The Zip

Tea stood beside the sofa. Liv saw the cup before she knew the time. A lemon slice floated in it, pip upwards. She hadn't heard Els get up.

The breakfast-room door was ajar. Beyond it, a spoon tapped a plate. Liv sat up and felt for her shoes with her feet. Her watch was beneath the sleeve of the jumper she'd put beside her. Later than she'd wanted, not so late she could use it as a reason to do nothing.

She drank. Lukewarm. The cushion had left her neck stiff. The wooden case upstairs came back to her not immediately as fear, but as something still in that room which she was no longer sitting beside.

Els looked round the door. ‘Thought I'd leave you.’

‘Good.’

‘Not so good for your coffee. I'll have to make fresh.’

Liv raised the teacup a little. Els nodded towards the kitchen and disappeared. She was dressed. Last night's cardigan hung over a chair, its sleeves half inside out. Liv smoothed the duvet without folding it. Els would know what to do with it.

Seven's key lay on the breakfast table. She'd found it beside the lamp, Els said, not taken it from the room. Liv asked whether she'd heard anything after staying downstairs.

‘I made tea.’

‘I mean before that.’

Els moved a plate of cheese closer. ‘I listened to you on the sofa. Not that you said anything. I wanted to know if you were asleep.’

Liv wasn't sure whether to apologise. She took some bread. Els began wiping the next table, though no one had used it.

‘I'm going home today.’

‘I thought you would.’

‘My roof's finished.’

Els looked at her. ‘You'd better go and see if it's still there, then.’

It sounded ordinary enough to make them laugh for a moment. Liv asked whether she could help with the sofa bedding. Els said to leave the duvet. The sheet could go in the basket by the kitchen door. She spoke exactly as she would to any guest.

Upstairs, the room still had its own smell of bread and a radiator left on all night. The towel lay on the desk. Liv left it there and packed. The portable drive went into the small compartment of her laptop bag, not among the clothes in her holdall. She zipped the big bag shut. A sleeve caught. She had to pull it free and take the zip round the same corner again.

She looked at the grille. Unchanged from yesterday, apart from the paint she'd cracked beside the slide. She took her phone from her trouser pocket and recorded another minute. The room was empty except for her. Outside, a cart rolled along the street, its wheels briefly rattling over a different surface. Rain tapped the glass. She heard no voices.

Liv waited for the minute to finish. This time she kept her hand still against the phone case. Then she stopped recording and gave the file a recognisable name. It appeared beside the phone's minute from the first night. She kept both.

She still had to send Els the strange recording. Downstairs she put her laptop bag on a chair and took out the recorder. Els looked from it to her phone.

‘Can't that just send it straight to this?’

‘Not this one.’

‘That's probably supposed to be better too.’

‘Only if you've got a cable.’

It was in the front pocket. Liv opened the laptop and copied the file from the recorder. She left the sound untouched. She sent the new phone recording separately afterwards. Two files: last night's recording and this morning's ordinary room. She explained which was which. Els waited for both to arrive, then showed her the screen.

‘There they are.’

‘Don't turn it up because it starts quietly. You don't need to.’

Liv heard how professional she suddenly sounded. Els put away her phone without playing either recording. Liv kept her own files on the devices and the copy from the recorder on her laptop. Having them in more places didn't give her any more explanations.

At the counter she paid the balance. Els hadn't charged for the soup. Liv said she'd be happy to pay, and Els asked whether she should charge for the half-bowl left upstairs as well. Liv hadn't eaten the last few spoonfuls. She decided not to argue with generosity.

The bike stood where she'd left it. She undid the lock and wiped a wet leaf off the saddle. Els held the back door while Liv manoeuvred it through the passage. With the bags on it, it was wider than yesterday. At the bend she drew the handlebars towards her to miss the cupboard.

‘Wait, I'll get the door,’ Els said.

She pushed it wider and stayed there until the back wheel was through. Outside, the peg still held the breakfast card. Liv settled her bag more securely on the rear rack and tightened the strap.

‘Let me know if it's all right,’ said Els.

Liv looked up, puzzled.

‘Your roof.’

‘Oh. Yes, I will.’

She cycled to the station. The train had room for her bike, though not where she'd have chosen to stand. She had to take one bag off the handlebars and put it at her feet. Someone came on with a pushchair at the next stop. Liv moved along. She was tired enough for every move to feel like a request addressed to her whole body.

Her neighbour messaged. The roofers had gone, the key was in the agreed place. There was still a bucket in the shed; she wasn't to throw it away. Liv thanked her, then told Els she was on her way to a dry house. Els sent a thumbs-up. It was good to have nothing else attached to it for once.

At home she put the bike in the shed and her holdall in the hall, upright against the wall. The laptop bag went upstairs. The stair gate was back in place and the plastic had gone from the landing. A grain of grey dust lay on the bottom step. She picked it up on a fingertip and deposited it on the windowsill because there wasn't a bin nearby.

Through the window she looked at the roof, barely visible from here. No board projected over the edge now. In the shed stood the bucket she'd been told about. The shovel was beside it rather than in it, so the door could close. First she wanted to see whether anything indoors had been moved.

Her workroom chair stood where she'd left it. A clean cloth covered the screen. She lifted it by two corners and folded it over the desk, careful not to shake dust onto the keyboard. Then she turned the chair towards the window and sat.

Anouk had messaged. The trial version had arrived safely. They would need another room for the listening afternoon after all: the room by the coffee machine wasn't available. The time allowed for the extracts probably wouldn't change. Could Liv ring tomorrow?

Liv set a reminder. She could send a brief reply and go back to sleep, but first she wanted to finish yesterday's work. The drive lay beside her laptop. She plugged it in and opened the folders. Everything was where it belonged. She began checking the export of Joop's trial version.

Halfway through, she had to tip her head back to keep her eyes open. The recording wasn't boring. Joop asked what was rattling beside the interviewer, who apologised for a loose knob. Liv heard how long it took them to return to the question. On Friday she'd decided this part didn't need to be in the listening copy. Now she couldn't remember why she was judging it all over again.

She closed the work window and made food. The yoghurt had gone; her neighbour had found an edible one after all. In its place was a note: no milk left. Liv ate bread at the worktop and rang the roofer.

He was still with another customer. She asked about the extra hours without mentioning the night at the guesthouse. He said they'd replaced more than the roof covering. Beneath one edge were battens they couldn't put back. He had a photograph. He'd send it and list the hours separately.

‘Tomorrow?’ Liv asked.

‘Yes. Tomorrow morning should be fine.’

She asked how long the bucket needed to stay. It was his; he'd collect it this week. Liv said fine. When the call ended, she didn't feel she'd started an argument.

Upstairs, she kept the mug she'd just brought away from the drive. She chose the other side of the desk and noticed the recorder cable. Last night's file was in the temporary folder she'd used to send it to Els. She hadn't listened through headphones yet. Three times through the little speaker, Els on the bed. The words had been clear enough.

She left the headphones off. All she wanted was to hear whether anything after the voice had escaped her notice. She pulled the chair closer and opened the unedited copy. The original stayed on the recorder. She played the file from the beginning at an ordinary volume.

The taps sounded drier than she remembered. Then her voice, lower than it sounded to her when she spoke. The same small hesitation ended the sentence. Liv kept her hand still on the mouse.

With Els there, she'd stopped playback so soon after the words that the silence now seemed longer. She watched the time running, not to summon anything but because she was waiting for an ordinary room.

Eleven seconds after her voice, very softly, she heard the zip of her holdall.

Liv turned towards the door. Downstairs in the hall, the bag was shut. She knew without being able to see it: she'd left it that way and hadn't touched it since.

She took her hand off the mouse and let the file play on.

There was no next sentence. Only the quiet sound of the room, a movement she might have made herself, the end of the recording. She was still sitting straight-backed when the play button returned to its starting position.

She didn't go into the hall to open the bag. She closed the file without saving. On her phone she set a reminder to ring Els in the morning. Then she took the mug to the kitchen and shut the workroom door behind her.