's all right here.’
Anna touched the trunk's lid. ‘I didn't know how to tell you. You'd lost Owen. I didn't want to hand you my marriage as well.’
‘You could have said you were moving out.’
‘Yes.’ Anna let the lid fall shut. ‘I could have.’
‘Is there someone else?’
‘No.’
‘Are you sure you don't want him?’
Anna sat on the chair opposite. She looked tired now, without the quick movement that usually carried her through difficult subjects.
‘I want him to be all right. I like him. Sometimes I love him in a way that makes this feel impossible. I don't want to be married to him.’
Leah had no answer ready. She had spent days thinking how wonderful it must be to live with a man who wanted to listen.
‘Has he done something?’
‘He hasn't hurt me. He hasn't frightened me. He hasn't done a terrible thing I can show Mum so she'll let me go.’
‘Then why?’
Anna rubbed a thumb along the edge of the table.
‘I want to come home at eleven because rehearsal ran late and not see someone trying not to be disappointed. I want an evening that's mine before I decide what to do with it. Here I'm always aware of what he's given me, and what I ought to be feeling about it.’
‘Does he say that?’
‘Not in those words. Sometimes he doesn't say anything. Sometimes he asks whether we can have one evening without a script or a costume. He's allowed to want that. I'm tired of promising it and wishing I was somewhere else.’
Anna looked towards the hall.
‘The room's little. There's a window that sticks. I stood in it and thought I could sit on the floor until midnight without anyone waiting for me to choose them. I wanted it so much I almost cried.’
Leah watched her sister's face. Anna was not smiling. There was something less guarded in it than there had been when she spoke about Owen.
‘You used to do everything together,’ Leah said.
‘We did. Some of it was lovely.’
‘The bear.’
Anna's mouth moved. ‘That ridiculous bear.’
For a moment they could both see it: enormous and purple, wearing a seat belt in the back of Daniel's car.
‘I don't want all our good things to become evidence that I have to stay,’ Anna said.
Leah looked at the closed trunk. Her sister had packed a lamp she used every night. The leaving was real, not a thought Anna had had because Leah came home hurt.
‘What did you expect me to do here when you went?’ Leah asked.
‘Stay a little if you wanted, or go to Mira's. Find somewhere. You didn't come because I needed company.’
‘Nobody told me what I was coming into.’
‘I should have. I'm sorry.’
Leah pulled her phone from her pocket, then put it down. There was no message that could answer this. Daniel was the person she needed to ask next.
‘When's he back?’
‘Soon.’
Leah stood and went into the hall. She stopped beside the mirror, where a few threads of green fabric lay on the carpet.
She had liked being in that dress. She had liked how readily her sister made her stand taller. Now she could not tell how much of the life in this house she had understood at all.