“You can enjoy it a bit,” Tess said.
Leo lowered his hands. “You said ordinary.”
“Ordinary people enjoy things.”
“Yes, but they generally wait for them to happen.”
Behind him, the West Promenade Pavilion stood empty in the sun. Its new green paint was still too clean for the sea front. Three wide steps led up to a roofed floor where, in an hour, the mayor would declare it open. For now a man was trying to remove a price label from a pair of ceremonial scissors with his thumbnail.
Tess looked back at Leo. He had come in a pale jacket she had never seen before. It gave him the air of someone who might complain about the room rate. Her own blue dress had looked unremarkable at home. Here, with a large canvas bag pulling down one shoulder, she seemed to be on her way to a wedding whose date she had mistaken.
“Try again. Someone's just said something encouraging about Hatherwick.”
He gave four firm claps, nodded thoughtfully and stopped.
“That looks sarcastic.”
“You haven't told me what they said.”
“It's a pavilion, Leo. They're pleased about the pavilion.”
He turned, took in the green pillars and fresh floor, and began to clap with a warmth Tess found unexpectedly touching. Then he stepped forward, opened his mouth and drew breath.
“No cheering.”
He let the breath out. “I was going to say lovely.”
“Not to it.”
A passing woman slowed down. Leo smiled at her, a little too long, and she hurried on towards the toilets.
From under the folding sound table, Nia said, “Less travelling would help.”
“I moved a foot.”
“That's how it starts.”
Tess laughed. Leo looked down to see whether Nia had seen that he had made her laugh, but only her shoes were visible. The Lantern Company's small speaker stood beside the table, facing the area where the audience would gather. Nia had put the microphone stand on the pavilion floor and taped the cable down before anyone could trip over it. She had also chosen a white blouse for the afternoon. A dark stripe now ran along one sleeve.
“Was there no socket nearer?” Tess asked.
“This one's fine. The table was on the plug.” Nia emerged with a roll of tape in one hand. “I'm dressed to applaud. I'm not dressed to be under furniture.”
Tess took a tissue from her bag. Nia tried it on the mark and made a larger, softer mark.
“Leave it,” she said. “I'll stand with that arm away.”
Their instructions were to encourage applause without looking as though they had come together. Nia would do what she could between operating the sound. Tess had brought them both from the rehearsal rooms above the old carpet shop, forty minutes inland, and promised an easy afternoon. They toured plays, taught classes and spent a surprising amount of time persuading school receptionists that the people with the suitcase were expected. Today, for once, nobody needed them to be a king, a tree or a positive example of teamwork. They had merely to look pleased until two o'clock.
Nine hundred pounds, including the sound. Three hundred had arrived when Tess accepted the job. The remaining six hundred would pay their shares, finish paying for the last show's costumes and leave enough to keep the autumn venue from giving their dates to a tribute act. She had already asked that venue for another week. She would like not to ask for another.
The scissors man gave up on the label and put the scissors on a cushion.
“Do you think they'll notice this?” he asked Tess.
“Turn them over.”
He did. “Oh. Yes. Thank you.”
Leo waited until the man was out of earshot. “He has a speaking part.”
“He's a volunteer.”
“So am I, broadly, once you've deducted petrol.”
“You're getting your fee.”
“I know.” He gave her a quick smile. “I'm only trying to establish where I stand in the cast.”
“At the back, looking pleased.”
“About Tuesday,” Nia said. “The Bramley workshop. You haven't said I'm definitely—”
“We'll sort it before we go. Can you give us a little sound first?”
Nia looked at her for a moment, then picked up the wireless microphone. “It's already on. Stand away from the speaker.”
Leo retreated so far that she had to call him back.
They tested the microphones. A steward came to borrow the tape. Another wanted to know if the band would need electricity; Nia said she had been told brass and percussion, but that he should ask them rather than her. A boy in a sun hat climbed all three steps on his knees. His father photographed him, then had to carry him down because the boy wanted to come down on his head.
Tess bought a bottle of water and, because they were there, a little bag of doughnuts. They were hot enough to hurt through the paper. She meant to offer them round once everything was ready, but Leo was beside her before she had found an end to fold.
“You can't eat that looking anonymous,” he said. “Let me.”
He put a whole doughnut in his mouth and immediately regretted it. Nia watched him with interest.
“Shall I open your microphone?”
He shook his head. Tess held out the water.
By ten past one the folding chairs were filling. Beyond them people stood along the sea rail, some facing the pavilion and some facing the water. A woman with a shopping trolley was making room beside her for a friend. Two teenagers sat on the lowest step until a steward explained that the band would need it. The warmer smell of chips came from the stalls farther down the promenade. Tess had begun to feel that she might have been right about the easy afternoon.
Then Leo took his hands out of his pockets.
Celia was coming from the town end of the promenade, walking beside a woman with a ribbon wound round her forearm. She wore a rust-coloured linen suit and flat shoes. Her hair was shorter than when Tess had last seen her, though that might only have been the wind pushing it back. She was listening to the woman and holding a small white card against her thigh.
For a moment Tess wanted to put the doughnuts away. There was no reason. Celia had eaten plenty of doughnuts with them.
Celia had also done every performance she had agreed to do for Lantern. That was the fact Tess never managed to put in the occasional cheerful messages they exchanged. Eighteen months ago Tess had advertised three more dates, counting on Celia before asking her. Celia had already accepted a corporate training job and said no. Tess had told Leo she had gone for better money. He had heard that Celia had left them in the lurch, and Tess, relieved that he would do the extra work, had let him keep hearing it.
Now Celia was waving.
“Hello, you two. I thought that was your clap.”
Leo looked at his hands. “You can recognise it?”
“I've heard it from the wings often enough.”
“That was an audience.”
“Yes. You were very good at getting them started.”
He was pleased. Tess saw him try to decide whether to show it and wished Celia would leave him that small pleasure alone. Celia did. She kissed Tess's cheek and said she looked well.
“So do you,” Tess said. “I like the suit.”
“Thank you. It's got pockets large enough for lunch. I've become quite particular.”
Leo said, “I've got lunch.”
“Is it still lunch?”
He put a hand into his jacket pocket and brought out a flat parcel of foil. A small patch of oil showed at one corner.
“My sister said not to put it there.”
“Was that before or after you put it there?” Celia asked.
“During. She watches me leave.”
Tess laughed with them. She had missed this: the speed with which they could get to a familiar absurd place without anyone explaining the way. Celia reached for the foil, then let Leo keep it.
“Don't unwrap it in the sun,” she said. “Give it a fighting chance.”
Nia came round the sound table. Celia's face brightened.
“Did you put the kit hire on a separate line?”
“I did. They paid that bit first.”
“Good.”
“You should have seen the email I nearly sent before I rang you.”
“I'd have liked that.”
Tess had known they were in touch. She had not known Nia rang her. Celia asked about the small desk Nia was saving for, and Nia said somebody had offered her one with a case but no leads. They spent a minute on what the missing leads might cost. Leo glanced towards the pavilion.
“Are you opening something?” he asked Celia.
“Helping.”
“It's mostly what you do now, isn't it? Launches.”
“And training. Some radio.”
“Getting people to pretend to be interested in the regional sales figures.”
“Sometimes they are interested. It's their money.”
“I suppose.”
“You did a voice for a mortgage company.”
“That was a character.”
“What was he like?”
Leo looked at her. Celia waited.
“Reassuring,” he said at last.
“Mm. Difficult part.”
He laughed despite himself, then took out the flattened sandwich again as though he had meant to do something with it.
Tess said, “We should find our places. Where are you meant to be, Celia?”
“Just here, I think. I've got to check one thing with June.”
She turned towards the pavilion. As she did, the card in her hand lifted in the wind. Tess saw a large number four.
Nia touched Tess's elbow.
“That's her cue card.” She laid the running order on the table, keeping two fingers on it. “Look. Four. Audience question, C. Rook. After the bit about evening hire.”
Tess bent over the sheet. Under the question was a note about the mayor's answer: free daytime programme, booking details on the noticeboard. Then final applause.
“She's the heckler?”
“Yes. It's arranged.”
“Oh, for God's sake.”
Nia's mouth moved. “Quite good, actually. You don't get an extra microphone in a crowd by accident.”
Celia was still close enough for Tess to call her back. She listened to Tess's question, then looked from her to Leo, who was several yards away trying the foil in a different pocket.
“You're the applause?” she asked.
Tess nodded.
“Oh, that's wonderful.”
“Is it?”
“For me. I thought I was going to have to get through all this without anyone I knew.”
“What exactly are you doing?”
“One question. When do the rest of us get to use the place? June tells me. I look won over.”
“Does she know?”
“We rehearsed it yesterday. She won me over twice. They're paying me four hundred and fifty pounds to be doubtful for forty seconds.”
Tess looked at the sheet again. The answer was real. There were free sessions; she had passed the board. She could ask June to leave out the question. She could explain that the separate bookings had brought together people whose acquaintance might make things awkward. June, who was shaking hands with a woman in a wheelchair, would want to know how awkward. Celia would want to know why Tess was speaking for her. Leo would want to know what they had said about him.
There was no need. They were working. They had done much harder things for less money.
“All right,” Tess said. “We do our bit, you do yours.”
“I was planning to.”
Tess went to Leo. He was studying a dab of oil on his lining.
“Celia's question is part of the ceremony,” she said. “The mayor's agreed it. Near the end of the speech. June's got an answer about the public programme. Leave it to her.”
“I'm not going to argue with the mayor.”
“I mean don't answer Celia.”
“I hadn't intended to.”
He sounded injured enough that Tess touched his sleeve. “I know.”
The mayor climbed the steps. Tess moved away before he could ask anything else.
June Prowse had been a primary headteacher, the booking woman had told Tess, and she still had the voice. Before beginning her speech she asked the people at the sea rail to come a little nearer if they wanted to hear, and told a steward exactly where to put another row of chairs. Then she thanked him by name. Her papers tried to escape. She trapped them under one hand and spoke into the stand microphone.
Tess stood to the audience's left, Leo towards the right, near the sound table. Nia had the wireless on the table beside her mixer. Celia waited two yards from her. Tess could see all of them if the man in front did not raise his phone.
June began with the eighteen months the pavilion had been closed. She acknowledged that the boards had gone up much more promptly than they had come down. That got a small laugh. She thanked the trust, the council staff and the people who had kept asking her when anything was going to happen.
Tess began to clap after the thanks. Leo came in a moment later, with just enough force. The woman with the shopping trolley joined him. Her friend followed, holding a paper cup between her knees. Applause spread back towards the rail.
June looked up, pleased, and waited.
It worked. Tess felt a small, unreasonable pride. They hadn't made people like the pavilion; the people had come to like it. They had simply made it easier to start. Across the crowd Leo was watching a little girl who had continued clapping after everyone else stopped. He gave her one silent clap and a nod. She sat back against her father, satisfied.
June spoke about the roof and the windows. A dog barked at a wheeled cooler. One of the teenagers who had been moved from the steps was now helping the scissors man stretch the ribbon between two pillars. The wind blew it into a loop. They lowered it, tried again and tied it loosely out of the way.
Then June reached the evening bookings. Tess saw Nia pick up the wireless and give it to Celia. Celia showed her card towards the platform. June made the smallest of pauses.
“And when do ordinary people get a go?” Celia asked into the microphone. “Or is it all private functions now?”
A woman in the second row said, “Yes, quite.”
June smiled. “I'm very glad you've asked that.”
Tess pressed her tongue against the back of her teeth.
“Because some of us never seem to get our names on the programme,” Celia added, turning slightly towards Leo.
It was only a look. June had already begun her answer. But Leo, who had spent an hour being agreeable without credit, said, “Some of us are managing very well without it.”
He had no microphone. Tess heard him across the gap in the front row; people nearer the back turned to see who had spoken. Celia supplied the rest for them.
“Are you managing without your name on the programme? That must be new.”
There was a laugh. Leo smiled before he could prevent it.
June said, “On Tuesdays and Thursdays—”
“I am here as an ordinary resident,” Leo said, more loudly.
“You don't live here.”
“An ordinary visitor.”
“I'll give you visitor.”
A man near Tess laughed hard enough to spill a little of his drink. June stopped speaking. Tess knew that look on Leo's face. He had caught her eye across school halls and cold sports centres, in rooms where the audience faced a window. Now he was here, warm, heard, with Celia looking at him.
Tess moved round the front row. She reached Celia and held out her hand for the microphone. Celia gave it to her, still smiling.
“A very enthusiastic visitor,” Tess said into it. “As are we all. June was about to tell us how we can use the pavilion.”
A few people clapped. Leo said, “I'd have been quite happy to listen.”
“Of course.” Tess smiled at him. He was beside her now, close enough to speak quietly, if either of them had chosen to. “We know one another from the theatre. You must forgive us.”
“Oh, they're actors,” someone said. The man with the drink looked relieved.
June waited at the stand microphone. Tess should have handed the afternoon straight back. Instead she thought of the autumn production, the dates that needed selling, a small useful thing that might come from this.
“Leo, tell them where they can see us next. Then we'll let June finish.”
She gave him the wireless.
He took it with the ease of a man being offered a chair.
“We're touring in the autumn,” he said. “Assuming we can find a cast willing to finish the run they've agreed to.”
Celia's smile went.
“Are you talking about me?”
Leo still had the microphone near his mouth. “Well. We did have three shows to do after you went.”
“I hadn't agreed to those.”
“They were booked.”
He turned the microphone towards her, almost politely, so that her answer reached everyone.
“They weren't in my contract. I finished my run.” She looked at Tess. “You know I did.”
Tess reached for the microphone. “There was a difficulty over dates.”
Her first few words came through the speaker. The rest did not. At the table Nia had lowered the wireless channel.
“There wasn't a difficulty,” Celia said. Her ordinary voice was sharp but no longer large. “I said no.”
The front rows could still hear. The man with the drink looked away. Tess's hand was closing so hard round the microphone that the base of her thumb hurt.
From the platform, June said into the other microphone, “We're going to make a little space for the band now. If you're standing in the path from the town, please move towards the rail. Malcolm, could you help me?”
Tess looked west. The band had arrived in blue jackets, with silver instruments and music clipped in place. A woman carrying a euphonium was trying to pass a pushchair without catching its hood.
Nia came round the table and took the silent microphone from Tess.
“They need the steps,” she said. “Go round the back. I'll tell them to wait a minute.”
Leo stood where he was.
“Please,” Tess said.
He looked at her then, and followed Celia through the gap beside the steps.
The service room smelled of paint and warm cardboard. A stack of unused programmes lay on a chair. Tess shut the door, then opened it again because Nia was coming. Outside, June was directing people round the band. Nia stepped in with the wireless switched off in her hand and closed the door behind her. They could still hear the mayor, though not every word.
Celia put her cue card on the programmes.
“Tell him,” she said.
Tess looked at Leo. He had a tiny patch of sugar on his lapel. She wanted to brush it off. She put her bag down instead.
“The three dates were extra,” she said. “I'd booked them after Celia's run finished. I hadn't got her agreement.”
Leo waited.
“She couldn't do them.”
“I could have cancelled the other job,” Celia said. “I chose not to. But I hadn't said yes to yours.”
“No,” Tess said. “You hadn't.”
Leo leaned back against the wall. He was careful of the paint, even now.
“You told me she'd gone for the money.”
“She had taken a better-paid job.”
“Tess.”
“I know. I made it sound as if she'd left us with her work. She hadn't. I let you think that.”
“Let me?”
“I didn't correct it. I should have told you before you started rehearsing with the replacement.”
“I rang the replacement,” Leo said to Celia. “To say you couldn't even be bothered to ring.”
Tess had not known about the call. Celia looked at him, then at Tess again.
“I wondered why nobody wanted to know when I offered to send my notes,” she said.
Tess remembered that message. She had replied that they were all fine. They had been rehearsing in coats because the heating timer had broken, and Leo had stayed until nearly midnight. She had taken him a bacon roll the next morning. He had said she didn't need to thank him.
“I wanted the extra income,” she said. “I thought if I got the dates first, we could make the rest happen.”
She waited, but Leo said nothing.
“Then you did make it happen. You were angry with her.” She looked at Celia. “It was easier to leave you angry with her.”
He rubbed a hand over his face.
“You could have asked me to do three extra shows.”
“I know.”
“I might even have wanted to.”
Tess nodded. That was worse to hear than a refusal would have been. She had counted on his help and been proud of how willing he was. She could still remember the relief of it.
From outside came a loose run of trumpet notes, followed by someone asking for them to stop.
Celia picked up the card and turned it over. “I did like working with you,” she said to Tess. “I wasn't trying to make you suffer by having another job.”
“I know you weren't.”
“Do you?”
Tess could have said how often she had missed her, how poor the replacement's first entrance had been, how close they had come to losing one of the halls. She had enough particulars to fill the room. Celia was asking a smaller question.
“Yes. I knew then, too.”
Celia laid the card down again.
“I am sorry,” Tess said. “To both of you.”
Leo looked towards the door. No one said it was all right.
Nia shifted the microphone from one hand to the other.
“The Tuesday workshop,” she said. “I haven't agreed to that either.”
“I only mentioned—” Tess stopped. Nia had looked down at the microphone. “I've mentioned you to the school. Yes.”
“They've sent me arrival details.”
“I didn't know they'd done that.”
“They think I'm coming.”
Tess's bag was at her feet, her phone inside it. She could write to Bramley now. The thought was a relief, one thing she could put right in a minute, and she had to keep herself from kneeling at once.
“Are you available?” she asked.
“No,” Nia said. Then, more quietly, “I've got another possible call. I want to keep it.”
“All right. I'll tell the school you're not doing it. Today.”
“Thank you.”
Someone knocked. June opened the door a few inches.
“The band are waiting,” she said. “What are you going to do?”
Nia moved to the door. Through the opening Tess could see the first rows of chairs. A few people were talking; more were watching the steps. The woman with the shopping trolley had taken a hat from its bag and put it on.
“Could we give them three minutes?” Nia said.
“Of what?” June asked.
“A performance. Say who they are. They were laughing when these two wouldn't let each other finish.” She looked back at Leo and Celia. “You could both try to open it. Properly, this time. Tess could be somebody who wants to sit down.”
Tess almost said she needed to stay with the sound table. It was Nia's table. There would be nothing for her to do there.
“I can bring the stand down,” Nia went on. “One chair. Then we finish, you cut the ribbon, band plays.”
June looked at Tess. “Was any of that out there rehearsed?”
“The question was. The rest wasn't. I'm sorry.”
“I could tell you weren't enjoying it.”
There was no comfort in that, though June might have meant some.
Tess turned to Celia. “Would you do it? Three minutes, as Nia says. No more pretending to be strangers.”
Celia rubbed her palms down her trousers. “I'd rather they saw me do something I can actually do.”
“Leo?”
“Do we get introduced?”
“Yes.”
“By name?”
“Yes.” Tess waited. She was very aware of June in the doorway.
“All right,” he said.
“Nia, will you arrange it?”
“Yes. But we're still finished at two.”
“We are.”
June glanced towards the band. “I want the scissors in my hand by ten to. They've already lost some of their concert.”
“That's enough,” Nia said.
“And I am not explaining any more of you than I have to.”
She went out. Nia followed, carrying the wireless. Celia picked up her card, tore it once across the number and put both pieces in her pocket.
Leo stayed beside the wall while Tess lifted her bag.
“Is there anything else about the tour I don't know?” he asked.
She wanted to say no at once. “I don't think so.”
He nodded without looking satisfied.
Outside, Nia was bringing the stand microphone down to the apron in front of the steps. She drew enough cable through her hands to reach without pulling it tight. The band began filing onto the raised floor behind her, the larger instruments taking the steps sideways. Tess carried an empty chair from the end of a row and put it where Nia pointed. For once it was a chair intended for her.
June waited until the last player was up. She had the wireless now, switched on again by Nia at the table.
“We have some actors with us this afternoon,” she said. “You may have noticed. They've been helping with our sound and encouraging our applause.”
A murmur went through the chairs. The scissors man, standing at the side, laughed. June allowed him about half a second.
“Now they're going to give us a very short performance. Tess Mercer and Leo Pritchard of the Lantern Company, with Celia Rook. Arranged by Nia Grant, who is also looking after the sound.”
Nia raised one hand from the controls. Leo clapped for her, and Tess joined him. Several people followed. Nia put her hand down quickly and gave Tess a look that might have been gratitude or a request to get on with it.
June handed the wireless to Celia and stepped back to the ribbon. Leo went to the stand microphone. Tess waited a few paces from the chair.
She could feel the moment just before an entrance. There was no costume to hide in and she knew hardly anything about the woman she was about to be. Tired feet. A chair. It would do. She let her bag sag and looked longingly at the seat.
“People of Hatherwick,” Leo began, “it is a very great honour—”
“Come in,” Celia said, spreading one arm towards the pavilion. “It's open.”
Tess took two quick steps to the chair.
“One moment,” Leo said.
She stopped with a hand on its back.
“It isn't open yet.”
“Oh,” Celia said. “Sorry.”
“Thank you. People of Hatherwick, it is a very great—”
“Shall we all come back later?”
He looked at her. Then he looked over her shoulder, as though checking a very long queue. He made Tess look too. There was nothing there but a steward with a bin bag. The steward took a step aside.
“No,” Leo said. “We can accommodate you now.”
Tess began to sit.
“As soon as I've opened it.”
She straightened, slowly. Someone in the front row chuckled. Tess kept her eyes on Leo with the patient misery of a woman who had been offered a seat by a person who did not intend to let her use it.
“For eighteen months,” he said, “this much-loved building—”
“Longer than that,” the woman in the hat called.
“I was hoping to keep it to eighteen months.”
The laugh seemed to surprise him. Tess saw it arrive in his chest. He waited, smiling, until it began to die down, then turned back to Celia and offered her a grand, open hand. She started to pass him the microphone, then drew it back. His fingers closed on nothing.
They both said, “I declare—”
They stopped.
Tess sat down.
Both turned to her. She stood again, taking her bag with her this time as if she might have to leave altogether.
Celia put a hand over her mouth. It was not quite in character. Leo saw her begin to laugh and turned his back on her, presenting Tess to the audience with a large, solemn sweep. It gave Celia time to recover. Tess knew that move. She had seen him use it for an actor who had forgotten a line and once for a little boy too frightened to be a tree.
“Madam,” he said, “we seem to be keeping you.”
“I only want to sit down.” Tess came close enough to the stand microphone to be heard. “I've been coming towards this chair since Thursday.”
That got a bigger laugh. She felt it all the way through her. She had forgotten how much better it was when she had nothing else to do at the same time.
“Of course,” Celia said. “Sit.”
“Before you do,” Leo began.
Tess turned her head very slowly towards him.
A child squealed with pleasure. Leo tried to continue, but the look had him. He waited out the laugh, breathing through his nose, and Tess enjoyed making him wait a second more.
June stepped forward from the ribbon.
“All right,” she said. She did not need the microphone. “We're going to watch this lady sit down. Quietly. Without helping.”
Leo opened his mouth.
June raised a finger.
He closed it.
A number of adults sat straighter in their chairs. Tess, who had also felt the old instruction reach her spine, nearly lost the scene. She put one hand on the back of the chair and lowered herself with enormous care. Its plastic seat gave a small squeak.
No one spoke.
Tess laid her bag in her lap. She looked at June for permission to remain. June gave one brisk nod.
Celia began to clap. Leo joined in, and then the woman in the hat was clapping, and the man with the drink. Tess tried to get up to acknowledge them. Both actors put out a hand to keep her seated. Celia caught Leo's eye over her head, and they held the picture while the laughter came.
At the sound table Nia raised three fingers, then two. Leo had drawn breath for something else. He saw her and let it go.
Celia brought the wireless to Tess's mouth.
“Comfortable?”
Tess looked from one of them to the other.
“I daren't say.”
Nia lowered the sound. Celia stepped back and bowed, Leo bowed, and Tess bowed as well as a person could with a bag wedged under her chin. It was a poor bow. People liked it.
The ribbon needed hands. Tess got up, moved her chair out of the way and took Celia's microphone back to Nia. Leo and Celia held the broad ribbon between them while the scissors man brought June her cushion. There was a delay because the price label was now on the other side, where June could see it. She peeled it off, gave it to him and waited for the wind to drop.
This time no one supplied her words. She thanked everyone for coming, said she was proud to see the pavilion in use again, and cut.
The loose ends blew towards one another. Leo and Celia caught them before they tangled round June's hand. The applause was large and untidy. Behind June, the band leader lifted his baton.
The first notes came out bright enough to make Tess blink. The bass drum reached her through the soles of her shoes. People who had been standing at the rail came nearer. A man set down two carrier bags and conducted a little with one finger. The boy from the steps, now asleep in his father's arms, slept through the cymbals.
Tess stood beside the sound table, smiling before she thought to check how anyone else was doing. June was putting the scissors back on the cushion. Her face had changed. She looked pleased with the building, with the noise inside it, with the hundred and fifty people who had found a way to spend part of Saturday there.
Nia switched off both microphone channels. The band needed neither. Celia came back carrying the empty chair; Leo had gathered the long pieces of ribbon so nobody would walk on them.
“Where do these go?” he asked.
Tess pointed him towards the service room, then stopped. “June will know.”
He went to ask her.
They packed while the band played. Nia showed Celia where to press the catch on the microphone stand. Celia pressed the wrong place first and trapped the loose cuff of her jacket. Leo came to help, saw what she had done and stood there smiling until she said his name. Then he freed it without tugging the fabric.
Tess carried the chair back to the empty place in the row. The woman with the hat stopped her.
“I thought you were going to fall over.”
“So did I.”
“You were my favourite.”
Tess thanked her. She was still enjoying it when she got back to the table.
At five to two the trust's treasurer came round the side of the pavilion with a brown envelope. He was a small man wearing a badge that had turned over on its string. Tess had met him at half past twelve and could not remember his name.
“Six hundred,” he said. “Would you count it, please? I don't want a phone call on Monday.”
She counted the notes on the folding table, holding the envelope over them against the wind. Six hundred pounds. There was a receipt for her to sign. She signed, passed it back and put the cash inside her bag.
“Thank you,” she said.
He nodded towards the band. “Nice to have something on here again.”
When he had gone, she counted out Leo's agreed share and then Nia's. Nia put hers in a zipped compartment. Leo folded his into his wallet and checked the time, though he had nowhere else he needed to be.
“I'll take the speaker,” he said.
Nia caught its handle with him. “Both of us. Don't do your back for a clap.”
Tess coiled the remaining cable as Nia had taught her, over and back, resisting the urge to make it a smaller, neater bundle. She set the cable on the table and opened the email from Bramley on her phone. She wrote that Nia wasn't available for Tuesday and that she would send a revised staffing plan. Then she sent it and showed Nia the screen.
“Done.”
“Thanks.” Nia checked the cable and loosened the last loop. “Leave that much.”
They carried the kit through the service gate to the borrowed van in the lane. The band grew muffled behind the building. For the first time since the speech Tess could hear their footsteps separately. She unlocked the doors and Leo helped Nia slide the speaker into its padded cover.
Celia had come with them. She was looking at the front of the van.
“Same one?”
“Same one,” Tess said. “Still charging me for it.”
“Good for him.”
“It's a reasonable rate.”
“I know.” Celia grinned at her, and Tess felt the brief ease of being teased about something that did not need defending.
Leo shut one rear door and left the other for Tess. He looked at Celia.
“I was wrong about the dates,” he said.
“Yes.”
“And about your work. The question. I mean, I wouldn't have known.”
“You did know. Tess told you.”
“I mean if she hadn't.”
Celia waited. He looked at the van door, then back at her.
“You were good,” he said. “Until we all started.”
“Thank you.”
“I shouldn't have said that thing in front of everyone.”
“No.” She tucked the torn card farther into her pocket. “You shouldn't.”
He nodded. Tess stood with the keys in her hand. She could remember other conversations in lanes after shows, everyone tired enough to mistake staying for agreement. She shut the door at two.
Nia said, “I need chips.”
“Have you eaten anything?” Tess asked.
“A doughnut and half a tissue, when it blew onto it.”
“Chips,” Celia said. “I've got time before my train.”
They went back through the gate and along the promenade, outside the concert crowd. Leo took out his foil parcel. He opened one corner, looked inside and closed it again.
“Do you want to leave it with a priest?” Celia asked.
“It was cheese.”
“I believe you.”
He put it in a bin. At the stall he bought a large portion of chips and asked for four forks. His hand went towards the vinegar, then stopped.
“Celia, do you want some?”
“Yes. Lots.”
“I do too,” Nia said.
Tess didn't, but there were people waiting behind them and she didn't particularly mind. She took the wooden fork Leo gave her.
They found a space by the sea rail. Celia held the tray while the others took their first chips. The wind kept lifting her hair across her mouth. She tried blowing it away, then passed the tray to Leo and tied her hair back with a band from her wrist. He watched the small operation and was late taking the tray from her. A few chips slid onto his cuff.
“Oh, hold it properly,” she said, catching them.
“I am holding it properly.”
“You're tilting.”
“I'm making it available to the whole audience.”
“Give it here,” Tess said, and then all three of them had a hand underneath it. Nia reached in from the side.
“It's hot,” she said, through a mouthful.
They all stopped trying to arrange it. Tess let Leo take the weight. Celia leaned over his arm for a chip, missed it once with the little fork and tried again. From the pavilion the brass rose into a tune Tess knew well enough to hum. She had a hot chip on her fork, a patch of sun on her neck and, for a moment, no room in her mouth to say anything at all.
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