Beth rang the bell before I could ask anything else.
Vivienne opened the door wearing linen trousers and the expression of someone who had expected us thirty seconds earlier.
“Nora. How lovely. Tom said you were a reader.”
I wondered what else he had put in my reference.
“Occupational hazard. I work at the library.”
“Yes, of course. Do come in.”
She moved aside for Beth, who placed the box beneath the hall table and hung her coat over it.
No one asked what was inside.
The sitting room was so carefully arranged that I became aware of my elbows. Five chairs faced a low table. Beside the fireplace stood photographs of school fairs and people holding oversized cheques.
A woman with silver-threaded dark hair rose from an armchair.
“Priya.”
“Nora.”
“Don’t sit on the green one. It looks comfortable. It lies.”
I took the blue chair.
“Tea?” called someone from the doorway.
Celia arrived carrying a tray. She wore a grey cardigan and small gold earrings.
“Milk?”
“Please. No sugar.”
She passed me a cup, then put the sugar bowl within Priya’s reach without comment.
Beth sat nearest the door.
I placed my book on the table.
It was the only book there.
“Should I have read something particular?”
“Goodness, no,” Vivienne said. “Bring whatever you like.”
Priya took a paperback from her bag. Beth produced a library hardback. Celia fetched a poetry collection from the mantelpiece, explaining that she had lent it to Vivienne.
Vivienne added a biography with an uncreased spine.
Five different books.
I waited for someone to explain the system.
Nobody did.
“How are you finding the crescent?” Celia asked.
“Quiet.”
“That’s what people like about it.”
“Unless they’re trying to reverse a delivery van,” Priya said.
Vivienne smiled without showing any teeth.
They asked about Poppy, the move and Tom’s work. When I mentioned the library, Vivienne said it must be pleasant to have something that fitted around school.
“It doesn’t always,” I said.
“Oh, but books.”
As though books collected children.
Priya leaned forward.
“What do you actually do there?”
I told her about the reading group, the computer sessions and the man looking for a blue cover.
“Did you find it?”
“Green cover. Wrong author. He was delighted.”
Beth laughed.
I could suddenly imagine her being the loudest person in a room.
Her phone vibrated. She glanced at the screen and turned it over on her knee.
“You can take that,” Vivienne said.
“I don’t need to.”
There was something firm about the answer. Priya noticed it too; she gave Beth a small nod.
For several minutes we almost discussed books.
Priya hated the ending of hers. Celia loved a poem she could not quite remember. Beth said the novel she had borrowed had been recommended by a customer at work.
“You’re working again?” I asked.
“Not properly. A few conversations.”
“Beth organises events,” Vivienne said.
“Used to.”
“Still knows how,” Priya said.
Beth looked down at her hands, smiling.
I liked them then. All of them. It felt good to hear a woman’s abilities mentioned as something still belonging to her.
Vivienne reached for a red notebook.
“Before I forget. Saturday’s rota.”
The next twenty minutes concerned missing cake stands and whether the school raffle could reasonably ask for a weekend cottage as a donation.
“Does the hall belong to the council?” I asked.
“A local trust manages it,” Vivienne said. “I’m on the committee.”
“She’s on everything,” Priya said.
“Somebody has to be.”
“I can do the last hour,” Beth said.
Vivienne wrote her name down.
“Martin will be pleased. His firm’s helping with the sponsors.”
Beth’s smile disappeared.
“Then perhaps I’ll do the morning.”
Vivienne crossed something out and wrote again.
She did not ask why.
My book remained where I had put it. I had marked a passage with a receipt, in case anyone asked me to read aloud. I slid the receipt deeper between the pages.
At the other end of the table, Beth opened her own book.
A folded sheet fell from it.
She caught it against her skirt. Not before I saw a printed heading and a column of numbers.
“Sorry,” she said.
“You don’t need to apologise,” Celia replied.
Vivienne closed the red notebook.
“Have you got as far as page thirty-seven?”
Beth stared at her.
“Not now.”
The words were quiet, but everyone heard.
“I only meant—”
“I know what you meant.”
Beth’s eyes filled. She folded the sheet once more, carefully, as if making it smaller might undo the moment.
Priya put down her cup.
“We can talk about something else.”
And they did. Almost immediately. A school dinner complaint. A lost parcel. The weather forecast for Saturday.
I joined in because that seemed the kindest thing to do.
But I watched Beth slide the paper into her bag rather than back into the book.
Whatever had just happened, it had not been about reading.