He asked for every place they had used his statement. They sent him a book with no cover. The title page was another copy of his statement.
First account. He renews. He is fifty-three. His wife has been dead eleven years. In the mornings she is interested in the tree they took down. She would have been interested. The second sentence corrects the first. Both are retained.
First account. He does not renew. He is fifty-three. His wife has been dead eleven years. He goes to the school gate. The woman holds out her hand. His hands remain in his pockets.
Both accounts stop before the ninth. In both, the money is still his.
He takes the book back to the statement room. He has come to find out which account he gave.
The index sends him to the preceding woman. She sees four years of receipts in his bag. He has eleven. He lays them flat beside the book.
In her account she says no. In his she says no. He puts his finger under it. This is the only word in the book he wants to learn. The index sends him from REFUSAL to REINSTATEMENT.
On another leaf his mornings have become an invitation. A place is held. These two sentences are boxed:
It gave me four hundred mornings I would not have had.
It got me through the second year, which was the bad one.
They are true in both accounts. He leaves the boxes alone.
The woman at the gate occupies three lines. Her laugh arrives late. She apologized for it the first week. She asks when, and when he says the new year she asks when exactly. At the back of the book the laugh is a question put to a stranger. The stranger answers that it always has. The examiner proceeds.
He folds that leaf over the three lines. Now the stranger has answered her.
The index contains a third first account. It has no page number. He asks for it.
There is a sheet underneath his receipts.
First account. He asked for every place they had used his statement. They sent him a book with no cover.
The rest is blank. He turns it over. Blank.
The recorder is running. He takes the pen.
He could write that he will meet her. Ten past three. He could cross out the boxed sentences. His mouth remembers those mornings. He will not call them lies.
He writes that he is going to renew this month.
Then he draws a line around the woman at the gate. Cuts the three lines out with the scissors on the desk. A long slot remains. Through it he can see the receipts. Eleven years, held flat.
The piece of paper fits under his thumb. He puts the three lines in his mouth. They take longer to swallow than he expected.
One correction more. If they find the woman with the folder, they must not tell her he asked.
He signs the third account.
He puts this one underneath the other two.