The First Evening Elsewhere

Roos had left her house key in a flowerpot, though she thought it an unsafe place herself. She'd sent a message about it with three exclamation marks, followed by another telling Liv not to put it back under the pot.

Liv found it between the soil and the inside rim. She wiped it on her trousers, unlocked the door and held it open for Els.

‘The bag first,’ Els said.

Liv put it inside and stepped aside. Els crossed the threshold slowly. Only a few steps, but Liv could see from her mouth how badly she wanted to sit down. She left the key on the hall cabinet beside a pile of newspapers that weren't hers.

A small lamp was on in the sitting room. Roos had cleared her usual chair and left a note on the seat: no glasses on the windowsill, coasters in the drawer. No explanation. Els read it and said she felt she was being treated like a house guest.

‘You are.’

‘Thank you.’

Liv helped her sit. Without discussion, they managed better than that morning. Els knew where she wanted support; Liv let go once she'd found it for herself. Then the things went through to the kitchen. Liv heard her footsteps in a house whose floors she didn't know. A board gave a little by the table. The fridge was on the other side of the room from where she'd expected.

‘There's soup,’ Els called.

‘Which soup?’

‘Yesterday's.’

Liv opened the fridge. A tub stood on the top shelf, its date badly crossed out. She took it and looked for a saucepan.

They were early. Roos was still at work and would want to eat when she got home. Liv set out three bowls, found a bag of bread in a drawer and asked if she could leave it on the table. Els answered from the sitting room. Distance and the doorway softened her voice, but Liv could understand every word.

The house wasn't making this easy for her. She jumped when the boiler started up, then was annoyed with herself for waiting on the sound until she knew what it was. An ordinary house wasn't obliged to introduce itself afresh every time.

She turned down the heat. Roos's phone charger was on the worktop. A magnet in the shape of an island held a photograph to the fridge. Roos and someone on a bench, both in coats that were too thin. Liv looked only long enough to see that it had been a good day.

Els wanted the blue bag beside her chair. Liv brought it. Els searched for her papers, took out the wrong envelope, then asked where her glasses had gone. They were on the other armrest.

‘I've been losing things all day,’ she said.

‘You're in a different place.’

‘I just can't see them.’

Liv put the glasses beside her hand. Els leafed through the papers until she found yesterday's information. She read in silence, glanced at the clock and read on.

When Roos came home, she smelt of bread and cold air. She had new socks on; one shoe squeaked as she took it off. She greeted Els, left her bag beneath the coat hooks and said the soup smelt good.

‘It's not fresh,’ Els said.

‘I'll find that out in a minute.’

She washed her hands, changed her jumper and sat down at the table. An envelope lay in her place. She pushed it under the bread without opening it.

Over dinner she asked about the work. Bram had removed the fittings, capped the connections separately; there was still finishing to be done. Els told her. Liv added something only when Roos asked about the upstairs rooms.

‘So the case has gone,’ Roos said.

‘Everything that needed to come off has come off,’ Els said.

‘Good.’

No further question. Liv realised she'd been waiting for one: had they heard anything else, did they know for certain now? Roos helped herself to another half-bowl of soup and commented on the salt.

‘It came out of a packet,’ Els said.

‘Complain to them, then.’

Els held her spoon above the bowl. ‘I didn't invent it.’

‘That's what I'm saying.’

They ate on. Liv didn't realise how hungry she was until the bread was nearly gone. She left the last piece. Roos pushed the bag towards her and said there was another half-loaf in the freezer. She'd get it out and top up the bag if that made it easier for Liv.

‘No, it's all right.’

‘Eat it, then.’

After dinner Els wanted to ring her own house. She said it so casually that Liv didn't understand at first.

‘Who are you ringing?’

‘The phone. I want to listen back to something.’

Roos was putting the bowls in the dishwasher. She looked over her shoulder.

Els saw their faces and drew her hand away from the phone. ‘My greeting. I still need to change it.’

Liv felt her face grow hot. She'd thought at once of the other sound. An empty house recording a voice while they sat here eating soup.

‘You can do that tomorrow,’ Roos said.

‘People will be ringing tomorrow.’

‘They'll still understand “temporarily closed” if you add something tomorrow.’

Els laid the phone on the table without turning it over. ‘You've spent all day answering people. I haven't. There are guests I still haven't sorted things out with.’

‘That's not what I'm saying.’

‘You're saying I can do it tomorrow.’

Roos shut the dishwasher. She stayed there, hands resting on the edge of the worktop.

‘I mean you don't have to do everything tonight.’

‘I'd like to decide that myself.’

She hadn't said it sharply. Liv looked at the empty bowl still in front of her. She could pick it up and join in with the clearing, but that would be pretending, yet again, that all they needed was to tidy up a bit more.

‘Do you want me to leave you alone?’ she asked.

Els looked up. ‘That's not the point.’

‘I don't know what the point is, then.’

‘I can tell.’

They were quiet for a while. Roos pulled out the chair beside Els and sat down again. It was an ordinary kitchen chair, with no arms, and she looked smaller on it than she had at the worktop.

‘You can stay here until Monday,’ she said. ‘You know that. Then I need the room back. I told you that before any of this happened.’

Els nodded.

‘I don't want to have to say it every day as if I'm throwing you out.’

‘I'm not asking to stay any longer.’

‘No. But I still feel awful about it.’

Liv looked at the photograph on the fridge. She didn't need to know who was coming or why the room was needed. The two women knew what they'd agreed. To Liv it had been a wall with as much space as anyone could need on the other side.

Els took hold of the table's edge. ‘I'm going home on Monday.’

Roos drew breath.

‘Not to prove anything to either of you,’ Els said. ‘I live downstairs. The wall will be closed up by then. I don't need to use the stairs. I can look after myself. If there's something I can't do, I'll arrange help. But I want my house back.’

Liv remembered her at the window of eight, one hand on the wood, the cold against her neck. She didn't want Els standing there alone again any time soon. That didn't mean she could come up with a better address for her now.

‘Bram still needs to confirm what'll be ready on Monday,’ she said.

‘I'll ask him tomorrow.’

Roos nodded slowly. ‘And if it isn't ready?’

Els looked at her phone. ‘Then I'll book somewhere for a few days. On the ground floor. I can rent a room myself.’

‘You're not here because I think you can't afford a room.’

‘I know.’

Roos looked at her. It took Els a while to meet her eyes.

‘I know,’ she said again, more softly.

Liv drew her empty bowl towards her. A streak of soup marked the rim. She left it there.

‘I can bring the shopping on Monday after work,’ she said. ‘But I'm not going to ask you every day whether you can hear anything.’

Els closed her eyes briefly.

‘I don't want that either.’

‘I think I might start doing it anyway. So I'd rather say it now.’

Roos got up to put the kettle on. She opened the lid twice because she'd forgotten to fill it the first time. Els watched her and began to laugh, carefully, one hand on her leg.

‘You're as tired as I am.’

‘Without what they did to you yesterday.’

‘Shall I read to you later?’

‘I'd be asleep after two sentences.’

Liv carried her bowl to the worktop. They hadn't resolved the conversation; there were times, rooms, things still to be confirmed. Roos reached behind her for the bowl. She took it without looking round and put it in the dishwasher.

They had tea in the sitting room. Els brought her phone and changed her greeting without ringing the guesthouse. First she wrote a sentence on paper, read it softly, crossed out the word ‘just’, then recorded it. Temporarily closed. She would contact people with existing bookings herself. New enquiries would be answered later.

She played her greeting back once. Her voice was hurried, too close to the phone. She didn't record another take.

Liv watched the device in Els's hand, keeping her own hand still on her knee. There was nothing wrong with a recorded voice. Something had happened in that house that she couldn't explain. She wasn't obliged to squash those two statements into one reassuring answer.

Roos asked which shop Els wanted her groceries from. They had a small argument about potatoes, but with more conviction than they'd managed over the offer of help. Els wanted a variety Roos always found took too long to cook. Roos said she wasn't going to spend a whole week deciding how quickly Els ought to want her potatoes done. Liv perched on the edge of her chair, eating a biscuit she didn't like because she'd already accepted it.

At nine she went home. It was dry outside. Roos walked her to the door and said she'd ring if anything needed arranging. Liv didn't ask whether Els would sleep well.

She drove with the radio off. She wasn't listening carefully; she'd had enough voices. At a red light she saw her face in the side window. She moved the rear-view mirror back to its proper angle and drove on when the light changed.

At home she put the kettle on and forgot the tea. Mara rang at the agreed time. Liv sat at the table with the phone and told her first that Els was safe at Roos's and the connections had been dealt with. Then they talked about the interviews.

Mara had made notes. There were decisions to take on the remaining nine, things she could do herself, one passage Liv still needed to handle because she'd made the first edit. They divided up the work. As they discussed the hours, Liv realised how little remained of the week in which she'd thought she could do everything alone.

‘So it'll cost me more,’ she said.

‘Yes,’ Mara said.

No softening it. No offer to finish for nothing. Liv looked at the paid roofing bill still on the corner of her desk and said she'd confirm the arrangement.

Then she told Mara what she'd heard in eight while she herself stood in the doorway. Not every noise, not the whole afternoon. Just that one thing: her voice making someone wait when people were already there to help.

For a while Mara said nothing.

‘I can't tell you what it was.’

‘I know.’

‘Do you want me to listen to anything else?’

Liv looked at the closed laptop. She had no recording of that moment.

‘No.’

‘Good.’

A voice in the background asked an ordinary question in Mara's house. She answered and came back. Liv said she was taking groceries on Monday. Mara thought it wise to leave again afterwards. Liv said that was the plan.

After the call she rinsed her empty glass. The water in the kettle had cooled. She checked the time and left it at that. Before bed she set the alarm, checked the back door was shut and switched off the light above the worktop.

She had no idea how quiet the guesthouse would be that night. She wasn't there.