Hugo knew Lavinia wanted the song before she surrendered it. Her hand had been halfway to the music player, her face bright with an opinion; then another volunteer suggested something newer, and she sat down.
“Anything’s fine,” she said.
He disliked the sentence immediately. This was unreasonable. He had used it about lunch that morning, about an inconvenient meeting yesterday, about most of the arrangements of his life. It did not become dishonest merely because he preferred to hear what she wanted.
Neroli pressed a button. The borrowed speaker made a noise like a large animal waking, then delivered a bright, hurried beat. Six adults, none gifted with the necessary confidence, attempted the chorus. The centre’s social evening had reached the stage at which people who had refused to sing earlier believed numbers would conceal them.
Lavinia sang almost correctly, looking at the ceiling when she lost the words. Hugo watched for longer than he should have, then looked at the table in front of him. There were paper plates to collect. He left them where they were.
She had asked him, two Saturdays ago, not to make useful work a cover for wanting. He had understood her. Understanding had not removed the temptation to spend a whole evening in the chair nearest hers while appearing to be the man who handed out napkins.
When the song finished, Neroli went to answer the front door. Someone else carried cups to the hatch. Lavinia reached for the player again and stopped.
“Which one?” Hugo asked.
“You won’t like it.”
“I might.”
“That’s worse. You’ll like it courteously.”
“I possess several discourteous opinions.”
“Name one.”
He looked at the screen. “That last song required more enthusiasm than melody.”
Her laugh escaped loudly enough to turn two heads. He felt it in his chest, an absurd physical pleasure, like receiving news he had been waiting for.
“There you are,” she said.
“Where?”
“Never mind. This one.”
She showed him a track called September Again, an old, gloriously over-arranged love song whose opening notes he recognised from warehouse radios. He had been in stock control before entering the community at thirty-three; several of his former colleagues had conducted entire shifts to songs of thwarted devotion.
“Oh,” he said.
“I warned you.”
“There is a change of key near the end which I consider an act of aggression.”
“That’s the best bit.”
“It is certainly the largest bit.”
She put the song on.
By the second verse she had forgotten to pretend her participation was ironic. Her foot marked the beat under the table. She sang with a conviction the tune did not deserve, then looked at him when the notorious change arrived, plainly expecting resistance.
He shook his head. She sang louder.
It defeated him. He laughed, and missed the next line, and when she pointed an accusing finger at him he attempted the final refrain in a register that made Neroli, returning from the door, set down her keys and stare.
“I leave you alone for four minutes.”
“He’s sabotaging a classic,” Lavinia said.
“It was going down without assistance,” Hugo said.
The others joined in the ending, badly and with relief. When the last note ceased, Lavinia was still smiling at him. He had no useful answer to that smile. He let her see his own.
For the rest of the evening they remained among the group. He talked to a retired driver about a bus route, she helped Neroli find a missing lid, and neither claimed the other’s leaving time. At the door Lavinia held up her phone, on which the song was still displayed.
“You’ll remember it now.”
“I’m afraid I always have.”
“Good.”
She went with the others. He stayed only for the task he had agreed to do: returning the borrowed player to its box. The distinction was small enough to mock, but he knew the difference in himself.
Scene break
Bertram was repairing the hinge of a cupboard when Hugo got back. The repair involved two screws, a small torch held between his teeth and an expression of personal betrayal.
“Shall I hold the light?” Hugo asked.
Bertram took it from his mouth. “I was hoping for a witness. It worked before I improved it.”
Hugo held the beam steady. The familiar kitchen smelt of toast. Somebody had left a plate for him under another plate, though he had said he would eat at the centre. These unnecessary kindnesses undid him more than large declarations could have done.
Bertram made another adjustment and tested the hinge. It closed crookedly.
“Good enough until morning,” he said, in a tone that suggested morning would be somebody else’s problem.
Hugo sat. Bertram put the tools away before joining him, a habitual pause that gave people time to decide whether they still wanted to talk. At sixty-two he had developed the courtesy without making a performance of it.
“I enjoyed tonight,” Hugo said.
“That sounds serious.”
“It was extremely undignified.”
“Better still.”
Hugo moved the top plate. Two slices of bread, a piece of cheese, an apple. He was hungry, but did not pick anything up.
“I’m attracted to someone at the centre.”
Bertram’s attention settled. “Does she know?”
“We have spoken. We are not beginning a relationship while I’m bound by my vows.”
“And you are telling me because?”
The question was neither accusation nor invitation to excuse himself. It obliged him to give a real answer.
“Because I could make the decision I’ve been discussing with you sound uncontaminated by anything ordinary.”
“Ordinary things are usually involved in decisions.”
“I don’t want to claim she has nothing to do with it. Or to use her as evidence that I ought to leave.”
Bertram nodded, waiting.
“I began wondering whether I could make perpetual profession four months before I met her. That’s still true. It doesn’t mean I get to ignore how much I want to see her.”
The admission embarrassed him more here than it had in the little blue kitchen. Here was his place at the table, the man who had accompanied him through formation, the shared hours he had freely chosen and had not ceased to value. He had been happy here. He still was, sometimes in the middle of the same day that made him know he could not promise the whole of his remaining life.
“Have you told her about the earlier doubt?” Bertram asked.
“Briefly. Not made a case out of it.”
“Good.”
“If I leave, I will miss this.”
“I would be sorry if you didn’t.” Bertram glanced towards the repaired cupboard. “Not necessarily the furniture.”
Hugo smiled, then could not keep smiling.
“I thought an honest decision would eventually feel less divided.”
“You are allowed to leave us and still love us.”
He knew Bertram was not granting permission that belonged to him. It was more intimate than that: a friend refusing to make sorrow proof of betrayal.
“I haven’t finished deciding.”
“Then don’t make tonight finish it for you.”
They ate the apple between them because Bertram said it looked too good to waste on one person. Hugo told him about the singing, leaving out nothing that made him ridiculous. Bertram asked for a demonstration of the aggressive key change. Hugo refused.
Later, alone, he could still hear Lavinia singing with her whole face committed to a song he disliked. She had asked for something that served no purpose except her pleasure, and then she had let him laugh.
He wanted to hear her do it again. The wanting belonged among the things he must tell the truth about. It could not be allowed to tell all the truth for him.