I put two mugs beside the kettle and asked Beth whether she wanted milk.
It was not much of a response to what she’d told me. It was, however, a question with a simple answer.
“A little.”
Her hands stopped moving. She had been folding the corner of the tea towel without noticing.
“I can collect the equipment another time,” she said. “With somebody else there. It’s not urgent.”
“What is it?”
“A case of display materials. Some tools. He offered to leave it at the hall.”
“And then wanted to meet you there?”
“He said he’d already be there for work.”
From the sitting room, Priya called that she needed to take a client call. Her footsteps crossed the hallway towards the front door.
Beth looked at the kitchen clock.
“I should stop checking.”
“Then put it away for five minutes.”
She set the phone beside her cup, screen down, keeping it within reach.
We talked about Imogen’s launch. Not Martin. Beth explained that the client wanted an expensive-looking entrance without paying for anything expensive. I suggested turning the lights off. She said that was approximately the current proposal.
After a while, Vivienne appeared carrying a tablecloth.
“Has Celia come back?”
“I haven’t seen her,” I said.
“Could you bring the pot through when it’s ready? I’m finding the extra folding table.”
She went upstairs. I heard a cupboard door open above us, followed by something heavy sliding across the floor.
The house contained all of us and none of us together. Ordinary sounds travelled between rooms. Someone coughed near the front door. A car passed. The pipes rattled when I turned on the tap.
Later, people would ask which sound belonged to which person, as if I had been listening with a pencil in my hand.
Beth lifted the tray. I took the teapot and followed her into the sitting room.
The empty chairs looked different without their occupants, the books and cups marking where people had been.
“I should have brought a book I actually wanted to talk about,” Beth said.
“Next time.”
“Something with no marriage in it.”
“That narrows the shelves.”
She sat. I went back for the milk and returned through the hall, where Priya was finishing her call.
“No, don’t change it now,” she said into her phone. “Send me what’s there.”
She caught my eye and rolled hers.
Vivienne came downstairs empty-handed. She had found the table but decided we didn’t need it, a conclusion available to all of us before she went up.
“More space is always useful,” she said when Priya teased her.
We moved cups and books around anyway. Beth sat farther from the door this time. I noticed that. I did not notice the exact order in which everyone returned.
My phone vibrated with a photograph from Tom. Poppy lay in bed wearing a paper crown, holding her reading book open.
Read the whole thing. Twice. Apparently I did the voices wrong.
The time above his message was 20:36.
I smiled, then looked up because Celia was holding the milk jug towards me.
“Top you up?”
“Please.”
Her coat lay over the arm of her chair. I hadn’t heard her come in.
“Did you get it?” Priya asked.
“Sorted,” Celia said. “All done.”
“Good. George might stop dropping hints now.”
Nobody asked to see the present. It was meant for someone else; there was no reason to unwrap it at a book club.
Beth began talking about a novel she’d once loved and never finished. Priya argued that this was an impossible relationship to have with a book. Vivienne said people had much the same relationship with gardening.
I ate a sandwich. Celia took the one Beth had saved.
The conversation wandered. Our phones stayed in bags, hands or pockets according to their owners’ preferences. There was no ceremony, no photograph recording the five of us around a table.
At a little after nine, Beth glanced at her screen.
“I’m going to make an early night of it.”
“Already?” Vivienne asked.
“I’ve got work tomorrow.”
She said it with a pleasure she didn’t quite conceal.
“We’ll have to start finishing on time,” Priya said. “Some of us have clients who think eight in the morning is a reasonable hour.”
“It is a reasonable hour,” Vivienne replied.
“For toast.”
Celia took the empty plate from me and asked whether I wanted the remaining sandwiches for Poppy. I said yes before remembering that Poppy distrusted any sandwich whose contents touched the crust. Celia found paper to wrap them anyway.
Beth closed her book and set it beside her empty cup while she looked for her bag.
We were collecting plates when a shout came from outside.
Not close, at first. A man’s voice carrying up the crescent.
Priya moved towards the window.
Then the doorbell rang in one long, unbroken note.