Without a Safety Net

The first train Hester meant to take on Thursday was cancelled. Bag in hand, she stood before the board and watched the destination disappear behind a notice about a fault. Two years earlier she would have called her client immediately to explain how unavoidable it was. Now she checked the next connection first. She would still have a quarter of an hour for the walk through Rotterdam. She sent a message saying she would be there as arranged.

She had confirmed the appointment on Tuesday and almost moved it again on Wednesday. A neighbourhood library wanted an afternoon for local business owners, without a stage, with tables that could be arranged three different ways. A simple job. That was precisely why she had wanted to use it as the flexible space around everything that seemed more important. Yesterday, checking her budget after removing the plinths, she had also looked at her diary and decided the library was entitled to the same attention as someone who knew her past.

Finn called on the platform. He was on his way to his apprenticeship placement and asked how the hated building was doing. He called De Werf that because she never rang about it when anything nice happened.

'Fairly well behaved, the building,' she said. 'The people are harder work.'

'Should I be worried?'

'Not about my safety at the moment. I've corrected an old story. It's causing trouble.'

'Is this that woman who died?'

She said yes and told him in a few sentences what her own part had been. Finn did not interrupt. She had told him about Brecht before, but always with the lie as a smooth patch in the middle. Now that he could ask exactly what she had lied about, her story had finally become awkward enough.

'What about Aunt Merel?' he asked.

'She'll say what she wants herself. She's angry with me, partly because I fill in too much for her.'

'That sounds familiar,' he said.

Hester looked at the train pulling in. 'Cheap shot.'

'I'm on apprentice wages. I'll take what I can get.'

She laughed and took a window seat. He went on to tell her about a teacher who had lost his register and was now asking everyone whether they had been there the previous week. Finn wanted to know whether it was normal for adults to do that without shame. Hester said it happened in her line of work too, but he should not take it as careers advice.

As she reached Rotterdam, he asked whether she wanted him to come round that evening. She wanted to see him and said so. Not because she needed someone to confirm her story. He had an arrangement of his own, he said; he could eat with her tomorrow when he was back. They did not set a time before he had checked his schedule. Hester put away her phone and strode towards the library.

The staff member had cleared the room already. Coloured cards lay on the chairs to show which belonged to another department. Hester sketched a plan, asked how many visitors would need to move around independently and measured the passage to the toilets. For twenty minutes not a single name from De Werf entered her head. When a volunteer asked whether the chairs could go against the emergency door, she said no at once, without first allowing for his disappointment.

She changed the layout so that no one with a wheeled walking frame had to squeeze through a group seated at a discussion table. The staff member preferred her first plan. Hester asked her to walk the second route with the book trolley. Afterwards they both saw where the other table needed to go. It was satisfying work: a difference of opinion you could investigate by walking.

At the end, the staff member confirmed the remaining hours and the agreed invoice date. Hester passed a supermarket, bought a roll and yoghurt and ate on a bench outside. Eleven messages were waiting on her phone. She answered four, including Fleur's request for prompt confirmation of the reduced programme. The rest could wait until she had reread her own words.

Marjan had sent nothing more about the withdrawn plinths and posters. She had only forwarded a photograph of an old table free for collection, asking whether Finn could use it. Hester opened the photograph, saw a heavy, dark dining table and closed it. She would let Finn choose whether to respond. The message did not have to set another favour in motion straight away.

On the train back, Ruben called. He had half a day off and wanted to know whether someone would be at De Werf to help carry the panels inside. Fleur had asked him directly. He would help at twelve and had an appointment at half past three.

'I'll be there around twelve,' Hester said. 'Amir isn't working today, so I'll make sure the door's open.'

'Good. No surprise group discussion.'

'There isn't one.'

'See you then.'

She thought of what Daan would tell him but did not ask. As the train pulled into Vlietdam, she sent Fleur confirmation of the tasks still included in her job: reception, layout, access to exits, deliveries and communicating a factual programme. Interviews about Brecht's death were not a service she would be providing to the foundation.

Ruben was already by the front door with a folding sack truck he had taken from his own car. The prints, mounted on thin card, were in Fleur's car: not heavy, but awkwardly large. They had to be attached to the existing panels. First they discussed where the wheels could cross the threshold. He asked Hester not to help him lift from the narrow side; it would put the weight on her wrist at the wrong angle.

Inside they laid the card sheets on the trestles. Ruben read Brecht's name on the first proof. He said nothing, but shifted the sheet so there was no screw underneath it. Hester held out the fixing clips in her open palm. They worked on opposite sides of the panel and left out the middle clip until the alignment was right.

'This one's crooked,' he said.

'A millimetre.'

'A millimetre on each side turns into a character trait eventually.'

She looked at him and recognised the man who used to straighten her route map because otherwise she would point the wrong way at the first junction. She had found him irritatingly precise then, and sometimes conceded he was right without saying so. Now she fetched the ruler.

Fleur arrived with a bag of bread and apologised for not arranging lunch. Ruben said he had not come for the food. She left the bag on the table for anyone who wanted it, asking for no gratitude. Progress, Hester thought, then recoiled at her tendency to put even that into categories.

The date was missing from a second sheet. It said only on Sunday. Hester wanted to correct it with a neat strip of paper. Fleur called the printer, who still had a proof and could fix the mistake that afternoon if someone brought the sheet in. It was on the other side of Vlietdam. Ruben checked his watch.

'I can do that on the way back. If it's ready before half past one.'

'I can do it myself,' Hester said automatically.

'I didn't ask that.'

She heard her own reflex and stopped. 'Yes, please. I'll get it ready now.'

She packed the sheet in a card folder and wrote the printer's number on a sticker. When he saw it, he said he knew the street. She left the sticker where it was; the number might still be useful.

Her phone rang as she taped the folder shut. Merel. She was outside her cooking space with ten minutes before the participants arrived. She and Bram had talked, and they would not be going to Marjan's on Friday evening. She wanted Hester to know in case anyone asked her to collect Merel.

'I won't come and fetch you,' Hester said.

'I'd rather know that beforehand than when I'm already thinking up an excuse.'

Merel said a volunteer had dropped out and she had done the shopping herself. She sounded hurried but not helpless. Hester did not offer a replacement. She asked what time the programme ended.

'A quarter past six today. Earlier tomorrow. Why?'

'Because I'd like to talk to you. Not while you're cooking.'

'Tomorrow's too late. Tonight works too, if you'd like to come. About half past seven. Here, not at home.'

Hester said she would be there. Merel told her not to bring any food. There was plenty; that was the point of the whole enterprise. The call ended because someone was at the door with a crate and could not find his key.

Ruben put down the last clip. He could not have missed her words, but did not bring them up. He asked whether the folder was ready to go and put on his coat. Hester walked with him to the car.

'Thanks for helping carry them,' she said.

'Glad to help with the panels.'

She nodded. He did not have to qualify everything, but she understood why he did. She saw the child seat in the back of his car and for a moment wondered whether she had missed an entire family in his life. He saw where she was looking.

'My nephew's. Babysitting on Sunday. Not my secret child.'

'I wasn't going to ask.'

'Your face was.'

It made her laugh, a little too loudly. He smiled and put the folder upright by the back seat. He would be at the printer's before half past one. His appointment was at half past three, and he would not wait for them if something changed again. She said he should not.

After he left, Hester went to the kitchen to throw away her lunch packaging. In the bin lay a strip trimmed from the new texts. Only the word volunteers could still be read. She folded the card smaller and pressed it into the bin.

Fleur came to ask whether she needed to do anything about Marjan's materials herself. Marjan had called, sounding very concerned about the amount of work Hester suddenly wanted to take on. Hester said Fleur did not need to arrange anything. The plinths had been removed from the layout; there would be no expensive replacements. If a practical problem arose, she would report it herself.

'She asked whether I wasn't putting too much on you.'

'Ask me that.'

Fleur glanced at the ceiling. 'I think I just did.'

'You're right.'

They sat down to arrange the arrival of the small stock of hired equipment. It took six minutes. Then Fleur had enough information and did not need to call Hester's mother back.

It was just after one. Hester did not check her bank balance again. The outstanding payment would come no faster for it. She sent the library her finished floor plan, prepared the invoice and put a reminder in her diary to chase an outstanding payment after the weekend.

Before leaving, she wrote in the arrivals book that Ruben had brought the prints and taken a proof to the printer. When she closed the book, Jasper was standing in the entrance to the hall.

'Can we talk?' he asked.

'I have to be somewhere at half past seven.'

'It won't take that long.'

'You don't know that yet.'

He took off his coat but stayed holding it. Hester looked at the clock. There were still more than six hours. She pointed to the table, where the light was good and the front door could still be heard from the foyer. She would not cancel on Merel.