Hugo had been given a key and a warning about the lamp. The key worked. The warning had been inadequate.
He stood in the doorway of the little sitting room and looked at the orange shade, which was fringed, asymmetrical and wider than the table beneath it. In daylight it seemed to have absorbed several unsuccessful sunsets. He switched it on. The room changed from a space he could afford into somewhere he could imagine reading.
He left it lit while he measured the shelf with his hand. Bedroom upstairs, bathroom shared with the householder, this small room for his own use and a cupboard in the kitchen: enough. The stock-control job began the Monday after his departure. The salary, rent and travel costs made an unexciting but workable sum. None of it depended on Lavinia saying yes to anything.
The householder came to the door with the spare key.
“You’re sure about keeping that?” she asked, nodding towards the lamp.
“For the moment.”
“You can change your mind.”
He thanked her and discovered, after she went, that he was smiling. It was a modest pleasure to make an unattractive choice nobody needed him to defend.
Scene break
That Saturday Lavinia was measuring a folded table against the storage cupboard when he arrived at the centre. Neroli had decided it would fit. Lavinia had decided that reality should be consulted.
“Three inches,” she said to him.
“Too wide?”
“Unless you know a very persuasive way of saying please.”
They found another place for it. Afterwards, in the occupied hall, Lavinia asked how his week had been. It was an ordinary question until he answered with the truth.
“I have a room. And a job.”
She stopped winding the tape measure.
“For when you leave?”
“Yes. I have told the community I won’t renew when this term ends.”
The release on her face was brief and involuntary. He wanted to make it last, which was reason enough to be careful about what he said next.
“There are two weeks remaining. I’m finishing them there.”
“Of course.”
He explained the work, the rented rooms, the arrangements he had made with the community for moving his belongings. He had spoken with the people he needed to speak with. His status had been checked; there was no further decision he was waiting for someone else to make. He did not turn those conversations into a recital of administrative virtue.
Lavinia listened without leaning towards him. Her thumb held the end of the tape down, as if she might otherwise let it fly.
“Is the room furnished?”
“Very.”
“That sounds ominous.”
He showed her a photograph of the lamp.
“Oh, Hugo.”
“It does provide light.”
“So would an ordinary lamp. That one appears to be apologising for a nightclub.”
He laughed, and she turned the phone sideways, as if another angle might acquit it.
“I’ve got a spare one,” she said. “And a little table. I was going to get rid of it, but it would fit by that chair. You’d need a rug, wouldn’t you? I know somewhere—”
She stopped when he held out his hand for the phone.
He could have accepted. She would have enjoyed finding things. He would have enjoyed watching her make the room nicer, and there would have been a part of her waiting there when he arrived. It was the last of those pleasures that made him take the phone back.
“Thank you. I’d rather arrange it myself.”
Her face closed a little. “I wasn’t proposing to move in.”
“I know.”
“It’s a table.”
“It might be. I think I would make it mean more.”
That quieted her. In the far corner a group was playing cards, one person accusing another of unusual luck. Hugo watched Lavinia turn the tape over in her hand. He disliked having hurt her; he disliked, more uncomfortably, being unable to give her an explanation that would leave neither of them disappointed.
“I have enough,” he said. “I can make it comfortable. I don’t want my first room outside the house to be somewhere you’ve had to prepare for me.”
“I wouldn’t have had to.”
“Wanted to, then.”
She nodded once, reluctantly. “That is the more accurate word.”
“I liked hearing you offer.”
“Don’t make it a nice refusal.”
He stopped. She was right that he was beginning to decorate it.
“All right.”
She let the tape return slowly to its case.
“I wanted a place in it,” she said. “Your future. I offered a table because that sounded less appalling.”
He looked at her. Her voice had lost its quick edge; it was the voice he had heard in the park when she spoke about wanting to be missed. He wanted to tell her she already had a place. He could not say what sort, or for how long, or what the man living in that room would discover he needed.
“I want you in it,” he said. “I can’t tell you yet what I can offer.”
“You don’t have to offer a lifetime before anyone’s had lunch.”
“No. But you have only known me in this life.”
“You’re not going to become unrecognisable because you pay a gas bill.”
“I hope not. I’d like us to find out without your furniture having got there first.”
She looked towards the hatch, then back at him. “I may have to be offended for another minute.”
“Take two.”
The smile arrived in one corner of her mouth. He loved that it came without forgiving him for everything, or requiring forgiveness to begin with. She could remain a little hurt and still enjoy him.
“Will you really keep it?” she asked.
“The lamp? I think so.”
“That is useful information about your judgement.”
“I thought you wanted to know me better.”
“I was hoping for more reassuring discoveries.”
Neroli asked them to set out plates. They worked on opposite sides of the table while the card players argued about another hand. Lavinia passed him a stack without brushing his fingers. He had not realised until then how easily an accident could have been arranged.
At closing time she left with Benita, who had come to help move the spare table. Hugo did not watch them all the way across the car park. He put the photograph away and checked his keys before going home.
There were two on the ring now. The new one was cut more sharply. He could feel its unfamiliar edge through the lining of his pocket, a small fact about the life he had chosen before knowing whether she would share any of it.