The venue was called the Lantern Cellar. Anna walked past it twice.
She'd expected a sign visible from the pavement. Instead there was a name on a black door and a staircase leading down. The poster beside it showed the band whose tour Low Weather were supporting, with Low Weather printed below in letters small enough that she had to lean closer.
She took a photograph before going in.
Tess's message said their set began at seven. Anna had arrived at half past six because she didn't want the train, the walk or her own confusion to cost her the first song. She'd checked the route several times on the train and still turned the wrong way when she came out of the station.
Now a man at the bottom of the stairs asked her name.
“Anna Bell.”
He ran his finger down a page.
“Guest list. There you are.”
She hadn't asked how to pay. The knowledge that Tess had arranged this little place for her made her feel unexpectedly foolish.
“Thank you.”
The room was small. A low ceiling, a stage which barely deserved the word, and a bar with a line of bottles lit blue from underneath. A few people were standing in groups. Someone leaned over a pedal onstage and said something into a microphone which came out as a cough.
Anna bought lemonade.
“Anything else?”
“No. Thanks.”
She carried it to the side rather than the front. She wanted to see Tess before Tess saw her, get the first pleasure without making Tess perform delight.
Ruby appeared through a little doorway behind the stage with a guitar case. Her hair was damp, and there was a mark on her forehead.
She saw Anna and came over.
“You found it.”
“Eventually.”
“It's badly named. More cupboard than cellar.”
“Where's the lantern?”
“Good question. I'll put it on the rider.”
Anna didn't know what a rider was. She didn't ask.
“How was the journey?”
“Traffic. Lots of traffic. Van's good, though. Bigger than the other one. We keep losing things inside it.”
“Tess all right?”
“She's trying to locate a screwdriver.”
“I've recently mastered one.”
Ruby smiled.
“Don't tell her. She'll give you a job.”
She went back through the little door.
Anna took a drink.
The night before, she had imagined the band setting off with excitement large enough to carry everything. Ruby looked tired. The journey had involved traffic, stops, cases shifting and an object missing just when it was needed. Anna liked the ordinary facts. They made the eight weeks frightening in a way the grand idea hadn't.
Tess came out with a screwdriver and a loose fastening in her hand.
“There you are.”
“Here I am.”
Tess put the pieces on a speaker and hugged her.
Anna closed her eyes for a moment.
“Train all right?”
“Yes.”
“Get home okay later?”
“Yes. I checked.”
“What time?”
“I'll leave after your set. Enough time for the walk.”
Tess nodded.
“You don't have to stay for the other band.”
“I know.”
“They're good, though.”
Anna smiled.
“Next time.”
Tess looked down at the screw.
“Sorry. I need—”
“Go.”
Tess went back to the kit.
Anna watched her kneel and tighten something. Eli came past, said a few words and made her laugh. He touched the back of her shoulder as he moved behind her. Tess glanced up at him and kept smiling after he'd gone.
Anna remembered asking Rachel about him in the shop. The answer had belonged to a life which now felt both poisonous and real. She didn't want Rachel in this room, even as memory. She put her glass down and looked at the stage.
People arrived slowly. Some were plainly there for the main band. A man in a shirt with their name on it stood near the front, scrolling on his phone. Two women came in laughing, looked round and went to the bar.
At seven Ruby took the microphone.
“We're Low Weather. Thanks for coming down early.”
A few people clapped. Tess tapped the sticks together and they began.
It sounded different from Saturday before Anna could say why. Smaller room, closer instruments, the cymbal's spread almost touching the ceiling. Jo's keys were lower in the mix. Ruby turned toward the person at the desk and lifted one hand; the sound changed.
Anna found herself listening for the moment Tess couldn't hear what she needed.
There was one. Tess leaned toward Jo, frowned and played on. Jo nodded, changed a setting and the next section opened more clearly.
Nobody stopped.
The man in the main band's shirt put his phone away.
By the second song, the room held perhaps thirty people. Anna didn't count after that. Two at the bar were still talking. She wanted to tell them to listen and then realized they were doing what people did in pubs, in music rooms, in lives where someone's daughter playing didn't alter every obligation.
She moved closer herself.
The quick new song began. Eli waited for the right entrance this time. Tess looked at him as he came in, and he made an exaggeratedly innocent face which almost cost him the next part.
Anna laughed.
Someone beside her laughed too.
“That bassist,” the woman said.
“Yes.”
The woman turned toward her briefly, then back.
Anna had never seen her before. They had shared a joke without explaining who she was.
'Harbour Mouth' came near the end.
Tess's eyes were on Ruby now, and the opening was so quiet that the two at the bar lowered their voices without anyone asking. Jo left the space Anna knew. Tess held it, played into it, let the phrase come back around.
Anna remembered the Ashcombe morning, the desire to get into the van and stay there. It had seemed that Tess's future was another place somebody could take her away to.
Here Tess was making something, with people who expected her to know when to begin. Anna could be present for one night and still fail to know what half the gestures meant.
She liked it anyway.
The set ended with the faster song. Tess struck the borrowed cymbal, lifted both sticks and brought them down for the stop.
People clapped. More loudly than at the beginning.
Ruby thanked them, named the band and told them where the shirts were.
Then they moved.
Tess came toward Anna with a case in her hand.
“Okay?”
“Very.”
“What did you think of the sound?”
“Jo was quiet at first.”
Tess looked surprised.
“Yes.”
“Then she wasn't.”
“Better?”
“Better.”
Tess grinned.
Anna wanted to tell her everything, the rhythm, the people listening, the little smile at Eli. She said, “I liked the first song.”
“It's the new one.”
“I know.”
Tess's smile widened.
Jo called her name. Tess turned.
“Have you got time?”
“A little.”
“Wait outside? I'll be quick.”
Anna waited upstairs by the door. From the pavement she could see the hired van further along the street, Ruby's bag on the dashboard and an ordinary rental mark on the side. A thing paid for, available for now, not a promise that someone might withdraw.
Tess came up five minutes later with her own jacket.
They stood near the wall while people went down the stairs.
“I'm glad you came,” Tess said.
Anna held that carefully.
“So am I.”
“We're staying with Ruby's friend tonight. Then driving tomorrow.”
“I know.”
“You don't know where.”
“No.”
Tess took out her phone.
“I'll send you the next dates properly. Not all of them are worth getting a train for.”
“I wasn't going to come to all.”
Tess looked up.
Anna was a little proud of saying it and a little ashamed that it still felt false inside.
“One at a time,” she added.
Tess nodded.
From downstairs Ruby called for somebody to shift the kit. Tess looked toward the door.
Anna hugged her.
“Go on.”
“You too. Don't miss it.”
“I won't.”
She watched Tess disappear down the stairs, then began walking.
At the corner she looked back. She could still return. There was time before the last train, and maybe Tess would finish loading and want food, company, a mother who hadn't left yet.
Anna turned the corner.
On the train she sat beside the window with a sandwich bought at the station. A young man across the aisle slept through the announcement and woke when his phone rang. Someone laughed at something in another carriage.
She ate half the sandwich and put the rest away.
Her phone buzzed.
A photograph from Tess: the loose fastening, finally attached where it belonged.
Found screw. Huge artistic achievement.
Anna typed:
Critics unanimous.
Then:
You sounded good. x
The reply was a heart.
By the time she reached Merehaven, she was cold and tired. She let herself into the room over the framing shop, put the kettle on and took off the shoes she'd polished that morning.
Tomorrow she had a shift. There was bread to buy and a pan to wash. Tess was in London, somewhere Anna wasn't, doing the rest of her first night.
Anna put the shoes beside the door and checked the phone once more before bed.