Anna had agreed to go to the cinema with Lorna on Saturday because neither of them cared about the film.
It was enough that they could sit in the dark with food they hadn't prepared and nobody asking them to move a chair. Lorna was coming down after work. They'd bought the tickets yesterday.
Now Tess had sent a message.
Playing Friday. The little place in Ashcombe, not London. Want to come? Just a show. Promise no screws.
Anna read it while standing by the pub's back door with a crate of empty bottles at her feet.
She smiled.
Then she looked at the rota.
Friday evening was Fran's. Anna had the lunch shift. She could go without asking anyone to swap.
She typed:
Yes. What time?
Tess replied with the details and a photograph of the poster.
Low Weather's name was bigger this time. There were still other names. Nobody had become famous while Anna was waiting for the part of her life that belonged to her.
She set the phone down, lifted the crate and carried it inside.
Dee was changing a handwritten sign on the bar.
“Good news?”
“Tess has a show.”
“Again?”
“It's what bands do, apparently.”
“You going?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Can you help me get this straight?”
Anna held one corner of the sign while Dee fixed the other. It listed a pie which the cook had made too much of and would resent hearing described as a special.
“That's crooked.”
“You're holding it.”
“I know. I'm telling you.”
They adjusted it.
Anna's work had changed since her paid trial shift at the Anchor. More regular hours, a key for the back door, occasional responsibility she accepted and occasional extra shifts she didn't. She still made mistakes. Last week she'd given a customer someone else's change and spent ten minutes offended by the man's expression before discovering he had been right.
She had apologized.
The young cook hadn't let her forget it.
At three, she finished the lunch tables and ate a bowl of the disputed pie. Then she walked home past the old shop.
North & Venn was closed. The display had gone. A paper notice about enquiries was taped inside the glass, curling where sunlight reached it.
Anna didn't stop.
She'd been at the sentencing. Leonard had asked if she wanted company, and she'd said yes after first saying no. Rachel had looked toward the seats more than once. Anna had known who she wanted to find.
Afterwards, outside, someone had asked Anna whether she felt justice had been done.
She'd said, “Something has.”
She didn't know if the person used that answer.
In her room, the picture of Tess at seven had a cheap frame now. Leonard had got the copies made and brought the second one to her with the photograph from the leavers' dinner. He'd also brought a bag of apples she hadn't asked for.
They were speaking. Sometimes badly. Sometimes about things which needed no explanation.
He had come for tea on Sunday and complained about the pan handle, unaware Anna had fixed it herself last August. She told him. He tested it anyway.
She had said, “You could believe me before you try it.”
He looked at her for a moment, then put the pan down.
That was the whole victory of the afternoon. Later they'd argued about whether the room needed a different heater.
Now Anna opened the window and took the vase from the sill. The flowers were almost dead. She'd bought them herself, cheap at the end of a market stall, and left them too long because they still had colour.
She emptied the water.
There was a letter on the table about the compensation claim. More information wanted, more things not decided. Miriam was dealing with the part which needed her. Anna had a form to finish, and she wasn't going to spend Friday evening on it.
She put it in the folder.
The first tour had ended in October. Tess had returned tired, thinner and full of little stories which came out at the wrong moments: a mattress on a floor in a house with seven cats, a venue which spelled Jo's name differently every time, Ruby driving while Eli read instructions he misunderstood. There had been good sets and rooms which didn't listen. Money had stretched badly.
For a while they used the borrowed cymbal. Then Jo's friend needed it, and Tess found another second-hand one she could afford. Anna went with her to collect it, not because she understood the choice but because Tess wanted someone to come.
She'd learned to say which songs she liked without having to say what they meant about Tess.
On Friday she wore the black printed blouse. It was faded now, softer at the elbows. She had other clothes. Some mornings she liked this one best despite remembering exactly where she'd bought it.
At the station she bought a small bag of sweets, considered a larger one and stayed with the small.
Ashcombe had more people in it than on the windy August visit nine months earlier. The sea was hidden from the venue street. Anna could smell food from the pub kitchen and hear someone inside laughing too loudly.
At the door she gave her name.
The woman checked.
“Guest?”
“Yes.”
“Go through.”
Anna did.
Lorna sent a message about tomorrow's cinema, asking whether popcorn counted as dinner.
Anna answered:
Only if we get the large.
Then she put the phone away.
Jo was at the bar, collecting water.
“Anna!”
“Hello.”
“She's in there. Trying to convince the drum stool it has another inch.”
“Has it?”
“No. But she likes a project.”
Anna went through.
Tess was behind the kit, turning a screw beneath the seat. Her hair was shorter, barely held back by the same yellow clip.
“Hi.”
“Hello.”
“You found it this time.”
“No secret door. Very considerate.”
Tess stood and embraced her.
Anna held her, then let go.
“Want a sweet?”
“What sort?”
“Useful question.”
She showed the bag. Tess took two.
“Ruby says we're on at half eight. Maybe later.”
“All right.”
“You don't have to be at the front.”
“I know.”
“And you can—”
“Tess.”
Tess stopped.
“I came to listen.”
Tess smiled.
“Good.”
Eli called from the other side of the room, asking whether the lead on the chair was hers. She said no, then went to check because it was hers surprisingly often.
Anna took a place near the side where she could see the drummer and the other musicians. A man asked if the chair beside her was taken.
“No.”
He sat, put a drink on the little table and opened a packet of crisps.
“Know the band?”
“My daughter plays drums.”
“Nice.”
“Yes.”
That was all. He didn't ask where she'd been while Tess learned or whether she was the woman in the news. Anna didn't need to tell him before the answer could be true.
Tess came back to the kit. She adjusted the stool once more, frowned at it and settled for what it would do.
Ruby spoke to the room. Someone called something friendly from the bar. Jo laughed. Eli waited with his head lowered, listening for the beginning.
Anna watched her daughter raise the sticks.
She didn't know every song they were going to play. There might be one she didn't like. There would be things she heard wrong and asked about afterwards, if Tess wanted to talk.
The first count began.
Anna sat forward to listen.