The Wrong Floor

The fourth sheet emerged at last, as though the printer had finally agreed to finish the last word. Daan held up the stack and fanned the pages apart. Els peered along their edges to check that none had fed through together.

‘That's it. Thank you.’

He wanted to pay. Els said not to bother. Daan pointed at the amount of writing on page one. Listening to him recite it all would have taken her much longer. Surely that was worth a euro.

‘I'd have shut a door,’ Els said.

She took the coin and put it in the tub beside the computer. Daan went to three. Liv heard him moving his case and pulling a chair from under the table. He had an afternoon of his own, which didn't have to keep revolving round her visit.

Els wiped crumbs from the lunch table and went into the kitchen. Liv helped put the chairs back. In her mind she'd already shut her car door. The drive home would take an hour, longer perhaps if she left after four. She mustn't stay again because she wanted to understand a sentence.

‘I think I'll get going soon.’

‘All right.’

Els kept wiping the table edge. She pressed harder over a mark that wouldn't come off.

‘Anything I can do before I go?’

Els looked up. ‘No. You're not a substitute for my staff.’

‘Have you got staff?’

‘Apparently I have today.’

Liv laughed, not because it was particularly funny but because she hadn't even fetched her coat. She took the cups from the other table to the worktop. Els didn't tell her to leave them.

The plan lay in its folder on a stack of envelopes in the kitchen. Els hadn't put it away. The cupboard was flush against the wall. Liv didn't want another photograph of something when she wouldn't know what was meant to have changed between pictures.

‘Bram's ringing back later,’ Els said. ‘I've messaged about the door.’

‘And the tube?’

‘And that. I can't ask him here for a door and then spring that plan on him.’

Liv put a cup on the draining rack rather than in the closed dishwasher. Els opened it and pulled out the top rack. One glass stood among the plates.

‘I've been seeing that on the worktop all afternoon. Must have put it in my own way.’

‘I didn't see it.’

‘You don't have to see everything.’

Ordinary words. Liv didn't want to search every sentence for another meaning. She loaded the rest of the crockery and fetched her bag. Her phone lay on top, screen black. Nothing delaying her departure.

As she reached the counter, Daan came from his room, empty-handed now. He looked past her to the stairs.

‘Is Els upstairs?’

‘In the kitchen, I think.’

He glanced towards the door Liv had just come through and asked whether there was an iron he could borrow. His shirt had a crease he couldn't smooth out with his hand.

‘She'll know,’ Liv said.

He nodded and went to the kitchen. Liv took her car key from the front pocket, put it back and closed the bag. She still had to tell Els she was really going.

Something heavy moved. Not a tremendous crash: a short scrape with a hard sound underneath. Liv looked at the stairs. Daan was halfway up, a hand on the banister. She hadn't seen him come out of the kitchen. He looked upwards as though someone was going ahead of him.

‘I'm here,’ Els said behind Liv.

Daan turned his head without moving his feet. He'd reached the narrow bend, where the treads grew shallow on the inside. His upper foot shifted. The front of his sock caught the edge as his weight was already moving backwards.

Liv set down her bag.

‘Stay where you are a moment.’

He grabbed for the banister with his other hand. His elbow struck the wall. A small movement, but suddenly he had no room left to choose another. His feet were wrong for the rest of his body.

Els went to the foot of the stairs without reaching blindly for his leg.

‘Look at your feet. You don't have to turn towards us now.’

Daan looked down. He put one foot a step higher, onto its wider part, and managed to stand straight. Liv stayed by her bag. Three people couldn't help in that narrow turn.

There was nothing above his head. The landing was empty. He waited, then turned his whole body and came down a step at a time. At the bottom he inspected the hand that had gripped the banister.

‘That wasn't clever.’

Els found him a chair in the breakfast room. He wasn't hurt, he said. He'd knocked the wall, not fallen. He sat anyway. Liv saw the white pressure mark where he squeezed his fingers together.

‘I thought you told me to come upstairs,’ he said to Els.

She stayed by the door. ‘I was in the kitchen.’

‘I didn't see you. There was nobody there. I heard you by the stairs.’

Liv wanted to say she'd left Els in the kitchen. She hadn't locked her in. Els could have gone elsewhere. All she knew was that Els had been behind her while Daan was on the stairs.

‘What did you hear?’

‘To come upstairs.’

‘Those exact words?’

Daan looked at her. ‘I didn't write them down.’

Liv pulled up a chair without sitting at once. She hadn't meant to examine him. He looked between them, trying to place some history they hadn't told him.

‘I ask because I've heard something myself, sounding closer than it should.’

Els left the breakfast-room door open and joined them. She put her hands side by side on the table, then laid the cloth she still carried on the empty chair.

Daan asked what Liv meant. She told him about this afternoon, not straight away about the recording of her own voice. She'd thought she heard Els beside eight, then seen her out in the street a moment later. She didn't know how the sound had got there.

‘Couldn't you simply have called from outside?’ Daan asked Els.

‘I was carrying bread.’

He glanced towards the kitchen. ‘You can still call out carrying bread.’

Els looked away. Liv was glad he'd said it, though it hardly changed how she felt. Els shouldn't have offered the bread as proof. She mustn't let him think they'd ruled out every ordinary answer.

‘That's true,’ Liv said. ‘I don't know whether that's what happened. It sounded close to me.’

Daan shifted his chair away from the table. He could get up if he wanted. Nobody asked him to stay and look for another sound.

‘What sort of system is it?’

Els explained the speaking tube. It wasn't used any more, she said. Liv looked at her. Refitting the flap on Monday hadn't turned it into an ordinary telephone that was now switched on. Nor was it quite the same as not using it.

‘We put a part back,’ Liv said. ‘We thought we could see where it led.’

‘You've been working on a pipe?’

‘On the old wooden case. Not the plumbing.’

Daan nodded slowly. Was anyone else upstairs? No, Els said. No other guests. Eight was storage, not a room for somebody who hadn't signed in.

‘So this is happening while I'm staying here.’

He didn't put his full weight behind the reproach. That made it harder for Els to argue. She rubbed the damp edge of her sleeve.

‘I don't know what you heard. I don't want to tell you you've simply heard it wrong.’

Daan studied his hands, bent his elbow and straightened it. Tomorrow he didn't want to begin a meeting by explaining why he'd had no peace all night. He'd booked a room to make the journey easier.

‘I understand,’ Els said.

‘I'm not saying I'm afraid to sleep here. But now every noise will sound as though somebody means me. I get that at my own school when I'm looking for a classroom.’

Liv sat. She hadn't even seen his iron, and the whole afternoon had become a discussion of what sounds meant. He'd wanted to iron a shirt. He needed a bed for tonight.

‘Would you like to stay somewhere else?’

Daan looked at Els, not Liv. Her house, his booking.

Els nodded. ‘I can ask around. If that's what you'd like.’

‘Yes, please.’

She took the cloth into the kitchen and returned with her phone. The first guesthouse had no room. Liv heard her asking for one person tonight, with breakfast. She didn't explain about voices through walls. The second had a room, but upstairs, with the bathroom along the passage.

Daan didn't mind. He hadn't fallen down the stairs. He mainly wanted not to keep searching for whoever called him, to find out whether they were where he thought.

Els asked the price and looked at him. He'd already paid her. She'd arrange payment with the other guesthouse, she said, so he wouldn't need to pay again to have a bed tonight. She wasn't going to make him work out the difference over the table.

‘It's not all your fault,’ Daan said.

‘It's my room you're not using.’

The woman on the phone confirmed a time. Els gave his name and asked whether he could iron a shirt. Downstairs, the woman said. Daan smiled at his empty hands.

‘I'd almost forgotten the shirt.’

He went to three to pack, leaving the door open. Liv couldn't see what he put in his case, but heard him close a zip, then open it again. She didn't check whether Els had heard. An ordinary bag in an ordinary room.

Els straightened the lunch cups as though a tidy table could give her something back from the conversation. Liv asked how far the other guesthouse was. Across the town centre: too far for Daan to walk in this wind with a case, when she had her car.

‘I can take him.’

‘It'll take you further out of your way home.’

‘Not much.’

They didn't want to calculate for each other, at the same moment, what helping cost. Liv took her bag and car key. She could do this. There was parking at the other guesthouse; Els had asked. She gave Liv the address without another explanation.

Daan returned with his case and papers, the shirt over his arm. His printing coin still lay in the tub by the computer. Els left it.

‘I'll pop in tomorrow morning,’ she said. ‘If that's all right. Check you've settled in properly and sort out the rest of your payment.’

‘I have to be at the school at ten.’

‘Well before that.’

Liv asked whether she should come too. Els shook her head, but Daan said he'd be glad to see both of them briefly. Not to re-enact his performance on the stairs, he added. Liv hadn't been planning to.

Outside, she held the car door against the wind as Daan put down his case. He sat down, then laid the papers on his lap. She didn't ask whether he was sure his elbow didn't hurt. He'd told her twice. She pointed out the seat belt tucked behind the cushion.

On the way they talked about the school. Daan would be presenting an idea to people who wanted to know whether it could work for them. Not a job interview, he said. He'd reminded himself several times that morning, to stop himself explaining too much.

‘Feels like one, though,’ Liv said.

‘Exactly. And I talk louder when I know I'm explaining too much.’

A woman waited in the guesthouse doorway. She greeted Daan by name, showed him the key and pointed out where Liv could leave the car if necessary. Liv didn't go upstairs. She waited below until the woman returned and said the room was all right. Daan came to the top of the stairs himself to thank her.

‘Half eight tomorrow?’ Liv asked.

He said yes. Outside she messaged Els that he'd arrived. The reply came while she was still in the car. Good, thank you. Then another: I've closed seven and eight.

Liv rang rather than typing. Els answered before the first ring had finished.

‘Bram can come tomorrow morning. Not to listen. Just look.’

‘What time?’

‘After ten.’

Liv looked at the dashboard clock. This morning she'd said a few hours, then work at home. The work wasn't going to happen now. At home she still had a bed and hot water. Els had to get through tonight here.

‘Can you ring Roos this evening?’

‘Already have.’

‘Good.’

Liv left it there. She didn't ask whether Els would record herself if she heard something, or whether she'd wait for Liv to return tomorrow. They arranged to meet at the other guesthouse. Then Liv drove home, the radio low enough that she needn't follow the words.