‘Yeah,’ Greta said. ‘What is that about?’

‘We’ll still do it though,’ Peggy said. ‘Eh?’

Greta opened up to the place they wrote down the phone calls, diligently. ‘Oh, yeah.’ Greta nodded vigorously. ‘Totally.’

Peggy looked at their watch on Greta’s wrist. ‘We better get going,’ she said. Holding Greta’s arm for a minute.

The shop was quiet in the afternoon. They did more cleaning and a truck came in with clothes and they sorted through those for a while. The time went faster when they were working through the clothes. Some of the work was boring and some of the work was interesting, and pricing and ironing and putting the clothes on coat hangers was okay. There were lots of winter clothes. That was one of the hard things with shopping in the shop. Some people at the end of each season put that season’s clothes away and part of that process was getting rid of things they didn’t like anymore or that didn’t fit anymore. Dorrit had explained it to them when the winter jumpers started arriving in spring. They put them out, though. Sometimes the weather would change quickly, and people would come rushing in wearing a T-shirt, looking for something warm to pull on. Also, sometimes people thought ahead. Some of the winter clothes were really nice and worth putting away over summer. Also, really, the city they lived in never got that warm. Except a few days a year, when it got unbearable, but for most of the time you could wear a cardigan or a sweatshirt and you wouldn’t be too hot. Greta and Peggy liked to wear long sleeves all year round. Sometimes people in the meetings would say, ‘That’ll change.’ But it never would. There was something about their wrists they didn’t like. Something about always wanting to cut them open when they looked at them. Imagining cutting them open had become a self-soothing thing, not a self-harm thing. If their wrists were covered, they could indulge in the fantasy but not kill themselves. Sometimes people in the meetings would say, ‘That’ll change.’ Not in reply to anything Greta and Peggy were telling them about their wrists, because they had never told anyone – ever – but because of something the people were saying about themselves. Sometimes it had already changed for them, and then they were saying ‘That changed’, but it hadn’t changed for Greta and Peggy, ever. They always thought about cutting their wrists open and it always made them feel better.