Eight Rooms

Els had moved the mandarins to the breakfast room. They sat in a shallow dish between a stack of saucers and a small vase holding one branch. The old bowl at reception now contained only keys that weren't in use.

‘One day you'll need one,’ Liv said.

‘Then I'll look here.’

‘And if it isn't there?’

‘Then I'll look somewhere else.’

She looked at Liv, who grinned. Els took the bag from her before she could say there was nothing heavy in it. She left it on the floor behind the counter, opened the cupboard and took out two cups.

‘Coffee's ready. I've got people coming soon. I'll need to see to them.’

‘That's fine.’

‘Just so you know, in case you've got something complicated to tell me.’

‘I haven't brought a complicated story.’

‘Good.’

Els still walked with some care. Not at every step; only when she turned did Liv notice the slight delay, the hand reaching for the tabletop before she went round her chair. She didn't ask if the leg still hurt. Els had told her on the phone and could tell her now too.

The kitchen was less crowded. The freestanding cupboard was back in place; above it you could see where the ceiling panel had been screwed back on. No device stood on the table. Liv looked once, then took the cup Els held out.

‘I did bring one thing,’ she said. ‘Not a present. Your container.’

She took the empty plastic box out of her bag. It had held food Els hadn't let her leave without. Liv had put it by her front door three times and still forgotten it.

Els took it. ‘I've been looking for that.’

‘Sorry.’

‘I've got twelve of them. But I'm looking for all of them.’

She put it on a shelf without explaining where the other missing eleven might be. They drank at the kitchen table. Outside, a branch tapped against the fence; Els got up and opened the window a little further. The fresh air smelt of wet paving and something greasy from the shop next door.

Liv told her about Mara, who'd got into a lengthy discussion in a café about what counted as a small cup. She'd tried indicating the size and only been given an even smaller one. Els said some customers were still telling her after twenty years how much coffee a cup ought to hold.

‘Perhaps you should put a picture on the menu.’

‘With a ruler beside it.’

They each ate a mandarin. Liv's peel broke into pieces far too small. Els got hers off almost whole and laid it on her saucer.

The doorbell rang.

Els got up, dried her hands on a cloth and went into the hall. Liv stayed where she was. She heard a wheeled suitcase cross the threshold and a woman say she wasn't quite sure they'd come to the right place. Els asked her name and welcomed her. Someone else, a man, went back outside for something in the car.

Liv picked up her cup and looked through the kitchen doorway. A woman in a green raincoat stood at the counter with an envelope. Her glasses were pushed up on her head; she was trying to undo a zip without dropping the paper.

Els moved the bowl of old keys aside to make room. She asked how the journey had been. The woman said they'd needed the other side of the roundabout. She'd stayed here once, a long time ago, and trusted her memory.

‘Can't do that with the new roundabout,’ Els said. ‘It's in exactly the wrong place for an old memory.’

The woman laughed. The man returned with a second bag and said the car wasn't in anyone's way. Els glanced past him outside and nodded.

Liv stayed in the kitchen with her cup. She knew the conversation that came next: room, breakfast, key, where to park and where not to. She'd had it herself, her mind on the interviews and her hands still cold from the journey.

There was no need to watch over it.

She ate the last segment and put the pips beside the peel. In the hall the woman asked if she could open a window in her room. Her husband said she'd have to turn the heating down first, or she'd be cross again in the night because it was too hot.

‘I'll be hearing about that for weeks,’ the woman told Els.

‘I can imagine.’

Els walked a little way with them to point something out. Her voice softened as she passed out of sight. Liv could still hear exactly where she was because she knew the house, not because she needed to check with every word.

She got up to throw her peel away. Els came back before she'd picked up the cups.

‘Leave those. You're visiting.’

Liv held up the empty saucer.

‘That's allowed.’

They went into the breakfast room. The table was empty except for the things that would be needed at breakfast. One of the chairs brought down from upstairs stood by the window; Liv recognised the worn armrest. It stood on its own legs, with a cushion that didn't quite fit.

‘Turned out to be perfectly comfortable,’ Els said.

Liv sat in it. The back was lower than she'd expected.

‘Yes.’

‘Bram was going to take it away. I said something in time.’

‘Which ones did you get rid of?’

‘The ones I didn't want.’

Els sat opposite her. She rested her hands on the table, spread her fingers and looked at the place where the sheet had been.

‘I overdid it on Monday,’ she said.

Liv looked up.

‘Upstairs. Thought I could carry on a bit longer. Regretted it that evening.’

‘And now?’

‘Now I won't be doing that today.’

Liv nodded. No need to congratulate her. Els said she'd arranged help with the laundry for the time being. It wasn't cheap, but it saved her carrying those baskets. She did the little things she could manage herself, leaving the rest until the agreed time. Sometimes that annoyed her; sometimes she was glad of it.

‘You can feel both ways about it,’ Liv said.

Els looked at her for a second. ‘I do.’

Fair enough. Liv laughed and looked outside. A bicycle stood on its kickstand by the window, saddle wet. The rack was otherwise empty. A man with a folded newspaper under his arm was walking along the pavement towards the shop.

Els asked about Liv's new job. Liv described the material and what she'd agreed before taking it on. She hadn't accepted just because the recordings sounded bad and someone had said she was bound to get something out of them. There was an amount of work, an outcome, a time allowed for it. She explained it less tidily than she'd written it down.

Els listened and asked what happened if none of it turned out to be intelligible.

‘Then I say so.’

‘And do they pay?’

‘For the work we've agreed on. Not for a word I promise to find.’

‘Sounds a lot nicer.’

‘I think so too.’

A stair creaked overhead. The new guests were putting down their things. Something light slid across the floor, probably a suitcase. Liv didn't look at the ceiling. She did notice her attention going there; she needn't pretend it would never happen again.

Els got up when the bell rang once more. Not a guest this time, but a delivery. She signed at the door, carried the box as far as the counter and left it there. On her way back she put the little scanner the driver had forgotten beside the door. She called him back before he got into his vehicle.

‘There,’ she said. ‘Otherwise I'd have his whole afternoon to sort out.’

Liv checked her phone. She needed to leave in half an hour to make her appointment. She'd told Mara she wouldn't be late; that morning she'd already chosen somewhere for them to eat.

‘More coffee?’ Els asked.

‘Half a cup.’

‘We don't do those here.’

‘No, then.’

Els picked up the pot anyway. She poured a little into the cup and held up the rest.

‘An exception.’

They took it into the kitchen because Els needed to switch off the oven. There was bread warming for later; she needed to turn the heat off in time. Liv watched her turn the knob and check with the back of her hand whether the door was too hot to put something on its edge. A home with a business inside it. Eight rooms, one still used for storage, enough work to fill a week without anything unusual happening.

Els held the pot under the tap to rinse it. Water struck metal, harder than it had struck the glass jug they'd used the first time. Liv listened to the difference without catching herself at it. It was a sound. She knew hundreds she liked.

‘Want to look upstairs?’ Els asked.

Liv lowered her cup to the table.

Els glanced over her shoulder. ‘At how it's turned out. I thought perhaps you'd—’

‘No, it's all right.’

‘Good.’

She turned off the tap. Liv felt she'd answered too quickly, as if she'd rejected the room itself. She could still say yes, go upstairs, look at the closed wall and point to the bed. She didn't have to.

‘You've told me,’ she said. ‘That's enough.’

Els nodded and picked up the cloth.

In Liv's workroom at home, the original file was still on the same drive. The minute of rain and laptop hum, the later minute with the cart in the street, the half-minute with her own voice and that soft sound eleven seconds later: she'd kept them. Els hadn't deleted the two files she'd received either. The recorder lay switched off among her other things, put away somewhere it wasn't automatically ready to listen.

Liv hadn't checked once more whether the zip sounded the same. She knew how that second continued in her head without playing it. She didn't need to bring it into the kitchen today.

She put on her coat. Els handed her the empty plastic box.

‘That's yours,’ Liv said.

‘Oh yes.’

Els laughed and put it back on the shelf. For a moment they stood facing each other with nothing left to settle.

‘Enjoy your meal later,’ Els said.

‘You too.’

Outside, the wind had changed. Liv walked towards the car without looking up at the windows. At the corner she held a door for someone coming out of the shop next door with a crate of empty bottles. He thanked her, she said he was welcome and walked on.

Mara had sent a message saying she was already nearby. Liv replied that she was leaving and secured her phone before starting the engine. At the end of the street she waited for a cyclist. Then she turned onto the road with the restaurants.