An Answer for Jip

The parsley in the glass on the worktop had wilted. Lena had bought it on Monday, intending to make something with it. Now half hung over the rim and the water smelled of a vase left too long.

‘That needs throwing out,’ Jip said.

‘Let me look.’

‘There's nothing to look at. It's brown.’

Lena pulled out the stems and dropped them in the bin. Their small disagreement ended as soon as she stopped trying to save what had been useful on another day. Jip put the potatoes on the table. They had agreed to cook together: Lena chopping, Jip making the sauce. Two clean tea towels and a knife were ready before Lena had removed her coat.

‘How was school?’

‘Fine.’

‘Did you tell anyone about yesterday?’

Jip shook the yoghurt carton in her hand. ‘Tess. No details. I don't know any details myself.’

‘You know what I know.’

‘About the man. Not why he wanted your bag.’

‘I don't know either.’

‘I know.’

She unscrewed the cap, braced the carton with her forearm and poured yoghurt into the bowl. Lena took a chopping board and waited for her to finish before answering. Raw onion scented the kitchen as she cut it open.

‘This afternoon's meeting concerned my work. Mieke was there. In an office building with other people around.’

‘Dad drove you.’

‘Yes.’

Jip moved the bowl aside. ‘On the sofa just now you made it sound like some meeting you couldn't get out of. But he's the man who paid for those things, isn't he?’

Lena halved the onion. ‘He managed the project that made the payments. His exact role is being investigated.’

‘Mum.’

Lena put down the knife.

‘You sound like an email,’ Jip said.

She wanted to tell Jip not to confuse caution with evasion. Instead she explained that Marten had offered to reimburse her costs, provided she signed wording confirming his version of the report too. She had refused. Mieke shared her objections and was sending further questions in writing.

‘Why did he think you'd do it?’

‘Because the money would have helped me.’

‘How much?’

She gave the figure in the proposal. Jip raised her eyebrows. At her age, she wasn't used to seeing someone turn down that much money.

‘Can we still pay the rent?’

‘Yes. We've got money for the next few months. I still have work. I'm losing some of it.’

‘What won't we be able to do?’

‘I don't know exactly yet. No sudden move, nothing affecting school. We'll review everyday spending. If something changes for you, I'll tell you before you have to discover it yourself.’

Jip nodded slowly and stirred the yoghurt. She had not asked whether Lena had made the right decision. Lena realised she was waiting for that judgement, and felt ashamed.

They went on cooking. Jip checked her phone for how much mustard to add. Lena quartered the washed potatoes. Water still ran down her fingers when Jip asked how she could ever trust her own work again.

‘By checking what I send. Even if someone else prepares it. I should have opened the final export myself and compared it with my text.’

‘Well, you can do that, can't you?’

‘Yes. Before it goes to anyone. I'll allow time for it in my work.’

‘Does that mean working even more?’

Lena felt herself heading towards an explanation she had offered too often. She could say it was temporary, that the extra hours would vanish once this was over. She did not know whether that was true. Jip wanted to know what would change now.

‘Probably at first. I've got files to check. But I'll turn work down if I haven't got enough time. And we'll agree when I'll be home. More hours can't mean you have to go somewhere else every time.’

Jip stared into the bowl. ‘Sometimes I thought you kept sending me to Dad because you were so far behind.’

‘That's not what I thought.’

‘I'm telling you what I thought.’

Lena rinsed her hands and dried them on a tea towel. It had been laid out dry for taking something from the oven; she picked up the other one and put the knife somewhere safe.

‘I sent you because I couldn't manage work and worry and everything else. I should have said so instead of pretending all you needed was someone to make you a decent sandwich.’

‘Dad doesn't make decent sandwiches either. He puts the cheese on strangely.’

‘He always has.’

Jip smiled briefly. ‘But he asks if I want to stay.’

Lena switched on the oven and waited for its click.

‘What do you want now?’

‘Dinner and overnight at his on Friday. Then I'm nearer work on Saturday. Back here on Sunday.’

‘That's fine. Ask him yourself, though.’

‘I already have.’

Lena turned. Jip met her eyes, ready to explain she had not needed her mother's permission to ask. Lena nodded.

‘Good. Now we know.’

Jip took a sheet from the drawer and tried to fix it to the fridge. The magnet slid towards an old postcard. Lena held the paper straight while Jip tried again and wrote Fri, Dad. The writing slanted because she leant sideways to spare her arm.

‘What about Saturday?’ Lena asked.

‘I'm with Tess after work. I've told you.’

‘Put it down, then.’

Jip wrote only Tess, leaving the details on her phone. When offered the pen, Lena added her two Thursday visits with estimated return times. She did not draw a line through the empty space beneath Sunday.

‘Why so many words?’ Jip asked.

‘Because I don't know when I'll be finished.’

‘Then put that you'll call. Not around seven when it'll be half past nine.’

Lena crossed out the evening's estimated return and wrote: message when I leave. She would not come home to a saved plate of food and use an apology to pretend she had otherwise kept the arrangement.

Jip studied the sheet. ‘You and Dad can keep track of that yourselves, can't you?’

‘We do. This is for us here.’

They did not make an hour-by-hour family timetable. Jip put down the pen and returned to the sauce. Lena set herself a reminder to give Tom the confirmed times. Their daughter need not organise that from the fridge.

She put the potatoes in the oven. Jip wiped a drop of yoghurt from her hand with her sleeve, then crossly wiped the sleeve with a cloth. Lena offered no advice.

As dinner cooked they called Tom. Jip told him about Friday herself. He had a late shift but could arrange his fares to be home for dinner. Could she pack on Thursday evening to avoid a Friday rush? Jip asked why he was worrying about Thursday already. He said her charger had turned up in a bag from the previous weekend.

While Jip went upstairs to find it, Lena stayed on the phone.

‘I'll let you know where I'm going this week. Just the practical details. Not so you have to decide for me every time.’

‘You don't need me to.’

‘I'll share it with Anouk too. Certainly meetings with people from the project.’

‘Good. I can't always leave immediately.’

‘I know.’

‘You know, but yesterday you asked me to come, and this morning I barely had a time to work with. Planning earlier helps.’

She looked at the clock. There was nothing wrong with what he said. Still, she needed a few seconds before answering plainly.

‘You're right. I'll send the details once they're confirmed.’

‘And of course ring if something happens. I don't mean fill in a calendar first.’

‘I understand.’

He fell silent. She could almost see him wanting to check she really understood, but letting the conversation rest. She promised not to send him the whole of Marten's proposal later; he need not become her lawyer. They would discuss anything affecting their daughter.

Lena and Jip ate at the small kitchen table. The potatoes were darker on one side. Jip said they should have turned the dish halfway through. Lena said they would try next time. They had nearly finished when Jip asked whether Sofie had read the report herself.

‘A version, I think. She's heard what it said. We're speaking tomorrow, once the arrangements with her and Anouk are confirmed.’

‘Where?’

‘Mieke's. Not her friend's house.’

‘You're not trying to make her say you did nothing wrong, are you?’

Lena looked at her plate. Even Anouk had not put it quite so directly.

‘No. I hope she'll understand which words I did write. But I need to hear what the other words meant for her. It may be uncomfortable.’

‘Uncomfortable's a small word.’

‘Yes.’

Jip put down her fork. ‘Maybe you should just say you're scared too.’

‘I am. More since yesterday. I jump when a van stops beside me. I want to know who it was, and I don't.’

Jip glanced away at the dark window over the worktop. Then she asked whether Lena wanted to sleep downstairs because the stairs hurt. Lena said she could manage if she went slowly. Jip nodded, without turning the answer into a discussion that would let her take charge of something after all.

After the washing-up Mieke confirmed Thursday evening. Lena could speak to Sofie first if Sofie still wished it then. Anouk and her colleagues were arranging support and a separate statement directly with her. What mattered was that she described what she remembered, rather than repeated their reconstruction.

Lena recorded the time and told Anouk she planned to attend. She added the visit to Cor, provisional until Nora confirmed, specifying that it was to examine material with permission. No appointment with Niels. No request for anyone to bring him there.

The brief reply acknowledged receipt and asked her to report changes. That was enough.

At the kitchen table she continued the insurer's form. Measures taken since discovering the problem were easy to describe. Earlier working arrangements were harder. She could say she routinely checked reports. With documents assembled by Eva, she had made exceptions without calling them exceptions. She wrote that too.

Jip came down with her Friday bag. A book she did not have to read for school poked out. She put the bag under the coat hooks and searched for the elastic usually hanging from it.

‘Do you need anything else?’ Lena asked.

‘No. I've got a message to send.’

She went upstairs again. Lena looked at the packed bag. For the first time in days something at home was arranged in advance without her devising it for her daughter. She finished the form, checked it before sending and read her answers once more. Then she sent it herself.