Tess found the new room without being fetched from the street.
Anna heard the front door, then feet on the stairs. She opened her own door before the knock.
“Did Mrs Price see you?”
“A woman downstairs told me not to knock the paint.”
“That's her.”
Tess put her bag beside the bed and surveyed the kitchenette.
“You've got a kitchen.”
“A corner pretending.”
“Better than Paula's dog.”
“He had facilities.”
Anna lifted the lid from a pan. She'd made pasta with sauce from a jar, improved by an onion she'd cut badly and a pepper she'd forgotten until the sauce was hot. There was enough for three people because portions still felt like something someone else should decide.
“Want some?”
“Yes. Starving.”
Tess washed her hands at the kitchenette sink. Anna stood beside her to make sure there was a clean towel, then moved because Tess didn't have room to turn.
They ate on the small table which folded out from the wall. Tess's knee knocked it the first time she sat down. They both steadied the plates.
“The entire building might go,” Anna said.
“Then we save the pasta.”
“Obviously.”
The room seemed better with someone using it badly.
Tess inspected the saucepan after they finished.
“Weren't these handles always loose?”
“I've fixed it.”
“Nice.”
It was absurd how much Anna wanted that single word.
She made tea and let Tess hear the shower. Tess stood in the doorway laughing as the pipe began its grinding noise.
“It's mining.”
“Diamonds, with any luck.”
“It'll be rich before you.”
“Everyone will.”
They sat on the bed with their mugs because the table was less comfortable than it appeared. Tess picked up the school photograph.
“God.”
“Granddad said you dropped a stick.”
“I did. They were slippery.”
“He said you kept going.”
“I was supposed to. Teacher said if we lost something, don't all stop and look at it.”
Anna pictured six children staring at the floor.
“Sound advice.”
“Granddad told you about the shoes?”
“Yes.”
Tess smiled at the photograph.
“I wanted Nan to see them from the back. She said she would.”
Anna looked at her.
“Would she?”
“She couldn't have. I was behind the drum.”
Tess laughed softly and set the picture down.
Anna took a drink of tea. She'd planned to ask about the concert easily, as part of the evening. Now she had to choose the moment rather than wait for it to arrive.
“Mae's letting me speak.”
“Saturday?”
“Yes. After you.”
Tess nodded.
“Good.”
“I've written it. Miriam's had a look. Just making sure I don't say they've decided things they haven't.”
“Right.”
“I want to say about the years. What it was like. Coming home.”
“You should.”
Anna set her mug on the floor.
“Would you stand with me?”
Tess's face changed.
“Where?”
“At the front. When I speak.”
“Why?”
Anna heard the question as if Tess hadn't understood.
“Because you're my daughter.”
“I know.”
“I'll be talking about losing you.”
Tess looked at the photograph.
“You didn't lose me.”
“I lost being with you.”
“Then say that.”
“I will.”
“What do you need me for?”
Anna pressed her hands together.
“I want them to see us.”
“They see us now.”
“Not together. Not properly.”
“People at the pub have.”
“That isn't the same as the people who believed I killed somebody. Who went on having their lives while I was inside.”
Tess set her own mug down.
“You want me to stand there so they'll feel bad.”
“I want them to understand.”
“About me.”
“About what they took from me.”
Tess looked at her.
Anna wished she could put the last sentence back and still keep everything it meant.
“I'd introduce you,” she said. “You wouldn't have to say anything.”
“I'm already playing.”
“Yes.”
“That wasn't why we booked it.”
“I know that.”
“It isn't a show about us.”
Anna felt heat rise in her face.
“I didn't say the music was.”
“But you want me afterwards.”
“For a few minutes.”
Tess looked at the door.
Anna knew that look now: Tess considering how to leave. She reached for the safest words she could find.
“You wouldn't need to be on a stage exactly. They're doing it at the front of the room. I could take your name out of the introduction if that makes it—”
“It isn't the wording.”
“I can change it.”
“Mum.”
The word silenced her. Tess used it so rarely it still arrived like a hand reaching.
“I don't want to be the picture you put next to it,” Tess said.
Anna couldn't answer immediately.
The photograph of Tess at seven lay beside them. She'd asked Leonard for it, wanted it, put it where she would see it first thing in the morning. Now Tess was talking about becoming another one.
“You're more than a picture to me.”
“I know.”
“Then don't say it like that.”
Tess stood to pick up her mug.
“Thank you for dinner.”
“It's not finished. We were talking.”
“I've got to go. Ruby's waiting for something.”
“What?”
“A cable.”
Anna looked at the bag.
A cable. A thing anyone could collect from anywhere. Tess had already done her coat up.
“Think about it,” Anna said.
Tess shut her eyes for a second.
Then she said, “I have.”
Anna went with her to the stairs. She nearly asked for an embrace, but Tess leaned in first, a brief arm round her shoulder, and Anna held her a little longer than she'd meant to.
“See you tomorrow?” she asked.
“Rehearsal.”
“Can I come?”
Tess nodded.
“Later. We need to get through things first.”
After she left, Anna washed both mugs. She cleaned the sauce from the lip of the saucepan and wiped the table. None of the work changed what Tess had said.
She opened her statement.
Near the end she had written, My daughter is here with me today.
She changed it to, My daughter is eighteen now.
That was better. It didn't ask Tess to do anything. Anna read it again and pictured Tess standing beside her anyway.
On Friday she arrived during a song and waited outside the rehearsal-room door. Through it she could hear Tess miss a strike and keep going. The others came round to meet her at the next bar.
Inside, Jo was wearing the jacket Ruby had collected that morning. She raised an arm to show Anna how freely the sleeve moved.
“Proper repair. Tell Ruby.”
“I heard,” Ruby said.
Anna took the chair by the door. She had brought her statement in the bag. At the break she kept a hand on the zip while Tess drank water beside her.
“Mae needs to know who's at the front with me,” Anna said.
Tess set the bottle down.
“I've told her it's me,” Anna added.
“Okay.”
Tess went back to the kit. Anna hadn't lied to either of them. The message to Mae said just her name. She had sent it and then spent the walk imagining a daughter who would change her mind without being asked.
She stayed for the last song. Afterwards she helped Ruby coil a cable and went home with the statement still in her bag. The decision had acquired a witness. It hadn't become what she wanted.