Part Payment

Shut your fist on nothing if you like. I only want it said I asked.

Machines take exact change only. The change drawer is empty and will remain so. Do not ask the woman behind the counter.

Everything on this street has my name typed on it now except my signature. I'm keeping that in the house.

She squared the notes on her knee, wet as they were, and put the whole lot into Neil's hand and folded his fingers over it the way Martha had folded hers.

"That's the arrears," she said.

"That's not the arrears." He had hold of it, though. He turned away a little to count, lips going, and when he'd done he put the notes inside the rent book and shut the book on them.

"It's shy," he said. "You know it's shy."

"I know."

"The rest's still owing."

He was stood on her step to say it, under the light, and half a second after he'd finished the box gave him back off the wall.

I'd have taken half of that and still come. I just didn't want to go home and tell her I'd stood here and got nowt.

Winnie had come up the pavement with the form still held against her cardigan, back outward, the biro on it gone furry where the damp got in. She didn't look at Neil after that. She stood square in front of Nell and turned her wedding ring round on her finger, round and back, with the thumb, the way she did on her gate.

"Forty ways," she said.

"Winnie."

"You said it under that thing and it never argued with you. That's the only promise anybody's had off this street in a fortnight."

"I know what I said."

"Then say the other now. Say it where it'll come off the wall, same as the first one did, so I've heard both."

Nell stood with her hands empty for the first time all night, and the gutter kept on behind her.

"The money's gone to him," she said. "There's no forty ways. There's no share, not for you, not for Perry, not for anybody. It went on my rent."

The box took its half second.

I wanted it out of my hand before any of them could ask. I'd rather owe him than stand here owing the lot of you.

"Well," Winnie said. "That's honest, and I've had a bellyful of honest." She put her hand out anyway, palm up, small and stiff with the coal still in the creases. "I'll have mine."

"There's nothing left to have."

"I know that." The hand stayed out. "I want it said I asked. In front of them. You can shut your fist on nothing, I'm not fussy."

So Nell put her empty hand in Winnie's and Winnie closed it and let go, and went off up the pavement with the ruined form held to her chest and didn't look back.

Neil had the rent book open on the sill with the pen uncapped, waiting for Nell to put her mark against the part payment.

Nell went past the rent book without touching the pen, in through the door, and had the till open before Neil got off the step.

The till was a drawer with a lock that hadn't worked since February. Coins in the shallow part, soft notes under the spring clip, a safety pin, a button off somebody's duvet cover. She scooped the lot into the front of her overall, the pin and all, and carried it out.

Winnie was twenty yards up the pavement with the form held to her chest.

"Winnie."

She didn't turn round until the second time. Then she came back down slowly, that stiff knee, taking her time about it, and stood where she'd stood before.

"Hands," Nell said.

"What's this."

"It's the drawer. Put your hands out."

Winnie put them out and Nell tipped it in. Coppers went through the gaps and rang on the flags and rolled off toward the drain and neither of them went after them. The notes went soft and crooked in Winnie's fingers. The button landed on top.

The box took its half second and gave her back off the wall, level, a shade slower than she'd said it.

It's not forty ways and it never will be. I just can't have her walking off up there with nothing in her hands.

Winnie stood with the money and let that sit. Up the row a curtain went back somewhere and stayed back.

"You've opened Thursday with nowt in the drawer," she said.

"I know what I've done."

"No float. No change for the machines." She turned the notes over, counting without looking as if she'd done it all her life. "Coppers down a drain. Your mother'd have had you by the ear."

Neil had come as far as the window. He had the rent book under his arm and the pen still uncapped in his fist and he was looking at Winnie's hands.

"That's rent, that is," he said. "That's mine, by rights. Friday."

"Then take it off her," Nell said.

"I'll write it part payment," he said, from the pavement. "That's all I'll write."

Winnie was looking down at the pile of it, the pin, the button, the crumpled fives.

"It doesn't buy me owt," she said. "You know that. It's a handout, not a share, and we both know which of them I asked for." She closed her fingers round it anyway. "I'll take it. I'm not a fool."

Then she lifted the altered form off her cardigan and held it out flat between them, the biro furred with damp, her name running over the little ruled line.

"Here," she said. "You can have this back and put your own name in it, or I keep it and we both get nothing. Make your mind up while I've still got my coat on."

Nell took the form out of Winnie's hands and the damp came through it to her fingers straight away.

"Hold the end," she said.

"Do it on the shutter. You did the last one on the shutter."

So she did it on the shutter, turned over, back outward, with the pen off her overall pocket and Perry's card shifting against her hip. Winnie's name sat across the little ruled box in biro, the letters gone furry where the rain had got at them, running out over the line at the end because there hadn't been room. Nell put a line through it. Then she wrote her own above, small, to make it fit, and the nib went through the paper on the second letter and she carried on anyway.

The box over the door took its half second.

I'd not have her sat in that front room with a stranger knocking. She'd answer it. She'd put the good cups out.

Winnie didn't look up at the box. She hadn't once all night.

"So you've decided I can't stand it," she said.

"I've decided I'm not having it both ways. You said write my name or we both get nothing. I've written it."

"You've written it because you think I'd make a show of myself." She shifted the money against her cardigan to free a hand, and the coppers in it moved. "I've buried a husband on that step. I can take a man knocking."

"Winnie."

"No. You've had it off me now, so let's have it all." She picked the button out of the pile with two fingers, the white one off somebody's duvet cover, and set it on the windowsill between them. "That's yours. I'll not have it put about that I took a button off you as well."

Neil was at the kerb with the rent book under his arm, well off the step, watching the pair of them the way he watched the lit box.

"It wants signing on the front," he said. "Her name's printed on it. Without her signature it's one more they log and don't pay."

Winnie turned the wedding ring round with her thumb, round and back.

"Then I'll keep that," she said. "My signature. It's the last thing on this street that's mine and nobody's typed it on owt yet." She said it flat, no heat in it. "You can come and ask me in the morning if you like. I'm not promising how I'll be."

"You've got my till in your hands."

"I have. And you've got your name back, and we're square, and I don't like you much tonight." She went up the pavement with the notes crushed to her chest and her knee stiff on the kerbstone, and this time she didn't stop when Nell said her name.

The form lay against the shutter with the ink still wet in the box, the front of it blank where Winnie's hand should go. The postbox was down at the bend. Neil had the rent book open on the sill again, the pen uncapped, waiting.