Back for the Day

The parking spaces opposite the guesthouse were full. Liv drove past and parked further along, beside a strip of dune too low to stop the wind. She stayed at the wheel long enough to put her phone in her bag. As she opened the door, the wind snatched it from her hand. She caught it just before it hit the post beside her.

Only her small bag lay on the back seat. No clothes, no toothbrush. She'd sent the third trial version before leaving. Anouk had said she still needed to listen. Anything that needed changing could be done at home this afternoon. Liv took the bag and pulled the car door shut.

Nothing outside looked different. The breakfast card hung in the same place. This time she held the bell aside so it couldn't catch her sleeve. Behind the counter, a man bent over a sheet of paper. He turned it over as though there might be more room for his name on the back.

‘Els?’ he called. ‘Postcode as well?’

‘Only if you'd like me to know where to send the bill.’

He looked up at Liv. His glasses sat low on his nose. A chain attached his pen cap to the wooden board. He lifted the cap and examined the hook holding the chain.

‘You won't walk off with that by accident.’

‘Everyone wants to try,’ said Els, coming out of the kitchen. ‘I like to make it a bit harder.’

She nodded to Liv as though Liv often interrupted her mornings this way. Liv preferred it to conspicuous relief. She moved her bag aside so the man could reach his case.

‘Daan,’ he said, more to the paper than to her. He wrote something else. ‘One night. As I said.’

‘Three, downstairs. Breakfast at seven.’

‘Plenty of time, then.’

Putting down the pen, he explained that he had to be at a school in a neighbouring town in the morning. A meeting about an education project. He'd rather have slept at home and travelled early, but hadn't fancied getting stuck just before the meeting.

‘No use telling the traffic jam I set off in good time.’

Els took three's key and asked whether he'd parked all right. Daan hadn't brought a car: his wife needed theirs. Tomorrow's connection was already up on his phone. Rather than show Els the screen, he looked for the time he wanted breakfast.

‘Seven's fine. If I can leave straight afterwards.’

‘The front door opens from inside.’

Els took him to his room. Liv waited at the counter. Fewer mandarins in the bowl. A new envelope beside the computer. Seven's hook was empty. She'd handed in its key on Tuesday, but couldn't remember whether Els had hung it straight up.

She heard Els showing Daan the light switch. He only wanted to prepare a few things at the table, he said. A chair moved. Then they came back into the hall together. Els asked whether he'd need another blanket.

‘I'll see how I get on. The meeting papers will probably get me warm enough.’

He went back with his case. Els opened the breakfast-room door and gestured Liv through.

‘You're early.’

‘We said eleven.’

‘Yes. Feels as though I've had this morning twice already.’

Liv sat. Els had a tray ready: teapot, two cups, milk jug. She poured for herself and offered Liv some. Liv said yes. She'd already had two coffees at home.

‘What exactly did you want to look at?’

Els turned the pot so its spout no longer stuck out over the table edge. ‘I thought you might know.’

Liv could so easily begin a list. The plan, the tube, a sound in seven, another room. Enough to keep both of them occupied all afternoon and leave them knowing nothing more.

‘We could just talk about what's happened since Tuesday first.’

‘Not much.’

‘You said you weren't sleeping.’

‘That isn't a new noise.’

Els cupped her hands round her tea. Liv could see the window behind her. A dog passing outside kept trying to pee against the same raised paving edge. Its owner waited without tugging hard. The dog looked the wrong way.

‘No,’ said Liv. ‘It isn't.’

She told her about Mara: she'd heard the words and a short scrape afterwards, but didn't know where the recording had been made. Had Liv told her everything? Mara had listened without an explanation first.

‘And then?’

‘Then I told her.’

‘Did she think it was strange?’

‘She didn't know what to say.’

Els nodded. Apparently she could do something with that answer, even if it wasn't reassuring. She asked what Mara did. Liv explained the listening-copy checks and the wrong file she'd sent yesterday. She attributed the unsuccessful joke about Joop's voice to Mara. Els laughed where she was meant to.

‘You can't do everything at once.’

‘No.’

Liv drank her tea. She hadn't come to hear that, but she'd just invited it.

They talked about the lamp still on the landing, the lever they'd refitted, the ordinary rattling outside. Els hadn't been back into eight, she said. Not to listen, anyway. She'd wanted a chair from there, but the stack was awkward, so she'd used the other kitchen stool.

‘Roos wanted to sit higher. Not because she's tall. She holds her coffee and puts her elbows on the table. In the low chair she ends up like this.’

Els demonstrated, shoulders hunched. A small, unkind imitation that made her laugh. Liv remembered the woman who'd come unhurriedly for soup. She hadn't spoken to her again on Monday.

A door opened in the hall. Daan wanted another towel. He'd used the small one and wasn't sure whether there was a cupboard.

‘I'll get you one,’ Els said.

‘No hurry. I'm down here anyway.’

She went behind the counter to a cupboard. He got two towels, because the first she took out didn't feel quite dry. She held it to her cheek and returned it to the bottom shelf, away from the others.

‘That needs a bit longer.’

Daan thanked her and went back. Els waited for his door to shut before opening the cupboard beneath the counter with a sigh. A plastic tub tipped sideways. Batteries and a key with red tape round its head. She righted it and brought out seven's key.

‘Put your bag upstairs if you like. Save us sitting with it beside the table.’

‘I don't need to work here.’

‘You don't have to work to put a bag down.’

Liv took the key. She'd leave her things and come straight back. Els needed bread. There was soup left, but she couldn't start lunch with two of yesterday's crusts.

‘Take your time. I won't be long.’

She put on her coat. Liv heard the bell and front door downstairs, then went up. The landing lamp was off. Daylight through the narrow window above the stairs was enough. Eight's door was shut. A thin line of worn paint lay on the threshold.

Seven no longer smelled of her bread. The bed had been straightened, towels changed. She put her bag on the chair and her coat over its back. She'd left her phone cable at home. It had enough charge that she needn't do anything about it yet.

She went to the window to look for her car. From here she could see along the street, but not where she'd parked. The flag opposite hung limp against its pole. The downpipe was silent.

‘Leave it there. I'll be along in a minute.’

Liv turned. The voice had come from the direction of eight, close to seven's open door. Els must already have the bread. Liv hadn't heard the front door, but she'd been busy with her bag.

‘It's not in the way,’ she said.

An answer to a question nobody had asked. She looked at the chair. Nobody had come in. She went to the doorway and looked across the landing. Only eight's shut door.

Then a bike bell rang outside. Liv turned back to the window. Els was coming into the street opposite, a paper bread bag held against her coat. She waited for a cyclist and crossed. She didn't look up. Her mouth wasn't visibly open, but at that distance Liv couldn't pretend to know exactly what had or hadn't just been said.

The bell rang downstairs.

Liv waited in seven until footsteps came up. Not to catch Els out: she still didn't know what to ask. Els appeared with the bread under her arm and another room key in her hand.

‘Forgotten that dripping tap again. I'll just go through.’

‘Did you say something to me?’

Els stopped. ‘I've only just come in.’

‘About leaving something where it was.’

‘What?’

‘I thought you meant my bag.’

Els looked from the chair to Liv without putting down the bread.

‘I said downstairs you could put it up here.’

‘No, just now. Leave it there. I'll be along in a minute.’

Different in her own voice. Liv had wanted to repeat it without claiming it was the same sound. Els turned towards eight.

‘There's nobody in there.’

‘I don't know. I was here. I saw you outside.’

Els took eight's handle. Liv stood beside her. The door scraped, lifted a little in Els's hand and opened. The window was shut. The ironing board leaned where they'd left it. Dark chair beneath light, unchanged. From here Liv could see the wooden case, its brass lever still in the position they'd chosen.

Els stayed in the doorway rather than approaching it. She held out her free hand towards the empty room.

‘I only went for bread.’

‘I saw.’

Liv looked at the dividing wall. Sound could come in from the street. A voice in a passage could seem nearer than it was. She hadn't seen Els silent somewhere else at the same moment; she'd seen her outside afterwards. Making the interval smaller in her mind wouldn't tell her how long it had been.

‘All I know is that it sounded very close.’

Els shut eight again, holding the handle until the door settled onto its threshold. The bread bag was crumpled against her coat now.

‘Shall we go down?’

‘Yes.’

They went together. Liv brought her bag: the thing she'd gone upstairs to put away two minutes earlier. In the kitchen Els put the bread on a board and looked for the knife in the wrong drawer. Finding it, she began cutting without taking off her coat.

‘You've still got your coat on.’

Els looked down, put the knife aside and hung her coat on a hook. Back at the board, she turned the bread a quarter-turn and cut somewhere else.

They ate in the breakfast room. Daan's table stayed empty. Liv didn't describe the sound again. She laid her keys beside her bag. The car key was there; she could go home afterwards. Neither said aloud the question sitting with them: whether they'd made something of an ordinary noise.

‘I'd rather have shown you something normal,’ Els said.

‘You have.’

Els looked at the sliced bread and shrugged. Liv took a piece. Anouk had messaged: the third trial version had arrived; she'd listen tomorrow. Work went on in another part of the world. Liv said that was fine and put her phone away.

While they cleared up, Daan came to ask whether he could print something. It had arrived by email, but at a table with five people he didn't like a screen in front of him.

Els had a printer which sometimes pretended to have no paper. She pointed to the counter. Daan fetched his laptop; Liv put the teacups on a tray. Els bent to open a drawer. Liv didn't immediately help. Els's machine; Els knew how it was meant to work.

One sheet emerged, half printed. Daan studied it.

‘Half my preparation done, then.’

Els pulled the paper tray further out. ‘You'll get the rest. But you'll have to let go of that first.’

He left the sheet on the counter and stepped back. Liv looked at the empty stairs. She wasn't going back up to hear whether anyone spoke again. She took the tray into the kitchen and asked where the cloth was.