Paula's next guest was expected at three.
Anna knew that. She had known it for a week, and had made inquiries and looked at rooms and put off choosing the one she could actually have. Now she stood beside the bed with an open bag and wished she could spend one more night deciding.
The dog had come upstairs to supervise. It sat on her folded blouse.
“That's work clothing.”
The dog looked away.
Anna lifted it carefully enough that it appeared to regard the move as a favour. The blouse had a warm patch where its body had been.
She packed it and checked under the bed.
Paula came up carrying a clean pillowcase.
“Need a taxi?”
“I'm walking.”
“With all that?”
“All that” was the bag, a carrier from the chemist and a second-hand suitcase whose handle stayed up if she didn't try to turn corners quickly. Most of what she'd acquired since release was still small enough to fit into it.
“It's only near the pub.”
“Suit yourself. I can ring.”
“No. Thanks.”
Paula looked at the stripped corner of the bed, then at Anna.
“It was nice having you.”
Anna heard herself say, “Was it?”
“Yes.”
“Sorry.”
“Don't apologize. The dog's going to sulk.”
The dog had moved onto the pillowcase.
Paula sighed. “He's already started.”
Anna laughed and then, unexpectedly, couldn't quite look at the woman.
She'd paid for the room. They didn't owe each other affection. Yet Paula had knocked on her door with a plate of toast the morning after the shop confession, and had left it without requiring the story. Anna would remember that about a room she had sometimes hated.
She handed over the key.
“I'll see you round.”
“You will.”
Outside, the suitcase wheel began to rattle as soon as it reached the pavement.
The new room was over a closed picture-framing shop, two streets from the Anchor. Dee had mentioned the woman who owned it after Anna's first attempt elsewhere ended with a request for references she couldn't supply. Anna had gone to see it yesterday morning before ringing Mae. She'd looked round, said she would let the woman know, then called back from the street.
The owner, Mrs Price, lived in a small flat at the back. The room had a narrow kitchenette screened off by a cupboard and a shower that made a noise like gravel falling. The rent was weekly to begin with. Anna had shown what money she had and discussed the shifts she was actually doing. Neither of them had pretended it was security.
Mrs Price met her at the door.
“Mind the suitcase on the wall.”
“I will.”
“It's just been painted.”
The wall already had a grey mark at knee height. Anna lifted the case anyway.
At the top Mrs Price handed her two keys.
“Front and your door. Back one's mine.”
“Right.”
“If you get post, leave it in the basket if you're bringing it up.”
“I can do that.”
“And no wet towels on the heater.”
Anna looked at the heater, which was cold.
“I'll get a horse.”
“A what?”
“Drying thing. Sorry. I don't mean an actual horse.”
Mrs Price's face relaxed.
“Oh. I thought you were being funny.”
“I tried.”
The woman gave her a small, belated smile and went back downstairs.
Anna stood in the room with the keys in her hand.
A narrow window faced the roofs at the back. There was a pale square on the wallpaper where something had hung. She'd already decided to put the yellow-flower card there if she could find a way that didn't upset Mrs Price.
The bed was made. The kitchenette had two mugs, one chipped, and a saucepan with a handle that moved. Anna checked the window catch and opened it.
For a while she unpacked badly, moving things she would move again. She put the blouse in the small wardrobe, socks in a drawer and the chemist bag on the windowsill. Then she took it off because someone outside might look up and see a packet of sanitary towels.
Her phone rang.
Miriam.
Anna sat on the bed.
The original letter had been delivered, Miriam said. Rachel had given an account with her own solicitor present. The material was with the investigators. Work on it would continue.
Anna asked what they had decided.
“Nothing final that I can give you today.”
“But they've got it.”
“Yes.”
“And she's said it.”
“Yes.”
Anna looked at the empty picture square.
“Good.”
They talked about the concert. Miriam wanted to know what Anna had agreed, and Anna told her. She would send her proposed words. The solicitor didn't promise how anything would be received, or turn her choice to speak into an instruction.
“Do you want to?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“All right. Let's look at what you want to say.”
After the call Anna opened a new page in her notebook.
My name is Anna Bell.
She crossed it out. They knew her name. That was half the trouble.
She wrote:
When I went into prison, my daughter was four.
Then she sat looking at that.
A knock came at the door. Mrs Price held a small plate with a screwdriver on it.
“For the handle,” she said. “On the pan.”
Anna took the plate.
“Thank you.”
“Bring it back when you're done.”
At the pub Dee put her straight onto the tables near the window. A late group had reserved them, then arrived with three extra people and one fewer child. Anna was to move the tables without moving the people, who had settled around drinks and bags.
A man pointed at an empty chair.
“Could that stay?”
“If you're using it.”
“I'm not. I like the space.”
Anna looked at the three people standing behind him.
“They'd like a chair.”
He looked up, as if discovering them for the first time.
“Oh. Yes. Of course.”
By the time everyone was seated she had moved the same chair four times. Dee caught her eye across the bar.
“Everyone happy?”
“Give me another minute. I'll get them to sign.”
The cook shouted for plates. Anna turned toward the hatch and found Keith standing in her way with an empty glass.
“I wanted to say something.”
“Can you say it while I go past?”
He stepped aside, followed her, then stopped because following was worse.
At the hatch she picked up two plates. Behind her he said, “I read about it. Well. Heard.”
Anna took the food to the window table, identified the right people and went back.
Keith was still there.
“What did you want to say?”
“About what I said when you started.”
She waited.
“I'm sorry.”
Anna wiped a spot of gravy from her wrist.
“All right.”
“I shouldn't have brought it up.”
“You can bring things up. It's how.”
“Yes.”
He looked toward the bar.
“Can I get you a drink after?”
“No, thanks.”
“Tea?”
“I've got work to do.”
He nodded. She carried the next two plates away.
Later, when the group had eaten and one woman insisted she'd never ordered the dessert she'd already finished, Anna found herself laughing with Dee in the kitchen.
“She thought it was complimentary,” Anna said.
“From what?”
“Our warmth.”
Dee leaned against the counter. “That's a premium service.”
The cook was looking for a missing order slip. Anna found it stuck beneath a damp plate. She held it out, triumphant, then realized she'd presented him with a blank square of paper.
“The writing's on the other side,” he said.
“There you are. Full detective service.”
Dee laughed again.
For a few minutes Anna was warm from the room and moving fast enough to know where everything was. She liked the weight of plates, the way the hatch put her in a small working alliance, the pleasure of anticipating that the woman at table six would ask for mustard before she had to ask.
She made one mistake with a bill. Dee showed her where and let her correct it.
At her break she sat outside by the back door with a mug of tea and her notebook on her knees.
When I went into prison, my daughter was four.
She wrote the next sentence, then the next. The blackcurrant drink. The age-eleven visit. Christmases measured by telephone time. She crossed out a line about never being allowed to see Tess because it wasn't true. There had been visits. Too few, then none, and Anna had made one of them hard for Tess herself.
She didn't cross out the years.
At the bottom of the page she wrote that she had come home to a woman.
She pictured Tess beside her, taller than the child in anyone's memory, a musician with strong arms and a tiny yellow clip in her hair. If Anna said my daughter, people would turn their faces and see her. They wouldn't be able to keep the loss small.
Her tea cooled while she imagined that.
The door opened. Dee leaned out.
“Can you come back? They've multiplied again.”
Anna shut the notebook.
“Same people?”
“Relations. They're breeding.”
When the shift finished, Anna took a container of leftover potatoes the cook had offered everyone. She walked to her new front door, found the right key on the second try and went upstairs.
The room smelled of paint and someone else's detergent. She heated the potatoes and ate them standing by the little counter, then took the screwdriver off its plate.
The saucepan handle needed two turns. It was a small repair. She tried it, tightened it again and put the screwdriver beside the door to remember in the morning.
Before bed she photographed her pages and sent them to Miriam. She sent Mae a message to say she was working on the words.
Then Tess:
New room has a shower that sounds like it's eating stones. Otherwise decent. Come see it if you like.
The reply arrived while Anna was taking her shoes off.
Can Thursday? Want to see stone-eating shower.
Anna smiled.
Yes. After six?
Works. x
She put the phone down and looked round the room again. There would be somewhere for Tess to sit. She could buy something to eat. She could ask her about the speech while they were together, let her see why it mattered.
Anna put the yellow-flower card on the windowsill. In the morning she would find a better place for it.