Anna put the bottle in her bag, took it out, then put it in again.
Blackcurrant. A small glass bottle from the shop near the guesthouse, already cold when she bought it. She had chosen it because she knew one thing Tess liked, then spent half the walk back wondering whether that was still something she knew.
At eight twenty she went downstairs. Paula was opening the curtains in the little breakfast room.
“You want toast?”
“No, thank you.”
“You're allowed breakfast. It's in the room.”
“I know.”
“You look as if you're about to do an exam.”
“Something like that.”
Paula looked at her, then lifted a plate.
“Take some.”
Anna took half a slice and ate it walking. She regretted saying no. The toast was good, butter in the middle and a dark edge which tasted of something made by a person who'd watched it. She wanted to sit and have the other half. She wanted not to have a reason for rushing.
At the shop, Rachel had left the door unlocked.
Anna stood outside it until she could put the bag on her shoulder without the bottle banging against the envelope. Then she went in.
“Morning,” Rachel said.
“Is she here?”
“Not yet.”
“All right.”
“Sit down if you like.”
Anna didn't like. She walked to the chairs and stood beside one.
They had been arranged differently. The third chair was close to the other two. A little table held a jug of water and three glasses. No flowers. Anna looked at the space where the vase had stood yesterday and wondered whether Rachel removed them because she was allergic. She hadn't said she was allergic.
“Can I put this in the fridge?” Anna asked, showing the bottle.
Rachel glanced at it.
“Of course.”
“She used to like it.”
Rachel took it without answering. That was kind of her, or something Anna would later discover wasn't kind.
Anna sat. She crossed her ankles, then uncrossed them. Her shoes were new, bought in London with Miriam beside her. In the shop she liked them. Here they seemed large and practical, the feet of a woman who expected to be told to move along.
At eight thirty-four, the door opened.
Tess came in with a bag slung across her body and her hair loose. She wore a grey sleeveless top, black trousers and the white trainers Anna had stepped over in Leonard's hall. Red laces. She was carrying a phone.
Rachel said hello, then locked the front door behind Tess.
Tess looked toward Anna.
“Hi.”
Anna stood.
“Hello.”
She wanted to say darling. The word rose so quickly she closed her lips around it.
Tess stopped beside the worktable. There was no place Anna could move which would turn the distance into a welcome. She looked at Tess's face instead: Leonard's nose, Lee's thick dark brows, a little mark beside the mouth which Anna remembered having kissed after Tess fell against the kitchen cupboard. It could be another mark. Fourteen years gave a person time to have different accidents.
“You've grown,” Anna said.
Tess glanced at Rachel.
Anna heard herself laugh.
“I know. Idiotic. It's just—”
“It's okay.”
“Is it?”
Tess nodded, cautiously.
Rachel pointed at the chairs. Tess chose the one Anna had been facing. She put her bag on the floor but kept the phone. Anna sat again, leaving her own bag beside the leg so she could stop it tipping.
“Do you want a drink?” Rachel asked.
“I brought one,” Anna said.
Tess looked at her.
“Blackcurrant. You used to—”
“Thank you.”
She didn't say she still liked it. Rachel went to get the bottle.
Anna had a list of things not to ask. Why didn't you visit. Why didn't you write. Did he tell you what happened. Do you remember me. In the room, the questions occupied all the spaces where she needed ordinary words.
“Did you have breakfast?”
“Yes.”
“At home?”
“Yes.”
“What did you have?”
Tess moved her phone against her knee.
“Toast.”
“So did I.”
It was something in common. Anna almost laughed at how pleased she was to find it.
Rachel returned with the bottle and a clean glass. Tess thanked her and set both on the table.
“Did you see the route?” Rachel asked Tess.
Anna looked at her.
“What route?”
“Something Ruby sent,” Tess said.
“You don't have to get into it now,” Rachel added.
Tess nodded. Anna waited, feeling a conversation already existed on either side of her.
“What are you doing today?” she asked.
“Working.”
“Here?”
“Yes.”
Anna looked at the rail, the worktable, Rachel's hands folded around a glass.
“For Rachel?”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“A few years.”
“Three,” Rachel said. “Since she was fifteen.”
Tess glanced at her, neither surprised nor displeased by the correction.
Anna picked at the seam inside her cuff.
“I didn't know.”
“Granddad said he'd tell you,” Tess said.
“He said you were working. He didn't say here.”
“Oh.”
Rachel was looking at Anna now.
“It started with Saturdays.”
“Doing what?”
Tess looked around, as though the answer ought to be visible.
“Everything Rachel doesn't want to do.”
“That's not true.”
“Changing the window when it's too hot. Picking up pins. Telling people the dress is supposed to have an invisible zip, not a nonexistent zip.”
Anna smiled before she meant to. Tess saw it.
“Do people think that?”
“One did.”
“He had opinions about the lining as well,” Rachel said.
“He thought it was an extra dress.”
“An optional extra dress.”
The two women laughed. Tess leaned back, briefly comfortable. Anna loved the sound and felt it pass her by.
“Do you make things?” she asked.
“Not like Rachel. I can do a hem. Slowly.”
“You used to like scissors.”
Tess's face changed.
“Probably everyone does.”
“Yes,” Anna said. “Probably.”
Rachel took a sip of water.
“Tess is good with customers. Much better than I was at eighteen.”
Anna wanted to ask what Tess was better at than her. She knew before asking that it would be a cruel question to hand Tess.
“Do you like it?” she said instead.
“Mostly.”
“What don't you like?”
Tess looked at Rachel again, this time with amusement.
“People asking if we can make them look like the photo while keeping everything they don't like about the photo.”
Rachel laughed. Anna laughed with her.
“That sounds like Celia.”
The name went into the room and settled. Tess lowered her eyes. Rachel's hand remained on the glass.
Anna's heat rose from her throat to her face.
“I didn't mean—”
“I know,” Rachel said.
“I was remembering something she said.”
“It's all right.”
Tess looked at her mother. Anna wanted to make Tess believe one thing, the one thing she had always known, without pushing the room into a conversation she couldn't end gently.
“I didn't kill her,” she said.
Tess held the phone flat between her hands.
“I read about the appeal.”
“I know you did. It's just difficult sitting here wondering whether you're thinking it.”
“I don't know what I'm thinking.”
The answer was so direct that Anna stopped preparing the next sentence.
“Right.”
Rachel moved forward in her chair.
“We don't have to do all of this now.”
Anna wanted to tell her it was easy to say that when there would be an ordinary afternoon after the half hour. She looked at Tess and left Rachel alone.
“You can ask me anything,” she said.
Tess's shoulders tightened.
“Or not,” Anna added. “You can not.”
For a while they could hear a man delivering bread outside. He dropped something and swore loudly enough to come through the glass.
Tess smiled.
“I do that,” Anna said. “Still.”
“What?”
“Swear when I drop things.”
“I don't remember.”
“Good.”
Tess gave a little laugh. Anna let it be little.
Tess looked past her toward the machine.
“Rachel, that blue one needs to be ready tomorrow.”
“I know.”
“Did you finish the lining?”
“Last night.”
“Oh. I was going to.”
“You can check it.”
Tess nodded. A small exchange, Tess's concern accepted and given a task. Anna could see how many such exchanges had taken place before she knew to look for them.
“Are you sewing the dress?” she asked.
“Only bits.”
“It was nice. I saw it yesterday.”
“The customer was terrified she'd look wrong.”
“Will she?”
“No. We fixed it.”
Tess said we without looking at Rachel this time.
Anna touched the bag beside her chair. The envelope corner was within reach. She could take it out, give Tess something to hold which belonged to this meeting.
Instead she asked, “Have you got pictures?”
“Of what?”
“Anything. You. What you do.”
Tess paused, then unlocked the phone.
“There are some band ones.”
“Band?”
“Low Weather.”
Anna waited for an explanation, embarrassed by how far behind the first word she stood.
“I play drums.”
“I knew you were having lessons.”
“Not any more.”
“Why?”
Tess looked amused.
“Because I'm playing in a band.”
“Yes. Sorry.”
Rachel said, “Show her the one from the hall. With the terrible lights.”
Tess scrolled, found a photograph and turned the screen.
Four young people on a low stage. A red wash of light made their faces strange. Tess sat behind drums at the back, her arm lifted, one hand blurred. Anna couldn't see enough of her face.
“Can I?”
Tess gave her the phone.
Anna enlarged the image with two fingers, the way Miriam had shown her. It grew quickly. She pushed it too far, then drew it back.
“There,” Tess said, leaning forward to help. Her hair fell across her cheek. Anna could smell something citrus, shampoo perhaps, ordinary closeness she wanted so badly that the picture became difficult to see.
“That's you.”
“Yes.”
“What are you doing?”
“Playing.”
“I mean which part?”
“Oh. Probably the end of 'Harbour Mouth'. I can't tell from a photo.”
“That's a song?”
“Ruby's.”
“Is she that one?”
Anna pointed at the singer.
“Yes.”
“And him?”
“Eli. Bass.”
The answer had another sound in it, small and guarded. Anna knew it without knowing whether she was entitled to notice.
“And the other one?”
“Jo. Keys.”
Anna looked at each face. People who could have met Tess in a room and stayed there, who knew the sound her hands made.
“Are you good?”
Tess laughed.
“What, the band or me?”
“Both.”
“Sometimes.”
“That's a respectable amount.”
Rachel smiled. Anna looked up, pleased with herself, and saw Rachel watching Tess's face for the same thing.
“Was Granddad there?” Anna asked.
“At that one? No.”
“Did someone go with you?”
“We went together. The band.”
“Yes.”
“Rachel came to our first proper one,” Tess said. “There were about nine people, and four were there to meet Eli's mum.”
“It was very good,” Rachel said.
“It was very loud.”
“It was both.”
Tess took the phone when Anna offered it back. She began to put it away, then found another photograph.
“This was before we had that kit.”
“Different drums?”
“Yes. The first lessons were on the old borrowed ones at school. Then Granddad got me—”
She stopped, looking at Rachel.
“You helped him.”
“A little,” Rachel said.
“Quite a lot.”
Anna held her hands still. Rachel seemed about to explain, then looked at Tess.
“There were school things, too,” she said to Anna. “After Maggie. Leonard was managing. I could help with some costs.”
“When?”
“When Tess was about twelve.”
About twelve. After she stopped coming. Anna watched the gap between the years fill itself with a woman sitting three feet from her.
“That's kind,” she said.
The words sounded obedient.
Rachel answered, “I enjoyed it.”
Anna looked at her, startled by the honesty. Rachel's face was open in a way Anna hadn't seen yesterday. She did enjoy it. There was no need to pretend otherwise.
Tess checked the time.
Anna felt it like someone entering the room to end a visit.
“It's been half an hour.”
“A bit longer,” Tess said.
“I should go.”
She reached for the bag, then remembered the card.
“I got this. You don't have to read it here.”
Tess accepted the envelope.
“Thank you.”
There were no questions about the crossed-out versions, the two nights Anna spent trying to write something short enough to be read without duty. The finished card contained three sentences and her number.
Rachel stood, but Tess stayed seated.
“Did you want to see another?” she asked.
Anna had to put the bag down again.
“Picture?”
“There's a video. The sound's terrible.”
“I'd like that.”
Tess turned the volume down, perhaps thinking of the shop opening. The clip began with someone laughing near the camera, then the drums came in. Anna saw Tess nod to Ruby at the microphone, watched the stick strike the edge of something bright, heard a beat become a song around it.
A person tried the shop door. Rachel went to it, unlocked it and explained they would be a few minutes. Tess kept the video running.
Tess glanced at her.
“That's why the sound's terrible. Whoever filmed it was next to the speaker.”
“I don't think it's terrible.”
“You can't really hear the bass.”
“I can hear you.”
Tess looked back at the phone.
When it ended, she let Anna keep looking at the paused picture. Nobody said the time again.
Rachel was still at the door when Tess stood.
“I have to work.”
“I know.”
Anna put the bag on her shoulder. The bottle remained unopened on the table. She thought of taking it away, then couldn't.
“You can keep that if you want.”
“Okay.”
“At home. Or here.”
“Okay.”
They stood close enough for a hug to become possible. Anna looked at Tess and couldn't decide whether reaching would make the whole meeting collapse around a gesture which needed to be wanted. Tess put the envelope in her bag.
“I've got your number,” she said.
“Yes.”
“You can message me.”
Anna's voice came out too brightly.
“When?”
Tess smiled, a little.
“Whenever. I might not reply straight away.”
“I don't always either,” Anna said, which was absurd with this daughter and might become true in some other life.
Outside, she walked a few doors before stopping. Through the shop window Tess was taking down the blue dress. Rachel said something. Tess tilted her head to listen.
Anna had heard her music. She had been given a number she could use, a little time after the time ended. She wanted to go back in and have the rest.
Instead she took out her phone and wrote to Tess.
Thank you for showing me.
She didn't send another sentence. She walked toward the guesthouse with the bottle's cold space against her hip.