On the train, Anna discovered that Tess didn't like sitting with her back to the direction they were going.
“Since when?”
“Always.”
“I didn't know.”
“I didn't go on many trains when I was four.”
Anna laughed and moved into the other seat. Tess put the padded case beneath the table, testing whether it would fit without somebody kicking it.
“That's expensive, isn't it?”
“The drum?”
“Yes.”
“Enough.”
“Is it yours?”
“Mine.”
Anna watched the care with which she pulled the strap clear of the aisle.
“What happens if somebody steals it?”
“I become a different kind of musician.”
Tess grinned. Anna let the joke answer the worry.
Ruby and Jo were farther along the carriage. Eli stood in the aisle arguing pleasantly about whose bag ought to go overhead. They had a way of moving together which left nobody entirely alone and nobody asked to be grateful. Anna kept expecting instructions. Most of the time there weren't any.
Tess looked out of the window, then at her mother.
“Do you want a sweet?”
“What kind?”
“Ginger.”
“Why?”
“I got them when I felt sick. Now I like them.”
Anna took one. It was more violent than she expected.
“Jesus.”
Tess laughed.
“Don't chew it straight away.”
“You might have begun with that.”
“I forgot.”
Anna tried to let it dissolve. Her eyes watered. Tess opened a bottle and offered it across the table.
“I've injured you.”
“After so much planning.”
They laughed quietly so they wouldn't disturb the man reading behind them. Anna liked being part of something which could disturb another person just by going well.
In Ashcombe they took the equipment to the venue before anyone offered lunch. It was a low room at the back of a pub, still smelling of the mop someone had used. Ruby spoke to a man with a bundle of leads over his shoulder. Tess put the drum case beneath a table and asked him about a stand.
Anna stood aside. When a boy came through carrying glasses, she took the door for him.
“Thanks.”
She held it until he cleared the frame, then let go.
Tess was looking at her.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“I know how to do a door.”
“I know.”
Tess smiled. Anna could have made the little task into proof she belonged here. She let it stay a door.
After they checked the equipment, everyone dispersed. Ruby needed to find Bea for keys, Jo wanted a place to charge her phone, Eli followed Tess for a few steps, then stopped when she said they were getting food.
“Us?” Anna asked after he had gone.
“Yes.”
“Just us?”
“Unless you want somebody else.”
“No.”
She said it too quickly. Tess looked amused rather than hurt.
They walked toward the water. Ashcombe's streets narrowed as they approached the front, shops offering things nobody required for a day of music. Anna paused outside a window of brightly coloured bowls.
“You like those?”
“I don't know. I might like one without liking all of them.”
Tess came to look.
“The orange one's horrible.”
“Yes.”
“The blue one, maybe.”
“I like the red.”
“It looks like something you'd give someone you didn't know well enough to buy them something else.”
Anna laughed.
“You're very severe.”
“I learned from Rachel.”
The name passed between them. Anna looked at Tess's reflection in the glass, then her own.
“She's good at that.”
“At being severe?”
“At knowing what suits a person.”
“She doesn't always.”
“No.”
“Sometimes she knows what suits her idea of them.”
Anna turned. Tess was still examining the bowls, speaking casually about a woman she loved.
“Does she listen?”
“Eventually.”
“That's quite good, then.”
Tess glanced at her, surprised perhaps by the absence of jealousy. Anna was surprised herself. There was enough pleasure in the day to let Rachel exist at the edge of it without taking something away.
They chose a little place near the promenade. Inside, the seats were full. A girl behind the counter said they could take things outside but not the chairs, though people tried.
“What things?” Anna asked.
Tess pointed at a menu board.
“Those. Ruby said they're good.”
They ordered two toasted things with too much cheese, paid separately because Tess did so before Anna found how to offer, and carried them out on paper plates.
At a bench the wind lifted one of the napkins immediately. Anna caught it beneath the plate.
“Efficient,” Tess said.
“Experience.”
Then the cheese shifted off the bread. Anna tried to rescue it with the fork, which caused the bread to tilt and the whole thing to move toward her lap.
Tess made a strangled sound.
“Don't laugh. Help.”
“I can't. I'm trying not to die.”
Anna held the plate closer to her chest. The cheese stretched. There was no arrangement of hand, fork and food which would let her look dignified.
She looked at Tess and laughed.
Tess took a photograph.
“You could have asked.”
“I could, but you might have looked normal.”
Anna tried eating from the side. The fork caught on the little paper rim.
“What is this supposed to be?”
“Lunch.”
“Optimistic.”
For a while they ate badly and talked about food. Tess didn't like cucumber unless it was cut very small, which Anna found more interesting than whether she liked blackcurrant. Anna disliked mushy peas and looked forward to being allowed to go on disliking them without explaining why.
“Granddad loves them.”
“He's mistaken.”
“I'll tell him.”
“Don't. He's suffered enough of my opinions.”
The sentence changed something in Anna's mouth. She looked at the fork.
Tess said, “He does like an opinion.”
“He does.”
“His own, mostly.”
Anna smiled. She wanted to describe the kitchen where they used to agree about him, but Tess had brought a grandfather she knew. Anna couldn't correct him into being only the father she missed.
They walked along the promenade after eating. The water was beyond a low wall, bright where the sun came between clouds. A child in a hat was putting stones into a bucket with such care that Anna had to look away.
Tess asked, “Have you always liked the sea?”
“Yes.”
“Granddad says you used to hate coming down in winter.”
“I hated being told the cold air was doing me good. He'd take us out in weather which ought to have been illegal.”
Tess laughed.
“He still does that.”
“Now he's old enough to blame his own joints when he wants to go home.”
Tess looked toward the water, smiling.
Anna wanted to take a picture. She kept the phone in her pocket because making Tess stand still might end the walk.
At the beach steps, Tess sat to take off her shoes. Anna stayed on the paved path until Tess looked up.
“Aren't you coming?”
“Will there be sand?”
“Some.”
“Terrible design.”
Anna took off her shoes, too, and followed. The stones near the water were smoother, warm until the wave touched them. She had to place her feet carefully.
Tess went ahead.
For a moment Anna saw the four-year-old in the movement, the lifted hands, the caution immediately abandoned. Then Tess turned, hair blown against her face, and the child was gone.
“It's freezing.”
“Good for you,” Anna called.
Tess groaned.
Anna joined her where the water came in. It covered the edge of her feet and retreated, cold enough to sting. She liked it. She stepped farther.
“Don't get that wet,” Tess said, pointing at the hem of the trousers.
“I've paid for them. I can ruin them.”
“Can you dry them?”
“That's somebody else's problem.”
Tess laughed. Anna loved her for knowing it was a joke.
They stayed until Tess's phone sounded. She read a message and said they ought to go back.
Anna wanted to ask for another five minutes. The afternoon had already given her more than she could keep. She went to the steps and put on her shoes with sand still between her toes.
Bea's flat was above a beauty place with a locked side entrance. Ruby met them on the landing and handed Anna a pillow.
“The sofa's yours. We argued and then decided adults get furniture.”
“You're adults.”
“Not when it means we don't get furniture.”
Bea came through carrying sheets. She was tall, wearing shorts and a shirt somebody had painted in.
“Hello. You're Anna.”
“Yes.”
“Tea?”
“I'd like that.”
The flat had two rooms beyond the kitchen and a sofa which sat low enough to make Anna worry about getting up again. On the wall above it was a painting of a dog with human-looking eyes.
“That's the art,” Tess said.
Anna looked at the painting carefully.
“He knows something.”
“That's what we've been saying.”
Ruby laughed from the kitchen.
“He knows what you did.”
Tess's face changed. Ruby stopped laughing a moment later, catching the possibility in what she'd said.
Anna looked up at the painting.
“Then he'd better have a good solicitor.”
Tess laughed first, uncertainly, then the room resumed. Anna felt grateful and furious for the small repair at the same time. She didn't want them afraid of every sentence. She didn't want every sentence to become something she had to survive.
They drank tea. Jo complained about the pastry she'd eaten on the train. Eli found a packet of biscuits behind the wrong jar and was congratulated as if he'd discovered a source of money.
Anna sat near Tess and found she could listen without contributing. The company was enough. She hadn't expected that.
At the venue later, the room was fuller than it had looked empty. Twenty or thirty people, perhaps more around the bar. Some were there for the other groups. A man in a checked shirt asked Eli where to leave a case, then disappeared before anyone answered.
Anna bought a drink and stood near a pillar. She could see Tess setting up, checking a pedal, turning toward the man with the leads. The silver-grey top was on. It moved with her now.
Rachel had done good work.
Ruby came to the microphone and said the band name. Nobody cheered immediately. Someone at the back clapped. Anna wanted to clap loud enough to make the rest join her and hated wanting it because Tess would hear.
Then Tess counted them in.
Anna felt the low beat before she knew the song. The first guitar line came crookedly, corrected itself, then found the bass beneath it. Ruby's voice was a little too quiet. She looked toward the sound man. He changed something and she became part of the room.
There was work in it. Anna could see the effort behind what had seemed so inevitable at Sunday's rehearsal: how Tess watched, how Jo lifted her head, how Eli stepped back when Ruby needed space. The music didn't wait until everybody was pleased.
A couple near Anna stopped talking. A woman put down her drink. Someone's foot began tapping against the table leg.
Tess played the bit she'd argued about in rehearsal with the space Ruby wanted. Anna recognized the absence. She waited for the drums to return and was pleased when they did.
At the end of the song people applauded properly.
Anna did, too.
Tess looked up, found her near the pillar and grinned. It was a quick thing, gone before Ruby began talking. Anna felt it remain against her face.
During the last song Tess struck harder. Her mouth was open, hair coming loose, the little mark at the edge of it visible when she turned. Anna stopped trying to find the child. She could watch this person.
After the set, Tess carried a case through the crowd. Anna opened a door, then took the lighter bag when Tess asked.
“Was that all right?” Tess said.
“Yes.”
“Really?”
Anna looked at her.
“The second one was better here.”
Tess's eyebrows lifted.
“Than rehearsal?”
“I could hear the part you left out. Not left out. The space. I liked it.”
Tess smiled slowly.
“That's what Jo said.”
“Then I'm in her union.”
Tess laughed. Eli came past and said the bass had survived another public humiliation. Tess touched his arm, lightly, without looking at Anna to see if she would mind.
Anna minded for a moment because the touch was easy in a life from which she was absent. Then Eli smiled at Tess in a way which made the absence less simple. Anna wanted someone to look at her daughter like that.
They stayed for the other groups. Anna talked with Bea, who told her about a flatmate she'd finally managed to get rid of. Tess and Eli stood a few feet away, heads close enough to hear one another over the music. Sometimes Tess looked back toward her mother. Anna let her find a woman speaking with somebody else.
Afterwards they bought food because nobody had eaten enough before playing. Jo argued that chips didn't count as dinner, then ate most of Ruby's. They walked to the flat slowly, carrying what hadn't gone into cases, Tess helping Anna with the unfamiliar turns.
The sofa was comfortable until Anna lay down. Then one cushion sank too low and she found herself tilted toward the dog's terrible eyes.
From the next room she could hear laughing, a low voice, somebody saying to turn a light out. She was tired. She didn't want to sleep and lose the company.
In the morning Tess brought a mug of tea.
“How's the dog?”
“Judgmental.”
“Me too. You snored.”
“I'm allowed.”
“Probably.”
Tess sat at the other end of the sofa.
Anna drank. She had slept badly and would have to work till close. She was pleased about every part which made the tiredness worthwhile.
“Will the tour be like this?” she asked.
“Some of it.”
“Sleeping on floors?”
“Some of it.”
“Playing rooms like that?”
“Probably.”
Anna pictured eight weeks of arrivals, food eaten badly, an audience gradually finding them. Tess inside it, moving farther away each time the music went well.
“I could come to a few,” she said.
Tess looked into her own mug.
“Maybe.”
“Not just one. A bit of it. I could work around days, get trains. Or come with you for the first—”
“There isn't room in the van.”
“I don't take up much.”
“It's not just room.”
Anna felt the old cold begin.
“I've only just found this.”
“I know.”
“I don't want to miss another whole—”
She stopped. Tess had put the mug on the floor, sitting straight now, ready to hear something she didn't want.
“Another whole what?” Tess asked.
Anna looked at the painting.
“I don't know.”
Tess stayed quiet.
“It was good,” Anna said. “Yesterday. I wanted more.”
“I wanted it to be good as well.”
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
Tess sounded hurt. Anna wanted to touch her hand and feared it would ask for a reassurance too large for the morning.
“All right,” she said.
Tess lifted the mug again.
“We need to get going soon.”
“I know. Work.”
Anna stood to fold the sheet. Tess helped, each taking a side, letting the cloth draw them close and apart without another argument.
On the train home Tess sat facing forward. Anna remembered without being asked.
The padded case went under the table again. Eli sat across the aisle and put his headphones on. Tess leaned against the window, tired enough to stop holding her expression in place.
Anna watched the towns pass. There were houses whose occupants hadn't yet begun their day, people on platforms waiting for a train which would take them somewhere different. She wanted to tell Tess they could do this again, next week, any week which would fit between this morning and the twenty-fourth.
Tess's eyes had closed.
Anna took the cardigan from her bag and laid it across her own knees. She let Tess sleep until the announcement came for Merehaven.