Not What I Said

When Els rang, Liv had a marker in her hand. She was trying to write Roos's name on the lid of her container. There was still grease on it; the letters broke into specks and stopped halfway through. She put down the pen before answering.

‘You don't need to come early tomorrow,’ Els said.

Liv drew up a chair. ‘Did I say I would?’

‘No. But you would.’

She had wanted to hear a voice that would tell her whether the afternoon still stood between them. Els sounded brighter. Perhaps she was with Roos, had eaten well, or had finally been offered a chair she didn't have to move. Liv asked where she was.

‘Roos's kitchen. I'll put her on.’

‘Wait.’

But Els was already moving. Liv heard the phone change hands, a finger brushing the microphone. Then Roos.

‘Yes?’

Liv looked at the container. She had only managed Roo. She touched the first letter. The ink had dried already.

‘About this afternoon.’

Roos waited. She didn't fill the silence for her.

‘I said you asked for something. You didn't. You asked me to wait.’

‘That's what I said.’

‘I got them mixed up.’

Too small a sentence for what she had done. She hadn't swapped two items of shopping on the worktop. She had taken away a hand Roos was relying on. Liv didn't correct herself again. Roos knew what she meant.

‘I still had hold of it,’ Roos said. ‘Nothing happened. But I don't want it again.’

‘No.’

‘So if I come tomorrow, I'm not carrying something down the stairs with you at the other end.’

Els asked something in the background. Roos told her she wasn't finished yet.

‘I can make space downstairs,’ she continued. ‘Hold a door. Take something once it's safely down. Anything else needs someone who knows how to handle that furniture. Bram. Someone with him, if that's what it takes. You need to arrange it.’

‘I'll talk to Els.’

‘She's doing it. You don't need to start again.’

Liv nodded, though nobody could see. Her free hand moved across the table until she found a little pool of water. It had come from the base of the container she had washed.

‘Thanks for telling me.’

Roos made a sound that might have meant yes, or well. She asked what time Liv had to start work. Liv said she was still working and had more to do in the morning. Then she asked whether she could return the container.

‘Whenever,’ said Roos. ‘You don't need an appointment for every little thing.’

She gave the phone back to Els.

‘We can do a few boxes,’ Els said. ‘Not the whole room. Roos has said how long she's got.’

‘And I need to work first.’

‘I heard. After your work, then.’

Liv looked at her open notes. One extract still couldn't stand without its question. She had fixed the transition in the other, but the whole thing ran longer than Anouk probably wanted. Working at it through the night wouldn't somehow produce a good plan for Monday.

‘I'll let you know when I've finished what I need to do tomorrow,’ she said. ‘Not the moment I turn the computer on.’

Els said that was fine. A chair shifted in the background. Roos needed to get past. Liv heard Els say excuse me and pictured her drawing up her knees to make room. Without thinking, she had furnished a whole room from a few sounds on the phone.

‘Are you sleeping there too?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good.’

‘See you tomorrow, then.’

They hung up. Liv sat with the warm phone against her chest. She knew where Els was sleeping because Els had told her, not because she could see her bed. That was normal. Almost every conversation she had worked that way. She couldn't shrink all of life to what she could reach.

She put the marker in a drawer and left the container beside her bag. Then she turned on the television without the sound. After a few minutes she turned that on too. A woman in a garden was talking across a fence. Wind tugged audibly at her microphone. Liv watched until the adverts, then went to bed.

Early on Monday, Mara sent a message saying she had time after lunch. Until three, no longer. Could Liv bring the selection and the source references? Not another batch of files from yet more versions; she needed to know what to compare.

Liv said she would come. She sent Anouk a brief overview too: the pilot was still a selection with questions; the three interviews remained two, five and nine; and she would say which extracts were actually usable before the agreed time. She paused at pilot. It might sound as though nothing had to be finished. Underneath she listed what would still need doing after that afternoon.

She worked until her legs were stiff. When she stood to make coffee, the hands coming out of her sleeves were still the ones she had let go with yesterday. She washed them too long and turned the water cooler. At least that helped with the heat.

At a quarter to eleven Els rang. Not to ask where Liv had got to, but to say Bram could fit the heavier work around his other jobs in the house. He needed to attend to eight's threshold anyway. Els wanted to make room downstairs first, then arrange to have the connection removed, if she decided to do that.

‘You don't need to ring him.’

‘I wasn't going to.’

A brief silence. Liv thought of yesterday's conversation. Els was right to say it, and Liv really hadn't been going to call. She couldn't find room to explain both things at once.

‘Can I ask you something?’

‘You usually do.’

‘Do you play that recording much?’

Silence at the other end, not the silence of Els moving away. Liv heard faint taps against the worktop. Then those stopped too.

‘Sometimes.’

‘Since I left?’

‘Yes.’

Liv waited. She had asked what she wanted to know. The first answer wasn't incomplete merely because it hadn't reassured her.

‘I don't play it at Roos's,’ Els said at last. ‘I don't want that conversation there.’

‘And at home?’

‘Not all day there, either.’

Els had said home herself. Liv didn't ask why she was there again. This could be her morning for checking stock, making coffee, opening the post. If she slept somewhere else, someone still had to carry her life out of that house.

‘You didn't tell me.’

‘You didn't ask how often.’

That wasn't quite true, Liv thought. But she couldn't remember what she had asked when, or whether she had waited for an answer. Els moved on: she had only heard the woman's voice from the wooden case that one night, with Liv. Since then the voices had sounded more familiar, or there had been nothing. Even the nothing had become a way of waiting.

‘I understand,’ Liv said.

‘Do you? Or do you think I'll stop doing it once you understand?’

Liv pushed away her notes. An empty strip of table opened between her and the computer.

‘I've played it more than once at home too.’

‘How many times?’

‘I don't know.’

Els didn't laugh. Liv pictured her hand on the wooden case that first night. They hadn't needed to explain to anyone why they were there. A question, their answer, the air turning cold. Both of them waiting for something else in the house to begin. Only afterwards had they tried to put it in an order that might explain something.

‘I heard you yesterday,’ Liv said. ‘I was absolutely sure you were asking me something.’

‘Yes.’

‘And I let go.’

‘Roos told me.’

Liv looked at her hands. She wanted to say she wouldn't do it again. A sentence with exactly the reassuring sound she had come to fear.

‘I can't keep sitting there listening to check whether I'm hearing it right,’ she said. ‘And I don't think you should do it alone, either.’

‘Do you think that, or are you asking me to agree?’

‘I want us to agree.’

Els said nothing.

‘No pulling up a chair to wait for an answer,’ Liv said. ‘No hours upstairs alone. Fetching things, doing your post, of course you can. I'm not going to ban you from your own kitchen.’

‘You wouldn't get far with that.’

‘No.’

Els shifted the phone. A sleeve brushed the microphone, and Liv felt a brief shiver between her shoulders. An ordinary sound. She could tell where it had brushed because a finger tapped the edge afterwards. She didn't ask whether Els had heard it too.

‘Roos knows when I'm here,’ Els said. ‘And I won't sit in eight listening on my own any more.’

‘Good.’

‘You either.’

‘No.’

‘And don't come anyway because you're afraid I will.’

Liv looked at her appointment with Mara. At the morning that was almost gone already. She said she was going to her work meeting shortly. Afterwards she could help with the things they had agreed, if Roos was still there too. Els said she would check with her. Liv liked hearing that qualification. Not every sentence had to settle the next day on the spot.

After the call she prepared her files with the labels Mara had asked for. No folder containing the strange recording, no stray photograph of the grille to appear among the work windows. Once she had safely ejected the drive, she put her notebook beside it and closed the bag.

An hour before she needed to leave. She decided not to spend it at the guesthouse.

Instead she walked to the shop for coffee and something for lunch. She recognised one of the roofers by his jacket before she saw his face. He stood at the cheese display with a small basket over his arm. When she said hello, it took him a couple of seconds to place her.

‘Leaking?’

‘No.’

‘Good, then.’

Liv told him about the empty screw box. He smiled and said someone had spent all day looking for it. She didn't get out her phone to show him a photograph. She knew what had been on the windowsill. He asked if she could return it sometime; he kept small caps in boxes like that.

‘I thought it was rubbish.’

‘It is now, then. Never mind.’

‘I've still got it.’

She promised to put it aside. He went back to looking for the cheese he needed, consulting a shopping list on his phone. Liv went to the end of the aisle for her coffee. She was almost relieved that something she hadn't thrown away had turned out to be of some small use to someone.

Outside she checked the time. She could eat at home, get her car keys and reach Mara's on time. No rush. Arriving before the appointment gained her nothing.

In her kitchen she dried Roos's container once more and put it with the things she needed to take later. She didn't put the screw box inside. That stayed on the shelf for the roofer. Then she cut her bread, set her phone on the table and ate without headphones.