The man at the address in the listing was holding a bag of peas against his face.
"Dentist," he said.
Sal put the van in park. "I've come about the freezer."
"That's the one in the garage. You could have backed in."
He had sent her eleven messages that morning. In the first he had said he would be in all day. The others had progressively reduced the part of the day in which she was permitted to arrive. Now he stood in his driveway in slippers, watching her climb out of a van she had borrowed from a man who hadn't wanted to lend it.
"You said it was empty."
"Nearly."
He took the peas away. One side of his jaw was enormous.
"It's Len."
She followed him into the garage.
The freezer was the right size. Sal had measured the place beside her washing machine with a length of string, then brought the string. She stretched it across the lid. Len watched with the expression of a man being subjected to an unfamiliar diagnostic procedure.
"Twenty-nine and a half. That's with the handle. The last woman measured it without the handle and then said I'd misled her."
"This is the space by my washer," Sal said. Len reached for the string; she pulled it taut before he could take it.
She could fit six trays of dumplings in the bottom, more if she bought the shallow tubs. She had taken an order for two hundred before finding anywhere to put them. Her brother, who owned the van, had asked what her business plan was, and she'd told him to give her the fucking keys.
Len lifted the lid. There were four plastic shopping bags, a loaf of bread, and a rectangular cake under a cloudy cover.
"All that has to go inside," Sal said.
"I've got a fridge."
"Good."
He didn't move.
The cake was white with blue edging. A crust of frost obscured the middle. Someone had drawn a small red forklift in icing. It had two black wheels and a third mark that might have been a driver's head.
"That's nice," Sal said, because she had been looking at it.
"They got the mast wrong."
She shut the lid.
"Do you have a trolley?"
He pointed at one behind a folding table, then put the peas back against his face. Sal moved two paint tins and a box of bathroom tiles to reach it. There was a children's bicycle hanging above her head. Its front wheel turned when she brushed it.
"It's my grandson's," Len said.
"I wasn't buying that."
"He'll grow into it."
She wheeled the trolley out. One tyre was soft but not flat. She pressed it with her shoe.
"You want tea?"
"I want the freezer."
"All right. Christ."
He went into the house. She heard a door being opened, then another door, then something falling. He returned with a square washing-up bowl.
The shopping bags contained identical foil parcels. Len transferred six to the bowl and carried it inside. Sal took the other bags after him without being asked. In the kitchen, a small radio was playing too loudly. The freezer compartment over the refrigerator had one narrow shelf. Len had already filled it.
"There's more in these," she said.
"I can see that."
"A cool box?"
"There used to be one. We lent it to Jo's sister. They don't bring things back, that family. They wait for you to forget."
She set the bags on the table. There was a cool box underneath it. She drew it out with her foot.
"That's Jo's."
"Is she using it?"
He bent down too quickly and made a wet sound through his teeth. Sal opened the box, took out two folded towels, and started putting the parcels in.
"What's in them?"
"Dinner."
She put the bread on top. The lid closed.
Len stood beside the table with a towel in each hand. Through the window Sal could see the van, which now seemed to belong to a more organized woman who would have checked all this before leaving home.
"Just the cake," she said.
"That won't fit."
"On the counter."
"It'll thaw."
"Yes."
He looked at her for a while.
"I paid eighty pounds for that cake."
"You're selling me the freezer for eighty pounds."
"Well, it's a good freezer."
She went back to the garage. The cake's cardboard base had frozen to the basket. She worked her fingers under one corner and the cardboard began to tear.
"Don't pull it like that," Len said behind her.
"Then get the other end."
They lifted out the whole basket. In the kitchen, with the basket on the counter and the peas abandoned beside the sink, the cover cleared enough for Sal to read the message.
HAPPY RETIREMENT LEN.
Underneath, in smaller letters: FROM ALL OF US.
"You paid for your own cake?"
Len turned the radio off.
"They were going to do supermarket."
There were blue icing rosettes all the way around. She counted eight along one long side before she noticed she was counting them.
"The woman who made it does wedding cakes," he said. "I gave her a photo of the truck."
"How long ago?"
"May."
It was August.
"Do you still want it?" Len asked.
"The freezer?"
"I've got someone else asking. You saw how cold it is."
She took out her phone. Her brother had written, Need it back clean.
"Seventy," she said.
"Eighty."
"I've been emptying your freezer."
"That's not the freezer's fault."
She put her phone away.
"Fine. Eighty. But you need to help me load it."
They got it as far as the garage door before the soft tyre slid sideways. The freezer leaned against Sal's shoulder. Len's slippers skidded on the concrete.
"Down," she said. "Put it down."
"I've got it."
"You haven't. Put it down."
They lowered it with one corner scraping across the floor. Len stood with his hands on his knees, spitting pink into the dust.
"You shouldn't be doing this," Sal said.
He looked up at her so quickly that she stepped back.
"You're the one wants it moved."
She went to the van and found the little compressor her brother kept under the seat. He had made her promise not to touch anything under the seat.
The compressor rattled against the drive while they stood on either side of the trolley. Len kept his foot near the tyre, moving it closer every few seconds as though his supervision would improve the rate of inflation.
"You still at work?" he asked.
"I'm making dumplings."
"For your family?"
"For money."
"You'll need somewhere hygienic."
"I've got a kitchen, Len."
"I only meant..."
"I've got a kitchen and soap and a fucking tap. How's that?"
He looked down at the compressor.
After they had strapped the freezer upright inside the van, she counted four twenty-pound notes into his hand. He put them in his trouser pocket without counting them again.
"There," she said.
He was staring into the garage. The patch where the freezer had stood was much darker than the rest of the floor.
"Hang on."
Sal shut her eyes.
Len went into the house. She got into the driver's seat and answered her brother: It's a freezer. What dirt?
Len came back holding the cake. He had freed it from the basket, and part of the cardboard base hung down over his wrist. Without the cloudy cover it looked bluer and more expensive. His name had been piped in a very competent hand.
"You going past the ring road? Only it's the turning before the big petrol station. The depot. You'd be going past anyway, wouldn't you?"
"I don't know which depot you mean."
"Before the petrol station. You take that turning."
She looked at the cake and then at him.
"It's Saturday."
"Goods in is always there. Rosa'll be on."
"Can't you ring her?"
"I could ring her."
He shifted the cake. A piece of blue edging fell onto his slipper.
Sal leaned across and lifted the newspapers off the passenger seat.
"You'll have to hold it."
At the first roundabout he told her to take the third exit. She was already in the wrong lane. A driver behind them sounded his horn and Len held up one hand without looking back, the cake balanced on his knees.
"Don't do that," she said.
"He can wait."
"It's not your van."
He lowered his hand.
The depot had changed its sign. Len said this twice. At the pedestrian gate he made her stop, though there was a visitors' entrance further on. Sal got out and took the cake while he eased himself down from the passenger seat. His shirt rode up at the back. She handed him the cake and returned to the van.
"There's a bell," she said.
"I know where the bell is."
He pressed it with his elbow.
She could have driven away then. She would have had to go to the end of the road to turn, but she could have done it. Instead she sat with the engine running. Beyond the mesh a woman in a yellow vest crossed the yard, carrying a clipboard above her head against the sun.
Len moved the cake so she could see his face.
Sal's phone rang. It was her brother.
"I'm coming," she said. "I'm on my way."