Three weeks later, Eva chose a table in a restaurant she had walked past for years without going in.
Jo arrived late, carrying an umbrella that had turned inside out.
“I fought the weather,” she said, dropping into the chair opposite. “The weather is stronger.”
Eva moved the water out of her way. “I picked a table without a view of the cleaning products.”
Jo looked at the wall behind her. There was a painting of a fish with a strangely human expression.
“I preferred my washing-up liquid.”
They ordered. Eva chose something she'd never eaten and then asked the waiter what was in it, because she didn't intend to discover halfway through that she'd bought a plate of things she disliked.
Jo wanted chips. Nobody had a rule about the sauces.
“How did the anniversary go?” she asked.
“The father got everyone singing.”
“Planned?”
“No. Very much not planned. The cake came out during the third verse.”
Jo grinned.
“The mother loved it,” Eva said. “Her daughter paid me and asked if I'd do her office supper in December.”
“Will you?”
“I'm looking at the room next week. Then I'll say.”
There had been one other enquiry, and plenty of days with no work at all. Eva had spent part of yesterday worrying over numbers. She wasn't going to pretend this had become easy. Tonight she had paid work behind her, a possible job ahead and enough money for the meal she'd chosen.
The food came. Hers was good, although she had to take the first bite twice because it fell off the fork. Jo offered her a chip without making it an occasion.
Across the road, a woman in a red scarf was walking towards the café up the hill. Eva knew the bag before she knew the face.
Nora looked through the window as she passed.
For a moment Eva was back behind the counter, Nora's bag in the space where hers ought to be. Then Nora saw her, slowed and lifted a hand.
Eva lifted hers too.
Nora gave a small nod and walked on. She had her own shift to get to. Eva hadn't been asked to make it happen.
Jo followed Eva's glance but didn't comment. She cut another piece of her dinner.
“There's a market by the park on Sunday,” she said. “Do you want to go?”
“Yes. Not too early.”
“You're no fun.”
“I'm fun at eleven.”
They decided on eleven. Jo said she needed somebody to stop her buying a lamp because it had a face, and Eva said she was absolutely the wrong person for that job.
For a minute she thought of Ben and the tragic sombrero. She hadn't thrown the bowl away. Some mornings seeing it still hurt. She thought of Will too, what he'd say about the fish painting, and felt the old wish to tell him something funny.
Then Jo held a chip up towards the painted fish as though she were feeding it, and Eva laughed with a mouthful of dinner.
The waiter came to ask whether everything was all right.
“Yes,” Eva said, after she'd swallowed. “It's very good.”
She ate the rest while it was warm.