The rumour said Beth had been offered the new project because people felt sorry for her. By Thursday lunchtime, it had acquired a second clause: that she was using Martin’s death to promote herself.
I heard both from a parent outside the school office. She said them apologetically, in the voice people used to make repetition sound like a public service.
“Who told you?” I asked.
“Oh, I can’t remember exactly.”
“Then perhaps don’t repeat it as information.”
She coloured.
“I only thought you should know what people are saying.”
“Now I do. Who said it to you?”
This time she named another parent, who had seen Beth’s business post online. There was no claim of a private conversation with Celia. The judgement had been assembled from a photograph, a date and somebody’s idea of how a widow ought to look.
I thanked her for clarifying and went inside to deliver Poppy’s forgotten lunch box. My anger did not make me remember the lunch box any earlier.
Beth called that afternoon. A prospective collaborator had asked whether the project was a charitable arrangement. She had corrected the assumption, but wanted to know if I had heard anything similar.
I told her what I knew, including where the rumour appeared to have originated. I did not give Celia responsibility simply because that would have made the story tidier.
“I want her to have started it,” Beth admitted. “Then I only have to be angry with one person.”
“I know.”
“Did you tell the parent to stop?”
“I asked her not to repeat what she couldn’t support.”
“Thank you. Please don’t organise a defence of my character in the playground.”
I promised. My first draft of that defence had already been forming in my head.
Instead, we looked at the public business post. Beth had shown a display detail from an earlier job, with the client’s permission, and described the services she offered. It contained no reference to Martin or the investigation.
“I’m leaving it up,” she said.
“Good.”
“I nearly took it down.”
We worked on a short response she could use if a business contact asked a genuine question. She would confirm that she was taking paid commissions, distinguish private circumstances from her professional work and offer references relevant to the job. There was no need to make strangers comfortable with her grief before discussing a quotation.
When I got home, Vivienne was at my gate. She had heard a different rumour: that the fund had paid for Beth’s entire new business.
“I can correct that,” she said.
“With what details?”
She caught herself.
“Only that the claim is inaccurate. Not her application.”
I let her in for tea. She had spent the morning in the garden and carried a smear of earth on her sleeve. She looked healthier than she had at the handover, and ashamed of looking healthier.
“It’s strange to feel better when things are still awful,” she said.
“You don’t have to keep yourself exhausted as evidence.”
She smiled at that, then told me Helen had acknowledged her apology. Nothing more. Vivienne had not asked whether that meant forgiveness.
“I wanted to,” she added.
“I guessed.”
We discussed the rumours long enough to realise they had different routes. Some were careless repetition. Others came from people offended by Beth’s decision to keep working. Celia had certainly said things that concerned us, but she had not invented every unkind idea in Wrenford.
After Vivienne left, the parent from school sent a message saying she had corrected what she told the other parents. She didn’t claim to have stopped the rumour entirely.
I thanked her. It was a small repair, and I decided not to reject it because it was smaller than the damage.
At eight, Beth sent me the final version of her proposal. The opening sentence was stronger than the one we’d practised. She had removed an unnecessary explanation of her availability and replaced it with a clear description of the event.
Pitch tomorrow, she wrote. I’m taking the work samples, not my marriage.
I wished her luck.
Then I read the proposal once more, this time imagining myself as a client with an actual problem to solve.
For several pages, there was no widow, no rumour and no street.
There was somebody I would consider hiring.
I could point to the reasons on the page, without asking anybody to take my friendship with her as a reference.