On the fourth attempt, the rain sounded like someone frying a very large egg.
Len stood in the doorway with one arm in his coat.
“Am I coming in?”
“Not yet,” said Jo. She tilted the biscuit tin the other way. The dried peas rushed back across its base.
“Now it sounds like two eggs,” said Mina.
Mina was sitting at the piano because it had the only chair with a cushion. She had not been asked to play anything. Every so often she tried a key to see whether it was still out of tune.
“The audience will know it’s rain,” Jo said.
“How?”
“Because he comes in wet.”
Len withdrew his arm.
“You said the coat would be wet. You didn’t say I would.”
“The outside of the coat.”
“That’s where I keep most of it.”
Jo put down the tin. The hall clock made a sound like a small object being dropped into a drawer. They had forty minutes before indoor bowls.
She had borrowed the peas from her own kitchen and the tin from the cupboard behind the stage. The tin said DANISH BUTTER COOKIES, though its contents had been drawing pins when she found it. These were now in a mug labelled BEST UNCLE.
“Perhaps fewer peas,” Mina said.
Jo poured half into the lid and tried again.
“Smaller egg,” said Mina.
Len came over to look. He always came over to look. During Monday’s rehearsal he had left a deathbed to inspect the latch on a window.
“It’s the metal,” he said.
“I know it’s the metal.”
“Have we got a box?”
They had a box. It contained six imitation candles, a length of red cord and an envelope marked HOTEL MONEY. Mina moved these onto the piano, where they looked like the beginning of an accusation.
Jo tipped the peas into the box and rocked it gently.
This time Len nodded.
“That’s better.”
“Go outside.”
He looked towards the fire exit.
“Outside the room, Len. Where your entrance is.”
He went back to the doorway. Jo began the rain. Mina read the line belonging to his wife.
“You might at least have written.”
Len came in, shut the door and took off his coat.
“You’ve missed a page,” Jo said.
“I thought we were trying the entrance.”
“We are. That’s the entrance from Act Two.”
“Does he come in twice?”
“He lives there.”
Len put the coat on again.
At the back of the hall, someone rattled a bunch of keys. It was Mrs Bell, carrying two supermarket bags and already wearing her bowling shoes.
“Don’t mind me. I only need the big tin.”
Jo pointed to it. Mrs Bell peered into the lid.
“Are these anybody’s?”
“Mine,” Jo said.
Mrs Bell waited while she recovered the rest of the peas. She also wanted to know where the drawing pins had gone. Jo showed her the mug.
“That’ll get us eventually,” Mrs Bell said, and carried the tin away.
They had twenty-six minutes.
“Once more,” Jo said.
She tipped the box. Mina turned back to the correct page. Len waited outside, both arms in his coat this time.
The rain was quite good now. Jo could make it heavier by lifting one end, or leave only a few peas moving, a little water still coming off a roof.
Mina read the cue.
Len opened the door and stood there.
For a moment Jo thought he had forgotten his line again. Then he looked back into the empty corridor, pulled his collar away from his neck and came in.
“You’re late,” Mina said.
“I know.”
He hung his coat on the hook. It fell off. Without turning round, he caught it.
Jo lowered the box until the last pea stopped moving.
Mina put a pencil mark beside the cue. Then she reached behind her and moved the hotel money off middle C.