Tess stood by the counter while Rachel put down the phone.
“Was that her?”
“Yes.”
“What did she say?”
Rachel looked at the garment bag between them. Tess had brought the silver-grey top because she thought a thread was coming loose at the back.
“She was upset.”
“She said she didn't say it.”
Rachel kept one hand on the counter.
“I heard her.”
“What, exactly?”
“She was talking about you leaving. About how she couldn't bear it.”
“That isn't a threat.”
“No.”
“What part was?”
Tess had put her phone beside the top. She wasn't holding anything now. Rachel could see how deliberately she'd left her hands empty.
“The part about the van,” she said.
“Tell me the words.”
Rachel could have repeated the invention. She could say the window, make it exact enough to remain in the room after Tess left. She didn't want Tess carrying those words in Rachel's voice.
“She was very angry.”
“Mum gets angry. I've seen it. So do you.”
“I don't threaten people's things.”
Tess looked at her.
“I know. That's what I'm asking.”
Tess used to accept an explanation from Rachel and become calmer. At twelve, at fifteen, even this year when exams frightened her and everybody said she could do more than she believed. Rachel knew which part of a sentence Tess would remember. She knew how to make the remembered part help.
Now Tess was listening for the part she left out.
“I was worried,” Rachel said.
“About the van.”
“About you.”
Tess's eyes filled suddenly. She blinked hard enough to make Rachel want to take her face in both hands.
“You can't put everything in there.”
“In what?”
“Worrying about me. Everybody does it. Then I'm supposed to thank them when something else disappears.”
Rachel moved toward her. Tess stepped back, only a little.
“Don't.”
Rachel stayed where she was.
“What did Leonard say?”
“That it's his van. That it might get damaged. That we can do something else.”
“You can.”
“With what?”
The question was practical and sharp. Rachel felt relief at being asked something she could help with.
“Let me look.”
“Ruby's looking.”
“I could ask someone. People use things for weddings. They have—”
“We're not a wedding.”
“I know.”
“It's people and kit for eight weeks. We can't borrow somebody's car for an afternoon.”
Rachel looked toward the street. A van was unloading at the cafe. She had watched deliveries happen all summer without needing any vehicle herself. Tess was being unreasonable about how much help Rachel might give, or Rachel wanted her to be unreasonable because then the failure wouldn't belong entirely to her.
“I could cover something,” she said.
Tess stared.
“You could tell Granddad not to worry.”
“He has to decide.”
“Based on something you told him.”
Tess's phone sounded. Ruby's name appeared on her screen.
Tess answered.
“I'm here.”
She listened.
“No. Not really.”
Rachel bent over the top, opening the bag. The loose thread was at the binding, a little end she had missed after cutting. She could remove it in seconds. Tess had given her a reason to touch something which belonged to her.
“Come in,” Tess said into the phone. “If you want.”
Rachel looked up.
“Ruby?”
“Yes.”
Tess rubbed one thumb against the edge of the counter. She didn't ask permission to invite another adult into a shop where she worked.
Ruby arrived with a notebook under one arm and the look of someone who had already taken too many calls. She nodded to Rachel, then went straight to Tess.
“There are options. None are pretty.”
“How bad?”
“Bad enough that Jo has started using the word sensible.”
Tess groaned.
Rachel said, “I'm sorry.”
Ruby looked at her.
“Can you help us get the van back?”
“Leonard's worried.”
“We know that. Can you tell him whether Anna actually threatened something or just talked angrily?”
Rachel looked at Tess. Tess didn't turn away.
“I thought he needed to know.”
“Right,” Ruby said.
She opened the notebook on the counter. The pages were messy, arrows joining one cost to another. Rachel liked organized things, could make the columns easier to read if Ruby let her. Ruby put a hand over the page as she turned it toward Tess.
“We could cut the first stretch down. Leave some of the gear where we can collect it. Hire later. It's more journeys. Different deposits. Doesn't get cheaper enough.”
“What can we take less of?”
Ruby breathed out.
“Depends what we're willing to change.”
They began discussing equipment Rachel had seen without knowing how it mattered. Something Tess called a cymbal she liked, a spare instrument Ruby never expected to need until she did, cases which took room and might no longer be allowed to. Jo had moved work hours for the route already planned. Eli couldn't cover another week without picking up shifts which would take him away from rehearsal.
Rachel heard their future being handled as a set of things which could be reduced.
“We don't have to cancel,” Tess said.
“I didn't say cancel.”
“You said sensible.”
“Jo said sensible. I'm trying to let that remain Jo's problem.”
Tess smiled a little. Ruby touched her wrist, quickly, then returned to the page.
“I can help with the hire,” Rachel said.
Tess and Ruby both looked at her.
“With money,” she added.
“How much?” Ruby asked.
Rachel hadn't chosen an amount. It was easier when she paid a bill Leonard showed her, a lesson, school clothes. Tess would accept something because it was already made convenient.
“We could see what the difference is.”
Ruby glanced at Tess.
“We have to work it out anyway.”
“I know.”
Tess said, “It doesn't make the story true.”
“No one said it does,” Rachel replied.
“Then tell him that part.”
Rachel drew the top toward herself.
“I'll speak to him.”
“Today?”
“Yes.”
She had promised another conversation, not its content. She could feel Tess testing the difference.
Ruby closed the notebook.
“We need to get to the rooms. Jo's arranged a break, and if we miss it she loses another hour.”
Tess picked up the top.
“Wait,” Rachel said. “The thread.”
She took the little scissors from the tray. Tess held the cloth steady while Rachel trimmed it.
“There.”
Tess looked at the seam.
“Thank you.”
For a moment they were themselves again: Tess bringing something, Rachel making it right, hands meeting in a task neither needed to explain. Rachel wanted to stay there.
Then Tess folded the top and put it back in the bag.
Ruby went to the door.
“Come on.”
Tess followed, then turned.
“She didn't sound like she was hiding anything.”
“Anna?”
“Yes.”
Rachel met her eyes.
“I'll speak to Leonard.”
Tess nodded, without confidence, and left.
Rachel waited until they were across the road. Then she picked up the shop phone because it was easier than touching Tess's number on her own.
Leonard answered.
“The band's finding something else,” she said.
“I thought they would.”
“It costs more.”
“Things usually do.”
Rachel shut her eyes.
“She's angry.”
“At me.”
“Yes.”
“She'd be angry if the van ended up with no window as well.”
Rachel looked at the little scissors. They lay open on the table, one blade pointing toward the loose piece of thread.
“Anna says she didn't say it.”
“I know.”
“Did Tess tell you?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“Anna's entitled to say what she likes. So am I. I'm not lending it.”
Rachel could make him stop. He had given her exactly the sentence she needed to correct. He was entitled to a decision about his property, and she had made sure the decision stood on something invented.
“Perhaps she was speaking out of distress,” she said.
“I don't need you explaining her now. You told me what you heard.”
Rachel's mouth went dry.
“Yes.”
“We'll let them make another plan.”
She agreed without using a word. A little sound he could take as agreement.
Afterwards she listened to Anna's voicemail again.
I didn't say it. Ring me.
Rachel took the blue dress from the rail at the back. She held the hanger, then put it down because it no longer offered a useful way to keep the woman near her.
She called Anna.
“We need to talk,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Properly.”
“Yes.”
Rachel looked at the clock. Anna had worked from four until closing yesterday, then woken to Tess's call, then gone to Leonard's refusal, then to whatever the band were now deciding. Rachel could imagine the tiredness and wished it would make the woman easier to soothe.
“Can you come before I open tomorrow? Eight.”
“I can come tonight.”
“I have a late fitting. I don't want people interrupting.”
Anna was silent.
“Eight,” she said finally.
“Yes.”
“You'll tell me why.”
Rachel could hear the fact inside the sentence, not a question.
“Yes.”
She put the phone down and opened the diary. The fitting was real. A woman needed to collect a dress after work, and Rachel had agreed to stay until seven.
She would have to be good with someone else before the day ended.
After the fitting she went upstairs and took Martin's letter out. She set it beside the telephone. Anna would come at eight for the truth about a van, and Rachel could correct that lie without surrendering this one. She wrote the sentence she would use: I let my worry become something you hadn't said.
She read it aloud. Even alone she could hear it doing the work of an excuse.
On another sheet she wrote: I saw Martin at Celia's gate. I knew him. I said you.
For a while the two sheets lay beside each other. She could not make the second follow the first without imagining Tess leaving for good. She fetched an envelope, put the letter inside and wrote Anna's name on it. Then she crossed the name out. It wasn't a gift to give her.
At midnight she carried the envelope downstairs and put it in the till drawer with the two sheets. There would be time to take it upstairs before eight. She left that escape available and went to bed.