What I Hadn't Said

At home, Liv kept her coat on while she put her bag on the table and took out the drive. Her hand lingered on its smooth casing. The computer was off. This morning she had left the house for a maintenance visit, intending to have the afternoon to herself. There was still an afternoon to have.

She hung her coat in the hall. Her large travelling bag stood against the wall where she had left it on Tuesday. She didn't open it to check anything. In the kitchen she made a sandwich and ate it standing up. Her jumper smelt of flour from the open bag on Els's worktop. She went upstairs to change it and rinsed her hands.

Anouk had sent two messages. She had listened to the third sample. It was clear enough to make a choice, she wrote, but she didn't want Tuesday's listeners to sit through three pieces that seemed to concern much the same question. Could Liv call before four? After that, Anouk had to collect the keys at the new venue, then she was going home.

Liv replied that a quarter to four would work. She didn't need to set aside the whole afternoon for a noise problem nobody had even raised. They needed to choose what people would hear on Tuesday. She wanted a say in that, before the time available in the room made the decision for them.

She opened her notebook beside the keyboard. At the top of a fresh page she wrote two, five and nine. Not all twelve recordings that would eventually need finishing, not the whole harbour. She played the three short samples in succession, through the speakers, keeping her hands off the mouse.

Willem began with that particular morning. Joop wanted to establish which winter they were talking about. In the third interview, somebody opened a door in the background and the interviewer had to ask his question again. The noise itself was straightforward. It simply took a while to get everyone back to the question.

Liv sat on after the last extract. Anouk was right: three explanations of what had led up to an answer would take up much of the session. That didn't mean cutting every introduction. She wrote down a suggestion: place Willem and Joop in contrast, with a brief explanation between them. Perhaps they could leave the third piece out for now. It wasn't worth less. They could return to the full recording once the first questions had been raised.

Her recorder cable lay on the far side of the desk. She didn't need the strange file for this conversation. The harbour interviews were in another folder. She checked the length of the extracts, wrote three questions for Anouk, and pulled the notebook towards her to leave room for more beneath them.

The phone rang. She thought Anouk was calling early, but Els's name appeared on the screen.

‘Are you home already?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh. I thought you might be on your way back.’

Liv looked at the bag on the table. There were no clothes in it. ‘Where to?’

‘Here.’

Els said nothing more. Liv heard two light taps at the other end, something being set down rather than a sound from a wall. She waited for Els to continue. She wasn't going to identify every little noise on the phone.

‘I wanted to know if you'd eaten,’ said Els. ‘If you weren't coming till later, I needn't ask Roos to keep something for both of us.’

‘I'm not coming to yours for dinner.’

‘No. Roos's, I mean.’

Liv pushed her chair back. ‘We only arranged for you to sleep there. I was going home.’

‘I know.’

The sharpness stopped her. Liv kept one hand on the edge of the table. Els knew what she had said. She didn't need someone beside her restating her own arrangements in simpler words.

‘What's happened, then?’

‘I heard you. Just now. As if you were upstairs again.’

Liv looked at the narrow strip of garden visible through her window. Nothing in her house was answering. On the phone was Els, calling to ask a question.

‘What did you hear?’

‘That you'd stay tonight.’

Liv didn't say no at once. The word had formed before she knew exactly what Els was asking. She had just told her she was home. Els hadn't offered this as evidence that she was lying.

‘At first I thought you'd left something behind,’ Els said. ‘You could have come back. But I hadn't heard you come in. That's why I called.’

‘I didn't say it.’

‘I'm not saying you did.’

Liv shifted the phone. Its warm edge pressed against her ear. Speaking louder wouldn't undo the sentence Els had heard.

‘Sorry. I understand.’

‘I don't think you quite do.’

Water ran into a sink at Els's end. She turned off the tap and came closer to the phone. Liv could hear her breathing between the words.

‘I had the bag there. I still had a few things to put in. Then I heard it and for a moment I thought, good. That was all. It was only afterwards I thought you couldn't be upstairs.’

Liv looked at the notebook. She had promised Anouk a quarter to four. It was just after half past two. If she drove now, she would get there in time for Anouk's call. Then she would have to drive back. She no longer had the key to seven. There was nothing she needed to return for herself.

‘How are you getting to Roos's?’

‘Walking. It isn't far.’

‘With your bag?’

‘I'm not taking a steamer trunk.’

‘No.’

Els didn't have to be injured or out of breath before someone could give her a lift. Liv had wanted to stop finding reasons to be needed. Now she was sitting at home picturing Els by the stairs, pleased at an offer nobody had made.

‘I can drive you,’ she said. ‘I won't stay. I'll come and get you, help you out of the house and take you to Roos. Then I'll go home.’

Els was quiet for a moment.

‘You needn't do that because of what I heard.’

‘I know.’

‘And I don't want you treating me as though I can't get out of my own front door.’

Liv looked at her three questions. ‘I'd like to. But I've got a work call at a quarter to four. I'll need to take it there. Is that all right?’

‘Of course. In the breakfast room. There's nobody here.’

They agreed that Els would get her bag ready. Liv didn't write the call time down again. It was already there. She shut the notebook and put it in her small bag with the laptop and drive. She messaged Anouk to confirm their time still suited.

Outside, she got into the car, holding the door with both hands this time. At the first junction, a lorry had blocked the road to reverse into a yard. Liv waited. She wasn't on her way to an emergency. Hurrying wouldn't make her own choice easier to justify.

The light along the coast was lower than when she had left. The parking space opposite the guesthouse was free now. She parked and saw Els at the breakfast-room window, a blue bag beside her. Els picked it up when she noticed Liv, then set it down again.

The front door opened before Liv could ring. Els had her coat over one arm.

‘I haven't diverted the phone yet. I don't know whether I should for one night.’

‘Do you want people to be able to reach you?’

‘I don't want someone standing outside a locked door when all they wanted was to ask about breakfast tomorrow.’

Els went behind the counter. In the breakfast room, Liv put her work bag on a chair, clear of the blue overnight bag. A green sleeve stuck out of it. She didn't look to see whether Els had packed anything she didn't need. There was a paper bag of mandarins on the table.

‘For Roos,’ said Els. ‘I've got plenty left. I'm not taking them because I'm taking my pyjamas.’

‘I didn't think that.’

‘I did. So I'm saying it.’

Liv smiled. She was so relieved to hear something ordinary from Els that she nearly hugged her. Instead, she stayed where she was. Els was looking for the phone settings; she didn't need to receive anything else from Liv.

Liv asked if there was anything to carry. A bag of bread was ready for Roos; it could go beneath the other bag later. The kitchen cupboard was back against the wall. The inspection panel above it was shut. Liv had watched Bram tighten the screws. She didn't need to feel them again to keep track of the afternoon.

‘I'll stand here for Anouk's call,’ she said, indicating the doorway between the breakfast room and the hall. A small table would take her notebook. ‘Then you can get on.’

‘There's nobody else here.’

‘True.’

She left the laptop in her bag. For this call she needed her notebook and the three extracts they had both heard. She looked at the questions: which two for the pilot, where to put the explanation, how much time to leave for responses? It was a contained conversation. She could have it, then drive Els to her friend.

Anouk called at the agreed time. Her voice sounded close, as though she were in a smaller room than this morning. She had twenty minutes, she said, then she had to go. The man at the new venue could only hand over the key at that time. She didn't want Tuesday's speaker test to begin with a hunt for someone to open a door.

Liv said she had three questions too. Anouk began with Joop. The extract was clear enough, but by the second question the audience might have lost track of what Willem had said. Could they give the names at the start without a long introduction?

‘Yes,’ said Liv. ‘As long as we make it clear they aren't both talking on the same day about the same morning.’

‘That's what I needed to ask you. Do we need both of them, or could we choose one?’

Liv opened the notebook wider. Something moved on the landing upstairs, a soft scraping. Els was by the counter. She lifted the blue bag, looked towards the stairs and stopped.

‘I'd put those two alongside each other,’ said Liv. ‘Then people can ask about the difference. Nine could come later in the afternoon—’

‘I'll stay tonight.’

The words came from upstairs. Liv heard her own voice, in the tone she used to take some small task off someone whose hands were too full. An almost casual offer. She still had the phone to her ear. She hadn't finished her sentence.

Els looked up the stairs.

Liv saw her mouth move. She asked something back, too softly for Liv to catch the words. The bag stayed in her hand. She didn't put it down or go upstairs. She waited, her head slightly raised, as if there were another half to the offer.

‘Liv?’ said Anouk. ‘We won't be in the room later in the afternoon. That's my point.’

Liv pressed her index finger to the page. There was a line beside nine. She had drawn it herself. She could still hear her voice letting the last word fall, without the slight emphasis she might have given it. It could have been her. It wasn't what she wanted.

‘Hang on a moment.’

‘Can you be quick? The man with the key—’

‘I need to ask something.’

Liv moved the phone away from her ear and stepped towards the counter. Els didn't look at her until she was right in front of her. The blue bag brushed the wood.

‘I'm taking you to Roos,’ said Liv. ‘That's what we arranged.’

Els nodded. Her eyes went briefly to the stairs again. Liv didn't want to say once more that it hadn't been her. She was here, phone in hand, notebook open on the little table. The offer from upstairs wasn't some forgotten sentence from their conversation.

‘Yes,’ said Els. ‘I know.’

Anouk asked something through the phone. Liv brought it back to her ear.

‘Sorry. I'm here.’

‘You're answering a different question.’

‘Something interrupted me.’

‘Can you talk now?’

Liv looked at Els. She could see nothing wrong with her. There was no reason to tell Anouk she had to get someone out of danger. But she was no longer beside her notes. She couldn't pick up their discussion while pretending the other sentence hadn't sounded through the hall.

‘Not properly,’ she said. ‘I thought I could.’

A door opened at the other end. Anouk thanked someone else, then spoke directly into the phone again.

‘We'll have to do this on Monday. I can't fit it in again before I leave.’

‘I could call you back in a minute.’

‘No. You confirmed this time. I'm late now. Send me your questions so at least I can look at them once I've seen the room.’

Liv took her hand off the counter. She didn't need Anouk to agree that the interruption was justified. She needed to give her one honest answer.

‘I will. I'm sorry.’

Anouk said they would talk on Monday. Tuesday still stood. She wanted to know in advance which extracts would be included, so she didn't advertise twelve stories. Liv promised to send her questions and a proposal. Then the call ended.

She picked up the notebook. Her three questions were just as she had written them at home. She had no useful answer to any of them. Beside the time of the appointment, her hand had left a small mark on the paper. She wiped it with her sleeve and spread it.

Normally she would send a short voice message now. Not to repeat the whole call, just to tell Anouk the proposal was coming and she had two things to check first. She opened their conversation on her phone. Her thumb stopped beside the microphone icon.

She didn't want to hear her own recorded voice again. Not even an ordinary sentence she would make now, with her own mouth and breath. Nothing had to be wrong with the phone for her to feel that revulsion. The voice upstairs hadn't asked her permission. It had still found exactly the tone she used to reassure someone.

She set the phone down without typing or recording. Telling Anouk a proposal was coming wouldn't produce one. She had to choose the extracts she thought would work and say what remained undecided. Anouk couldn't answer until Monday. Until then, Liv couldn't pass off her choices as something they had agreed together.

Els moved beside her. Liv looked up. She was still in the same hall, notebook in hand. It was quiet. She closed the book and put it back on the little table. First they had to leave.

Els draped her coat over a chair. At last she had put the bag down. Liv looked at her dark phone screen. Anouk hadn't asked about a second voice. She had been speaking to Liv, who hadn't kept to the conversation they had arranged. That was what had happened too.

‘That was your work,’ said Els.

‘Yes.’

‘I needn't have interrupted.’

‘I broke off the call.’

Els looked up. Liv set her phone on the counter.

‘I asked if I could call from here. I thought I could manage it. I can't tell Anouk you're responsible.’

‘But you came for me.’

It would have been easy to explain that she had only come to give an agreed lift, not because of what had sounded upstairs. It wouldn't have been quite true. She had set off because Els had been pleased, for a moment, that she would stay. She had heard that relief on the phone. She had wanted to give it back without making the offer.

‘And because I wanted to come back,’ she said.

Els ran a finger along the seam of her bag. ‘You don't have to stay.’

‘I'm not going to.’

The words sounded harsher than the quiet offer from upstairs. Liv hated the difference. She didn't want the kind version of her voice coming from an empty floor while the real one stood here insisting on when she would leave.

Els sat down, her hands still on her knees. Her coat lay across the back of the chair. It bunched against her neck, but she didn't move it.

‘I knew straight away, really,’ she said. ‘Just now, while you were on the phone. I could see you there.’

Liv took the coat and hung it on a hook, then sat on the other chair. She had promised to get Els out of here. Now she was sitting with her back to the door.

‘Why did you answer, then?’

‘I wanted to know if you might have said it to me after all.’

‘While I was on the phone?’

‘That I'd misheard. Where it came from. That it was you saying it.’

Liv looked at her shoes. She could understand Els without explaining her reaction into something sensible. If someone held a door for her, she might say thank you before seeing who it was. This wasn't a door.

‘I hoped you could,’ said Els. ‘That was all.’

Liv took her notebook from the table. She had three questions to send. She didn't want to keep them until she was home and could describe the whole afternoon as something else. She wrote Anouk a short message: two contrasting extracts for the pilot, leave the third out for now; a question about time for responses; settle the precise order together on Monday. She read it once and sent it.

Els didn't ask whether everything was resolved. Liv put the phone in her bag and zipped it shut.

‘I'll take you to Roos. Then I'm going home,’ she said.

Els nodded. She put on her coat, tucked the green shirt further into the blue bag and picked up the mandarins. The paper tore a little at the top.

Liv put a hand beneath it. Els said it would hold. She still hadn't diverted the calls. She did that at the counter, phone in one hand, paper bag against her hip. Liv didn't take it until Els held it out to her.

At the front door, Liv waited for Els to turn the key and press the handle down. The overnight bag stood beside her. Liv no longer looked up at the window. Across the road, someone leaned a bicycle against a wall. There was nothing they needed to know about that.

In the car Els put the bag at her feet, the mandarins on her lap. Liv asked which way to go. It wasn't until after the first bend that Els pointed left.

‘You could go straight on. It's a little further.’

‘I'll do that, then.’

Els said nothing as they took the other road. Liv left the radio off. At a crossing she let a man and his dog go first. Els had stopped looking in the rear-view mirror. She held a mandarin that protruded halfway from the paper bag.

‘I'm not a hotel guest at Roos's,’ she said.

‘I know.’

‘If there's something I need to move, she should just tell me.’

Liv said Roos probably would. Els gave a small laugh. It wasn't a promise she would sleep well there. She asked whether Liv had more work tonight.

‘Not that conversation. That's Monday now.’

Els looked at the bag. Liv needn't have reminded her what it had cost. She added that she had sent the questions. That could stand on its own.

She stopped behind a low hedge outside Roos's house. The kitchen light was on. Els pointed to the side path, but the front door would be easier with the bag. She got out and took the mandarins before Liv had shut her own door.

Liv lifted the blue bag from the car. On the paving she set it down once more to get a proper hold of the strap. Els was already by the bell, paper bag in hand. She waited until Liv stood beside her before pressing it.