The school hall had better acoustics when it was full of children.
Nina had worked here before. She stayed on the ladder while Sol held it, a caretaker waiting beside the stage with a ring of keys large enough to make any movement sound official.
Paper stars hung along the back wall. Some were folded from old worksheets, with fractions and corrections visible on their points.
Frankie stood beneath the stage edge, coat over her arm. Nina hadn't answered two calls. She'd told herself she was nearby, which was true only after she'd decided to come.
“Give me a minute,” Nina said.
Frankie waited. When Nina came down, the caretaker offered tea and went to make it. Sol began checking the other equipment.
Frankie kept her voice low.
“Have you spoken to Gideon again?”
“He wants a proposal. An actual evening, with people paying for entertainment. Less boring than his last programme, apparently.”
“He trusts you.”
“He saw the preview.”
Sol looked towards them, then returned to his case.
“How much does Sol know?”
Nina glanced at him. “He knows about the producing work. We've talked about Calder. Ask him if you need to know more.”
Frankie leaned against the stage. The wood was dusty; she moved her hand.
“I don't want you getting used.”
Nina stared at her.
“You want to say that again?”
Frankie looked at the paper stars. “No.”
The caretaker returned with tea in three unmatched mugs, told Nina which cupboard would be open after six, and went to look at a door which hadn't shut properly.
Sol picked up his mug. “Before I agree to the bigger Calder show, I want the fee and credit in writing. No borrowing gear on the strength of another promise.”
“You'll have them,” Nina said.
Frankie looked at the case, remembering the festival messages: Nina asking people to come because she'd been promised something Frankie had never intended to deliver.
“I owe you an apology as well,” she said.
Sol looked at her.
He knew enough, then.
“Probably.”
“I—”
“Not now.”
Nina looked down at her tea.
Sol went back to the equipment.
The hall was too large for the quiet. Frankie wished she hadn't entered it with a voice prepared to explain what Nina needed protecting from.
Nina drank.
“He pays because he wants something. So do most people who hire us.”
“Most people don't want their brother humiliated.”
“No. Most people want a speech nobody listens to, or a product made exciting, or their own name said more often than everybody else's. I'm not confused about what this is.”
“I don't think you are.”
“You did.”
Frankie nodded.
“Yes.”
Nina set down the mug.
“I want to make something large enough that nobody has to ask whether I really produced it. I want Sol paid enough to choose the job. I want a programme with my name on it. I don't want you explaining later that I was young and trusted the wrong person.”
“I wouldn't.”
“You already have, in your head.”
Frankie couldn't answer.
From the other end of the hall the caretaker called to ask whether they needed the piano moved.
“No,” Nina called back.
“Good,” Sol said.
Nina smiled and drank her tea. Frankie stood beside her until the caretaker came back to ask another question.
At Calder House the following afternoon Vivian was laying wallpaper samples over June's appointment book.
June moved them to a pile of invoices. “After the launch. And after the tap.”
“We're becoming a hotel people choose,” Vivian said.
Frankie followed her into the corridor. “You're going ahead with him.”
“With his money. We can feed people, give them an evening, do that very well. If Gideon wants to make a fool of himself in the middle, perhaps that isn't the whole night.”
“His brother.”
“His brother can disappoint him.”
Vivian went into the Morning Room to ask Arthur about his sister. Frankie stayed in the corridor.
Her phone vibrated.
Duncan.
Can't come tonight. Work. Can do Friday before seven if needed.
She wrote, Fine.
Then she deleted it.
Friday would help. Thank you.
He didn't answer immediately.
She put the phone away.
In the Morning Room Vivian was laughing at something Arthur had said. June went past with a packet of tap fittings and a look which suggested that laughter was permitted so long as it didn't require extra towels.
Frankie opened the reception details Gideon had sent.
Friday evening. An actual local event. Felix Rusk listed among the invited guests.
She looked at the name until it became a person she hadn't met, rather than a task she might complete.
Then she rang the organiser to confirm Vivian's attendance and ask what she could do to help.