Where You Stand

Liv heard Els say she could see someone. It sounded like a question.

‘Yes,’ a man's voice answered from inside. ‘I can see you too.’

The firefighter by the door looked up as Liv moved and pointed to where she could stand. A bag had appeared on the landing. Someone else came upstairs. They made room without colliding, a few words, a hand briefly holding someone back. Liv kept her arms by her sides. She kept wanting to take things no one was handing her.

They spoke to Els again. The voice at the window sounded different from the one through the door, but the questions were ordinary, answered by the same breathless woman on the floor. Liv couldn't see what was happening. Wood shifted. Els cried out again, then apologised.

‘You don't need to say sorry,’ someone said.

The door moved a little. Liv stepped forward without meaning to.

‘Stay there for now, please.’

She stopped. They talked, not in whispers. A chair was set down. She knew the sound: four legs not quite reaching the floor together, one, then two in quick succession. She pictured them turning the chair upstairs to get it through the door. She couldn't know whether this was that chair. Suddenly it mattered terribly, not being able to match the sound to something she'd seen.

The door opened further. A strip of floor, then the bottom of the opposite wall. A man bent over inside the room. He stepped left and Els came into view.

She sat crookedly against something Liv couldn't quite see. Hair had escaped her loose ponytail and stuck to her cheek. One leg lay at the wrong angle among the wood. Liv looked no further once she saw her face. Her mouth was open, as though she'd forgotten to shut it after answering.

‘Els.’

Els didn't turn at once.

‘I'm here. By the door.’

The man followed her gaze, spoke to her, bent towards her again. Liv could see her now. She still couldn't get to her. A frame crossed the clear stretch of floor. She stayed against the doorframe, fingers gripping its edge.

Her own voice came from the wooden case.

‘Just wait. I'll be there in a moment.’

Liv felt the words in her mouth before she heard them. Her lips hadn't moved. Her throat was dry; she'd bitten her tongue getting up. Yet the last syllable sounded like her recorded self, slightly too low, spoken by someone who'd been here all along.

Els looked at the case. Her face tightened.

‘Liv?’

‘Here.’

Liv raised a hand. Childish, she thought, but Els looked her way. A real man stood between them, dark sleeve, one hand on his knee. He glanced at the wall, then back to Els.

‘Look at me,’ he said calmly. ‘We're here already.’

Els's eyes went once more to the wood beside the door. Liv saw her hand reach a little towards it, fingers half lifted. Then she drew it back into her lap.

‘All right,’ she said, looking at the man rather than Liv. ‘Tell me what to do.’

Liv clenched her teeth. She wanted to ask whether the others had heard it. An urgent, shameful need, almost as strong as the need to keep her eyes on Els's face. Someone who'd heard it too could say later that Liv had really been standing there, the words hadn't come from her mouth.

The man at the door asked her to move back.

She moved back.

No more words came from the case. She mustn't hear the silence as an answer. People talked inside. Els counted aloud with someone, then stopped. Liv looked at the landing window, the line on the floor where she could put her feet without obstructing anyone.

Roos came upstairs, hair blown clear of her neck. She stopped beside Liv and looked through the opening.

‘They can see her now,’ Liv said.

‘Yes.’

Roos ran a hand along the cold wall. She had no coat. Liv had seen it hanging downstairs and asked whether she should fetch it.

‘In a bit.’

They stood together for a while. Roos asked nothing about the voice. Perhaps she hadn't heard it outside. Perhaps it hadn't sounded as loud as Liv remembered. The possibility seemed to open a hole beneath the ordinary work going on inside. She didn't look to see if anyone else had noticed it.

When Els was free, Liv saw it in her shoulders. Not relief: her whole body tightened briefly. She forced air through her nose and began swearing. Roos put a hand to her own mouth, then lowered it.

‘That's her,’ she said quietly.

Liv wanted to laugh. She couldn't.

They were allowed closer once there was space. Liv stepped over a chair and stopped by the wall as instructed. The chairs no longer lay as they'd fallen. Two stood apart, another was on its back. The dark crosspiece was visible, indifferent wood with a worn corner. The bottom of Els's trouser leg had been moved aside. Liv saw a red patch, then looked at her face.

‘Hi,’ she said.

Els's eyes filled. ‘I thought you'd already—’

She didn't finish. Liv knelt where she could without touching anyone.

‘I was in seven.’

Els nodded, lips trembling. Someone asked a question and she answered, her voice small again. Liv waited.

‘I should have waited,’ Els said when they could speak.

‘We'll talk about that later.’

‘I wasn't doing it alone.’

Liv felt Roos stiffen beside her.

‘I know,’ she said, though she didn't quite know what Els meant.

Els looked at her. ‘You said you'd take that side.’

Yesterday's sheet came back to Liv, her own hand beneath it, Roos moving the chair. She had said it. Not here, not now. She'd been holding the zip of her case.

‘I wasn't behind you,’ she said.

‘I know that now.’

No reproach in it. That was worse. Liv nodded and let go of Els's hand when someone needed it for an examination. Someone asked for a blanket. There was one on the washing basket downstairs. Liv fetched it, carrying it up as though it were too precious to brush against the banister.

Bram stood at the door. He'd picked up loose things from the floor to clear the way for those helping. In his hand Liv saw a small black device, a coiled lead hanging half loose. Worn silver along the side.

He nodded at the low shelf beneath the wooden case.

‘This was there.’

Liv looked. An empty space, dust, the marks of its feet. She glanced across the landing to the case in seven. Her own recorder was inside that. This was the other one, from the table, the one Els had said was in her bag.

‘Put it downstairs,’ she said.

‘With the rest?’

‘Yes. Switched off.’

Bram looked at its dark screen and gathered the lead in his other hand. He made nothing of it.

Els went for further examination. The decision was made in ordinary sentences, questions addressed to her, answers Liv didn't have to supply. She couldn't stand as though nothing had happened, the pain hadn't gone, and no one could tell exactly what was wrong in that little room. Roos asked whether she should go too. Els wanted her.

Liv went down for the blue bag. It stood beside a chair in the sitting room. She didn't need to look inside. She took both handles and carried it into the hall. Looking at the outside felt humiliating, as though she might catch the bag in a lie.

Bram put the recorder on the sideboard beside the job sheet he'd filled in. Liv asked whether he'd lock up once everyone had left. Els heard and agreed. She said where the key was, knowing at once, without searching.

Leaving was neither quick nor slow. Space to make, someone going back for something, a door that couldn't shut until the last person was through. Liv stood outside holding the bag. The neighbour across the road had gone. A damp patch marked the pavement where a flowerpot had stood. No crowd of onlookers had stayed.

Roos joined her.

‘I'm going with her. Can you drive over afterwards?’

‘Yes.’

‘Don't rush after us.’

Liv nodded. Roos looked at her a moment longer, then went.

Bram came outside as Liv walked to her car. Coat on again, dust still on his trousers.

‘I'll ring when I've locked up.’

‘Thank you.’

‘We'll talk tomorrow. I'm not doing any more to that wall today.’

‘No.’

He tapped the key against his palm and went back. Liv put the blue bag on the back seat and sat behind the wheel, hands in her lap. Then she set the route. She knew the main road, not the last turning for the entrance she needed.

There were traffic lights on the journey. Later she remembered that most oddly: having to stop, letting someone cross, waiting behind a car whose driver was slow to notice the green. Her phone was secured in its holder. A message from Bram: he'd locked up. She read the first words on the screen and looked back at the road.

At the entrance she asked where to go. Someone pointed. She carried the bag along a corridor of shining floors, coffee and soap. Roos stood at a machine holding two cups.

‘She's in there. They're still checking her over.’

Liv took a cup. The coffee was too hot. She sat beside Roos, the bag between her feet.

A television played silently in the corner. A news caption scrolled beneath a talking head. Liv looked away. Roos took a sip and grimaced.

‘Disgusting.’

‘Yes.’

‘Why do I always finish it?’

‘It's warm.’

Roos looked into the cup. ‘That must be it.’

Liv wanted to ask whether she needed groceries, whether Els could stay tomorrow, whether anything needed sorting out at the bakery. She didn't ask yet. Roos hadn't finished her coffee.

‘Sunday. With the chair,’ Liv said after a while.

Roos looked at her. ‘What about it?’

‘You thought I was ignoring you.’

‘I can't remember what I thought.’

‘I don't want to start on about that sound again.’

‘Don't, then.’

Liv nodded. This wasn't a dismissal of what had happened. This was a woman on a chair with cold coffee, her friend beyond the door. Liv pressed her knees together. Suddenly she was cold.

Later they could see Els. She'd had the examinations she needed. A doctor explained that they'd found no fracture, but the pain and swelling would take time to recover from. Els was told what she could do and when to contact them again. Roos listened, asked about stairs and requested written instructions. Liv stood at the foot of the bed, Els's coat over her arm.

Els looked at the floor.

‘I can go home, can't I?’

‘Mine tonight,’ Roos said.

‘That's not what I mean.’

‘I know.’

The doctor asked how she'd rest at home and who would be there. Els answered. She lived downstairs. She needn't go up. The guesthouse was closed for work; she could stay with her friend. Liv watched her work through her own options, reluctantly but precisely.

When the three of them were alone again, Els said she was sorry about the afternoon. Roos took her scarf out of her coat and folded it.

‘We don't have to talk about everything now.’

‘I want to say it.’

‘All right.’

Els looked from Roos to Liv. ‘I heard you. That's why I held on. I still had the top chair, it was sliding against the other one. I meant to put it back. Then you said, “Wait, I'll take this side.”’

Liv didn't nod. She waited.

‘I couldn't see you. I thought you'd be behind me in a moment. I hadn't looked at the door for a bit.’ Els pressed her lips together. ‘Then the whole lot went over. Not just that chair.’

Roos sat very still.

‘Then I heard you again. By the case. Telling me to wait.’

Liv saw again the hand lifted from the floor, the small gesture that wasn't asking for help but for another moment of lying still.

‘I could see that man,’ Els said. ‘But I could hear you. It almost felt rude to do anything else.’

She looked straight at Liv.

‘It makes no sense.’

‘You looked at him.’

‘In the end.’

A trolley rattled in the corridor. Someone laughed behind a desk. Els drew back her leg a fraction, then stopped. Saying something different didn't take the pain away.

‘Bram found the recorder,’ Liv said.

Els closed her eyes.

‘I put it there yesterday.’

‘When you went for the sheets?’

Els nodded. ‘I thought I'd take it with me afterwards.’

‘Then you told me it was in the bag.’

‘Yes.’

Liv looked at the blue bag beside the chair. She didn't need to ask why. Perhaps Els couldn't have said, just then. She only knew she'd wanted that answer and accepted it.

‘It's downstairs,’ she said. ‘Bram put it there. It's switched off.’

‘It wasn't on while I was moving the chairs.’

‘I didn't ask.’

Els folded her hands together. ‘I know.’

Roos got up. ‘We ought to get home before I have to start my next shift.’

A crooked smile. She wasn't hurrying Els to her feet. Liv picked up the coat and held it open, waiting for Els to say which arm first. An awkward business for the two of them. The lining caught on a button. Els began laughing and said they'd pull her shoulder out before they got her through the door at this rate.

Liv freed the cloth. Roos watched, one hand on the bag, ready to take it.

Outside, Liv's car was where she'd left it. She went alone to bring it closer. When she returned, the two women sat together by the exit. Roos leaned forward and said something to Els, waiting for an answer. Liv couldn't hear the words. She went over to free the coat where it was folded beneath Els.