Taken from the Wall

Els wanted to put the key in herself. Roos had offered an arm for the last few steps from car to door, but at the handle Els let go. She tried the key the wrong way up, turned it and opened the door.

Inside, she stopped.

Liv followed with the blue bag. Sideboard, coat hooks, pigeonhole for the post: everything where it belonged. Colder than yesterday. Roos shut the door and asked whether Els wanted to sit first.

‘I'd like a look.’

Not at the stairs. At the things in the breakfast room, the washing basket, the sheets covering the table. She took the back of the nearest chair and pulled it towards her.

‘Not that one,’ Roos said.

‘I can sit on this.’

‘I know. But you can rest your leg on the other one.’

Liv put down the bag and fetched the chair Roos meant from the sitting room. A little lower, with arms Els could support herself on. Els waited while they set it beside the table. She said nothing, jaw tight. Only once she was seated did she let out her breath.

Liv folded a blanket for her leg. Roos adjusted the height after looking at Els's face. They were less practised than the people who'd helped yesterday. Els had to tell them twice where it hurt.

‘It doesn't have to be perfect,’ she said.

‘No,’ Roos said. ‘But there's no need to make it uncomfortable on purpose.’

She draped the coat over a chair and put a shopping bag on the table. Bread, two apples, the papers Els had been given, a little box they'd collected that morning. Liv needn't ask which were for her. None.

Bram came in with his work jacket still fastened. He stopped at the breakfast-room door.

‘How are things?’

‘I'm getting difficult,’ Els said.

‘Bound to happen.’

She smiled briefly. He left his bag in the hall and came over. He wanted to check that she still wanted him to start, and explained that the finishing wouldn't be done that afternoon. He wouldn't leave open holes, but making good the wall and repairing the door came afterwards. Els listened, hands on the chair arms.

‘Disconnect it,’ she said.

‘We will. I'm not asking because I doubt you. I want you to know what's been done when I've finished.’

She nodded. ‘I don't want the fittings put back on the wall.’

Bram looked at her. ‘All right.’

No pretence of relief at a problem certain to be solved. Liv was grateful. Every noise from her own heating had kept her awake last night, yet she hadn't wanted another guesthouse recording for a moment. Both were possible. She was tired of it.

Roos began making coffee. Els asked whether she had somewhere else to be; in an hour, Roos said. She couldn't stay all afternoon. Els checked her phone for the time.

‘You can come back with me,’ Roos said. ‘Or Liv can bring you. But you're not staying here just because I've got work.’

Els drew the blanket back from her knee. ‘I understand.’

Liv went upstairs with Bram. She'd expected to stop on the last step again, but walked onto the landing. Eight was open. The chairs were separated along the wall. One lay on its side, a leg no longer fixed properly. Bram had shut the window before leaving yesterday. Fibres and a sliver of wood from a damaged corner lay on the floor.

She could see where Els had sat. It hadn't changed the size of the room. Somehow she'd expected it to, expected the place to tell her why it had been so terrible. Just a stretch of floor, with more room now the chairs were apart.

Bram looked at her. ‘Want to help downstairs? You needn't stay here.’

‘I'd like to see what comes out.’

He nodded. ‘Then give me space while I'm working.’

She stood by the door. The wooden case was still on the wall. The shelf below was empty. She remembered the small feet of Els's recorder in Bram's hand. Yesterday she'd thought she could never look at this part of the room without seeing the device. Now she saw a shelf with a yellowed edge.

Bram covered the floor and made room for his things. He moved the separate chairs one by one across the room. Liv helped with a light one until he said he'd manage the rest. Unhurried lifting, putting a chair down when he needed to turn, checking the floor where his bag would go.

Roos brought two coffees up on a small tray. She left it on the windowsill and looked round the room.

‘Not how it was, then.’

‘No.’

She nodded. ‘All I could see yesterday was the window, from down below.’

Liv wanted to tell her how often she'd heard her voice beneath the responders' words. She only said, ‘Els heard you.’

Roos looked at the floor. ‘Good.’

Bram began once she'd gone down. First, the ordinary sound of tools on metal. Liv's stomach tightened, but she stayed where she was. No headphones, no instrument to answer what they wanted to know. He was working on something human hands had once made and fixed in place.

A screw wouldn't turn. He stopped, chose another tool and freed it. Liv watched the edge where paint held wood to wall. A paler strip appeared beneath the painted surface. The thing that had drawn her towards it all these days came off with a small, ugly noise.

He held it for a moment, looking for somewhere to put it. Liv pointed to a clear place on the protective covering.

‘There?’

‘Yes.’

The case lay on its back, lever sticking out to one side. The metal flap was still by the spindle, with the white paint mark she'd seen that night in eight. She recognised it without touching. It wasn't any easier to look at this way.

Across the landing, the door to seven swung further open as Bram went towards it. Liv followed rather than staying with the detached case. She helped him move the bed as far as he needed, mattress pressing against her forearm, wood scraping across the floor. Then she looked at the grille behind the headboard.

Where her head had lain was just below it. In memory she'd drawn them closer together. Now she could fit her hand between the two places. Enough to make her angry with the room, herself, the casual way she'd plumped up her pillow that first evening.

She stepped aside to let Bram get at it.

The grille came free. Dust on the back, paint a little darker along one edge. Bram put it with his tools, not into her hand. Liv hadn't asked. She looked into the opening and found no unexpected depth. An ordinary dark section of tube.

Els called from downstairs, asking to be told if anything needed moving in the kitchen. Bram said he was coming. He left nothing upstairs for fingers to meddle with, putting a temporary cover in place before going down.

Roos stood by the kitchen table in her coat. Els's phone was on the chair arm. She looked up as Liv came in.

‘Are they off?’

‘The case and grille.’

‘And the flap?’

‘With them.’

Els breathed out slowly. Her expression didn't change enough for Liv to call it relief. She asked whether Liv could cut an apple. The knife was out of reach and she hadn't wanted to keep calling for it.

Liv cut it into wedges. Some were brown at one edge. She cut away the marks and pushed the plate towards Els. Roos took a piece without asking.

‘I'm going. Let me know when you'll be back. Not updates all afternoon. Just the time.’

Els nodded. ‘No building bulletin, then.’

‘Thank you.’

She bent to kiss Els, who held her sleeve for a moment. Liv turned to the worktop. She didn't hear what they said or try to. Then Roos left, the door opening and shutting, her footsteps fading towards the street.

Bram worked in the kitchen. Els sat at the table. Liv put the knife in the sink and looked at the last leaves from a shrub lying against the wet paving outside.

Above the freestanding cupboard, Bram unscrewed the existing inspection panel in the low ceiling. The accessible joint was there. The old end behind the cupboard stayed embedded in solid plaster. At the open panel he showed Liv the route he was disconnecting and the sections that would be capped separately. Later she heard him upstairs again. She only followed when he called her to look.

The work took time. There was dust. Halfway through Bram went to the van for something he'd left down there. Els needed the toilet; Liv helped her the short way along the hall, clumsily enough for Els to say she wasn't made of glass. Liv loosened her hold. They waited until Els was ready to move again.

Once she was seated, bread alone wasn't enough for lunch. Liv made sandwiches. Bram ate two with his hands above his knee, keeping crumbs off the table. He asked Els about the old chairs. She looked up at the ceiling.

‘Not the one with the broken leg.’

‘Thought not.’

‘I'll decide about the others later.’

‘Fine.’

Afternoon light moved across the windows. They played nothing back. Mara sent a message; Liv replied that she'd ring that evening. She'd have liked to talk now, outside, away from the job. But Els wanted to leave once Bram had finished the part she needed to be there for. They weren't staying until evening to listen to the house.

When Bram called Liv upstairs, he'd disconnected the reachable joints and capped the remaining sections individually. He showed her. She looked carefully, without pretending it made her a building inspector. The line from seven to the fork no longer joined the sections to eight and the kitchen. The removed pieces lay apart. The places where the fittings had been were covered; the proper finishing would follow.

He'd taken photographs for Els. Liv asked him to show her downstairs. He brought his phone.

Els examined each picture. At the first she asked which room it was. Bram pointed out the door's edge and she recognised it. At the second she said, ‘So that's not connected any more.’

‘No.’

‘And the kitchen?’

He showed her the next. She took her glasses from her bag. When she'd finished, she handed back the phone.

‘Good.’

A word that took up little space. Liv had expected more. Els picked up her phone and transferred the outstanding 495 euros. Bram already had her 150-euro deposit. That paid the agreed 645 euros; the finishing was a separate arrangement. He checked the payment, thanked her and got up to pack his things.

The old recorder lay on the sideboard. Els looked at it when Liv picked up the bag.

‘That's coming with me.’

‘Yes.’

This time Els held it herself. She looked at the dark screen, wound the lead round it and put it in the side pocket. The zip wouldn't shut. She took out the lead, folded it smaller and tried again. Liv waited.

Liv's own files were where they'd been. She'd deleted nothing. Els still had the copies she'd received; that recorder wasn't the only place the sound existed.

She helped Els into her coat. Better than yesterday, not because the pain had eased but because they asked which side was comfortable first. Bram carried the fittings outside in the container he was using for the loose pieces. Els wanted none of them. He'd dispose of them normally once he'd documented the work.

At the front door Els looked back. A full breakfast room, a house to clean, a wall to finish, the door to eight still needing repair. She said each thing aloud to Bram.

He nodded. He had job sheets with him, appointments to arrange.

Liv put the blue bag on the back seat. Els lowered herself carefully, trying not to drop into the seat. As Liv went round the car, she saw her wait with a hand on her leg until she could bear it.

She asked whether she was ready.

‘Yes,’ Els said. ‘Let's go.’