Chapter one has eight routes. Either ending can lead to chapter two, which has four routes. You may stop at the end of either chapter. The alternatives below are not consecutive events.
Chapter one · The ferry steps
Room beside the bag
The coat is under you. The paper bag is between you and Eda. Up on the quay, your piece of chalk lies where you left it, beneath a timetable that is still legible because you rewrite it every morning.
From this low down the opposite bank has lost its doorways. There are roofs, a pale wall, the underside of a tree. Somewhere beyond them is a workshop large enough to open three umbrellas at once.
Eda rests both hands on her knees. Her boots are wet. The black shoes in the bag are not.
“I don’t usually sit here,” you say.
“Does somebody?”
There is a pale patch on the stone beside your boot. It might be wear. You have never needed to distinguish a seat from a step before.
“I don’t know.”
She moves her elbow a little, making room for the fact.
Next: Ask about the other workshop → Three umbrellas · Let the river have a moment → A place without a heading
Three umbrellas
“What would you open first?” you ask.
“At the other shop?” Eda looks across. “A damaged one.”
“I meant which sort.”
“So did I.” She smiles, then considers it properly. “Something large. Something whose fault you can’t see while it’s folded. We have to take those outside. Wind gets underneath while you’re looking for what the wind has already done.”
You imagine a room built to contain an open umbrella. Not a particularly large room, until you begin to want one.
“They have a lamp over each bench,” she says. “I keep thinking about that. It was in the letter. They probably didn’t think it was the important part.”
The paper bag makes a small, tired sound between you.
Next: Look at the bag → What the pocket was carrying
A place without a heading
For a while there is only the water against the lowest step. It does not arrive in separate enough sounds to count.
You have a habit of making headings in your mind. Departures. Changes. Things to ask the harbour office. You try to give this interval one, then leave the space above it blank.
Eda takes a folded letter from her pocket and presses its crease flat with her thumb. She does not open it.
“There’s a lamp over each bench,” she says.
You wait.
“At the other shop. It said so in this.”
You look again at the opposite bank. A lamp is a smaller thing than the buildings there, and for a moment it is easier to imagine.
The paper bag makes a small, tired sound between you.
Next: Look at the bag → What the pocket was carrying
What the pocket was carrying
A dark line is climbing one folded edge of the paper. You lift the bag by its bottom.
“Oh,” says Eda. “I should have thought.”
She takes a square of yellowed cotton from inside her coat. It is stiff enough to keep the shape of the pocket. One corner is missing; a neat curve has been cut from another.
“Canopy offcut. Waxed. I use it when a customer brings in something dripping.”
She spreads it on the coat. You lower the bag onto it. The bag stops leaning towards the river.
“You brought work with you.”
“Only the useful bits.”
She touches the damp paper once, checking how far the water has gone. Her finger comes away dry.
Above you, a gust rattles the timetable’s frame. You look back before you mean to.
“Will the chalk blow away?” she asks.
“No.”
“Then it can wait a minute.”
Next: Tell her what you were going to write → A different sort of entry · Offer to hold the bag a little longer → The ordinary offer
A different sort of entry
“I was going to write that someone was waiting.”
Eda looks at you. Not sharply; she seems to be measuring the size of the sentence.
“They’ll think I’m a passenger.”
“You are.”
“If there’s a boat.” She draws one finger along the bag’s handle. “Today I’m a person who wants a better room to work in.”
You can fit passenger into the narrow margin of the board. You are less certain about the rest.
“Does it have to fit?” she asks.
You had not realised you were looking upwards again.
“No,” you say.
Neither of you supplies a shorter version.
Next: Go back to the board together → The dry corner · Stay on the step a little longer → Enough for a corner
The ordinary offer
You put a hand beneath the bag again. “I can hold these, if you want to stretch your legs.”
Eda stands. Her knees click; she gives one a look of mild annoyance, as though it has interrupted a customer.
She walks to the hanging coil and back. She does not touch it. Then she stands facing the bank she cannot yet reach and raises her arms, the way she did on the quay.
This time you know what she is measuring.
When she sits down, she takes the bag back. “Thank you.”
It is a small exchange. You have not kept the shoes for her, only held them while she needed her hands. You find you like knowing which.
The damp edge of the paper is no higher than before.
Next: Go back to the board together → The dry corner · Stay on the step a little longer → Enough for a corner
The dry corner
You go up first and turn to take the bag. Eda folds the cotton underneath it before passing it to you.
At the board, she sees the chalk in its shallow ledge. A fine line of water has collected at one end.
“Here.” She folds a dry corner of the cotton over the ledge. The bag sits on the rest while she puts on the black shoes. She ties the wet boots together by their laces.
“Where now?” you ask.
“Up here, for the moment.”
You put the chalk on the cotton. You do not add a departure, or rub out the word you wrote when you heard the bell. Beside the board there is enough room for Eda to stand in the shoes she chose for the interview.
She takes the bag. The little corner remains beneath the chalk.
The ferry has not arrived. The interview is still across the water. This is where this telling leaves them.
Next: Continue to chapter two → A room for weather
Enough for a corner
Eda folds a narrow strip of the cotton back over the bag’s damp seam. It is an awkward shape for wrapping anything properly; the missing corner leaves one black heel visible.
“I can give you a piece for the chalk,” she says. “Next time I’m down here.”
You almost say that the chalk has a ledge. Then you remember the water that gathers at one end.
“A small piece would do.”
She marks a width against her thumbnail. You do not make a note of it.
The roofs across the river are losing their pale edges as the light changes. Eda shifts the bag half an inch towards herself. You shift your knee to give it room.
The ferry has not arrived. The interview is still across the water. This is where this telling leaves them.
Next: Continue to chapter two → A room for weather
Chapter two · A room for weather
A room for weather
“I ought to fetch something,” Eda says. “Will you come as far as the shop?”
You look towards the water before answering. She does too.
The shop is down a passage behind the quay. With its door open, there is just room for Eda, you, and a long green umbrella wrapped in paper. Closing the door would gain a little floor and lose most of the light.
A row of curved handles hangs above your head. Eda reaches between two of them and pulls a cord. A lamp lights the end of a bench.
“Mind that one,” she says.
You duck.
“The umbrella. The catch is sharp.”
She puts the bag on a high shelf, clear of a basin with a dark tidemark. Then she hangs her coat beneath it. You are still wearing yours.
If you went back to the board:
Back at the landing, the small dry corner of cotton is already beneath your chalk.
If you stayed on the step:
The cotton is still wrapped around the bag. The piece she offered for your chalk has yet to be cut.
Next: Ask about the long umbrella → Where the light belongs · Ask what she wants to take → The other side of the letter
Where the light belongs
“Finished,” Eda says. “Nearly.”
She peels the paper back far enough to show you a repair in the ribs. One short piece of brass is brighter than the rest.
“That was the easy part. The trouble was finding why it kept breaking.”
She slides the runner a little way up the shaft. Nothing opens fully. One rib begins to rise, catches, and settles back when she changes her grip.
“The old repair was straight. This one needed a bend.”
You lean towards the lamp. The brass disappears into your shadow.
“Sorry.”
“Hold this.”
She gives you a little mirror with a chipped corner. You tilt it until a patch of light finds her thumbnail.
“Lower.”
The light moves onto the brass.
“There.”
She works the catch twice. From where you stand, you can see the gap that lets the rib pass.
“Could you put the lamp over here?” you ask.
“Then I'd have your shadow when I worked at the other end.”
You hold still until she is finished. Afterwards, she finds a place for the mirror among three others, each a different shape.
Next: Help clear a space on the bench → Something that fits
The other side of the letter
Eda takes out the interview letter. It has been folded often enough that a small white hole is beginning at the crossing of the creases.
“Would you take work?” she asks.
“To the interview?”
“If I walk in carrying an umbrella, they'll ask for my name and give me a ticket.”
You look at the long green parcel.
“It does look very much like an umbrella.”
“I've tried turning it the other way up.”
She gives you the letter. You read the arrangements she already knows, then turn it over. There are four questions on the back. Three have lines through them.
The last says: Can I move the lamp?
“That wasn't what I meant to ask first,” she says.
“What was?”
“How much they pay.”
You turn the paper back. The amount is there, near the bottom.
“Yes,” she says. “I found it.”
You return the letter. She smooths it on the bench with the heel of her hand.
“I still want to ask about the lamp.”
Next: Help clear a space on the bench → Something that fits
Something that fits
Eda moves a tray of screws into a drawer. Beneath it is a square of brown paper and two small pieces of brass.
One is cracked across a screw hole. The other curves gently before the hole. She lays them side by side.
“From that one,” she says, nodding towards the green umbrella. “The failed piece and what I made to replace it. I made a spare while I had the tools out.”
She folds the paper around them. You hold the folds while she ties the packet with thread.
If you watched the repair:
Now you can tell the two pieces apart without asking which one worked.
If you read the letter:
“That looks less like a customer,” you say.
“Only if they don’t make very small umbrellas.”
The packet goes beside the letter in her pocket. She pats it once, making sure the corners lie flat.
“There,” she says. Then she looks at the long parcel. “One thing left.”
Next: Ask to hear it open → The green umbrella · Offer to be the interviewer → A question with room around it
The green umbrella
You carry the umbrella outside while Eda puts the tools away. The passage is narrow enough that you have to wait for her to come out before turning it.
“Up a little,” she says.
You raise the handle.
She slides the runner. The ribs lift, hesitate together, then spread the green cloth above both of you. The catch closes with a small, definite click.
On the underside, somebody has painted yellow leaves. Most are hidden when the umbrella is folded. One has been cut in half by a seam.
“That's a shame,” you say.
“He asked me to keep that one.”
You look again. The two halves are almost meeting.
Eda turns the umbrella a quarter turn and examines the brass through the spokes. Then she closes it, listening. You stand back to give her the room.
She hangs it just inside the door. A paper ticket is tied to the handle.
“Ready?” you ask.
She takes the bag from the high shelf and checks the packet in her pocket.
“As far as the board.”
You leave her enough space to lock the door.
The green umbrella is ready for its owner. Eda has a sample of her work. The crossing and the interview are still ahead.
This path ends here.
A question with room around it
You sit on the only stool. Eda stays standing.
“Shouldn't you sit?” you ask.
“Then you'll have to stand.”
You decide the interview can manage this much informality.
“What would you like to know?” you ask.
“Can I move the lamp?”
You look at the lamp beside you.
“Ours are all—”
“You don't know.”
“No.”
“Just let me ask it.”
You begin again. This time you say nothing after the question. Eda waits too. From the passage comes the rattle of somebody dragging an empty crate.
“I think that's enough,” she says.
You get up. She sets the stool beneath the shelf, takes down the bag, and reaches past you to switch off the light.
The green umbrella is still in its paper.
“I need to test that before I go back down,” she says. “Would you take the other end?”
You turn sideways in the doorway and wait for her to tell you when.
The question stays on the letter. The umbrella still needs its final test. Eda has a sample of her work; the crossing and interview remain ahead.
This path ends here.