An Ordinary Morning

There was no toaster in the studio. Hester put two slices of bread in a dry frying pan and watched one half brown while the other stayed pale. Tuesday, twenty past seven. At eight her Rotterdam client would ring about the postponed conference. At a quarter past nine Robin was coming. Somewhere between the two, she needed to speak to Merel before her sister heard from somebody else what Hester intended to do.

She turned the bread with a fork and sent a message. Can you ring before nine? I need to tell you something. She reread it and added that nobody had had an accident. She knew how a message like that could land on an ordinary morning. Her sister might be getting lunchboxes ready for the cooking group, covering for somebody or simply catching a bus.

Finn rang before the bread reached her plate. He had sent a photograph of a cabinet he had assembled on his placement. Had she seen it, he wanted to know, or merely produced the blue tick again?

'Nice corners,' she said.

'Mum. It's an electrical distribution cabinet. Not a bedside table.'

'I didn't say I wanted to put my bedside lamp on it.'

She heard him laugh. Something beeped in the background and a man told him to get his gloves. Finn was twenty-one and had lived on his own since the spring. There were still questions about rent allowance and how long rice kept in the fridge, but fewer now. Sometimes Hester wondered whether she recognised successful parenting when it happened.

'Are you still there?'

'Until next week. In the studio, not at Gran's.'

'Good. Otherwise she'll do your washing again and you'll owe her seven errands.'

'She means well.'

'Both can be true.'

She wanted to say he did not know his grandmother well enough. An uncalled-for reflex. He knew her perfectly well in his own way. When he asked how the job was going, Hester said the old group was less cheerful company than Fleur had hoped.

'Were you hoping for that?'

'I was hoping for enough sockets.'

'That I can believe.'

They agreed to speak on Friday. He had to get back to his supervisor. Before hanging up he said she really could enlarge the cabinet on her phone to see the finish properly. She did. She examined the neat rows while her toast darkened in the pan. Then she sent a question about a label she did not understand. Not a general message saying she was proud, but he would know she had looked.

The conference call lasted longer than planned. The client wanted to move the preparation hours into the new month, including those Hester had already worked. She sat at the table, opened her booking confirmation and read out their agreement without raising her voice. Completed work would be invoiced this month. She could guarantee availability for the new date only once the revised schedule was agreed.

The client sighed. Everybody needed to be flexible. Hester glanced at Brecht's invitation beside her laptop and slid it under her notebook. One problem was no reason to give way on the other. She offered to postpone the supplier round that had not yet begun, but kept completed hours out of the discussion. When the call ended, she was less certain of a job in November and had agreement on her invoice.

Merel had replied: In the kitchen on Parkweg until half past eight. Not after that. Hester ate her toast standing up, took her coat and walked over. Parkweg was across the main road. The community building was glass and pale brick, with a yoga advertisement in the entrance. The shared kitchen smelt of chopped onion. Merel and a woman in her sixties were studying a recipe held to a cupboard by magnets.

'Chop the pepper smaller if you like,' her sister said. 'But don't keep looking at me to see if it's right. It's soup, not an exam.'

The woman laughed and pulled a chopping board towards her. Merel saw Hester at the door and pointed to a corner table. She finished explaining first. Twelve participants and four guests were coming tonight. Someone bringing her mother had asked if she could join them late. Merel said she would keep a portion aside. She did not promise an extra table that would not fit.

Hester pulled out a chair. It was strange to hear her sister set a limit without instantly softening it with a kind offer. Perhaps Merel always did that, and Hester was seldom there.

A man came out of the pantry clutching a bag of flour to his chest. He asked Hester where it went. She had almost pointed out a shelf when she realised he had chosen her simply because she wore no apron. She pointed at Merel instead of a cupboard.

'She's in charge here.'

Merel looked round, named the right place and immediately asked him to record the quantity on the sheet by the door. He went on. A trivial moment, but Hester could have disrupted the stockkeeping in an unfamiliar kitchen within a minute. She sat on her hands until her sister came over.

'Five minutes,' Merel said, sitting opposite.

'Robin Boon's here. She brought the invitations.'

'Brecht's daughter?'

'Yes. She's helping with the display.'

Merel looked through the glass partition into the entrance hall. Someone passed with a shopping trolley. 'So that was her last night.'

'Fleur knew who she was.'

'Of course Fleur knew.'

Hester described the conversation, Daan's remark, the letter at Else's. She heard herself mentioning the easy parts first. Merel tapped the table edge with her thumb.

'And what did you want to tell me?'

'I told Robin you weren't with me when Brecht fell. This morning I'm going to correct that with the police.'

Merel stood at once. She did not leave; she took a chair from the next table and straightened it. Then she turned.

'You've already told her.'

'Yes.'

'Yesterday afternoon you were asking what I wanted. A few hours later you decide anyway.'

'It's my statement.'

'With my name in it.'

Hester had expected that answer and was still unprepared. Everything she had told herself in the studio to find courage had been true: she could correct her own lie; she did not have to wait for permission. None of it told her how to listen to her sister when the correction pointed towards her again.

'I should have rung you last night,' she said.

'Yes.'

'I didn't know when you'd be home.'

'Don't. I've got a phone.'

Hester nodded. The woman at the worktop covered a pan, looked over and asked whether something was wrong. Merel said she was talking to her sister and would help in a moment. No explanation of a family crisis, no hurried smile to shut Hester out.

'What will you say?' she asked.

Hester repeated the exact correction. She had seen Merel only after the impact. She had not seen Brecht fall, had seen nobody by the stairs and knew nothing about the cause. She would not say her sister had done anything.

'But you thought it.'

'Yes.'

'Apparently all that time you were helping with my forms and my move.'

'I didn't know.'

'That's not an answer to what I'm saying.'

Merel sat again, but not opposite her. She moved the chair a little away from the table, towards the door. Hester saw the microwave clock. Two minutes left. Another time she would have turned that into a focused question. Now she stayed without using it.

'I thought you were frightened,' she said at last. 'And that I was the one who had to do something.'

'I was frightened. That didn't give you the right to fill in the rest.'

'I understand that now.'

'No. You're hearing it now. That's different.'

A participant came in with an oversized bag of potatoes. Merel took it from him and said he could put them on the low table. She pointed out the apron waiting for him. By the time she turned back to Hester, she was already holding her next task: a roll of labels for storage tubs.

'Go on. Your appointment.'

'Would you like to come?'

'You're still not listening.'

Hester stood. She could have put it better, offered another day, asked about Bram. None of it would make leaving easier. She said she would let Merel know this afternoon that the conversation had taken place, and make no other arrangements on her behalf.

'I'd like that last part in writing,' Merel said.

The sharpness was deserved. Hester took her coat from the chair and went into the entrance hall. Behind her Merel began explaining how two people could move a pan, a simple instruction with the work clearly divided. Hester pushed open the glass door and stayed outside until her bag sat properly on her shoulder.

On the way back she called her Rotterdam client once more. Not to revisit the invoice, but because she had promised to suggest a new meeting time. She arranged a short remote discussion for Thursday and sent the original booking confirmation. She could decide to stop avoiding this past and still keep an appointment. One need not crowd out the other for the whole day.

Robin stood beside the studio's front door, phone in one hand and a paper bag from the baker's in the other. Her hair was wet at the temples. A hurried shower or cycling through drizzle; Hester did not ask.

'I'm early. Shall I wait outside?'

'I just need my notebook.'

Robin did not come in until invited. The plate of crusts still lay on the table. Hester moved it to the worktop and saw Robin glance at the laptop.

'You had other work.'

'Yes. I still do.'

'I can go to the appointment on my own.'

'I've got something to say there myself.'

Robin nodded and opened the bag. Two small rolls. She had not eaten breakfast and had hurriedly ordered two rather than one. Hester took one. Outside they needed to turn left, she had checked. The police station was beyond the station square. The appointment was confirmed in both their names. No promise that anything would be reopened, no suggestion they could start investigating the rest.

Before leaving, she sent Merel the message: I understand this involves your name too. I'll tell them only what I saw and what I lied about. I won't make any arrangements for you. She left understand there, although her sister might again reply that she was only beginning to listen.

Robin waited while she locked up. At the corner Hester let her cross first. A van turned and its driver raised an apologetic hand. They walked past the station, two women heading for an appointment that could not decide the rest of the day for them. Hester finished her roll because she did not want to sit hungry opposite a police investigator. Crumbs stuck to her fingers; she wiped them on a paper napkin Robin handed over without comment.