At eleven forty-three, Kit announced that the church lunch had achieved a hundred percent delivery.
At eleven forty-four, Dorothea’s telephone rang.
She listened, looked at Kit, and said, “Have you eaten the label?”
Kit put down the tablet. He had made the sign-up form himself. He had made the coloured route map and the little box that turned green when the driver uploaded a photograph. Every box was green. The printer had even behaved.
“It’s Frances,” Dorothea said, covering the mouthpiece. “She has a bag marked Vera.”
“Same address.”
“Yes. Different person.”
At the sink, Pastor Martin opened a fresh packet of rubber gloves. The brass band had hired the hall for two. Lunch volunteers had promised to leave it ready. Two meant two: the band’s conductor had already put a trombone on the porch to establish possession.
Kit brought up the registrations. Vera Bell, fourteen Mill Street: one chicken lunch, delivery at eleven thirty. There was another entry from the same address. He had removed it on Friday because it looked like a double submission.
Frances Bell: one vegetable lunch, delivery after twelve. Please ring.
The sisters lived together. Kit had met them once, at Christmas, and remembered one of them telling him the other was the shy one. They had both talked for forty minutes.
“I thought she changed her order,” he said.
“Which she?”
“Whoever filled it in.”
Dorothea uncovered the phone. “Frances, could you put the bag in the kitchen, please? We’ll sort yours out. Is Vera there?”
She listened again.
“No, don’t wake her.”
Kit searched the deleted entries. Two more addresses had been used twice. He had removed those, too. The perfect count of thirty-eight lunches had depended on three clicks of his mouse.
He remembered feeling efficient.
Dorothea ended the call. “Vera has gone to bed with a headache. Frances waited to call because she thought there might be two meals in the bag.”
“I can send another.”
“We haven’t got another.”
On the serving table lay three portions of chicken, set aside for the drivers. The vegetable trays were empty. A volunteer had scraped the last spoonfuls into her own lunch box. Kit looked at Dorothea’s box, then at the kitchen hatch.
“Don’t,” she said. “I’m hungry. You should ask me.”
“Could Frances have your lunch?”
Dorothea sighed and handed over the box. “I’d already put the salt in.”
Kit found the driver, Mason, carrying a trestle table through the kitchen doorway. Mason had promised his daughter he’d be home by one. She was visiting for the weekend; the bus back to university left at four.
“Can you do another delivery?” Kit asked.
“No. I did mine.”
“There was a mistake.”
Mason rested the table on its end. “Then you do yours.”
Kit did not drive. He had chosen this volunteer job partly because nobody had mentioned needing a car. It was raining hard enough now to make a grey wall beyond the porch.
Dorothea had a car. She also had the old delivery book, with the three missing registrations written in her round switchboard handwriting. She had called people who preferred the telephone, then entered their requests into Kit’s form as he had asked.
“You could have told me the addresses were duplicated,” he said.
“You could have asked before you threw the lunches away.”
“I didn’t throw lunches away.”
She looked at the empty vegetable tray.
Martin, at the sink, said, “I’m going to pray without closing my eyes. Someone pass me those spoons.”
Kit passed them. Then he asked Dorothea if they could check the two other addresses together.
“Give me the numbers,” he said.
“They’re in my book because people gave them to me. Let me ask whether they want them in your system.”
“It isn’t my system. It’s for the church.”
“Then the church can wait while I ask.”
She called. Kit stood beside her and wrote names on separate labels. One household had cancelled its second order; he had accidentally made the right decision there. The other wanted two chicken lunches. They wrapped two of the drivers’ portions. Martin handed Kit his car keys.
“Dorothea can take her own car,” Kit said.
“Her son borrowed it. She came on the bus. Take mine and bring the hall key back.”
Dorothea collected her driving cushion from the cloakroom and carried it out with them.
Dorothea drove. Kit held the warm bags on his knees, with her vegetable lunch beside them. At fourteen Mill Street, Frances opened the door before they rang.
“That was Vera’s lunch,” she said. “She woke up. She’s eaten it.”
“I’m glad,” Kit said.
“She isn’t. She thought it was mine and that she’d deprived me. I said she had.”
Kit gave Frances the vegetable box and apologized. Frances thanked Dorothea for the extra salt. From the bedroom Vera called that she could hear perfectly well and had been going to apologize.
On their way back to the car, Kit checked the next delivery photograph. It showed a blue door and a yellow watering can.
Their next address was six Mill Court. Number six had a brown door. Kit enlarged the photograph and found a small brass eight partly hidden by the bag.
Mason had delivered the first chicken lunch to number eight. Kit rang that bell. A man in paint-spattered overalls answered with the bag in his hand.
“I was about to phone,” he said. “I only went upstairs to get my glasses.”
They took it next door with the two extra lunches. Three people lived there, and all three had registered. Kit’s form showed the first order and one deleted submission containing the other two names. He had not opened it before deleting it.
Mrs. Tully, who answered, counted the bags twice. Then she made Kit read every label aloud.
“This is a lot of chicken,” he said.
“It’s what we asked for.”
He said yes, it was.
In the car Dorothea asked if he wanted to stop for a sandwich. He hadn’t eaten either. He looked at the dashboard clock: twelve fifty-one.
“We have to get Martin his key.”
Dorothea drove past the sandwich shop. At the next lights, Kit rang Martin to say they were coming back.
Back at the hall, Martin had made two chicken sandwiches from the final driver’s portion. He put them beside the sink.
“Eat standing up,” he said. “The chairs are stacked.”
Kit and Dorothea ate with their plates balanced on an upturned washing-up bowl. Mason had gone. The trombone on the porch had acquired a man, who asked whether he might come in.
“In forty minutes,” Dorothea said.
Kit opened the delivery sheet. He changed the green boxes back to grey, then marked the households they had actually visited. Beside each he put the names of the people who had received meals.
“Can I keep this?” he asked Dorothea, showing her the sheet.
She checked the numbers against her book. “Those three said yes. The others haven’t.”
He drew a line around the three. Tomorrow he would have to undo his clever duplicate rule.
Dorothea pushed the washing-up bowl back into the sink. Kit put his tablet on the windowsill and took the tea towel.
They would have to confirm the other green boxes by telephone. Dorothea opened her book at the first page and dialled with one dry finger.
The trombonist tried the door again.
Martin pointed a wet spoon at him.
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