The Drawer Under the Counter

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.

"That's the lot," Nell said. "Service washes, dry-cleaning tickets, Mrs. Dalgliesh's two pound for the sheets. There's nothing behind it."

"You want witnesses an' all, do you."

"I want you to have it."

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.

He didn't move. He stood there with his thumb on the pen cap, doing something behind his face, and the box above the door was lit and three feet over his head. He came back off the step and onto the flags before he spoke again.

"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."