On Monday morning, the meeting Beth had defended so fiercely was postponed.
She rang me from the station café.
“Friday,” she said. “Imogen’s production manager is ill. They’ve moved the presentation to Friday.”
“Have you spoken to Imogen?”
“Yes. It’s genuine. I know you’re wondering.”
I had been. I was ashamed of how quickly I had begun assigning Martin a part in every disappointment.
“Could I keep the box with you until then?”
“Of course. Do you need it today?”
“The portfolio. I’ll take that and bring it back tonight if that’s all right. I want to update the photographs.”
“I’m working until two. Tom’s home this morning, or I can bring it after school.”
“After school. No rush.”
She sounded disappointed, not defeated. I tried to copy her distinction.
At work, I told Marianne I wanted the extra morning.
“Have you sorted the school run?”
“Tom can do it. We talked yesterday.”
We had talked for twenty minutes. Eleven of those had involved Tom explaining why his mornings were difficult. Eventually I had asked whether he thought mine were easy or simply less expensive.
He had looked hurt. Then he had opened his calendar.
“Good,” Marianne said. “Tuesday the seventeenth of November, then. Nine o’clock opening. I’ll put you down.”
It was almost disappointing how little ceremony there was. My name entered a square. The world adjusted.
After school, Poppy and I took Beth’s portfolio to Vivienne’s, where they were discussing accommodation. Poppy sat in the kitchen drawing an improbably cheerful skeleton for Halloween while I joined the others.
Vivienne had printed a map.
“This flat belongs to a friend of Peter’s. Available immediately. It would give you breathing room.”
Beth examined the address.
“It’s quite far out.”
“Only twenty minutes by car.”
“I won’t necessarily have the car.”
“We can arrange lifts.”
Beth ran a finger along a bus route that stopped short of the flat.
“My work won’t finish at the same time every day.”
“It’s temporary.”
“I know.”
The room became still. I could hear Poppy asking Celia whether skeletons wore shoes.
“Vivienne,” Beth said, “I don’t want to have to ask somebody every time I leave the house.”
“Nobody’s suggesting that.”
“You’re suggesting a place I can’t get out of easily without somebody helping.”
Vivienne sat back. The papers remained arranged between them, small and neat and suddenly useless.
“I’ve made several calls.”
“I’m grateful.”
“It doesn’t sound like it.”
I recognised Beth’s expression: the calculation of how much gratitude would be enough to purchase a refusal.
Celia came in with Poppy’s drawing.
“I think Beth’s right.”
Vivienne looked up sharply.
“About the buses,” Celia said. “If we’re helping her get back to work, somewhere near work makes more sense.”
She put the skeleton beside the map. Poppy had given it pink boots.
“I know a guesthouse near the station. We could ask about a weekly rate. No promises.”
“I can ask,” Beth said.
“Yes, you can,” Celia said. “I’ll give you the number.”
Beth blinked, then reached for her pen.
She turned the map over and began writing figures in the margin: a weekly room rate, train fares, the amount she expected for the first job. The figures were estimates, and she marked them as such.
“What about meals?” I asked.
“If there’s a kitchen, less. If there isn’t, I need to add something.”
Vivienne watched the list grow. After a while she pointed out a bus pass Beth had forgotten. Beth added it without surrendering the pen.
“Let me get an actual price,” Beth said. “Then we’ll know whether this makes sense.”
Celia wrote the number on a separate piece of paper, and Beth tucked it into her folder.
Vivienne gathered the map.
“It was only an option.”
“Then I’m allowed not to choose it,” Beth said.
No one spoke for several seconds.
Then Poppy appeared and asked where the toilet was, performing a public service entirely by accident.
Celia took her upstairs. Beth opened her portfolio and showed me the photographs she wanted to replace. There she was beneath a marquee, directing someone out of frame. In another picture, guests stood around a table she had designed.
“You look happy,” I said.
“I was furious. The caterer had brought the wrong glasses.”
“A professional expression, then.”
She laughed.
We spent twenty minutes sorting pictures. Vivienne made fresh tea. By the time Celia came back, the room had recovered, though not quite its former arrangement.
At the door, Beth returned the portfolio to me.
“I’ve copied what I need. Until Friday?”
“Until Friday.”
Poppy skipped ahead carrying her skeleton. Beth waited until she was out of earshot.
“That was harder than telling Martin about the train.”
“Why?”
“Because I knew Vivienne was trying to help.”
She looked back at the closed door.
“I can’t leave one house just to spend my life asking permission in another.”