Forty-Two Sixty

Nell took the vest off its hook and held it out across the counter. Her other hand stayed on the soap tin, well clear of the envelope.

"Your vest's here, Dasu, nobody's touched it. If that's pay, it goes in the book under your name, paid against arrears, and you can watch me write it."

Dasu folded the vest over her arm without putting it on and set a paper bag down beside the shut book. Maries, loose from the tin at Hebble's. On this row you took Maries to a house you'd wronged, because nobody could call a Marie showing off.

"Write it in the book, then, under my name, and I'll watch you do it. The biscuits are for Friday, they're not for you, so don't go counting them."

Neil was on the wet lino past the back step, rent book under his arm, pen uncapped. Above him a bracket was bolted high on the back door frame, empty. He lifted the pen toward the doorway and didn't cross it.

"Put it in the book, Nell, and I'll take the figure from the doorway. I'm not coming in there, I know where the box can't hear and where it can."

Nell opened the book, took the pencil from behind her ear, and took the envelope with her back to him. "Count it with me, Dasu, then I'll write the figure. Neil, you'll have it from me after, not through the door."

Dasu tipped it onto the page and laid each note down with her thumb. "Forty-two pounds sixty, that's the lot, there's no more behind it. Write it as paid against arrears, and nothing else beside it."

Nell wrote it. Paid against arrears, Dasu, Register pay. She turned the book round, squared the notes into the float drawer and shut it.

"That's right, that's what I brought." Dasu pushed the Maries an inch toward the book, then pulled them back. "Now leave the back room be till Friday, Nell, and don't thank me for it."

"Read me the balance, Nell," Neil said, "and I'll put it down as paid in part, not cleared."

She held the book toward the doorway at arm's length, finger under the line. "Read it off the page yourself, I'm not carrying it to you. Paid in part, not cleared, and my name stays on the float, not Dasu's."

"Your name stays on the float and mine stays on the line, and that's how I want it left," Dasu said. "I'll not stand here while he reads it out, so I'm going to Winnie's with these."

Neil leaned, read, and capped the pen. "Go on, Dasu, take your biscuits to Winnie's, I'll not hold you."

Ladder feet scraped on the yard flags. Gordie Pask, half an hour early, was setting Dasu's old ladder under the bracket with a boxed unit tucked under his arm.

"You're early, Gordie," Nell said, "You're early, Gordie, and the bracket's bolted but nothing goes on that door till I've seen the docket. Whatever you write on it, you write my name for the back room, not Dasu's and not Winnie's."

"That's my ladder, Gordie, and it's yours now, so mind the rungs," Dasu said, and went for the front.

Nell stepped out past Neil, who gave her the step and went back onto the flags. She held her hand out flat. "Docket first, Gordie, then the ladder."

A box said it, in her own voice.

*I took the last of Dasu's pay and my first thought was that the float balances Friday. I'm glad she's gone, so I don't have to thank her.*

Dasu had her hand on the front latch. She looked back once. "I heard what that voice said about the pay, Nell, and I'll leave it where it fell. Sign the door or don't, it's yours."

Nell nodded. "Heard it, Dasu, and it's true enough, so we'll leave it there."

"Right, I'm away. Friday, Nell, and not a word before." The shop door opened on the drizzle and shut again.

Gordie lifted the docket. Further up the page, in his hand, was the first-click line he'd written at Winnie's door.

"Go on, Gordie, say it plain so I can hear it from here," said Neil. "Whatever name's on that line is the one I write down."

Nell had the pen uncapped and her finger on the back-room line.