Run: 2026-10-27-01M5YHRBC43VXQW6045A3S4EB9

Rory came down to the bar with a bag of takeaway containers balanced against her hip. Silas had asked for the leftovers from her shift at the Golden Empress, and she had brought enough fried rice to feed him through his next inventory. The Raven’s Nest had filled while she was upstairs. Coats hung from the backs of chairs, and a pair of men argued over a map on the wall, each pointing at a different border. Green light from the sign above the entrance fell across the wet pavement outside. Silas lifted the hatch for her. His silver signet ring clicked against the wood. “Tell me there are dumplings.” “There were. Your knee took too long on the stairs.” “My knee didn’t go upstairs.” “No, but it gave me enough time to eat them.” He took the bag and looked inside. “I’ll have to put you on a lower floor.” Rory leaned against the bar while he fetched plates. A woman sat at the far end with a glass of white wine and a folded newspaper. She wore a charcoal jacket over a white shirt, the collar buttoned at her throat. Her hair, once a mass of red curls, had been cut close around her ears. The woman turned a page. A silver ring flashed on her left thumb, thick and battered, with a blue stone set into it. Rory had bought it for her from a stall at Cardiff market when they were sixteen. The stone had fallen out twice. Each time, Eva had taken it back to the man at the stall and argued until he fixed it for nothing. Rory put her hand on the bar. “Eva?” The woman looked up. For a moment her face stayed still; then she put down the newspaper. “Rory Carter.” The old name landed with a force Rory felt in her chest. She walked around a stool and stopped beside her. “You cut your hair.” Eva touched the side of her head. “Four years ago. I kept finding it in the sink and decided to get there first.” “You hated it short.” “I hated lots of things at seventeen. Tomatoes. Men with bicycles. Your dad.” “My dad knew about the tomatoes.” “He put them in everything.” Rory pulled out the stool beside her. Eva shifted her wineglass to make room. Up close, the changes multiplied. A fine line ran from the corner of Eva’s mouth towards her chin. Her nails had been cut short, the polish stripped away. She had worn rings on almost every finger at school; now she wore only the one on her thumb. “What are you doing here?” Rory asked. “I had a meeting on Dean Street. It ran late, and I didn’t fancy the train with everyone else.” “You’re working in London?” “Three days a week. I started in October.” “You could have told me.” Eva folded the newspaper along an existing crease. “I could have.” Rory watched her slide it into a leather satchel. Eva had once carried her schoolbooks in a plastic bag with a hole in the bottom. Rory used to pick up the pens that fell through. Silas set a plate of rice beside Rory and another behind the bar. “Your dinner.” Eva glanced between them. “Do you know each other?” “She lives upstairs.” Silas offered Eva his hand. “Silas.” Eva shook it. Rory noticed her grip: firm, brief, nothing like the sweeping embraces she used to inflict on strangers at parties. “This is Eva. We grew up together.” Silas nodded. “I’ll leave you to catch up. There’s a fork under the napkin, Rory, before you accuse me of treating you like an animal.” He moved down the bar with his plate. Eva watched him go. “You live above a pub?” “A bar. He gets particular about it.” “And you work at a Chinese restaurant?” “I deliver for them.” Eva looked at the container in the bag, then at Rory’s jacket, still marked with a pale streak of flour near the cuff. “I thought you’d gone back to university.” “I didn’t.” “Your mum told mine you were looking at courses.” “She probably was.” Rory unfolded the napkin and took a forkful of rice. She had missed lunch and ate another before Eva could speak. Across the room, someone dropped a glass. Silas fetched a brush, favouring his left leg as he went. Eva rested her forearms on the bar. “Your mother also told mine you’d joined a running club.” “I bought trainers.” “Right.” “She’s got a whole version of my life built around that pair of trainers.” Eva smiled, and Rory recognised her at last. The smile started on one side, as if the other half needed persuading. “At school, she used to tell my mother you practised piano every evening.” “I did. For three evenings.” “Your mother made me listen to you play that tune with the ducks.” “It was swans.” “You played it like ducks.” Rory laughed. Eva laughed with her, then picked up her glass and drank. They had not sat together since the summer after university, when Eva had driven to Cardiff in a car with one green door. They had eaten chips on the bonnet outside Rory’s parents’ house. Eva had asked her to come to a party, and Rory had declined because Evan was waiting inside. Eva had crumpled her chip paper and thrown it through the open car window. Six years. Rory counted them against the scratches in the bar top. “How’s your mum?” she asked. Eva turned the stem of her glass between finger and thumb. “She died last March.” The fork stopped against Rory’s plate. “Your mum died?” “Lung cancer.” “I didn’t know.” “No.” Rory put the fork down. A grain of rice clung to its prong. “I’d have come.” Eva looked at her, not at the plate or the room. “I know you would.” “Why didn’t you call?” “I sent a message.” Rory reached for her phone in her jacket pocket. She remembered a number she had not recognised, a message that began with her name and ended with a request to call. Evan had been standing beside her at the kitchen counter. He had asked who it was. She had told him she did not know, and he had watched her delete it. “I changed numbers after I left Cardiff.” “I sent it to the old one. It showed as delivered.” Rory turned the phone over in her hand. The screen reflected the bar lights, a row of small white marks. “I saw it. I didn’t read all of it.” Eva’s fingers loosened around the glass. “You saw it?” “Evan was there. He wanted to know who it was, and I didn’t recognise the number. I deleted it.” “You could have read it later.” “Yes.” The men by the map had moved on to a photograph of a bridge. One of them traced its span with a finger, leaving a streak on the glass. Rory watched Silas wipe it away after they returned to their table. “My mother asked for you,” Eva said. Rory looked back at her. “At the end?” “Before the end. When she could still ask for things.” Eva opened her satchel and took out the newspaper, then put it back. “She wanted those lemon biscuits your mum made. She called them Rory’s biscuits because you brought a tin round when you were about twelve.” “I burned the bottoms.” “She scraped them with a knife and ate them anyway.” Rory pressed her thumb against the small crescent scar on her left wrist. Eva’s mother had put a plaster over it once, years after the cut had healed, because Rory had insisted the skin felt strange in cold weather. “I’m sorry.” Eva nodded. She had a faint mark on her cheek where the arm of her glasses must have rested. Rory had never seen her wear glasses. “I didn’t go to the funeral,” Rory said. “You didn’t know about it.” “I knew she was ill. You told me on the phone.” “That was a year before she died.” “I could have asked after her.” Eva lifted her glass, found it empty, and set it down again. “You called me when you needed to leave him.” “You told me to come to London.” “I did.” “I kept the number you gave me on a piece of paper in my shoe. I thought he’d find it in my bag.” Eva’s hand moved towards Rory’s, then stopped on the bar. “I was glad you called.” “You sounded angry.” “I was angry. You kept saying you’d wait until he was at work, and his shifts changed every week.” “I got out.” “You did.” Silas approached with a bottle. “Another?” Eva glanced at Rory. “I’ve got a train.” Rory checked the clock above the photographs. It was just after eight. “They run later than that.” “I know. I’m thinking about whether I want another.” Silas left the bottle where she could see it and went back to his plate. Eva studied the label. “I take it back. Your dad wasn’t as bad as tomatoes.” Rory picked up her fork. “He’ll be pleased. He’s been competing with them for years.” “I saw him outside the hospital once. He asked if I’d heard from you.” Rory’s fork scraped against the plate. “What did you tell him?” “That you were all right.” “You knew I was here?” “You’d called me from the station.” “I asked you not to tell him.” “I didn’t tell him where you were.” “You told him I’d called.” Eva pushed the empty glass away. “He stood there in a suit he’d slept in. His tie was undone, and he had a parking ticket in his hand. He looked like he’d forgotten what it was.” Rory kept her eyes on her plate. “He called my mother every day that week.” “I know.” “He called Evan too.” Eva’s chair creaked as she turned. “He didn’t tell me that.” “Evan told him I’d come back when I’d had time to calm down. My dad believed him.” Eva drew a breath. “I didn’t know.” “You could have asked me.” “You weren’t answering.” “I wasn’t answering him.” “You weren’t answering me either, Rory.” The words sat between them. Rory could see a pulse in Eva’s throat, just above the buttoned collar. Eva had used to shout when they fought. She had once thrown a shoe at Rory across a school corridor and then retrieved it, hopping, while a teacher watched. Now she sat with both feet under her stool. Rory took a mouthful of rice. It had gone cold. “I got your messages,” she said. “All of them?” “Most. I didn’t know how to answer without telling you everything.” “You could have told me nothing. You could have sent a full stop.” “I know.” Eva rubbed the blue stone with her thumb. A thin seam of glue showed around its edge. “I kept that number because I thought you’d call it.” “I’m sorry I didn’t.” Eva looked down at her jacket, picked a thread from the sleeve and wound it around her finger until it snapped. “I had her at home for the last six months. The nurses came in the morning, and I worked in the afternoons when my brother could sit with her. She kept making lists of jobs for us.” “What sort of jobs?” “Clean the gutters. Paint the kitchen. Take the cat to the vet, and don’t let him charge for the fancy food.” “She never trusted vets.” “She trusted the one with the limp. He retired.” “Mr Lewis.” “That was him. She asked for him when the cat stopped eating. I had to tell her three times he’d retired.” Rory could picture the narrow kitchen, Eva’s mother at the table with a mug cupped in both hands. There had always been a tea towel over one shoulder and a radio on the windowsill. Once, when Rory had stayed for dinner without warning, Eva’s mother had cut three chops into strips and served them with extra potatoes. Nobody had mentioned the missing fourth chop. “Did you paint the kitchen?” “After she died. My brother chose the colour.” “Was it awful?” “Yellow. The sort landlords use when they want a room to look sunny in a photograph.” Rory turned towards her. “You sold the house?” “Last summer. He bought out my share.” “And you came here.” “I found a job here. I’ve got a room in a flat in Walthamstow.” “With strangers?” “One stranger. She labels her milk.” Eva’s mouth shifted at one corner. Rory reached across the bar for Silas’s bottle and held it up. “Do you want another?” Eva put her glass in front of her. “A small one. I’ve got work in the morning.” Rory poured. Eva took the bottle from her and added a little more. “Your mum used to pour wine like that,” Rory said. “She used to leave a bottle open for a week and complain when it tasted like vinegar.” “Your brother drank it.” “He drank anything.” Eva took a sip. Rory ate another forkful, then pushed the plate towards her. “Silas ate the dumplings,” she said. “That’s what I’m telling everyone.” Eva picked up the fork and examined the rice. “Does he know?” “He’s working it out.” From the other end of the bar, Silas lifted his head. “I heard that.”