Behind the Sign

Ada had replied that she would be there until a quarter to twelve. Mara could collect the charger. Below it sat the photograph of a broken bicycle light her mother had sent later that evening without a caption. Mara had asked whether she should bring a new one. No reply to that.

On Wednesday morning, she didn’t bring a bicycle light. She hadn’t one at home, and the cycle shop wouldn’t open until she was due at the printer’s. It wasn’t clear whether Ada wanted to replace the whole light or simply show her the broken tab. Mara meant to ask when she got there.

Rain had left a dark edge beneath the windowsill. The sign was in place. GESLOTEN. The work lamp shone behind the glass. She could see her mother sitting with her back slightly rounded, her head close above something bright.

Mara didn’t knock at once. The woman from the bakery came out with an empty crate and greeted her. Mara returned the greeting, walked past the shop window and tapped her key against the wood. Not the shop key. She didn’t have one.

Ada looked up, saw her and pushed back her stool. She opened the door only halfway.

‘Quick, come in. They’ll think I’m open.’

Mara left her bicycle outside, its front wheel still in the rack, and slipped past her mother to the counter. Where her laptop had stood lay a sheet of paper with two figures, one beneath the other. The charger was plugged in behind the coffee machine.

‘There it is.’

‘I nearly took it out. Then I thought you might want to know where it was.’

Mara unplugged it and wound the cable round the block. A small piece of Ada’s tape clung to the end, a ragged edge that hadn’t been there before. She peeled it away and put the charger in her bag.

The brass table clock was open on the workbench, its movement separate. Beside a small labelled bag stood a box she hadn’t seen yesterday. She hadn’t been in the shop yesterday, she remembered. It was longer ago than the place made it feel.

‘Are you working?’

‘You can see I am.’

‘You’re closed.’

‘Yes.’

Ada sat down again. Up close, Mara could hear how quietly a clock could tick. On the wall, the sounds had run together. Here there were distinct silences between them.

She checked her phone. A quarter past ten. At eleven, Bram would have the first material samples ready. She could stay fifteen minutes. No more.

‘That picture of your bicycle light. What was wrong with it?’

‘That’s come off.’ Ada pointed behind her at the windowsill. There lay the light. The tab had indeed broken. ‘I’ve fixed it with an elastic band, but it doesn’t sit properly.’

‘Do you want a new one?’

‘I’m going to get one.’

‘Good.’

Mara still held her bag. She hadn’t put it on the counter. There were too many things there, but she also knew she was more likely to stay if she put it down.

Ada took the ordered part from its bag and laid it beside the clock. Mara couldn’t see why that piece should be different from the one already there. She could tell a good label from a bad one; here, something else was being judged.

‘I ordered it yesterday,’ Ada said. ‘Just arrived. If I try fitting it now, I’ll know whether I can go on.’

‘Couldn’t it wait until tomorrow?’

‘Anything could. Somebody will be here again tomorrow.’

Mara looked at the empty customer’s chair. The round impression was still faintly visible, if you knew to look. She put her bag over her shoulder.

‘I thought you’d taken today for yourself.’

Ada picked up her tweezers. ‘I’ve got my lesson at twelve.’

Mara had heard herself do that too: name an appointment as proof that the rest of the day was under control. She didn’t want to make the comparison here in her mother’s shop. Nor did she want to say that it was fine, as though her permission were required.

‘How was badminton?’ she asked.

Ada glanced up. ‘I hit it.’

‘The shuttle?’

‘Sometimes the other woman’s racket too.’

She smiled down at the container in front of her. Mara asked whether she was going again.

‘This afternoon. Once this is finished.’

Mara checked her phone again. Only four minutes had passed. She felt she had been standing there long enough for something to have been settled.

‘That won’t take all morning, will it?’

Ada put down the tweezers. ‘I just need a chance to look at this, Mara.’

She hadn’t raised her voice, but Mara felt her shoulders pull back. It was Mara who had asked on Tuesday evening when she could come. She had been let in for a charger. Yet here her mother sat behind the sign they had put up together. Only a week ago she’d been occupied with an afternoon that needn’t lead anywhere.

‘I have to get to the printer’s,’ Mara said.

‘You said.’

‘I only thought it.’

Now Ada looked at her. For a moment she seemed unsure what to say.

‘Shall I move your bicycle? I need to shut the door.’

‘I’ll do it.’

Mara went out and pulled the door behind her. The handle sprang back up, but it hadn’t locked. Ada came to the door and turned the key. She raised a hand. Mara waved back and took her bicycle from the rack.

At the traffic lights, she put a foot on the wet kerb. The charger was tucked into the top of her bag, its hard block pressing against her back. The bicycle light was still broken. There was nothing she could do about it now.

The printer’s was on a small industrial estate behind a vet’s and a storage unit with roller shutters. Mara rode past the office first. Bram stood at the other door, waving a coffee pot as though to signal where she should go.

Inside, it was warmer than at the office. There was a dry smell of paper and printed boards. A load stood in the corner beneath a sheet marked NIET AAN KOMEN in large letters: do not touch. Somebody had subsequently joined the last two Dutch words together.

Bram pointed at the table. ‘Yours.’

Three proofs lay on the actual panel material. Lotte came out of the little room behind the machines. Her coat was already off, and she held a pencil.

‘I can only stay a moment,’ she told Mara. ‘Then I have to go back.’

The largest print showed the bus. Its blacks were deeper than on paper. Faces Mara had been able to make out on screen now merged with the dark windows. She bent closer.

‘We’re losing that woman at the back.’

‘She was in shadow already,’ Bram said.

‘You could still see her in the photograph.’

Lotte brought up the original image on the laptop beside it. The woman was barely visible there either. Mara hadn’t realised how much her eyes supplied now that she knew the woman was there.

They moved towards the light by the outside door. Bram held one board upright, Lotte another. A forklift passed outside with a load that briefly blocked the light. Once it had gone, Mara could see the woman behind the window again.

‘That isn’t the light in the exhibition room either,’ Lotte said.

Bram put the board down. ‘We’ve got a photograph of it, haven’t we?’

Mara found the photographs. One view of the room showed the ceiling. Not all the lights were on. She had asked about the hanging system, not whether this was the normal lighting.

‘I’ll ring.’

Her contact wasn’t there. She got a colleague, explained why she was calling and had to begin again when the phone was handed to somebody else. Lotte laid down her pencil. A machine gave a brief noise; Bram went over and came back.

In the end, all they established was that extra lights could be switched on. The man didn’t know which ones or where they fell. He would take a photograph once the key to the switch cupboard was back.

Mara looked at the three pieces. She could have the shadows lightened a little. But that would change the whole photograph, not just the one woman. Lotte showed her on screen. The beam on the man’s shoulder lost weight; the dark wood looked flatter.

‘What matters most?’ Bram asked.

Mara wanted to say that everybody should be visible. She looked at the girl with the pram on the other board. The new question was there: Who is the girl? The lettering fitted, the question mark clear of the edge.

‘Keep this one as it is,’ she said. ‘We need to see the room before deciding about the bus.’

Bram fetched the schedule. If they knew that afternoon, they could still proceed. Otherwise, one part of the work would slip. The other panels weren’t tied to this proof, he said. There was no need to stop everything.

Lotte pointed to the bottom code. It differed from the printout Mara had brought: two digits reversed. She laid the papers side by side.

‘Which folder is this?’

Bram opened Tuesday’s file. It bore a date and the word complete. At the edge of his screen, Mara saw her own email sending it. She had sent it herself. The final text approval had arrived in a separate message and still needed linking to the correct page. She had sent Lotte a note about that. The note hadn’t gone to Bram.

‘Not all of this is final,’ she said.

Bram looked from the email to her. ‘It doesn’t say so.’

She was conscious of Lotte beside her, saying nothing.

Mara asked whether anything else had been printed. Only the proofs in front of them, not the entire run. Time had been lost, material used.

‘We’ll pay for it,’ she said.

‘You will anyway.’ Bram drew the paper towards him. ‘But I need one person telling me which file I can use.’

‘Me.’

Lotte took her coat from the chair. ‘Then I need to be able to sign off the text first.’

Mara nodded. She wrote down three things, this time leaving a box for the person who had to answer. Their contact at the venue for the lighting. Hester for the remaining names. Herself for the order of the proofs. Looking over her shoulder, Lotte added the dimensions.

They put those in. With his own pen, Bram drew a line beneath the first two. He needed them today.

Lotte left. Mara stayed to mark the samples properly. She took a fine marker, read aloud which board she was holding and wrote on its back. Bram checked the code on his screen. They did all three. Only then did they roll up the paper printouts.

When Mara unlocked her bicycle outside, the rain had stopped. A new message from Ada: Usual twelve next week after all. Can’t make it shorter. Then another sentence: Paid, of course.

Mara read it twice. She didn’t know whether today’s lesson had been shortened or whether the request had simply been refused. She typed What do you mean? and waited beside the cycle rack.

Ada replied: Asked if I could start later. Same hour reserved. Won’t do that again.

There was no question. Mara put the phone away. She had to return to the office and work out which files she could keep waiting without somebody starting on them already.

On the way, she stopped at a sandwich shop where the last hot rolls were being wrapped. She bought a currant bun, ate beside her bicycle and looked at the backs of her hands. Crumbs had fallen on her coat. She brushed them away before riding on.

At the office, she propped the three samples against the blank wall beside her chair. Nora came over. Rather than bend towards the photographs, she read the small lettering at the bottom first.

‘So this can go ahead?’

‘Partly,’ Mara said.

She explained what was waiting. Nora looked at the clock above the door. She had already told the first venue they would confirm the delivery date on Friday. Mara hadn’t known, though the date was on their shared schedule.

‘What do I tell them?’

Mara turned her laptop to show the list. The two missing approvals were still outstanding. Nora sat in Lotte’s chair. Together they rang the archive.

This time Hester answered at once. Between appointments, she had time to look at the bus photograph, she said. Mara heard Nora draw in a breath. She let Hester finish, then named each decision they still needed that afternoon.

‘I can do three names now,’ Hester said. ‘I have to check the other.’

‘We need to know today which text is going to the printer.’

‘Can’t you leave that name open for now?’

Mara put her hand on the paper. The place Hester meant was in the middle of a caption. A gap would look like an oversight, which wasn’t what had happened.

‘Does he need to be named?’ Nora asked.

Hester was quiet. Mara heard paper move.

‘Not for the photograph. But he gave it to us.’

‘Could his name go in the credits?’ Mara asked.

Hester checked. He was already on that list. They wouldn’t be removing him from the exhibition by not naming him twice. They went through the other names. Mara didn’t just cross off her notes; she read back the version each belonged to.

Meanwhile, Nora went to her desk and returned with the order confirmation. The extra proofs exceeded the original number. She placed it beside Mara’s keyboard. Mara kept a finger on the line they had reached with Hester.

‘I’ll ring you back shortly,’ she said once the three names were done. ‘For the final list, not another decision.’

‘I’ll stay by my email.’

After the call, Nora pushed the confirmation towards her. ‘How much extra work?’

Mara wrote down what she knew from Bram. Material, machine time, checking. She didn’t yet know how much of Lotte’s time they needed. She put a question mark beside it rather than ring and interrupt her other job.

‘I’ll ask once she’s finished.’

Nora looked at the three boards against the wall. ‘I want to see it this afternoon, then.’

She went back to her room. Mara wrote the missing hours on a yellow sticky note and fixed it to the new list where it wouldn’t disappear behind the open screen. Then she ate the rest of her currant bun from its paper bag. It had gone dry, but she was still hungry.