Nora went to the showroom that afternoon because she knew Cal was there. It was easier to go where he was working than to ask him to come to her. She didn't want him carrying dinner, looking at the plate and deciding whether she'd eaten enough to have a difficult conversation.
He was fitting the first shelf. The green chair stood open by the wall, his jacket across its back. There were pencil marks where she had expected the wall to remain clean.
“They come off,” he said, seeing her look.
“I know.”
He held the shelf against the support and asked her to check the line from the doorway. Nora went back, looked, asked him to lift one end a little. He did. It was right, the thin edge she wanted, the thickness hidden by where he'd made it sit.
“That's good,” she said.
He smiled. “I told you.”
She let him finish fixing it. He worked carefully, checking what he had done rather than trusting the first measurement. Nora watched his hands. She knew those hands on her arm, against the cloth, holding a cup. She had not known them typing a burial.
When he put the drill down, she said, “Why did you tell Iris I was dead?”
He stayed crouched for a moment. Then he stood.
“What?”
“You sent her a message.”
“Who said?”
“I know what it said.”
He looked toward the front window. His face had lost colour, or the light had changed as a cloud passed. Nora waited. She had prepared for denial, not this brief calculation she could not follow.
“You've spoken to her.”
“The police have the message.”
It was true, but not an answer. She heard herself using the same narrow passage he kept offering her.
“Why, Cal?”
He picked up the drill, then put it down again.
“To stop her coming back.”
“You could have said stay away.”
“She'd hurt you.”
“I know.”
“You weren't awake. You weren't there when I found you. I was.”
“I remember you finding me.”
“You remember bits.”
Nora's stomach tightened. He was right that her memory stopped and started. That did not give him the right to fill every gap with an account she couldn't question.
“I remember you taking me to hospital,” she said. “I don't remember you burying me.”
His mouth moved, not quite a smile.
“Don't.”
“You wrote it.”
“I was angry.”
“Angry isn't the same as not knowing.”
Cal hooked a thumb over the edge of the counter. “She wanted to come back for money. I wanted her afraid to turn up. Afraid to tell anyone what she'd done to you.”
“And you wrote something they could read.”
“I didn't think she'd take it to them. She'd have to tell them she left you there.”
Cal leaned against the counter. The position looked casual, but his hand gripped the edge.
“I knew you'd be all right by then. I wanted her to feel what she'd done. She'd left me with it, left you with it. Then she was asking about the money.”
“She asked if I was all right.”
“Then she asked about money.”
“You could have answered the first part.”
“I did answer it.”
Nora looked at him. He looked away first.
“Not in the way you like,” he said.
“In a way that wasn't true.”
He pulled his jacket off the chair and folded it. It was something to do. Nora could see the effort not to shout.
“I shouldn't have said it. There. I shouldn't have. Is that what you want?”
“I want to know what happened after you took me in.”
“You were looked after.”
“By people there.”
“Yes.”
“Where were you?”
“Getting things.”
“What things?”
“The things you needed.”
Nora took a breath. “You went back.”
Cal looked at her.
“Did you?”
“I wasn't going to leave everything we'd gone for.”
The admission came out irritated, practical, as if she'd asked why he hadn't brought a parcel in from the van. She could not decide whether it relieved her. It was an answer at last, and it opened another question.
“That night?”
“I went when I could.”
“Was Dominic there?”
Cal's grip changed on the folded jacket.
“He was away.”
“You saw that?”
“What?”
“You saw he wasn't there.”
“I went for the money. Then I came back to you.”
“You said you hardly left.”
“I didn't leave you alone.”
People had been caring for her. He could have left. Nora looked at the jacket in his hand, waiting for him to say more.
Cal picked up the drill and set it in its case. Nora watched him close the catches, each small click supplying an ending she hadn't agreed to.
“I'll want the receipts,” she said.
“You'll have them.”
“And the bench.”
He glanced toward the window. “I said I'd get it.”
“I'm arranging it.”
Cal straightened. Nora took her phone out before she could begin another argument about what arranging meant. She had saved the number of a small delivery firm when the cabinet was coming from Mina's workshop. At the time Cal said he'd do it, and she had been pleased to delete a cost from the list.
The man who answered asked where the bench was, where it needed to go and whether anybody would help load it. Nora gave the two addresses. Cal remained beside his drill case, listening.
“I can't lift,” she said. “It needs to be the whole job.”
The man asked about access. She described the unit door and the front of the showroom. He asked for dimensions. Nora went to the counter, found the drawing she'd made when she replaced the legs and read them out. There was a purpose to each question, an answer which let the next thing happen. She liked that enough to keep talking after he gave the price.
“For one bench?”
“For the people and the van, miss. The bench doesn't drive.”
Nora almost smiled. Cal did smile, leaning against the wall.
The price was more than she'd expected. She could pay it. Paying would leave less for the little things she had not yet named to Cal, and after the offer to Iris she disliked looking at the remaining money as if it were simply hers to rearrange.
“When could you do it?”
“Day after tomorrow. I've got a gap. I'd need photographs before we set off. We can hold it provisionally till tomorrow afternoon.”
“Do that, please.”
He explained what would confirm the booking and what would not. Nora wrote it on the back of the shelf drawing. She thanked him and ended the call.
Cal waited until she put the phone down.
“You want to spend that to get one piece here?”
“It needs to come.”
“I've got a van.”
“I know.”
“And blankets. A trolley. A mate who owes me half a day. They've got no idea what you've done to those legs. They'll stand it wrong, and then you'll ring me.”
“I can tell them.”
“You can. Or I can do it properly without sending you an invoice.”
He had done it properly before. He knew the thin repair beneath the top, the mark she wanted left, the way the new legs had to be protected without covering the whole piece in something which rubbed. She had spent an afternoon showing him. He had pretended to be bored and remembered everything.
“You've been going to do it all week,” she said.
“I've been doing all week.”
He pointed at the shelf. Nora put the stone mortar on it, the weight he had predicted she'd find. It held beautifully. She stepped back, resentful of how effectively the work spoke for him.
The light fitting hummed above them. Cal went to the green chair and sat.
“I want a corner.”
“You've got a chair.”
“I want to work here.”
“We've talked about installations.”
“Jobs I do somewhere else after you tell somebody I'm all right. That's not here.”
Nora stayed beside the counter.
“There's no workshop space.”
“I'm not asking for a workshop.”
He stood and went to the right-hand wall, beneath the shelf he'd fitted. He crouched, measured a distance with his hands, then held one palm flat against the wall.
“Here. A low bench. Samples above it. I can show people what a fitting does instead of trying to explain it while they stare at a picture on your phone.”
“My phone?”
“Anyone's phone. Don't pick that bit.”
She would have picked it. He smiled, knowing it, and she felt the old pleasure of being understood before she could edit herself.
“No dust,” he said. “No cutting while people are in. Proper samples. A door edge, a hinge, a handle you can try. Things they can put a hand on.”
It was a good idea. Nora imagined a client feeling the weight of a door, finding out why something beautiful still needed to shut correctly. Cal would be good with them. He could make practical knowledge sound like an invitation instead of a correction, when he chose to.
“You'd need to keep it tidy.”
“I keep this tidy.”
“After you make it untidy.”
“That's the work.”
He looked around for something to demonstrate and found the little hinge she'd rejected. He fixed it loosely to a spare offcut, resting the wood against the counter, then opened it so she could see where the movement caught. With one turn of a screw it changed. Nora could hear the difference before he asked whether she felt it.
“Try.”
She took the small piece in her good hand. It moved cleanly. A stupidly pleasing thing, a hinge doing exactly what a hinge should do.
“That's what I mean,” he said.
Nora set it down. “I didn't plan for a fitting corner.”
“You didn't plan for me until you needed one.”
“I wanted this to be mine.”
“It is.”
“With everyone else's things in it.”
“Things you chose.”
Nora turned toward the window. Mina's cabinet sat beyond the light, occupying the room in a way which made all their smaller decisions look purposeful. The bench would invite people to sit. The corner Cal wanted would invite them to ask him something. She could already see herself waiting while he finished an explanation, watching a client look to him for an answer she'd usually give.
“What are you offering?” she asked.
“I'll prepare the bench. Bring it here. Put it where you want it. I'll deal with fittings when you've got clients, not just leave you to apologize for waiting. And I have a proper place for my work.”
“Permanently.”
“Yes.”
“Not until I can lift again.”
“Permanent,” he said again.
She let go of the edge of the counter.
“I haven't agreed.”
“Think about it.”
He packed his tools. The offcut with the hinge remained on the counter. Nora didn't ask him to take it away. She could put it beneath the shelf and imagine the place he wanted, or return to the phone and confirm the independent booking.
At the door he paused.
“It will look good here.”
“The bench?”
“All of it.”
He left. Nora picked up the offcut, tried the hinge again and wished the idea were bad. She could reject a bad idea cleanly. This one opened in her hand with almost no effort, then stayed exactly where she put it.