Before Work Begins

Roos brought a loaf that was darker on one side than the other. She put it on the kitchen breadboard, cut herself a piece of crust and ate it with her coat still on.

‘Officially, this can't be sold,’ she said. ‘Before you ask how much you owe me again.’

Els made room beside the board.

‘It hasn't been dropped?’

‘No. I wouldn't have brought it if it had.’

‘Last time you only mentioned the missing corner afterwards.’

‘Off the crust. You were there.’

Liv looked from one to the other. Roos had a white mark near her ear, probably flour, and her jumper was inside out beneath her open coat. Els pointed.

‘I know,’ Roos said. ‘It's comfortable this way.’

She hung her coat over a chair and put her bag underneath. The knife crunched through the dark crust, exposing a pale, soft centre. Els took out a plate, Roos fetched two more, and without anyone announcing a meal there were three places at the kitchen table.

It was nearly dark outside. In the window Liv could see the lamp above the table and the doorway behind her. The old recorder was still on the table, its lead wrapped round it. Els had put a packet of napkins beside it. Once Roos sat down, Liv didn't look at it again.

‘Bram's coming tomorrow afternoon,’ Els said. ‘I've spoken to him.’

Roos finished chewing. ‘I can be here at one. But I'm not lugging furniture down the stairs. I've said that.’

‘I know.’

‘I'm saying it again because there's always one more little thing.’

Els poured the tea. ‘You can put things away when they come downstairs. Or make tea. Or leave when you've had enough.’

‘Is that last one a job too?’

‘For you it is.’

Roos smiled. She pulled up her sleeve before it reached the butter and bent over her plate.

Liv realised how much she'd missed simply being alongside a conversation. Nothing to edit, no one to ask to repeat a name. Crust stuck to her back teeth. She put more butter on a second slice and asked Roos how early she had to start in the morning.

‘Five.’

‘We'd better not stay too long, then.’

‘I do eat at home, you know. Even when there are other people there.’

‘I didn't mean—’

‘I know. Everyone says it. All my life, people have started asking at nine whether I ought to be in bed.’

Els turned her cup by the handle. ‘She's going home herself in a bit.’

Roos looked up. ‘Wasn't that the plan?’

‘Yes,’ Liv said.

A small silence, just long enough to hear the bread knife land on the board.

‘We've talked about tomorrow,’ Els said.

‘Good.’ Roos lifted her teabag by the string. ‘Then I don't have to go through it again.’

Liv's shoulders eased. Without meaning to, she'd been preparing to explain herself to a third person, to have someone decide who was right. Roos merely flicked a drop from the bottom of the teabag and let it fall on a saucer.

‘There's something I need out of the freezer,’ Els said. ‘Otherwise it'll still be there on Monday.’

She got up.

‘You're doing that now?’ Roos asked.

‘That's the idea.’

‘I'll come. You say “a little tub of soup” and there's enough for the street.’

They went into the utility room. Liv stayed at the table. The hall was quieter now two people were behind another door. She heard a lid, something hard scraping on ice, Roos saying, ‘There's no way this is going to shut.’ Clear words, from the utility room. Liv didn't turn. She carried on eating.

The table lamp was reflected in the recorder's dark screen. With the tea beside it, the scene might have been a photograph of a desk halfway through an afternoon's work. Liv knew how little it would take to draw her back in: press a button. Listen to one of Els's new recordings, decide there was nothing to hear, try a second because it hardly seemed worth judging only the first.

She got up to clear the plates.

A spoon with a dried rim of yoghurt lay in the sink. She held it under the tap. Laughter came briefly from the utility room. Els returned with two tubs and looked in surprise at the bread still on the board.

‘We've had enough,’ Roos said behind her.

‘For tomorrow morning.’

‘That's what I said.’

Roos was holding a half-open freezer drawer, a fan of ice still clinging underneath. She put it in the sink on top of the spoon.

‘This needs defrosting first.’

Liv moved aside. Ordinary jobs took over the kitchen. Els wrote a date on the tubs in thick marker, checked the calendar and crossed it out. Wrong day. Roos pointed silently to the right one. Liv dried the plates from the table. When the drawer began to drip in the sink, she put a towel underneath.

‘You don't need to check your room,’ Els told her. ‘We've already been up there.’

Liv looked up from the plate.

‘For your things, I mean. You were looking at the hall.’

‘My coat's out there.’

‘Oh.’

Els put the cap back on the pen. The remark had caught them both out. Liv had been looking at her coat; now she wanted to go upstairs and see whether her tripod was still by the foot of the bed. She'd put it there. She'd collect it tomorrow. She could remember it clearly, down to the strap she'd wrapped round it.

She put the plate in the cupboard and picked up the next.

After they'd eaten, Roos went round the downstairs rooms to see where things could go the following afternoon. Els held open the breakfast-room door. Most of the long table was clear. A plant had once begun leaning towards the window; someone had tied it to a bamboo cane.

‘Nothing heavy on here,’ Els said.

‘Bram can put his things on the floor.’

‘The boxes can go under the table.’

‘If anyone can still get at them.’

Liv moved a chair. Roos crouched and looked beneath the table.

‘Here. Not beside the door.’

Els nodded and went into the hall. Liv heard her go upstairs; there was still a linen cupboard up there. She came back with two clean sheets to cover the floor and table. One smelt of fabric conditioner, the other had an old crease ironed flat. They shook it out together. It caught on a corner of the table.

‘Wait, I'll take this side,’ Liv said.

She freed the cloth, drew it towards her and held it up while Roos moved the chair. Then the sheet lay straight. Els ran her hand along the edge, not to straighten it further but to feel whether the table beneath was clear.

She stopped at the hall door.

‘I don't know where I'm going to put it all tomorrow.’

‘You don't have to decide it all tomorrow,’ Roos said. ‘Get it out of the rooms where the work's being done first.’

‘I meant afterwards.’

Roos stood and brushed fluff off her trousers. ‘I know. But I don't know either.’

The answer was so plain that Els looked at her, then nodded. She took a key from the sideboard. Its label was pencilled with the name of the lock; one corner of the card had gone soft. She locked the lower door and gave it a tug.

Liv took her phone out of her pocket. Above the worktop hung a clock with large numbers; the second hand seemed to spring back a little after every tick. She hadn't noticed it for days. Now it was louder than the fridge. She checked the time on her phone to make herself move towards the door.

Mara had sent a message asking whether Liv would send the three corrected interviews tomorrow or whether she should. Liv replied that she'd deliver them herself. She added that the rest would follow later, then deleted it. Mara knew the arrangement. She only added that she'd ring on Friday about the remaining nine.

Roos put on her coat.

‘Where's your bag?’ she asked Els.

‘In the sitting room.’

Liv heard a zip as Els went in. She took her own coat off its hook. The glove she'd been looking for outside was caught in the lining. She pulled it out and put it in her pocket with the other one.

Els returned with a dark blue travel bag. She set it beside the front door. A paper tissue wrapper dangled from a side pocket.

Liv looked into the kitchen. The recorder was no longer on the table.

‘Is it in there?’ she asked.

Els looked at her, then the bag. ‘Yes.’

‘Switched off?’

‘Yes, Liv.’

Roos already had her scarf on. She looked from the bag to the kitchen and said nothing.

Liv took hold of the door handle. She wanted to believe Els. Standing there checking whether someone had packed her own recorder would be rude, too. The blue bag revealed nothing except an overfilled side pocket. Els pulled its zip a little further shut and tucked in the wrapper.

‘Come on,’ Roos said. ‘Or the soup'll have melted before we get home.’

Outside, the wind blew slantwise across the street. Els shut the front door, turned the key and put it in her coat pocket. For a moment she kept her hand on the handle. All Liv could see was her cheek, the small red patch below her ear where the scarf rubbed.

‘I'll be here after lunch tomorrow,’ Liv said.

‘I know.’

Roos carried the two tubs in a shopping bag. Its base kept hitting her knee as they walked. Els took it from her. They didn't argue. Two women who knew the street, which house had uneven paving outside it, where a loose hedge grew too far across the pavement.

Liv went the other way towards her car. At the first corner she looked back. Els and Roos were waiting at the crossing. Els said something with one hand half raised; Roos bent her head to hear. Then they walked on.

In the car, Liv had to remove a receipt from the recess beside the gearstick before she could put her phone down. She plugged in the cable. The screen asked whether she wanted to resume the last interview. A recording from the harbour project she'd played on an earlier journey. The speaker's name was at the top.

She tapped cancel.

On the drive home she put on the radio. They were talking about a road due to close for three weeks. The presenter gave the junctions twice. She missed the first, listened the second time and finally understood where the works would begin. Later someone put on a record she knew. She sang a few lines wrongly and had to cough at a tickle in her throat.

At home the light over the extractor hood was still on. She'd left it that morning. The fridge was nearly empty. She put the leftover pasta on the worktop and ate a cold forkful before taking off her coat.

When she opened her laptop later, the folder of guesthouse recordings was still at the bottom of the sidebar. One click away. She opened the three interviews for Anouk instead. She checked that each listening copy had the right accompanying text. In the second there was a misplaced colon. She removed it, read the sentence again and left the rest alone.

She didn't work all evening. At half past nine she closed the laptop, rinsed the pasta tub and drew the curtains. From the hall she could see her empty travel bag on its shelf. She left it there.

In bed she heard the neighbours talking. Her bedroom shared a wall with their sitting room. No words she could make out, only the rhythm of two voices and the occasional burst of laughter. Someone moved a chair. A door shut. She rolled onto her other side and pulled the duvet higher over her shoulder.

The three interviews were ready. On Friday she'd work out with Mara what the other nine still needed. She was allowed to say how long it would actually take, even if that was longer than she'd hoped. She didn't rehearse the conversation. After a while she realised the neighbours had gone quiet, without knowing exactly when.