The top was finished by eight, and Rachel ironed it again at half past although the binding didn't need it.
She held it against the light. Silver-grey, darker where the cloth doubled, the armhole softer now. Tess could reach without feeling it. Rachel had left the hem exactly as she wanted.
At nine, Mae rang about the greeting table.
“The volunteer with the early bedtime has offered to stay till half past eight.”
“Generous.”
“I know. I nearly made a public announcement.”
Rachel set the iron upright and sat on the stool.
“What do you need?”
“Someone at the side entrance before the school group comes. I can't be at both doors.”
“Put me where you need me.”
“Don't say that. I'll do it.”
Mae sounded more ordinary than she had on Friday. Rachel wanted the concert to be a place they could still be ordinary with one another.
“Your jacket's ready,” she said.
“Good. I want my jacket back, just with both shoulders pointing the same way.”
“Yes.”
“Better than I deserve.”
“You only pulled the lining.”
“I pull everything. I have a gift.”
They discussed the time, a box of programmes, where Mae's friend would bring the flowers. Rachel wrote notes beside her name. The date at the top was the twenty-second. Fourteen years since Celia died.
Mae asked, “Have you heard anything about Anna?”
“She's working at the Anchor.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Well. Good.”
The words were carefully separate. Mae wished the woman something without knowing where to place her. Rachel could have told her more. Instead she asked if the little school group were still planning the same piece.
Tess arrived while they were talking. She had a smaller bag than usual, a round padded case held by its handle and another bag across her shoulder. She put all three on the floor, one after the other, and made a face at the counter.
Rachel lifted a hand to show she was finishing. Tess went to the top on the rail.
“Low Weather will need something at the table,” Mae said.
“Yes,” Rachel replied. “I'll ask.”
When she ended the call, Tess was holding the top in front of herself.
“Done?”
“Try it.”
“We haven't got long.”
“It'll take a minute.”
Tess looked at the time and went behind the curtain. Rachel could hear the bags settling as someone brushed past them.
Anna stood at the door.
“Morning.”
“Hello.”
“Am I early?”
“They're leaving about eleven, aren't they?”
“Yes. I don't know how early I'm meant to be for a thing which hasn't happened before.”
“Come in.”
Anna wore the black blouse. Her hair was pinned loosely at the back, a few strands falling forward. Rachel noticed the lipstick before she decided whether it suited her. It did.
“That looks good.”
“The shirt?”
“All of it.”
Anna smiled, then looked toward the changing room.
“Am I interfering?”
“No,” Tess called.
Tess came out in the silver-grey top and reached both arms forward. Her face changed.
“Oh, that's much better.”
Rachel felt the pleasure before she could protect herself from needing it.
“Sit.”
Tess sat, lifted her arms, reached one hand across her body.
“Yes.”
Anna watched.
“What did it do before?”
“Bit me.”
“Not a good basis for clothing.”
Tess laughed. She stood and pulled the front into her waistband.
Rachel asked, “The hem?”
“Still good.”
“All right.”
Tess looked at her in the mirror.
“Thank you.”
Anna's gaze moved from the mirror to Rachel's hands. Tess changed back, and Rachel folded the top into paper.
“Don't leave it in the bag while it's damp.”
“Why would it be damp?”
“Because you're wearing it to play.”
“Oh. That sort of damp. I know.”
“Just hang it up.”
Tess took the packet without protesting. The indulgence felt worse than the old argument would have.
Anna looked at the blue dress still folded over the rail behind the counter.
“Are you holding that?”
“Yes.”
“You don't need to forever.”
“I know.”
Tess picked up the padded case.
“What is that?” Rachel asked.
“Snare.”
“You're taking your own?”
“I told you. That's the small stuff.”
“It's quite big small stuff.”
Tess grinned.
“Ask the train.”
Anna reached for the other bag.
“I can take that.”
“It's heavier than it looks.”
“So am I.”
Tess laughed and let her. Rachel knew what was in the bag: a cardigan, clothes for the evening, a little packet of fastenings and safety pins. She'd helped Tess carry such bags before Tess could manage all the things she needed at once.
They stood near the counter, ready to leave.
“We're staying at Ruby's friend Bea's,” Tess said. “In Ashcombe.”
“I hope it's lovely,” Rachel said.
Tess smiled.
“It might be awful. We'll tell you.”
“Not just the awful bits.”
“Those are the interesting ones.”
Rachel laughed. Mae's folder lay open on the counter, her name written beside the greeting table.
Anna lifted the bag.
“Thank you for the blouse.”
Rachel nodded.
“Have a good time.”
Tess came close enough to touch her shoulder.
“We will.”
Tess went first, carrying the case. Anna followed with the bag, then stopped because Tess remembered something and turned.
“Phone?”
“Here.”
“Tickets?”
“Here.”
“Good.”
“You're just like—” Anna began, then left the comparison unfinished.
They smiled at each other and went out.
Rachel watched them cross toward the station. Anna adjusted the bag so the weight sat differently. Tess saw, stopped and said something. Anna shook her head, then let Tess take it for a few steps before taking it back. They were learning a way to do a small thing together.
Rachel went to the window until they passed the cafe. Then she shut the curtain at the fitting room and returned to the table.
The shop was quiet for nearly an hour. Rachel worked on a dress which had been altered before, carefully opening the old seam so she could see how much cloth remained. The previous stitches were small and neat. She could undo good work without making it careless work.
A woman came in to collect Mae's jacket on her behalf. Rachel asked if Mae knew she was sending someone.
“She texted you.”
Rachel checked the phone. The message was there.
“Of course.”
The woman took the bag, thanked her and left. Rachel wrote collected beside the note, pressing harder than she needed.
In 2012 she had gone to Celia's because of a jacket. A customer was collecting it in the morning, and Celia had taken the bag home by mistake with her own things. Rachel had rung from the shop at nine fourteen. No answer. At nine twenty-six she was at the front gate, still carrying the alteration slip she meant to put in the pocket.
The gate opened toward her. Its latch pressed into her palm before she stepped back. Martin came down the short path.
He stopped under the porch light. Not a shape at the end of a road: his face, turned fully toward her, the little crease beside his mouth she had watched deepen when he smiled. He wasn't smiling.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“Celia wanted to talk.”
“About what?”
He looked past her. “I've got to go. I'll see you at home.”
He moved round her, close enough that his sleeve touched hers. She let the gate rest against her hip. His car was farther up the street. She watched him reach it before going to the door.
It wasn't latched. In the hall she called Celia's name, then again from the kitchen doorway. The jacket bag was on a chair. Celia lay beyond it.
Rachel remembered a shoe first. Her friend's foot bent against the cupboard, an absurd position for someone who complained of cramp. Then the blood, and the brass shape on the floor. She went down on her knees. When she put her fingers at Celia's neck she didn't know what she was feeling for.
She called for an ambulance on her own phone. The screen said nine thirty-one. She gave the address twice, and when the operator asked who was with her she said nobody. She meant nobody who could help. The word became convenient before the call was over.
Police came with the ambulance. Rachel stayed while they took the first account. She said she'd come for a customer's jacket. Asked whether she had seen anyone leaving, she said she had seen someone at the gate but needed a moment. An officer gave her water. She let him think shock was the thing delaying her.
She was allowed home before the fuller statement the following morning. Martin was in her kitchen, wearing another shirt.
“You saw me,” he said.
She stood in the doorway. “You left her there.”
“She was alive. Rachel. Look at me. She was alive when I left.”
He moved a chair so she could sit. She wanted the chair and hated him for knowing. He said Anna had been there earlier, that Celia had been bleeding at the mouth already, that there had been a row over money. Rachel knew about the debt. She had seen Anna angry in the shop. Those facts fitted nothing she had just seen and offered her somewhere to put it.
“They'll ask why you were there.”
“I know. I should have told you I'd gone round.”
He answered the easier question. She let him.
At the station the next morning an officer read back her arrival time. Rachel corrected nine twenty to about nine twenty-six; she remembered the call on her phone and the walk from the shop. Accuracy in one place made the next part sound careful too.
“And the person at the gate?”
She could describe Martin's face. She could give his name and let them ask him what she had failed to ask. Instead she said Anna Bell.
The officer asked whether she was sure.
“I know her. I've seen her in the shop.”
That was true. It was not an answer to the question. When the typed statement came, Rachel read the sentence identifying Anna leaving at her arrival time and signed beneath it.
At the trial she kept the time and the name together. The defence asked about light, distance, the gate. She gave the porch light, the few feet between them, the unobstructed view. Each detail which ought to have identified Martin was made to support Anna's name.
Now the opened seam lay beneath Rachel's hand. Fourteen years later she could still remember the officer turning the statement so she could sign it.
The little shop bell sounded. Rachel lifted her head.
A woman wanted to know if they sold something suitable for a second wedding which didn't look like an apology. Rachel took her to the rail.
“I think we can manage that.”
At five the phone sounded. A photograph from Tess: Anna holding a paper plate, the wind lifting a strand of hair across her mouth. She looked annoyed and delighted, both at once.
The message said: She thinks there's a proper way to eat this. There isn't.
Rachel enlarged the picture. Tess wasn't in it. She was the person behind the camera, laughing perhaps, looking at her mother long enough to make a photograph.
Rachel wrote: What is it?
Tess replied: A disaster with cheese.
Rachel laughed alone. She sent a smiling face and returned to the dress whose old seam she had opened.