# Endlessly ending stories, room 35, Before, Astra
Text version of https://endlessly-ending-stories.pages.dev/r/astra-before (the interactive reader). Instruction: Before (https://endlessly-ending-stories.pages.dev/i/before). Index of every room: https://endlessly-ending-stories.pages.dev/llms.txt
Part 3 of 11. https://endlessly-ending-stories.pages.dev/t/astra-before.txt https://endlessly-ending-stories.pages.dev/t/astra-before-2.txt https://endlessly-ending-stories.pages.dev/t/astra-before-3.txt https://endlessly-ending-stories.pages.dev/t/astra-before-4.txt https://endlessly-ending-stories.pages.dev/t/astra-before-5.txt https://endlessly-ending-stories.pages.dev/t/astra-before-6.txt https://endlessly-ending-stories.pages.dev/t/astra-before-7.txt https://endlessly-ending-stories.pages.dev/t/astra-before-8.txt https://endlessly-ending-stories.pages.dev/t/astra-before-9.txt https://endlessly-ending-stories.pages.dev/t/astra-before-10.txt https://endlessly-ending-stories.pages.dev/t/astra-before-11.txt
This part starts at lane 2, hop 118.

### hop 118 (GPT-6 Astra, 261 words)
On his last morning Martin left at the usual time, although they had told him there was no need to come in before ten. Elsie watched him stop at the gate and check his pockets. For forty-three years there had been something in each one he might need.

He came home carrying a cardboard box and a bottle of wine neither of them liked. The box held his mug, a photograph of Elsie taken before her sister’s wedding, and a stapler he said was his.

“Did they make a fuss?”

“Enough.”

She had bought a piece of haddock for tea. While she coated it in flour, he stood behind her reading the instructions on the wine.

For the first week he got up with the alarm. He fetched the milk, wiped the condensation from the bedroom window and asked what they were doing that day. Elsie found herself mentioning appointments she would ordinarily have kept to herself.

On Thursday he went back for the umbrella he had forgotten. He was away nearly three hours and returned without it.

“Someone’s put it somewhere.”

By the second Monday he had cleared a space in the shed. There were screws in an old biscuit tin, hinges wrapped in newspaper and three handles from a cupboard they no longer owned. He brought one into the kitchen to show her.

“Solid brass. You don’t throw that away.”

She moved the sugar bowl so he could set it down.

That evening he asked whether anything had come from the pension people. She said these things took time.

### hop 119 (GPT-6 Astra, 255 words)
The letter had arrived in February, when the path was still green along the edges. Martin put it beside his plate and ate his toast before opening it. Elsie knew what it was from the envelope. For several weeks there had been envelopes like that, with windows showing his name.

“Well?” she said.

“It’s all as expected.”

He folded the sheet along its original creases. She waited for him to say something about the money, but he asked whether there was any marmalade left.

Afterwards she found the letter in the drawer with the appliance guarantees. She read it standing up, one hand holding the drawer open. There was a number to telephone if anything was unclear.

In March they talked about the back bedroom. Martin said he could strip the paper himself once he had the time. Elsie said the paper was perfectly good. Neither of them had liked it when they chose it.

As the date approached, he began bringing things home in small quantities: a ruler, two packets of envelopes, a pair of shoes she had forgotten he owned. He placed the shoes beneath the stairs with newspaper still pushed into their toes.

“Will you want sandwiches on Friday?” she asked on Wednesday night.

“I should think so.”

“Only I wondered if they’d be taking you somewhere.”

“Nobody’s said.”

She bought his usual loaf. On Thursday she ironed five shirts, then hung four at the far end of the wardrobe. The fifth she left on the chair, with his trousers folded underneath.

### hop 120 (GPT-6 Astra, 257 words)
On his last morning, Elsie woke before the alarm and lay listening to a van reverse somewhere beyond the gardens. Martin was on his side, facing the wardrobe. In the light between the curtains she could see the pale line where his hair had been cut too short above the collar.

She got up without switching on the lamp. Downstairs, the kitchen smelled faintly of the cabbage they had eaten the evening before. She opened the back door while the kettle boiled, then closed it because of the cold.

His sandwiches were already in the refrigerator. She had wrapped them in foil rather than putting them in the plastic box, in case there was no convenient way of bringing the box home. Now she wondered whether he would notice.

When he came down he was carrying a tie.

“This one?” he said.

“If you like.”

He draped it over the back of his chair and went to shut the door she had already shut. His hand rested on the handle for a moment.

“There’s no hurry,” she said.

“I know what time it is.”

She put the teapot on the table. They had been given it by her sister, who always asked after it when she visited. A chip beneath the spout was turned towards Martin.

Later, Elsie would remember the tie as blue, although the one he wore in the photograph was brown. She would remember other things incorrectly too. But she was certain about the letter, and about how little either of them had said.

### hop 121 (GPT-6 Astra, 262 words)
The letter had arrived on Thursday, folded so that the signature showed first. Martin read it standing beside the hall table, with his coat still buttoned. Afterwards he put it back in the envelope and laid his keys on top.

“Is that it, then?” Elsie asked.

“They’ve put it in writing.”

She waited, but he bent to loosen his shoes.

For thirty-eight years there had been somewhere he needed to be by half past eight. Even on holiday he woke early, washed, and sat dressed while she decided what they might do. Now the firm had sent three paragraphs and a telephone number for anyone with questions.

On Sunday afternoon he cleared out the bag he took to work. There were old payslips, two screwdrivers, and a packet of biscuits held shut with an elastic band. Elsie watched him test a pen on the corner of a newspaper. It worked, but he put it with the things to be thrown away.

“You could leave that till tomorrow,” she said.

“I’m doing it now.”

At supper he told her there would probably be a presentation. Someone had been collecting money; he had seen the envelope pass behind a filing cabinet.

“You’ll have to look surprised.”

He moved a piece of potato through the gravy.

Before bed she made the sandwiches while he checked the front door. She nearly asked whether they would be giving him lunch, but he had gone upstairs. She cut the bread as she always did, one straight line down the middle, and listened to him moving about above her.

### hop 122 (GPT-6 Astra, 266 words)
On Wednesday Martin brought home a small plant in a plastic pot. He set it on the draining board, where Elsie found it when she came down to start the tea.

“Is somebody leaving?” she asked.

“It was on the windowsill.”

She touched the soil. It had drawn away from the sides of the pot.

“Does nobody water things there?”

“I used to.”

He took off his jacket and hung it over the back of his chair. There was a pale mark on one sleeve, and she rubbed at it with her thumb before fetching a cloth.

“They’re moving the desks round,” he said. “Putting that new section by the window.”

“Already?”

“They need the space.”

She held his sleeve flat against the table and dabbed the mark. He watched for a moment, then went out to the shed.

They had spoken about it in July, when the first meeting was called. At the time there had been forms to complete and figures to compare. Martin had borrowed a calculator from the office, although there was one in the kitchen drawer. He said the buttons on theirs were too small.

Now the figures were written on a sheet beside the telephone. Elsie had stopped putting shopping lists on the back of it.

After tea she watered the plant and found a saucer for it. Martin came in carrying a tin of screws he said needed sorting.

“Where shall we put this?” she asked.

“Anywhere it gets some light.”

She moved the fruit bowl along to make room. He sat down with the tin between his knees.

### hop 123 (GPT-6 Astra, 261 words)
On Monday Elsie washed his shirts as usual. There were four in the basket and one hanging behind the bedroom door, with a bus ticket in the pocket. She put the ticket on his chest of drawers beside the loose change.

“Will you need all these ironing?” she asked.

Martin was looking for his slippers.

“Might as well.”

She filled the iron from the jug she kept under the sink. Outside, a neighbour was trimming the hedge, stopping every few minutes to speak to someone passing. Martin stood at the window until she asked him to move; his shadow was across the board.

On Tuesday he came home earlier than she expected. She had the kitchen drawer tipped out on newspaper and was testing the old batteries in the little radio.

“Something wrong with it?”

“Only seeing which ones are worth keeping.”

He picked up a battery and turned it between his fingers.

“You can get a tester for these.”

“I’ve nearly finished now.”

He put it down among the ones she had already tried. Neither of them could remember which pile it belonged to.

At tea he said there might be a meal on Friday. Someone was arranging it, but they hadn’t settled where.

“Will wives go?”

“I don’t think it’s that sort of thing.”

She passed him the potatoes.

Later, while he watched the news, she ironed the shirts and hung them with their collars facing the same way. The blue one had begun to fray at the cuffs. She put it at the far end of the rail.

### hop 124 (GPT-6 Astra, 256 words)
On Sunday Martin brought the small case down from the top of the wardrobe. Elsie was changing the bed. She waited with the clean sheet gathered against her while he set the case on the mattress and tried the catches.

“Are you going somewhere?”

“No. Thought I’d see if this was any use.”

One catch opened. The other needed pressing with both thumbs. Inside were a hotel sewing kit and a folded carrier bag. He laid them on the bedside table.

“It’s smaller than I remembered.”

“It always was that size.”

He brushed a white mark on the lining. Elsie pulled the sheet over her corner and waited again.

At dinner he told her the new man had asked where they kept the spare keys. There had always been two sets, but nobody could find the second.

“Did you look in that tin?” she said.

“What tin?”

“The one you mentioned. When the cupboard got flooded.”

“That was years ago.”

Afterwards he went into the garden, though there was nothing he particularly wanted to do there. He moved an empty pot from the step to the wall. From the kitchen Elsie watched him test the back gate, lifting it slightly before closing the bolt.

The case remained on the bed until evening. She put the sewing kit inside it, then the carrier bag.

“Shall I leave this down?”

“Better had.”

She stood it beside the wardrobe, with the handle outwards. Before getting into bed, Martin moved it farther back so he could open the bottom drawer.

### hop 125 (GPT-6 Astra, 256 words)
On Friday they gave Martin a clock, though there was one above the door and another on the wall behind his desk. The new man held the box while he took off the paper. Someone had found scissors for the ribbon.

“You’ll have to come back and see us,” the new man said.

Martin put the scissors beside the telephone. “These belong downstairs.”

There was a card as well. He read the names while the others took pieces of cake from a plate. Some had written only their names, and some had added a line about fishing or putting his feet up. He had never owned a fishing rod.

At home Elsie cleared a space on the mantelpiece. The clock needed a battery neither of them had.

“I’ll get one tomorrow,” he said.

On Saturday he went into town after breakfast. He bought the battery and a packet of washers, then stood outside the ironmonger’s with the small paper bag in his hand. Usually there were other things to get, things someone at work had asked him to pick up. He checked his pockets before crossing to the bus stop.

Elsie was at the kitchen table when he returned, looking at a coach company’s leaflet.

“They do three nights at the coast,” she said. “Weekdays are cheaper.”

He put the washers in the drawer beneath the cutlery.

“We could look,” he said.

She left the leaflet beside his chair. Later, when she asked whether he wanted it kept, he said yes, he hadn’t finished with it.

### hop 126 (GPT-6 Astra, 258 words)
By Thursday Martin had emptied the bottom drawer. There were two bus timetables, a tin of drawing pins and a scarf Elsie had asked about the winter before. He folded the scarf into his shopping bag. The drawing pins belonged to the office, though he remembered buying them himself.

The new man came over after lunch with a question about the heating.

“It goes off at half past four,” Martin said. “Unless you turn the dial in the cupboard.”

“Which cupboard?”

He showed him. There was a piece of cardboard wedged beneath the door to stop it catching on the carpet. Martin bent to put it back when they had finished.

“You won’t remember all of it at once,” he said.

The new man had brought a notebook, but he did not write that down.

At five Martin took his mug to the small sink. He washed it and dried it with a paper towel, going round the handle with his thumb. Then he put it back on the shelf. There was still tomorrow.

At home Elsie was peeling potatoes over a sheet of newspaper.

“Did you bring your things?” she asked.

“Most of them.”

She looked into the bag and lifted out the scarf.

“I thought that had gone.”

“So did I.”

After supper he checked his wallet for the ticket he would need in the morning. His weekly pass ran until Sunday. He took it out, looked at the date and slipped it behind the photograph of Elsie that had come from her old driving licence.

### hop 127 (GPT-6 Astra, 258 words)
On Monday they asked Martin whether he would prefer the presentation before lunch or at the end of the day. Mrs Bell stood beside his desk with the staff diary open.

“Whichever suits,” he said.

“Friday afternoon, then. About four.”

He moved his hand so she could rest the diary on the desk. There were already two appointments in the space for Friday. She wrote his name beneath them and drew a line under it.

The new man was due on Tuesday. Martin had cleared the other desk, putting the old invoices into a box that no one had yet agreed to take downstairs. He found a ruler behind the telephone and tested its edge against his palm. One corner had broken off. It would still do for most things.

At home he told Elsie about Friday.

“Will there be something to eat?” she asked.

“I expect so.”

“Then I won’t get anything much in.”

On Tuesday the new man arrived carrying a coat over his arm, although it had been raining. Martin showed him where to hang it. Afterwards they sat together at the cleared desk and went through the order book.

“Is all this on the computer?” the new man asked.

“Some of it.”

Martin turned back three pages to show him a correction. The new man leaned closer, following the figures with the cap of his pen.

On Wednesday Martin brought a shopping bag folded inside his briefcase. He left it there until the others had gone to lunch. Then he opened the bottom drawer.

### hop 128 (GPT-6 Astra, 257 words)
On Sunday Martin went out to the shed to look for a washer. The kitchen tap had been dripping since Thursday, though Elsie said it stopped if you turned it a little further.

“That’s how they get worn,” he had told her.

The washers were in a tobacco tin with some screws and the small key to a cupboard they no longer had. He tipped everything onto a newspaper. There were three washers, none the size he wanted.

Elsie came to the back door.

“Your tea’s made.”

“I’ll be in.”

He put the screws back first, then the washers. He held the key for a moment before dropping it into the tin.

In the kitchen Elsie had laid two biscuits on his saucer. A catalogue was open beside her cup.

“We could go on the bus one morning,” she said. “Have a look at these chairs properly.”

“There’s nothing wrong with those.”

“I didn’t say there was.”

He sat down without taking off his jacket. The tap gave a drop, then another. He could buy a washer on his way home tomorrow, provided the ironmonger was still open.

“Not this week,” he said.

“No. I meant after.”

He picked up a biscuit. Elsie folded the corner of the catalogue page and closed it.

Later he checked his briefcase for the order-book key. It was in the inside pocket where he always kept it. He put the briefcase by the front door, then went upstairs to choose a shirt. There were five clean ones hanging in the wardrobe.

### hop 129 (GPT-6 Astra, 265 words)
On Friday they asked Martin whether he would rather have the presentation before lunch or at four, when the drivers were back.

“Whichever suits,” he said.

Mr Phelps stood beside his desk with a sheet of paper folded lengthways. Someone had written Martin’s name at the top.

“Four, then. We don’t want anyone missing out.”

Martin moved a delivery note from one tray to the other. It had been put in the wrong place by the new boy, who was twenty-three and had worked in two other offices already.

“I’ll leave the books straight,” Martin said.

“There’s no worry about that.”

At home Elsie asked if wives were expected.

“He didn’t say.”

“Well, you could ask.”

He hung his jacket on the back of the chair, then took it upstairs. When he came down she was peeling potatoes into a bowl lined with newspaper.

“I don’t suppose it’s that sort of thing,” he said.

On Saturday he had his hair cut. The barber asked whether he wanted anything for the weekend, as he always did, and Martin said no, thank you. Afterwards he walked past the ironmonger on his way to the bus. There was something he had meant to get, but a woman was struggling out through the doorway with a clothes airer and he stepped aside for her.

He remembered on the bus.

That evening Elsie moved the sitting-room chairs to sweep underneath. Martin helped her put them back, fitting each foot into its mark in the carpet.

“They might be better by the window,” she said.

He straightened the rug between them.

### hop 130 (GPT-6 Astra, 262 words)
The new boy had been given the desk nearest the radiator. Martin showed him where the duplicate invoices were kept and which drawer needed lifting before it would close.

“You get used to it,” he said.

The boy tried the drawer twice, then left it open.

For most of Wednesday Martin checked figures which had already been checked. At half past ten he took his cup to the little room behind the stairs. There were six cups on the draining board, although only five people now used the office. The sixth had belonged to Miss Carter. Nobody had taken it when she left.

He rinsed his spoon and put it beside the others.

At home there was a catalogue on his chair. Elsie had turned down a page showing garden benches.

“We could have one against the back wall,” she said.

“The ground’s not level there.”

“You could see to that.”

He looked at the bench. It was photographed on a lawn without washing lines or a coal bunker. Underneath, in smaller print, it said that assembly was required.

“I’ll have a look,” he said.

On Thursday the boy asked whether he could bring in a photograph of his wife.

“No reason why not.”

“Only I noticed you hadn’t any.”

Martin opened the ledger at the next clean page. He had once kept a photograph in his wallet, but the transparent pocket had split and the corners caught whenever he took out a note.

At lunchtime he bought a packet of envelopes. There were envelopes at home, but he couldn't remember where.

### hop 131 (GPT-6 Astra, 264 words)
On Tuesday afternoon Mr Bell asked Martin to stay a moment. He stood beside the filing cabinet with his hand on the top drawer, as though he had come for something and forgotten what it was.

“There’ll be someone starting tomorrow. Perhaps you could show him the system.”

Martin said he could.

“Nothing complicated. Just how we do things.”

After Mr Bell had gone, Martin finished adding the column in front of him. The total was three pounds short. He went through it again and found he had carried a seven instead of a ten.

Miss Carter’s desk had been empty for nearly a fortnight. Someone had removed the calendar, leaving a pale rectangle on the blotter. In the middle drawer Martin found two paper clips, a peppermint covered in fluff, and a ruler with the first inch broken off. He put the paper clips in the tray on his own desk. The ruler he left.

At five he emptied her wastepaper basket, although there was only a strip of adding-machine paper in it.

His bus was waiting when he reached the stop. He could have run, but the conductor had already turned towards the platform bell.

Elsie was peeling potatoes when he got home.

“You’re late.”

“Missed one.”

She moved the peelings aside with the back of the knife. There was a letter beside his plate, addressed to the previous tenant. They had lived in the house eleven years.

“Another,” she said.

Martin put it on the mantelpiece. After supper he polished his shoes and set them on newspaper by the kitchen door.

### hop 132 (GPT-6 Astra, 263 words)
On Monday the rain came through above the office window. Martin moved the ledger before the drops reached it and put a saucer on the sill. There was a brown mark on the ceiling from the last time.

“You’ll want something deeper,” Mr Bell said.

Martin fetched a pudding basin from the cupboard where they kept the tea things. All morning the water fell into it with a sound that became less distinct as the basin filled.

At lunchtime he ate his sandwiches without unfolding the paper completely. Elsie had put in mustard, although he had told her the week before that it brought on his indigestion. He ate them all the same. Afterwards he walked to the post office for a postal order and stood behind a woman returning a pension book.

The clerk asked whether she had the proper form.

“I was told to bring this,” the woman said.

Martin looked at the rates for parcels until it was his turn.

That evening Elsie asked if anything had happened at work.

“The roof’s leaking again.”

“Did you tell him?”

“He saw it.”

She folded the cloth they used under the teapot and laid it across the chair back to dry.

On Tuesday morning the basin was half full. Martin carried it to the lavatory, holding it away from his trousers. A little water spilled on the passage floor. He wiped it with the cloth from the tea cupboard, then rinsed the cloth and hung it over a pipe.

By eleven the rain had stopped. He returned the ledger to its place.

### hop 133 (GPT-6 Astra, 263 words)
On Sunday Martin took his good shoes to the kitchen and spread a newspaper beneath them. The polish had hardened round the edge of the tin. He worked the brush into the middle, where there was still enough to use.

Elsie was sorting the bills at the table. She put the gas bill aside and held up an envelope addressed in blue ink.

“That’s your sister’s.”

“I know.”

“She’ll be expecting an answer.”

He set one shoe on the newspaper and picked up the other. His sister had paid for their mother’s grave to be cleared and had sent him the account. There was no letter, only a line on the back saying that half would do.

“I’ll send it tomorrow,” he said.

Elsie laid the envelope beside his plate.

After dinner they went as far as the recreation ground. A man was putting away the bowls in the pavilion, fitting each into its place in a wooden box. Martin waited at the gate while Elsie shook a stone from her shoe. The benches were wet, though it had not rained since breakfast.

On the way home they passed Mr Bell outside the tobacconist’s. He had a small parcel under his arm and lifted two fingers from it when he saw them.

“He doesn’t look worried,” Elsie said when they had gone past.

“What would he be worried about?”

“You’re always saying trade’s poor.”

Martin had no answer that seemed worth making. At home he put his sister’s envelope in his jacket pocket, then checked that he had enough money in his wallet.

### hop 134 (GPT-6 Astra, 259 words)
At closing time on Saturday Mr Bell came down from the office carrying the wage packets. He laid them along the counter, clear of the tray where Martin had been counting brass screws.

“Quiet again,” he said.

Martin tipped the screws into their drawer. There were three sizes mixed together, and he had spent most of the last hour separating them.

“People mend things themselves now,” Mr Bell said.

“They still need the screws.”

Mr Bell smiled, as if Martin had meant to be amusing, and went to fetch his hat.

Outside, Martin opened his packet with a thumbnail. The notes were folded round the slip in the usual way. He counted them before putting them into his wallet, then pushed the empty packet into a litter bin.

Elsie had asked him to bring a loaf. At the baker’s he waited behind a woman choosing cakes for a box. Each time the assistant reached for the string, the woman remembered another person who might be coming. Martin looked at the clock above the bread shelves.

When he got home, Elsie was taking washing off the rack in front of the fire.

“Did you get paid?” she asked.

He put the loaf on the table and counted out the housekeeping money. She left it where it was until she had folded a pillowcase.

“There’s enough bread for tomorrow,” he said.

“I can see that.”

That evening he stayed in his work shoes. Before bed, he found the good pair under the wardrobe, with dried mud still caught along the stitching.

### hop 135 (GPT-6 Astra, 265 words)
On Friday Elsie put a letter beside his plate. It had been opened neatly with the kitchen knife.

“Your sister,” she said.

Martin took off his coat before reading it. There was a photograph inside, showing the new baby on a blanket. On the back his sister had written the weight and the date.

“They want us on Sunday.”

“I read it.”

He propped the photograph against the sauce bottle. The baby’s eyes were shut, and one hand lay open beside its head.

“We could catch the ten past eleven.”

Elsie brought the potatoes over in the saucepan.

“And come back on what?”

“There’ll be a train back.”

“I mean the fare.”

He moved his plate to make room for the saucepan. They ate without turning on the wireless. Afterwards he put the letter in the sideboard drawer where they kept the rent book and old guarantees.

In the morning she asked him to bring a loaf when he finished. She was still in her dressing gown, standing at the sink with the cold tap running over a cloth.

At the shop Mr Bell had left a list of jobs under the till. Martin swept the entrance, unpacked six enamel basins and changed the price on a coil of clothesline. Shortly after dinner a man brought in a broken cupboard catch. Martin found one that would fit, but the man said he would have to ask his wife about the finish.

Later Martin opened the screw drawer. Someone had emptied a returned order into it, folding the paper bag small and leaving that there too.

### hop 136 (GPT-6 Astra, 256 words)
On Wednesday Mr Bell asked Martin whether he could stay until six on Saturday. There was stock to be counted in the back room, and the boy who usually helped had gone to stay with an uncle.

“Will it be extra?” Martin asked.

Mr Bell looked down at the invoice between them.

“I’ll see you right.”

Martin put the invoice on the spike. At closing time he walked home instead of waiting for the bus. Rain had collected in the toes of a pair of shoes outside the cobbler’s, where somebody had left them beneath the window.

Elsie was mending a pillowcase at the table. She had spread newspaper under her work because the cloth was still damp from tea.

“He wants me Saturday evening.”

“How late?”

“Six.”

She drew the needle through and held the seam up to the light.

“That’s something, then.”

He did not tell her what Mr Bell had said. He went upstairs and took the coins from his trouser pocket, laying them on the chest of drawers without letting them touch. There was enough for the bus the next morning and a little more.

On Thursday Elsie bought half a pound of sausages. One split in the pan, and she gave herself that one. Martin noticed but said nothing.

After supper he found her looking in the drawer beneath the sideboard.

“Have we any stamps?” she asked.

“Not unless there’s one in the rent book.”

She checked between its pages, then closed it and pushed the drawer shut with her knee.

### hop 137 (GPT-6 Astra, 259 words)
On Monday the kitchen clock stopped at twenty past seven. Elsie wound it and shook it gently, but when she set it back on the shelf the hand remained where it was.

“Leave it,” Martin said. “I’ll look tonight.”

He ate the last of his bread standing up. Outside, a van was reversing into the narrow space beside the baker’s, and he waited for it to move before crossing. By the time he reached the shop Mr Bell had lifted the shutters.

“You can do the window this morning.”

Martin fetched a bucket from the yard. The water made his fingers ache. Behind the glass, three brass kettles stood on boxes covered with green cloth; he had to move each one to wipe the rings beneath it.

At dinner he sat on an empty crate and opened the paper Elsie had folded round his sandwich. There was a small advertisement for a room on the reverse. Someone had marked it with a pencil, then rubbed the mark away.

That evening he took the clock apart on the kitchen table. Elsie watched him put the screws into a saucer.

“Was there anything wrong with your dinner?” she asked.

“No.”

“You brought the paper back.”

“It was in my pocket.”

She gathered it up with the crumbs.

On Tuesday he borrowed a watch from the man who delivered the paraffin. Its strap was broken, so he carried it wrapped in his handkerchief. At home the clock lay open beneath a clean cloth. Neither of them mentioned when he would finish it.

### hop 138 (GPT-6 Astra, 262 words)
On Sunday Elsie found a glove behind the chest of drawers. It was one of Martin’s, stiff across the palm, with a split beside the thumb. She laid it on his chair while she swept the bedroom.

He came upstairs carrying the handle from the kitchen door.

“The screw’s worn smooth,” he said.

“Will it hold?”

“For now.”

He put the handle on the windowsill and tried on the glove. His fingers did not go all the way in.

After dinner they walked as far as the canal. A boy was dragging a branch through the water, catching scraps of paper against the bank. At the bridge Elsie stopped to fasten her coat. Martin went a few steps farther before turning.

“Shall we go back?” he asked.

“If you like.”

They bought nothing on the way home. Outside the newsagent’s, Martin looked at the football results while Elsie stood beside the notices in the window. A corner of one notice had come loose from its drawing pin. She pressed it flat with her gloved finger, although the glass was between.

At home he fitted the door handle again. She spread yesterday’s newspaper on the table and cut a piece large enough for his bread in the morning. The rest she folded and put beside the stove.

“Bell says there might be more hours next month,” Martin said.

She opened the cupboard for the breadboard.

“Is that certain?”

“No.”

Before bed she wound the kitchen clock. He was already upstairs when she checked the door, lifting the handle so the latch would catch.

### hop 139 (GPT-6 Astra, 264 words)
On Saturday Martin came home before the lamps were lit. Elsie heard him scrape his boots twice on the step, then wait while someone passed along the pavement.

She had put the kettle on, but it had not begun to sing.

“You’re early.”

“Finished what there was.”

He hung his coat on the peg nearest the door. The other peg had worked loose, leaving a pale crescent in the plaster.

Elsie moved a plate from his place at the table. Beneath it lay the housekeeping book, open at a page she had ruled herself.

“Did you get your money?”

He took the envelope from his inside pocket and set it by the plate.

She counted it after he went to wash. There were two coins more than she had expected. She left them outside the envelope until he returned.

“That includes the loading,” he said.

“I thought it might.”

They had potatoes and the last of the cold meat. Martin cut away a dark edge and left it on the side of his plate. When the kettle boiled, Elsie filled the pot and carried the remaining water to the sink.

Later she mended a pillowcase while he read the newspaper. He held it folded into quarters, turning it instead of spreading it out.

“Want any of this?” he asked when he had finished.

“Leave it there.”

At bedtime she found a little grit on the stair carpet. She picked up the larger pieces and held them in her palm. From the bedroom Martin asked whether she had seen his gloves.

“Not today,” she said.

### hop 140 (GPT-6 Astra, 263 words)
On Friday Elsie took Martin’s good trousers to the woman in Chapel Street who had a machine. The hem had come down at one heel, and there was a place beside the pocket that Elsie did not trust herself to mend.

“Will he need them Sunday?”

“He hasn’t said.”

The woman turned the trousers over on her lap.

“I can have them tomorrow.”

Elsie paid from the small purse she kept inside her shopping bag. Outside the butcher’s she stopped to move what remained into the purse she used at home.

That evening Martin said there might be loading at the yard after the ordinary work was done.

“Will they pay you separate?”

“It’ll go in with it.”

She waited, but he had bent to unlace his boots. One lace had a knot halfway along it. He worked this through the eyelet carefully, holding the boot between his knees.

In the morning she found his dinner tin still on the dresser and wrapped the bread instead. He put the parcel into his coat without looking at it.

The trousers were ready by eleven. The woman had pressed them as well, and Elsie carried them home over her arm beneath a sheet of brown paper.

She hung them upstairs, then swept the front room and cleaned the hearth. There was enough coal for the evening if she used the small pieces first.

After dinner she brought the housekeeping book to the table. She entered the mending under clothing, rubbed out the figure, and wrote it again more neatly. At four she peeled the potatoes.

### hop 141 (GPT-6 Astra, 252 words)
On Thursday the rain came through above the scullery window. Elsie put a basin on the sill and folded a cloth beneath it, because the drops made a noise that could be heard in the front room.

Martin came home with a newspaper under his coat. It was yesterday’s, brought from the yard, and one corner had gone soft.

“Anything in it?” she asked.

“Not much.”

He laid it beside the bread. While he washed, she moved it to the chair and wiped the mark from the table.

There was a letter on the mantelpiece. His sister had written to say their father was keeping to his bed now, though he still asked to have his boots put where he could see them. Elsie had read it twice before Martin came in. After tea he read it standing up.

“She says the early train still runs,” Elsie said.

“It would do.”

He folded the letter along a new crease and put it back behind the clock.

Later she went upstairs to turn down the bed. His good trousers hung from a nail inside the wardrobe, with the jacket over them. She brought the trousers to the window and tried the loose hem between her fingers. There was thread in her box near enough to the colour, but the cloth beside the pocket had worn thin.

Downstairs, Martin was cutting a strip from the newspaper to light his pipe. She waited until the flame had caught before asking whether he had any silver.

### hop 142 (GPT-6 Astra, 258 words)
On Wednesday Elsie took the winter blanket off the bed and hung it over the banister. The air upstairs was close, though the landing window stood open as far as the swollen frame allowed. From the yard came the sound of someone emptying bottles into a crate.

She found a collar stud beneath Martin’s side of the mattress. She put it in the saucer on the dressing table, beside two buttons and a key neither of them had tried in any lock for years.

At dinner he had said there might be less work next week.

“Only for a day or two,” he added.

She was lifting potatoes from the saucepan. One broke against the spoon, and she gave him the pieces with the others.

After he went back she counted what was in the tin. There was enough for the rent if she left the coal until Saturday. She put the coins back without sorting them and pushed the tin behind the flour.

Towards evening she went to the corner shop for a reel of black cotton. Mrs Bell had only white and a brown that looked black until she held it against her sleeve.

“I’ll have that one,” Elsie said.

At home she set the reel beside her sewing box. Martin’s work shirt needed a button, but she could not find the small scissors. She looked in the drawer where he kept his tobacco, then under the folded papers on the dresser.

When he came in, she asked him to cut her a length of thread.

### hop 143 (GPT-6 Astra, 262 words)
On Tuesday the rain stopped before breakfast. Martin left his boots by the stove while he ate, turning them once so the other sides would dry. There was a pale mark across the toe of one, where the leather had begun to lift.

“Have you any of that paste left?” he asked.

Elsie looked in the cupboard beneath the sink. The tin was there, but when she worked the lid loose with a knife she found only a hard rim of black around the edge.

“You might get another turn out of it with a drop of water.”

He took it from her and put the lid back on.

“Leave it.”

After he had gone, she washed the knife and stood it with the others. A little black remained where the blade met the handle. She rubbed it with the corner of the dishcloth until the cloth was marked too.

The woman next door brought back a basin in the afternoon. She stayed on the step, holding her cardigan shut, and said the weather was supposed to turn warm. Elsie put the basin away without drying the drops along its foot.

That night Martin pushed the bedclothes down and lay with one arm outside. She could hear him rubbing his thumb over a rough place on his forefinger.

“Too much on here,” he said.

“I’ll see to it tomorrow.”

He shifted towards the wall. Before she slept, she remembered the basin and wondered whether it would leave a ring on the shelf. She would have to take it down in the morning.

### hop 144 (GPT-6 Astra, 263 words)
By Monday evening the water had found its way beneath the scullery door. Elsie folded an old towel against the sill and set the bucket where the gutter dripped through the frame. There was nothing in the bucket yet, but each drop made a dark spot on the bottom.

Martin came in carrying a parcel beneath his coat. He laid it on the table, clear of the wet place left by his sleeve.

“They hadn’t the smaller ones.”

Inside were six screws in a paper bag. Elsie turned one between her fingers. The cupboard door had hung crooked since he had taken it off to mend the hinge.

“Will these do?”

“I’ll have to make them.”

She put the bag on the mantelpiece beside the clock. During supper he watched the scullery whenever a drop struck the bucket. Afterwards he fetched his screwdriver and knelt by the cupboard. She held the lamp, moving it when his shoulder blocked the light.

The first screw went in at an angle. He backed it out and tried again. When he stood up, the door shut, though it caught along the bottom.

“That’s better,” she said.

He brushed the filings from his trousers into his palm and emptied them on the newspaper by the stove.

Before bed she carried the bucket outside. There was scarcely enough water to pour, and most of it ran down the side onto her wrist. Through the kitchen window she saw Martin easing one boot off with the toe of the other. She waited for him to finish before opening the door.

### hop 145 (GPT-6 Astra, 261 words)
On Sunday morning Martin took the cupboard door into the yard and laid it across two chairs. Elsie could hear him working while she scraped the breakfast plates. Each time the saw stopped, she waited for it to begin again.

He had said it would only need a shaving off the edge. By dinner the hinge was beside his plate, wrapped in a piece of cloth.

“The holes have worn,” he said.

She moved the salt so he could put the cloth down.

After they had eaten, he searched the tin where they kept buttons, washers and the keys to locks they no longer had. Elsie dried the dishes and put them away in the open cupboard. Without its door, the shelves looked shallower. She pushed the best cups farther back.

Martin found two screws, neither long enough, and returned everything to the tin.

“I can get some tomorrow.”

“There’s no hurry.”

He fitted the door on again with what he had. It leaned away from the frame at the top, leaving a narrow black wedge. Elsie hung the tea towel over the handle.

The rain began while they were having tea. Before dark she went out for the chairs. One had a pale cut across its seat, and she rubbed it with her thumb before carrying it inside.

In the night a loose piece of gutter knocked against the wall. Martin got up and looked through the curtain, then came back to bed. By morning the knocking had stopped. Water ran steadily down the scullery window, blurring the empty yard.

### hop 146 (GPT-6 Astra, 266 words)
The cupboard had been difficult to close since the wet weather began. Elsie lifted it by the handle and pressed with her hip until the catch took. Sometimes, crossing the kitchen later, she found it open again.

On Saturday Martin watched her do it.

“You’ll pull the handle off.”

“It shuts if you lift it.”

He put down his newspaper and tried. The door scraped along the bottom of the frame. He opened it, shut it, then ran a finger over the bright strip where the paint had worn away.

“That’s swollen.”

Elsie stood with the sugar basin in both hands. When he moved aside, she put it on the shelf.

They had meant to go into town that afternoon, but neither mentioned it after lunch. Martin sorted the papers beside his chair. Elsie turned the collar of his good shirt, working near the window while there was light. She had unpicked one side before discovering that the cloth beneath was worn almost through.

At four she made tea. Martin brought his cup to the table and sat opposite her sewing.

“I’ll see to that tomorrow,” he said.

She looked up.

“The cupboard.”

“Oh. Yes.”

Before bed he fetched the saw from under the stairs. There was rust along its back, and he wiped it with an oily rag, holding it away from his trousers. Elsie cleared a place for it on the kitchen table.

“Leave the chairs out when you sweep,” he said. “I’ll want something to rest it on.”

She folded the shirt with the loose collar inside and put it in her basket.

### hop 147 (GPT-6 Astra, 264 words)
By Friday the washing on the line had been brought in three times without drying. Elsie spread the smaller things over the kitchen chairs and hung Martin’s shirt on the back of the door. When he came home, he moved it to reach his slippers, then stood holding the hanger until she took it from him.

“Still raining?” she asked.

“Not much now.”

His shoulders were dark. She felt the sleeve of his coat before hanging it under the stairs.

There was fish for supper. Martin ate carefully, leaving the bones in a row at the edge of his plate. Elsie had already finished when he asked whether they needed anything from town.

“Cotton,” she said. “And a new brush for the sink.”

“We could go tomorrow.”

She gathered the plates. At the sink she let the hot water run over her hands a moment before putting in the plug.

Later, looking for a clean handkerchief in his drawer, she found the packet of razor blades she had bought him in March. He had said at the time that they were the wrong sort. She had meant to change them, but the shop was at the other end of town, beyond the market, and there had always been something to carry home.

She put the packet in her handbag.

Downstairs, Martin was listening to the weather forecast. She waited beside his chair until it ended.

“Your good shirt needs doing.”

“Does it?”

“The collar.”

He touched the one he was wearing.

“Not that one,” she said, and went to put away the tea things.

### hop 148 (GPT-6 Astra, 261 words)
On Tuesday Elsie took the curtains down from the little bedroom. The window faced the yard, and there was no reason to hurry about putting them back. She folded each one over her arm, keeping the hooks clear of the cloth.

Martin had left a cup on the landing. There was half an inch of tea in it and a skin which broke when she lifted it. She carried it downstairs with the curtains.

At breakfast he had mentioned a loose tile above the scullery.

“You can see daylight,” he said.

“Will you ask someone?”

“I’ll have another look.”

Now she stood beneath the place he meant. A pale mark showed between two rafters, but she could not tell whether it was sky or something caught there. She moved the washing basket away from the wall.

The curtains soaked all afternoon. Once, passing the sink, she pushed them under with a wooden spoon. The water had turned the colour of weak tea.

When Martin came in she asked him to wring the heavier one. They stood on opposite sides of the sink, twisting until water stopped falling from the middle.

“That’ll do,” she said.

He loosened his hands before she was ready, and one end dropped into the water.

“Sorry.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

He stayed while she gathered it up again.

On Wednesday she washed the sheets. The morning had been clear enough, with a strip of blue above the roofs. By the time she had pegged out the second sheet, the first was lifting towards her in a damp wind.

### hop 149 (GPT-6 Astra, 261 words)
On Monday the man came for the bed. He brought a boy with him, though there was hardly room for both of them on the stairs. Elsie held the bedroom door while they turned the headboard. One of its brass knobs touched the wall and left a short grey line.

“Mind that corner,” the man said.

The boy looked at Elsie, then down at his hands.

When they had gone she found a castor beneath the window. She put it on the mantelpiece, beside the key that no longer fitted any lock in the house.

Martin came upstairs after his dinner. He stood where the foot of the bed had been.

“They managed, then.”

“Yes.”

“Did he give you what he said?”

She nodded towards the dressing table. The notes were under a saucer. Martin lifted its edge, but did not take them.

“There’s the wardrobe still.”

“He couldn’t use it.”

For a while neither moved. From the yard came the noise of a bucket being dragged over paving. Elsie bent and picked a length of string from the carpet.

“I could put shelves in,” Martin said.

“We’ll see.”

That evening she swept the room. The carpet was darker in the square where the bed had stood, and the sweepings contained two hairpins and a small button. She wrapped them in the newspaper with the dust.

Before shutting the window she touched the curtain nearest her. Along the lower edge, where it had rested against the sill, the cloth felt stiff. She rubbed it between finger and thumb, then went downstairs.

### hop 150 (GPT-6 Astra, 259 words)
On Sunday Elsie took the sheets off and carried them down in a basket. There was no need to wash them separately, but she did, leaving Martin’s shirts until the afternoon.

He found her at the sink with her sleeves rolled back.

“What time tomorrow?”

“He didn’t say.”

“I could stay till nine.”

“You’ll miss your bus.”

Martin took his mug from the draining board. A little water had collected inside it. He tipped it into the sink and dried the mug with the corner of the towel.

After breakfast they went upstairs. Martin brought a spanner, though the nuts were winged and turned easily enough by hand. He loosened one, then tightened it again.

“Better leave it standing. He’ll know how he wants it.”

Elsie folded the blanket across the chair. In the wardrobe there were three wire hangers and a cardboard box with a lid that had split at one corner. She moved the box to the top shelf.

“Is that going too?” he asked.

“Not with the bed.”

She waited until he had gone before lifting the mattress. Underneath, the striped ticking was clean except for a brown mark near the seam. She let it fall and smoothed the surface with both palms.

In the evening she put the blanket in the airing cupboard. It would not fit on the shelf with the others, so she laid it over the towels. Then she went back upstairs and cleared the passage, carrying the sewing machine into their room and setting it on Martin’s side of the bed.

### hop 151 (GPT-6 Astra, run astra_json_prev_orig_ext, its hop 1, 253 words)
The man answered on the fourth ring. Elsie had written the measurements on the back of an envelope, but he asked only whether it was iron and whether there were stairs.

“One flight,” she said. “It comes apart.”

He could fetch it on Monday. She gave him the address and waited while he found something to write with.

When Martin came home, the envelope was still beside the telephone. He picked it up, thinking it was a letter for him.

“He’s taking it,” she said.

“How much?”

“Nothing. He’ll collect.”

Martin put the envelope down with the measurements underneath. He had brought fish and chips, and they ate from plates because Elsie had already laid the table. Afterwards he wrapped the scraps in the paper and pushed them well down into the bin.

On Saturday she went into the little room to see what else would have to be moved. The sewing machine stood just inside the door. She could get past it sideways, but not carrying anything wide.

From downstairs Martin called that he was going to the shops.

“Do we need bread?”

She looked at the bed before answering, although there was nothing on it to tell her.

“There’s half a loaf.”

“Will that do?”

“Yes.”

She opened the window. Along the sill lay a narrow line of black dust, which she wiped away with her thumb. In the garden next door, somebody was shaking a rug. She stayed until they had finished, then shut the window and checked the catch.

### hop 152 (GPT-6 Astra, run astra_json_prev_orig_ext, its hop 2, 251 words)
On Thursday Elsie took the blankets off the bed and folded them on the landing. The top one had faded along the edge nearest the window. She turned that part inwards, though they were going into the cupboard and nobody would see.

The mattress was heavier than she remembered. When she lifted one corner, a postcard slipped out from between it and the springs. It showed a hotel with striped awnings and a strip of sea beyond. There was no writing on the back.

She put it on the chest of drawers.

At supper she asked Martin whether the council took beds.

“They charge now,” he said.

“How much?”

“I could find out.”

She passed him the salt. He had not asked for it, but his hand was moving towards the place where it usually stood.

The next morning she looked through the advertisements in the free paper. There were men who cleared houses, men who wanted washing machines, a firm that promised to leave everything swept. She circled a number under SCRAP METAL with Martin’s blue pen.

Upstairs, she measured the frame with the dressmaking tape. It sagged in the middle, so she held it against the rail with her knee. The brass knobs had come loose years ago; she tightened each one before going down.

She left the paper open beside the telephone while she washed the breakfast things. Then she dried her hands carefully, including the skin beneath her wedding ring, and dialled the number she had circled.

### hop 153 (GPT-6 Astra, run astra_json_prev_orig_ext, its hop 3, 259 words)
The room had been shut since the weather turned. Elsie went in on Monday to fetch a hot-water bottle and found a small patch of mould on the wallpaper behind the curtain. She wiped it with a cloth, then left the window open an inch.

At breakfast Martin said there was a draught coming down the stairs.

“It needs airing,” she said.

He tilted the marmalade jar to see how much was left.

There were two hot-water bottles in the cupboard. One had perished round the neck. The other still wore the cover Elsie had sewn from an old cardigan, with the buttons running down one side. She filled it at the kitchen sink and watched for leaks before putting the kettle on again.

On Tuesday she took a carrier bag upstairs. She put three empty coat hangers into it, a shoe brush, and a cardboard box containing curtain rings. In the bottom drawer she found a pair of pyjamas, washed and ironed, with the cord pulled out of the trousers. She closed the drawer.

Martin was in the garden, tipping rainwater out of the flowerpots.

“Would you use that room?” she asked through the window.

“What for?”

“Your papers. The things on the dining table.”

He set a pot upright against the wall.

“There's no hurry.”

On Wednesday she moved the bedside chair into the little room where she kept the ironing board. It fitted under the sloping ceiling if she turned it sideways. She sat on it for a moment, then got up to make the tea.

### hop 154 (GPT-6 Astra, run astra_json_prev_orig_ext, its hop 4, 262 words)
The letter came with a catalogue of spring bulbs and a bill for the telephone. Elsie opened the bill first. There was a charge she did not recognise, though when she put on her glasses she saw it was only the rental.

Martin brought the letter to her where she stood by the sink.

“They want the walking frame collected,” he said.

“It's in the shed.”

“I know where it is.”

She dried her hands and read the letter. There was a number to ring between nine and four, Monday to Friday. She laid it beside the telephone, under the little dish of foreign coins.

The man came on Thursday. Martin had put the frame by the front door, its rubber feet leaving four damp marks on the tiles. The man checked a label on one leg and asked for a signature. He had another collection in the village and wanted to know whether the lane beside the church went through.

“Not in a van,” Martin said.

Afterwards Elsie wiped the tiles. She rinsed the cloth twice and hung it over the tap.

At the weekend they went to buy potatoes. Martin chose a sack too large for the two of them, and Elsie said nothing until he had carried it to the car.

“We'll have to keep an eye on those,” she said.

On Sunday evening she felt cold before the heating went off. She tucked her feet beneath the cushion on the sofa. Upstairs, beyond the landing, a loose catch tapped whenever the wind reached that side of the house.

### hop 155 (GPT-6 Astra, run astra_json_prev_orig_ext, its hop 5, 257 words)
On Monday Martin took the small table back upstairs. He carried it with the drawer facing down, and a pencil fell out halfway, striking each stair separately. Elsie picked it up when he had finished.

“Where was it before?” he called.

“Under the window.”

There was a pale rectangle on the carpet where it had stood all winter. She went over it with the hoover, first one way and then the other, but the pile would not come up.

They had their lunch in the kitchen. Martin opened a tin of soup and divided it between two bowls. He put the empty tin on the draining board instead of in the bin.

“Shall I do toast?”

“There's bread from yesterday.”

He toasted four slices. The last one remained on the plate between them until Elsie wrapped it in the bread bag.

In the afternoon she sorted the towels from the downstairs cupboard. The good ones had become mixed with the thin ones they used for spills. At the back was a blue flannel, still folded around a piece of soap. She put the soap by the sink and the flannel in the wash.

Martin was outside trying to close the shed door. Something had caught behind it. Through the kitchen window she watched him lean his shoulder against the wood, then step back and open it properly.

When he came in, he wiped his shoes for longer than usual.

“We ought to ring somebody about that,” he said.

Elsie turned the tap off.

“They said they'd write.”

### hop 156 (GPT-6 Astra, run astra_json_prev_orig_ext, its hop 6, 261 words)
On Sunday the woman came for the bed. She had brought a man who stayed by the van until Martin went out and asked whether he would need a hand.

“Just the frame,” the woman said. “We can't take the mattress.”

Elsie stood in the doorway with the screws in a saucer. She had counted eight, although there were nine holes in the metal brackets. One hole looked as if it had never been used.

The man folded the frame and carried it through the hall. At the turn he knocked the umbrella stand. Martin caught it before it fell, and for a moment they both stood holding things.

After the van had gone, Elsie washed the saucer. There was a grey mark where one of the screws had rested. She rubbed it with her thumb under the hot tap.

“We could have kept that downstairs,” Martin said.

“The bed?”

“No. The little table.”

It was beside the armchair, with a glass ring on its top and a folded newspaper in the drawer. Elsie had put it there because the woman on the telephone had said there should be somewhere within reach for a drink.

“It belongs upstairs,” she said.

Martin took the glass into the kitchen. Then he went back for the newspaper, which was nearly three weeks old, and put it with the recycling.

They left the mattress against the dining-room wall overnight. Before going to bed, Elsie laid a clean sheet over it. The lower edge trailed on the floor, and she tucked it underneath with her foot.

### hop 157 (GPT-6 Astra, run astra_json_prev_orig_ext, its hop 7, 256 words)
On Saturday Martin found the instructions in the drawer beneath the telephone. They were folded around a small spanner, which fell onto the tiles when he opened them.

“That'll be what we need,” Elsie said.

He picked it up and tried it on the first nut. It was too small. For a while he held it against the others, as though they might be different.

Elsie went to the kitchen for a saucer.

The woman had telephoned after lunch. She asked how wide the bed was and whether it would fit in a van. Martin measured it while Elsie waited with the receiver against her cardigan. He called out the width, then the length, but she asked him to write them down.

“She's coming tomorrow,” she said afterward.

“Did you tell her about the wheel?”

“I said it moves.”

One wheel had left a curved black mark on the dining-room floor. Elsie had tried furniture polish on it, then washing-up liquid. From the doorway it was hidden by the bed.

Martin brought his toolbox in from the shed. They stripped the bedding together, each taking an end of the lower sheet. In the middle was a shallow yellow stain neither of them mentioned.

“Put it by the machine,” Elsie said.

When the mattress was lifted away, a blue slipper lay beneath the frame. Martin reached for it, but Elsie was nearer.

“The other one's upstairs,” she said.

She carried it into the hall. Martin heard the cupboard open and close, and then the kettle being filled.

### hop 158 (GPT-6 Astra, run astra_json_prev_orig_ext, its hop 8, 260 words)
The card had been in the newsagent's window since Tuesday. Elsie had written it out twice because the first time she put the price too near the edge.

“Someone might want to cut it down,” Martin said.

“It's a bed, not a table.”

“I mean the price.”

She left it as it was.

On Friday he went to see whether the card was still there. A notice for piano lessons had been pinned over one corner, but the telephone number was clear. He bought a newspaper they already had and carried it home under his arm.

Elsie was in the dining room, winding the handle at the foot of the bed. The upper end rose a little, bringing the pillow toward her.

“It sticks halfway,” she said.

“It always did.”

“I know that.”

He put the newspaper on a chair and took the handle. There was a point where it resisted, then a click, and the pillow began to sink again. Elsie smoothed the counterpane when he had finished.

They ate in the kitchen. Afterward Martin washed the two plates while she dried, putting each one straight into the cupboard. The dining-room chairs had been divided between the other rooms in February. One stood on the landing with a pile of towels on it.

“We'll have to take it apart,” she said.

“Depends who comes.”

“They won't get it through the door like that.”

He emptied the washing-up bowl. Outside, the shed window caught the light from the kitchen.

“There was a leaflet,” he said.

“I didn't throw anything away.”

### hop 159 (GPT-6 Astra, run astra_json_prev_orig_ext, its hop 9, 262 words)
On Monday Elsie found the little rubber cup beneath the sideboard. She held it up while Martin was looking for the gas bill.

“Off one of the feet,” she said.

He turned it over. There was a grey circle inside where the metal had rested.

“Keep it with the others.”

“The others are on it.”

He went into the dining room and bent down. From the kitchen she heard him trying each corner, then the small noise he made when he stood up too quickly.

“Back one,” he said.

She brought him the cup. He lifted the frame while she pushed it underneath with the toe of her slipper.

For a while they stood looking at the bed. The counterpane reached almost to the floor on one side and not quite to the rail on the other. Elsie pulled it level.

“We could ask the hospital,” Martin said.

“They have their own.”

“They might know somebody.”

She folded the unused pillowcase she had brought downstairs and laid it on the sideboard.

After lunch he fetched a card from the drawer where they kept birthday candles and foreign coins. It had a faint crease across the middle. Elsie put it under a book while she cleared the table.

“How much?” she asked.

He named a figure.

“It cost more than that.”

“It isn't new.”

She uncapped the pen and tried it on the back of an envelope. Martin stood behind her chair until she asked him to move. He went to the sink and rinsed his cup, though she had already washed it.

### hop 160 (GPT-6 Astra, run astra_json_prev_orig_ext, its hop 10, 271 words)
On Sunday Martin put the dining chairs back where they had been, except for the one that would not fit between the bed and the window. That he left in the hall.

“Someone will fall over it,” Elsie said.

He carried it upstairs. She heard the legs knock against the banisters, once at the turn and again near the top.

They ate in the kitchen with the radio on. There was a programme about gardens. Martin reached past the bread to turn it down when the telephone rang, but it was next door's telephone, coming through the wall.

“I thought I'd do an egg,” Elsie said.

“We've had enough.”

“I meant for tonight.”

He looked at his plate. “Yes. An egg.”

In the afternoon she stripped the bed. The bottom sheet had caught under the mattress, and she had to call him to lift it. He held it higher than she needed while she worked the corner loose.

“That's it,” she said.

He kept holding it.

“Martin.”

When the mattress dropped, something tapped against the floor. Elsie looked beneath the bed but saw only the castor of the sideboard and a white thread she could not reach.

She put on clean sheets because leaving the mattress bare seemed wrong. The counterpane had been upstairs in the airing cupboard. There was a pale rectangle along its fold.

Martin brought down two pillowcases.

“Only one,” she said.

He laid the other over his arm and watched her tuck in the sides. Before they went to bed, he checked that the front door was locked, then came back and switched off the dining-room light.

### hop 161 (GPT-6 Astra, run astra_json_prev_orig_ext, its hop 11, 266 words)
The man who had brought the bed said they would telephone about collecting it. Martin wrote the number on the back of an envelope, although the man had not asked him to.

“Not today,” Elsie said when he had gone.

“No. They'll telephone.”

She took the envelope from beside the fruit bowl and put it in the drawer with the instruction books.

On Saturday morning there were still four dining chairs in the sitting room. To reach the curtains she had to turn sideways between them. One had a cardigan over its back. She folded it with the buttons inside and carried it upstairs, then brought it down again because she had nowhere decided for it to go.

Martin was washing the medicine glasses. He held each one under the tap and stood it on the draining board.

“They belong to us,” he said.

“I know.”

“I wasn't sure.”

At lunchtime he opened a tin of soup. Elsie set out three spoons, noticed before he turned round, and put one back. The drawer shut too loudly.

They had been told there would be someone to ask about the things that were left. Neither could remember who had said it. There were two unopened packets of cotton wool, and a little basin they had bought in February.

“That's a useful size,” Martin said.

Elsie put it beneath the sink.

Later she found him standing in the dining-room doorway with a chair in his hands.

“Tomorrow,” she said. “We can put them back tomorrow.”

He set it down where he was standing and went to fill the kettle.

### hop 162 (GPT-6 Astra, run astra_json_prev_orig_ext, its hop 12, 255 words)
On Friday Elsie opened the dining-room window. The catch had been painted over, and she used the handle of a teaspoon to loosen it. Outside, someone was cutting a hedge. Small pieces fell on their side of the fence.

Martin came in carrying the clean sheets.

“Upstairs?” he asked.

“On the table for now.”

There was no room on the table. He moved a vase to the windowsill and laid the sheets beside the box of paper gloves.

The bed had been stripped before breakfast. Without the blankets it seemed narrower, though the metal sides still prevented them from opening the cupboard properly. Elsie had wanted a tablecloth from there on Wednesday. Now she could not remember what she had wanted it for.

“Did you have any toast?” Martin asked.

“Yes.”

He looked at the plate on the mantelpiece.

“That was yesterday,” she said.

He carried it into the kitchen. She heard him scrape something into the bin, then lift the lid again.

When the doorbell rang, they both went into the hall. The visitor had a clipboard and wore the same brown shoes Elsie remembered from February. He asked whether there were any difficulties.

“With what?” Martin said.

“Getting it out. Sometimes furniture's been moved.”

Elsie looked towards the sitting room.

“We can move anything,” she said.

But he had only come to check the fittings. He crouched beside the bed and read a number from a label near the floor. Martin fetched a pen from the kitchen and waited while he finished writing.

### hop 163 (GPT-6 Astra, run astra_json_prev_orig_ext, its hop 13, 261 words)
On Thursday the woman from the equipment office telephoned while Elsie was washing a cup. She held it under the tap until the water ran cold.

“We have someone in your area tomorrow,” the woman said.

Elsie turned off the tap.

“Will he take everything?”

“He'll have the details.”

Afterwards she put the cup on the draining board, although it was the one with the crack and she had meant to throw it away.

Martin was in the dining room sorting the things on the little wheeled trolley. He had made separate piles of unopened packets and packets with something missing. A pair of scissors lay between them.

“They're coming tomorrow,” she said.

“What time?”

“She didn't say.”

He picked up a roll of tape, pressed the loose end against it, and put it down again.

“Should we leave these?”

“I don't suppose they can use them.”

He put both piles into the same carrier bag. The paper gloves wouldn't fit, so Elsie took the box and carried it to the table.

They ate in the kitchen that evening. Martin sat where his mother used to sit before the bed arrived, with one knee against the drawer that never quite shut. Neither of them moved it.

Later, Elsie found him looking in the airing cupboard.

“There should be another single set,” he said.

“The blue ones.”

“These?”

She nodded. He brought them out and held them against his chest.

“We needn't do it tonight,” she said.

He put them on the landing chair, where they would see them in the morning.

### hop 164 (GPT-6 Astra, run astra_json_prev_orig_ext, its hop 14, 267 words)
On Wednesday Martin went back to work for the morning. He left his sandwiches in the fridge, wrapped in the foil Elsie had folded round them the night before.

She saw them when she went for the milk and shut the door without taking anything out.

The dining-room curtains were still closed. She opened them from the side nearest the window, reaching over the bed rail. There was a mark on the glass where one of the suction hooks had been. She rubbed it with her thumb, then fetched a cloth.

Outside, the neighbour was pulling the bins in. Elsie stepped back until he had passed.

She had been given a number for the bed and another for the smaller things. Both were written on the back of an appointment card. She brought the telephone into the hall so she could read the card under the light.

The first number rang for a long time. At the second, a woman asked for a date of birth.

“Not yours,” she said, kindly.

Elsie started again.

When Martin came home, he put his keys beside the card.

“Did you get through?”

“They're going to ring me.”

He nodded and took off his coat. For a moment he stood holding it, looking towards the dining room.

“Your lunch is still there,” she said.

“I bought something.”

“You can have it tomorrow.”

He hung his coat on the lower hook. His mother's cardigan was on the one above it, with a tissue showing from the pocket.

Elsie went into the kitchen and moved the sandwiches to the front of the shelf.

### hop 165 (GPT-6 Astra, run astra_json_prev_orig_ext, its hop 15, 266 words)
On Tuesday the chemist took back the unopened boxes but said the bottles would have to go in a separate bag. Elsie had brought everything in the same carrier. She stood at the counter while he found another one.

“There's no hurry,” he said.

Martin was waiting outside with the car. He had parked where the double yellow lines began, leaving the engine running.

“All done?”

She put the empty carrier between her feet.

At home he made tea. There were still three mugs on the tray, though the smallest had not been used since Friday. He took it back to the cupboard before bringing the tray through.

They sat in the kitchen. From there Elsie could see the corner of the dining-room bed and the blue blanket folded across its foot. Someone had raised the backrest. She could not remember whether it had been the nurse or herself.

“I ought to go in tomorrow,” Martin said. “Just till lunch.”

“Yes.”

“They've been very good.”

She picked a loose thread from the edge of the tablecloth and wound it round her finger until the tip whitened.

Later, while he telephoned his manager, she cut bread for his sandwiches. The cheese had gone hard along one edge. She trimmed it and put the pieces on a saucer, then covered the saucer with another, smaller one.

Martin came into the kitchen carrying the telephone.

“I'll be back by one.”

She pressed the foil flat along each side of the sandwiches. He watched her put them away, then handed her the appointment card he had found beside the telephone.

### hop 166 (GPT-6 Astra, run astra_json_prev_orig_ext, its hop 16, 256 words)
On Monday Elsie cleared the shelf beside the bed. She put the glass on the tray and carried it to the kitchen, holding one hand over the top although there was hardly any water left.

The nurse had written a number on the back of an envelope. Martin rang it after breakfast. He stood in the hall with his coat on, explaining about the bed.

“Thursday,” he said when he came back. “They'll ring first.”

Elsie nodded. She had thought they might come that afternoon.

There were things in the drawer that belonged upstairs: a comb, nail scissors, the little clock with its alarm switched off. She laid them on the bed while she wiped the drawer. Under the lining paper she found a button and a receipt from the garden centre, dated April.

“Shall I do those?” Martin asked.

He was looking at the medicine boxes.

“I know what there is.”

She checked each label before putting it in the carrier. Two boxes had never been opened. The bottles were sticky underneath, and she wiped them with the cloth she had used for the drawer.

At lunchtime Martin warmed the soup. Elsie moved the carrier off the table to make room for the bowls.

“We can take that tomorrow,” he said.

She put it beside the front door, where they would see it on the way out.

Before going upstairs that evening, she checked that the bottle tops were tight. Then she folded the handles of the carrier together and turned off the hall light.

### hop 167 (GPT-6 Astra, run astra_json_prev_orig_ext, its hop 17, 265 words)
On Sunday the neighbour brought back the casserole dish. Elsie took it from her at the door. There was a tea towel folded inside, not one of theirs.

“I'll get yours,” she said.

“There's no hurry.”

But Elsie went to the airing cupboard and found it beneath the pillowcases. When she returned, Martin had asked the neighbour in. They were standing by the dining-room door, neither of them going through.

“I can only stop a minute,” the neighbour said.

Elsie gave her the towel. They talked about the roadworks at the end of the street and whether the buses were running their usual route. Then the neighbour touched Elsie's sleeve and left.

Martin carried the dish into the kitchen.

“Where does this live?”

“Bottom cupboard. Behind the big one.”

He had to kneel to put it away.

In the afternoon Elsie sat in the dining room with the newspaper. The bed took up the space where the table had been, and her chair was still turned towards it. She read the same short article twice, then folded the paper with the crossword outside.

Martin came in carrying two mugs. He put hers on the shelf beside the glass.

“We ought to ask about collecting it,” he said.

“Not today.”

“No. Tomorrow.”

She moved the mug onto her knee. There was a pale circle on the shelf where it had stood.

Later he asked whether she wanted the television on. She said she didn't mind. He fetched the remote from the windowsill, and they watched a programme about a couple buying a house near the sea.

### hop 168 (GPT-6 Astra, run astra_json_prev_orig_ext, its hop 18, 263 words)
On Saturday Martin took the last bag to the charity shop. Elsie had tied the handles together, and he carried it from underneath so they wouldn't split.

“Ask if they want the walking frame,” she said.

At the door he put the bag down to find his keys.

“That's not ours to give.”

“No. Of course.”

After he had gone she washed the breakfast things. There were three teaspoons in the bowl, though she could only account for two. She dried them and put them in the drawer.

The neighbour had brought a casserole on Thursday. They had eaten some that evening, standing in the kitchen, and the rest was still in a pudding basin in the fridge. Elsie washed the dish again, although it was clean, and carried it next door wrapped in a tea towel.

No one answered. She could hear a radio somewhere at the back of the house. She left the dish beside the step, out of sight of the pavement.

When Martin returned he had a packet of biscuits and the local paper.

“They wouldn't take the slippers,” he said.

“What did you do with them?”

“Brought them back.”

She nodded. He put them on the bottom stair, still in their separate carrier bag.

That night Elsie went into the dining room to close the curtains. The sheet was tucked tightly beneath the mattress. She loosened it at the foot, then stood with her hand on the metal rail.

From upstairs Martin called to ask where they kept the spare toothpaste.

She switched off the light before answering.

### hop 169 (GPT-6 Astra, run astra_json_prev_orig_ext, its hop 19, 261 words)
On Friday Elsie found a receipt in the pocket of the brown cardigan. Two library books had been renewed until the end of the month. She put the receipt on the mantelpiece, under the clock, where Martin would see it.

They had agreed to do the clothes before the weekend. The larger things would have to wait for someone to collect them. Martin had telephoned a number written on the back of the care folder, but the woman who answered said he needed another department.

“Did she give you the number?” Elsie asked.

“Yes. I've got it.”

He was looking through the telephone directory for a piece of paper he had put there.

Elsie spread the cardigan across her knees. One cuff was darker than the other. She had washed it twice in the last fortnight, once by hand because the label said to, and once with their own things.

“This can go,” she said.

Martin held a bag open.

There were fewer clothes than she had expected. The drawer beneath them contained birthday cards, a spectacle case and a small tin of buttons. She left those where they were.

At five they stopped for tea. Martin carried the bags into the hall while Elsie moved the dining chairs back from the wall. There was room for three around the table now, provided nobody wanted to get past.

“Shall I put the other one upstairs?” he asked.

“Leave it for now.”

He sat down without taking his tea from her. She set it in front of him, then fetched her own.

### hop 170 (GPT-6 Astra, run astra_json_prev_orig_ext, its hop 20, 261 words)
On Thursday the district nurse came for the box in the kitchen. Elsie had put the unused dressings beside it, but the nurse said those were theirs to keep.

“They're still sealed,” Elsie said.

“I know. We're not allowed to take them back.”

The nurse stood with one hand on the box while Martin went to find the lid. He had used it under a plant pot in the conservatory. When he brought it through, he wiped the ring of water off with his sleeve.

After she had gone, Elsie put the dressings in the cupboard above the oven. There wasn't room on the first shelf. She moved a packet of candles and a cake tin they never used.

“Someone might want them,” Martin said.

She shut the cupboard carefully. The catch had been unreliable for years.

They ate the rest of the soup for lunch. Martin asked whether there was more bread, although the empty wrapper lay between them. Elsie gave him half her slice.

In the afternoon he went to the bank. She stayed in, expecting a call about the bed, and took the clean clothes off the airer. Most were their own. There was also a nightdress and the brown cardigan, which she folded separately and carried into the front room.

The telephone rang while she was there. A man asked for Mrs Palmer, then apologised when Elsie explained.

“Was it about the bed?” Martin asked when he returned.

“No.”

He put his keys beside the telephone.

“We ought to make a start tomorrow,” she said.

“All right.”

### hop 171 (GPT-6 Astra, run astra_json_prev_orig_ext, its hop 21, 262 words)
On Wednesday Martin took the library books back. There were three, all large print, and a fourth Elsie found beneath the chair after he had left. She put it on the hall table with the appointment card for the eye clinic.

When he came home he was carrying potatoes in the bag.

“Did they say anything?” she asked.

“About what?”

“The books.”

“No. I put them through the slot.”

Elsie turned the appointment card over. There was nothing written on the back.

They had moved the kitchen table towards the window to make room for the equipment. Now Martin suggested moving it back, but she said they should wait until everything had been collected. One leg stood on a square of folded cardboard. He bent down and pushed it further under.

“That's better,” he said.

She filled the kettle. For months she had boiled it with just enough water for one cup, then boiled it again when someone else wanted tea. This time she stood at the tap until the water reached the mark.

In the evening they watched a programme about buying houses abroad. Martin had the sound too low, but neither of them reached for the remote control. At nine Elsie went into the kitchen and checked the calendar.

“The nurse tomorrow,” she said from the doorway.

“What time?”

“She didn't give one.”

Before bed, Martin rinsed out the soup saucepan and left it upside down on the drainer. Elsie checked the back door. Passing the front room, she stopped to switch off the lamp, although it was already off.

### hop 172 (GPT-6 Astra, run astra_json_prev_orig_ext, its hop 22, 262 words)
On Tuesday the woman from the office rang to ask whether they still needed the bed. Elsie said no, then asked if someone would telephone before coming.

“They usually do,” the woman said.

Martin was in the garden, emptying rainwater from the pots. When he came in, Elsie told him she had arranged it.

“Thursday?” he asked.

“She didn't say.”

He wiped his shoes on the mat, though he had already taken them off.

There was half a tin of soup in the fridge, covered with a saucer. Elsie poured it into a saucepan and added water. They ate at opposite ends of the kitchen table, with the salt between them. Afterwards Martin washed the bowls and she dried them. He held each one under the tap longer than was necessary.

“We ought to do the books,” she said.

He looked towards the front room.

“Tomorrow will do.”

The books were on the little trolley beside the bed. Elsie had renewed them twice over the telephone. She went in and gathered them against her chest, leaving the television guide and a packet of tissues. A bookmark fell out as she crossed the hall. It was a receipt from the chemist's, and she put it in her pocket without looking at the date.

Martin found a shopping bag in the cupboard under the sink. He shook it open and checked the bottom for holes.

“Those handles aren't much good,” Elsie said.

“I won't have far to carry them.”

She put the bag beside his shoes, where he would see it in the morning.

### hop 173 (GPT-6 Astra, run astra_json_prev_orig_ext, its hop 23, 266 words)
On Monday Martin put the armchair back by the window. It had stood in the dining room for seven weeks, facing the sideboard, and one of its feet had left a square mark in the carpet.

“Not there,” Elsie said.

“This is where it was.”

“I know. They'll need room to get through.”

He moved it back against the wall. Underneath was a button neither of them recognised. Elsie put it on the mantelpiece beside the clock.

The bed was still raised at the head. She had tried the lever once, but it had made a noise and she had left it. Now she folded the blanket lengthways, then again, keeping the label inside. The sheets belonged to them. She wasn't sure about the blanket.

“Was this here when they brought it?”

Martin rubbed a pale scratch on the doorframe with his thumb.

“They brought quite a lot.”

She laid the blanket across the foot of the bed.

In the kitchen, the number was written on the back of an envelope. There were two numbers, one for the office and one for evenings. Elsie sat with the telephone beside her and waited until the clock showed nine. Then she waited another five minutes.

The woman who answered asked for a reference number.

“I've only got the address,” Elsie said.

“That should be all right.”

While she was being transferred, Elsie watched Martin cross the garden carrying the watering can. He stopped beside the empty bean frame and looked into it.

She was still holding the telephone when he came back. He filled the kettle without asking.

### hop 174 (GPT-6 Astra, run astra_json_prev_orig_ext, its hop 24, 261 words)
On Sunday Elsie found a pear in the pocket of her mother's dressing gown. It was small and yellow, with a soft place where it had rested against the seam. She carried it downstairs in her palm.

“There's another in the bowl,” Martin said.

“I wasn't looking for one.”

He took his hands out of the washing-up water and dried them. The pear lay between them on the table until he went to fetch the newspaper. Elsie wrapped it in a page she had finished reading.

Upstairs, the wardrobe door would not stay open. She held it with her heel while she lifted the empty hangers from the rail. Three were padded, covered in blue satin. Her mother had brought those herself, in a carrier bag, along with a tin of biscuits and the good scissors.

Elsie left the scissors in the drawer.

At lunchtime they ate standing in the kitchen. There was room at the table, but Martin had put the clean cups there and neither of them moved them.

“We ought to ring about the bed,” he said.

“Tomorrow.”

“Only so we know.”

She brushed crumbs from her skirt into her hand.

Later he went into the dining room and measured the doorway with the tape he kept beside the fuses. He wrote nothing down. When Elsie came past with the dressing gown over her arm, he let the tape slide into its case slowly, guiding the last few inches with his finger.

“Wide enough?” she asked.

“It came in.”

She nodded and took the dressing gown upstairs again.

### hop 175 (GPT-6 Astra, run astra_json_prev_orig_ext, its hop 25, 263 words)
On Saturday Martin took the last of the medicine to the chemist. Elsie had put the bottles in a shoe box, wedging them upright with a tea towel. When he came back he brought the towel folded under his arm.

“They wouldn't take the box,” he said.

She put it beside the back door with the things for recycling.

All afternoon there was rain against the kitchen window. Elsie washed the glasses from the dining room, including the one with the straw still in it. She stood the straw in the cutlery basket, then took it out and put it in the bin.

Martin had found a screw on the carpet beside the bed.

“Could be off anything,” he said.

He set it on the mantelpiece. There was a pale square there where the clock had stood before its ticking became a nuisance. Neither of them could remember where they had put the clock.

Towards evening Elsie went upstairs for a cardigan. Her mother's dressing gown hung from the hook behind the spare-room door, its belt dragging on the floor. She threaded the loose end through the loop and tied it once, without pulling the knot tight.

“Shall I do eggs?” Martin called.

“All right.”

“Two each?”

She waited until she heard him open the fridge before answering.

After supper they watched a programme about a place they had once driven through. Martin remembered a bridge. Elsie remembered stopping to buy fruit from a woman under a striped awning. She had to explain which holiday she meant before he remembered the woman too.

### hop 176 (GPT-6 Astra, run astra_json_prev_orig_ext, its hop 26, 262 words)
The men came for the bed on Friday morning. One of them asked whether the banister could be taken off, but in the end they managed by turning the frame on its side. Elsie watched from the landing with a packet of biscuits she had brought up to offer them.

“There we are,” the younger man said when they reached the bottom.

After the van had gone, Martin hoovered the stairs. He used the little attachment along the edges, where the wheels had left crumbs of dried mud.

Elsie went into the spare room. Without the bed there was room to open the wardrobe properly. Inside were three empty hangers and the good coat her mother had worn to appointments until getting it on became too much trouble.

She shut the wardrobe again.

Downstairs, Martin was reading the label on a brown bottle.

“We shouldn't pour this away.”

“No.”

“I can ask tomorrow.”

She found a shoe box under the sideboard. It had Christmas cards in it, mostly from people they no longer saw. She tipped them into a shopping bag and shook the box over the sink.

That night they had soup from the freezer. Elsie had written the date on the lid, but not what sort it was. Martin said he thought it was leek.

“There's potato in it,” she said.

They ate with the kitchen door open. For weeks they had kept it that way so they could hear if they were called. Afterwards Martin carried their bowls to the sink, passing the switch without turning on the light.