By half past nine, we had discussed the parking outside the surgery, a planning application and a neighbour’s suspiciously successful roses.
Nobody asked about the passage I had marked.
When I stood to leave, Vivienne said, “Same time next week?”
“I’ll check.”
“Do come. It’s good to have someone new.”
Beth rose with me.
In the hallway, she pulled her coat from the table and bent to retrieve the box. Celia came out with a foil parcel.
“The biscuits. For your daughter, Nora.”
“That’s kind of you.”
“Provided you don’t eat them first,” Priya called.
It was the sort of warning I respected.
Outside, the night had turned cold. We walked beneath windows lit with other people’s evenings. Behind one, a man stood ironing a shirt while watching television. I felt an unreasonable fondness for him.
At the corner, Beth stopped.
“Could you keep this?”
“The box?”
“Only until Monday.”
She did not offer it immediately.
“You can say no.”
I looked through the loose flap. The frame contained a certificate. Beneath it lay a black notebook and a folder with Beth’s name printed on the spine.
“Is it for the fair?”
“No. Work things.”
“Wouldn’t Vivienne keep them?”
“She would.”
Beth rubbed the seam of her sleeve.
“But she’d want to discuss what I was doing with them. And I haven’t decided everything yet.”
“You’re thinking of going back to events?”
“I’ve got a meeting on Monday. Someone I used to work with needs help with a launch.”
She said it quickly, then looked towards her house.
“I don’t want another argument about whether it’s worth bothering.”
I knew too little about her marriage to name what was happening in it. I knew enough about people to recognise the effort it had taken her to ask.
“You mentioned page thirty-seven,” I said.
“Vivienne did.”
“Sorry. You don’t have to explain.”
For a moment, she looked as though she might explain anyway.
Then she shook her head.
“Not tonight.”
We stood beneath a streetlamp. There was nothing dramatic about the box. It could have contained Christmas decorations. It could have belonged to a woman who was perfectly happy.
Beth lifted one flap.
“Have a look. Please.”
I did. Certificates, a portfolio and a small hard drive in a clear case. No money. No passports. Nothing I needed to pretend I had not seen.
“They’re mine,” she said. “I paid for the courses. The photographs are from jobs I worked on.”
“Until Monday is fine.”
“Thank you.”
I took the box.
“But if your plans change, tell me. Don’t leave me guessing.”
“I won’t.”
At my gate, we exchanged numbers. She typed her name into my phone, then added from the book club, as if I might know several Beths.
“And Martin?” I asked. “If he asks?”
She swallowed.
“Please send him to me.”
I nodded.
Inside, the kitchen smelled of cooked mince and cooling gravy. Poppy’s reading book lay unopened on the table.
Tom sat with his laptop on his knees.
“Good evening?”
“Interesting.”
“See? I said you’d enjoy it.”
I put the box in the cupboard beneath the stairs.
“What’s that?”
“Some work things Beth asked me to keep until Monday.”
“Which one’s Beth?”
“Married to Martin.”
“Oh, him. Seems decent. Helped me with the recycling.”
I hung up my coat.
“Did Poppy do her reading?”
“She was tired.”
“Did she say that?”
He looked away from the screen.
“We had a nice evening, Nora.”
I put Celia’s biscuits on the counter. There was no useful answer that would fit inside the amount of patience I had left.
Instead, I told him about the extra morning at the library.
“We’ll need to look at the diary,” he said.
“Tomorrow. Marianne needs an answer on Monday.”
He nodded, already returning to his laptop.
At ten past ten, the doorbell rang.
Martin stood outside holding a scarf.
“Sorry to bother you. Beth thought she might have left this with you, but I found it in the car.”
It took me a moment to understand that he had come to tell me he had found something she hadn’t left.
“Oh. Good.”
His gaze moved past my shoulder.
“She can be a bit scattered when she’s tired.”
I waited.
“Did she leave anything else? A box, perhaps?”
Behind me, the cupboard door hadn’t caught. A strip of cardboard showed through the gap.
I stepped sideways.
“You’ll need to ask Beth.”
“I’m asking you.”
For a moment, I heard the easy answer forming. The one that would make a strange man comfortable in my doorway.
Then I thought of Beth opening the box so I could see what belonged to her.
“And I’m asking you to speak to your wife.”
His smile thinned.
I closed the door.
Before I moved away from it, I sent Beth a message.
Martin has just been here. Are you all right?
Her reply arrived almost immediately.
He said he was going to the shop.