Owed to the Launderette

Nell set the soap tin on Winnie's back wall and held her hands out, open, the ink from last night still in the creases. Winnie was behind her gate with the till money done up in a tea towel and pressed flat to her cardigan, one coal-black thumb on the knot.

Further down the ginnel Dasu's ladder leaned against the wall by the first back door. A grey unit sat in a crate at the foot of it, not lit.

"It's gone in the post, Winnie, with my name on it and nothing signed," Nell said. "It's gone in the post, Winnie, with my name on it and nothing signed. I'm not here to take that money back off you, I'm here because the drawer's empty and I can't open without it."

"You posted it blank on the front, then, and left me nothing to hold." Winnie didn't step back. "Well, the drawer's empty because I'm the one holding it, and I'll say what it's for before it goes back."

Perry was on his back step with the tobacco tin, looking at the ladder. "There's still nowhere to stand at my gate with that thing over it, Dasu," he said, "and you may as well hear that out here."

Dasu had one foot on the bottom rung. She took it off again, unclipped the fitting sheet from her vest and leaned it face down against the ladder.

"I was wrong to put a box over a door nobody asked me to," she said. "The ladder stays down till you tell me different."

Nobody answered that. Nell kept her eyes on the tea towel.

"Say what it's for, then, Winnie, and I'll hear it."

"It's for the drawer and nothing else, and it goes back as the till's money, not as anybody's handout, so you'll write it down as owed to the launderette and I'll not have my name on that line. I'm keeping my signature, Nell, and I'll not tell you how I'll be tomorrow."

Perry came down onto the wet cobbles. Nell couldn't remember him off that step before. "Nell, you'll want that book kept where it can be looked at."

Winnie held the bundle out over the gate between two fingers and kept her thumb on the cloth until Nell's hand was right under it. Then she let go of the money and kept hold of the cloth.

"The towel I'm keeping," she said. "It's mine."

Nell opened the shop book on the lid of the soap tin. Perry stood at her shoulder reading, lips going.

"Put the date on it, Nell, and put down it was Winnie said how it was to be written."

"Dated today, then," Nell said, writing. "Owed to the launderette, written as Winnie said. Neil's shortfall goes on the line under it, in my name, and nobody's thanked for it."

"Mind you spell it launderette," Winnie said.

Through her open back door came the long two-note chime of the box over her front, the one it gave when nobody had answered by eight. It carried the length of the ginnel.

"Let it ring, it'll tire itself out. I'll answer my own door when I choose to, and not to a box that counts to eight."

"That box is mine to answer for, Winnie," Dasu said.

"I'll come and see it filled, Nell, and I'll read that book at your counter with my own eyes. Dasu, you leave my front box be, I'll deal with it myself."

Nell had the shutter up inside ten minutes and the money in the drawer. Winnie came round the front way, under her own ringing box, and bent stiffly over the counter and ran a finger under the line without touching the ink.

"Launderette, spelled right, and no Winnie on it. That'll do for today, Nell, and I'll not say what it'll do for tomorrow."

Dasu stopped at the edge of the step and came no further. "I'll not come in, Winnie, I only wanted you to see me stood here asking nothing. The grey units stay in the van till you say, and that's not me being kind, it's what I owe you."

Perry came last and read it through beside Winnie. "That book stays on the counter where I can find it."

The pencil was still in Nell's hand. Under the two lines the page was clear, with nothing on it about the form she'd posted at the bend with its front left blank.