VIIIFour WomenChapter XX · Four WomenOne room, one sheet on the table, and a woman who has just come in with her coat still on being asked, once, not to do the thing she always does.
1·01Which Was WhichChapter I · Eleven YearsThe first image and the one the whole book rests on. Render two backs in a mirror and make the point honestly: the viewer should not be able to tell either.1·02Nothing Happened for Eleven YearsChapter I · Eleven YearsNo contact. Two women working in two buildings six miles apart, and a drawer.2·01She Talked from the Second Terrace to Hessen PointChapter I · Eleven YearsAnd her mother was asked one question and said Cold . Thirty-four years since she made this journey.
2·02The Fair One Was the OneChapter II · SagittaRender the misreading. One of them is the center of the room and one of them is in it.IThe LandingChapter II · SagittaThe squad list has gone up. Genie comes up the stair two at a time shouting; Kal already knew and did not come and tell her.Untitled
2·03She Threw a Vest Across the YardChapter III · Eleven MilesThe whole of their friendship and its one blind spot in a single thrown object. Nobody in the frame is being unkind.IIThe Spare VestChapter III · Eleven MilesKal's kit bag has gone somewhere. Genie throws her a spare vest across the yard without breaking off what she is saying to somebody else. It would not have gone round her, and both of them know it, and Genie has not thought about it for one second in her life.Untitled
2·04Four WordsChapter IV · The Thing She SaidRender the table not reacting. Eleven people go on being eleven people for about two seconds, and then the whole table goes round it the way water goes round a stone.2·05Thats FairChapter IV · The Thing She SaidThe exit is the image. Nobody stops her and nobody looks.2·06Sick About it Inside the HourChapter IV · The Thing She SaidShe had not lost her temper. She had looked at a person she liked and found the true thing.
2·07The Wall Above the North YardChapter V · Months OutEighteen years of knowing each other and never once in a building without a mother in it.2·08Ive Known Since I Was NineChapter V · Months OutOne of the most important speeches in the series, delivered flatly on a cold wall by somebody who has never said it before. She turns her hands over while she says it.2·09SwapChapter V · Months OutAbout nine people at Corran Vayr have ever heard it. It is her mother's laugh exactly and nobody in that frame knows it.IIIThe Wall Above the North YardChapter V · Months OutThe first real conversation either of them has had with another person in her life, conducted entirely as complaint about their mothers — and the moment Kal laughs out loud, which about nine people at Corran Vayr have ever heard.Untitled
2·10Two CupsChapter VI · An Ordinary Bad EveningAn object image and an exoneration. A bottle out of the bottom of a trunk and two measures, and the real reason sitting underneath it.
2·11Lamps on the StonesChapter VII · The LineEstablish the route before anything comes down it. Second and third years in ones and twos with their collars up, laughing at nothing the way you do in the cold.2·12Feet on Gravel FirstChapter VII · The LineSteam off shoulders, the noise of the crowd, somebody's arm going up, a shoe. Render motion, dark, distance and backs. No bodies.IVEleven FeetChapter VII · The LineKal is in the line because her housemates dragged her out, and does not know her friend is in it, and the front of the pack is a girl.Untitled
2·13One of the BoysChapter VIII · One of the BoysIt is not good for a person, being forgiven that fast. Nobody told her.2·14It Was FunnyChapter VIII · One of the BoysShe had lain awake at the third hour going round it four times and had arrived at something true with no sentence in the world that could carry it.
1·03Oh Thats MagnificentChapter IX · What Kyra SaidFifty-six and indistinguishable from eighteen, which is the joke and also the problem.1·04Val Did Not LaughChapter IX · What Kyra SaidThe most important four seconds in Set 1. Kyra is still going. Kal is eating with the total concentration of somebody who does not want to be asked anything. And one person at that table does not laugh.
1·05Four ThingsChapter XI · LogisticsThere is no compliment anywhere in it. No you're lovely , no you'll be glad of it . A name, a procedure, a drawing done in eleven seconds on the back of an envelope, and a remark about a duty roster.
1·06The Color of the WallChapter XII · The RegisterNo contact. A register entry of the lowest grade, non-permanent, reviewable, that four second-years have applied in writing to be given — and a woman standing in a hall with it in both hands, gone the color of the wall.1·07And Then Stopped LaughingChapter XII · The RegisterThe laugh and the stop in one frame. It is genuinely a bit funny, to the entire population of Corran Vayr, and to one person it is not.2·15Eleven Lines and a SignatureChapter XII · The RegisterAn object image and the whole argument of the chapter. A conduct entry of the lowest grade, so mild that a man pinned a copy of his own on a wall inside a week.2·16Dessin Has One on the WallChapter XII · The RegisterThe joke that is only a joke if it is not on your file.
2·17He Did it ProperlyChapter XIII · Neither ShapeThe worst thing about it is that he does it properly. Every individual step of what he does is decent.
2·18Let ThemChapter XIV · Let ThemVal has come up unannounced for the first time in the year, and they walk out along the wall where everybody at that university has had every difficult conversation for two thousand years.2·19Like You DidChapter XIV · Let ThemAnd here is what Vaelith Sorin could not say: that she had not been ashamed. Not for one hour in thirty-eight years.VLet ThemChapter XIV · Let ThemVal asks Kyra to stop them. Kyra refuses, and says the thing Val cannot see because she is standing inside it: that she did everything right and told nobody, and silence has never protected her once.Untitled
2·20Kal Came Past Her ShoulderChapter XV · The MeetShe says nothing, and that is the injury. Four hundred yards of hill that is not steep and does nothing to anybody who is right.VIThe HillChapter XV · The MeetGenie comes apart halfway up a hill that is not a hard hill, and Kal comes past her shoulder at exactly the pace she has run the whole way, and says nothing at all.Untitled
2·21She Found out Behind the ShelvingChapter XVI · The OfferNobody in the frame knows she is there. Render the shelving, the two men, and one still figure on the wrong side of it.2·27Nobody Had Ever Asked Her AnythingChapter XVI · The OfferThere is a particular loneliness in a defense that works.
2·22Eleven WordsChapter XVII · Eleven WordsAccurate, public and entirely without heat. She crosses the hall at a walk and goes out through the garden door.2·23Forty People Looking at HimChapter XVII · Eleven WordsHe had done all of it decently, in the sense that every individual step of it had been decent.
2·24Name Number SignatureChapter XVIII · Three LinesAnd she discovers, in front of a stranger, that she does not know it. There had never been a refusal. There had simply never been a subject.2·25Never MadeChapter XVIII · Three LinesThe manner of a woman who has already checked something twice and does not like it.
1·08Two Columns Nineteen Years LaterChapter XIX · Two ColumnsThe mirror the book is built on, and the daughters do not know they are in it. Kal rules it, because Kal rules everything.2·26On the Back of Her Own HandChapter XIX · Two ColumnsThe name is never legible. Render the hand, the ink, and a tap.VIITwo ColumnsChapter XIX · Two ColumnsThey are not speaking. They rule a sheet anyway — with no possible way of knowing that two women did precisely the same thing with precisely the same instrument paper nineteen years earlier.Untitled
1·09She Came in at the Sixth HourChapter XX · Four WomenA second and a half of a face, watched by the one person in the room who reads faces.1·10Ask MeChapter XX · Four WomenThirty-eight years of managing, set down on a table in two words.1·11Crying from the Fourth MinuteChapter XX · Four WomenShe does not stop and she does not apologize for it. Three hours, two girls asking the same question four different ways, and nobody leaves the table.1·12You Were in a BasketChapter XX · Four WomenTwo women describing, eighteen years later and out loud, the image that opened Book Five.1·13Protecting Somebody or Managing ThemChapter XX · Four WomenNo contact. The sentence the first seven books have been working toward, said at a table in somebody else's house at the end of three hours.1·14I Was Three Weeks Old for Three WeeksChapter XX · Four WomenSaid quietly, from the end of the table, in the voice she uses about twice a year. It is the daughter's version of the orchard, and it lands harder because it is level.VIIIFour WomenChapter XX · Four WomenOne room, one sheet on the table, and a woman who has just come in with her coat still on being asked, once, not to do the thing she always does.Untitled
1·15One of Eleven ChairsChapter XXI · Eleven ChairsThe chair beside her is empty and that is the entire image. Represent the chapter by the room and the chairs and a woman with a pen — never the procedure, and no door is open in this frame.1·16Eleven More StepsChapter XXI · Eleven ChairsNo contact between Val and Kyra — this is the thing neither of them had. Two girls on an outside stair, and one of them stops halfway.1·17Is Anybody ComingChapter XXI · Eleven ChairsNo contact between Val and Kyra, and neither is in the frame. The whole weight of it is that thirty-eight years earlier the same question got a different answer in the same room.2·28Nobody in That Room Ever Looks upChapter XXI · Eleven ChairsEstablish the room as entirely ordinary. No sign outside, no sign inside, nothing on the walls, and a shop below where somebody is doing something with a crate.IXThe Bottom of the StairChapter XXI · Eleven ChairsTwo mothers meet at the bottom of an outside stair without having arranged it, and do not go up, because you do not go up unless you are the one who is coming. They stand on that terrace for most of the morning.Untitled
1·18Four SecondsChapter XXIII · The Question They Do Not AnswerThe question the entire series has not answered, asked flatly by the one person nobody would have predicted. Four hundred people on a hillside eating out of trays, and four of them standing where they happened to end up.1·19We Ran TogetherChapter XXIII · The Question They Do Not AnswerThe closing image of Set 1 and the most honest evasion in seven books. Neither of them is looking at the other.1·20Write Back the Same EveningChapter XXIII · The Question They Do Not AnswerNo contact — she is alone, and it is the last page. Six miles inland the program has a countdown measured in decades. Forty miles north, two girls are arguing about something in a hall.2·29YeahChapter XXIII · The Question They Do Not AnswerThe best image in Set 2 and nothing happens in it.2·30Forty Miles NorthChapter XXIII · The Question They Do Not AnswerThe closing image. A very large thing being built slowly, and two eighteen-year-olds arguing about nothing in a cold hall forty miles away.XBelow the RidgeChapter XXIII · The Question They Do Not AnswerKal asks the question she has spent six weeks getting down to one sentence. Neither woman answers it.Untitled
