The Matinée

Lavinia emerged from the cinema wanting to complain, and Hugo attempted to deprive her of the pleasure by being reasonable.

“I can see why you disliked the ending,” he said.

“Can you?”

“It changed the meaning of the earlier scenes.”

“That isn’t why. I disliked the ending because she forgave him while he was still explaining why he hadn’t done anything wrong.”

“I don’t think he was asking to be forgiven.”

“Excellent. An opinion. Keep going.”

He looked at her, then laughed. They stood outside the little afternoon cinema, among people putting on coats and quietly deciding whether they had wasted their money. The film had promised a tender comedy. Lavinia considered the tenderness unproven.

“I thought she forgave him before he knew how to ask,” Hugo said.

“Why does she have to do both jobs?”

“She doesn’t. It wasn’t a duty.”

“The music thought it was.”

That made him laugh again. She could tell he was preparing to concede the point to preserve their afternoon, and wanted to catch him before he did.

“Don’t agree with me because we’re going for cake.”

“I wasn’t aware cake was conditional.”

“It isn’t. That’s the point.”

They went to the bakery on the corner, where she chose a cream bun too large to eat tidily and he ordered a slice of something dark and respectable. She accused his cake of being on a committee. He said hers appeared structurally unsound.

For ten minutes they argued about the film. He was patient but stubborn. She was sharper than she meant to be once, and apologised without abandoning her position. He thought love sometimes made room before a person had earned it. She thought the film had let the man keep all his best lines while giving the woman a smile and the washing-up.

“That last part is fair,” he said.

“Only that part?”

“Only that part.”

She looked at him over her damaged bun and felt an affection so immediate it displaced the argument. Here was a man who disagreed with her and still wanted to sit at her table. She did not have to be agreeable to keep him there.

He noticed the change in her face.

“What?”

“Nothing suitable for a film review.”

“Now you’ve made it interesting.”

She wiped her fingers, reached across the little table and took his hand.

“I like you when you’re obstinate.”

“I fear that gives me a considerable advantage.”

“Don’t overuse it.”

When they left, she stopped him beside the empty shop next door and kissed him first. He responded at once, a hand warm at her back, and she forgot the final ten minutes of the film altogether. When she moved away he did not ask what he had done to deserve it.

“I enjoyed that,” he said.

“The film?”

“Among other things.”

They walked to the bus stop. It was the sixth Saturday since their first date, and she had begun to know his Saturdays as separate from her own: a morning errand, a call to a friend, sometimes time at the centre. She liked being asked into them. She had not yet considered why being asked seemed safer than doing the asking.

Her bus arrived before they had finished choosing a subject to disagree about next. He kissed her goodbye and reminded her that he was cooking on Tuesday. She said yes before stepping aboard.

· · ·Scene break

Benita arrived that evening with a bag of oranges and a problem of her own. She had volunteered to arrange a walking weekend for six friends and now discovered that none of them agreed on what walking meant.

“One wants hills,” she said. “One wants shops. One has asked about luggage transfer. It’s two nights.”

“You could cancel the friends.”

“At thirty-five, I have already invested too much in training these ones.”

They sat on Lavinia’s floor because the coffee table was covered in folded laundry. Benita ate an orange in one long spiral of peel while Lavinia described the film.

“And he liked it?”

“More than I did.”

“Most people like most things more than you do.”

“That is unjust.”

“You once objected to a decorative spoon.”

“It was decorative in the part supposed to hold soup.”

Benita laughed. Lavinia told her about the cake, and the argument, and the kiss outside the empty shop. She left out nothing because nothing required concealment. The pleasure of that was still new.

“So what’s next?” Benita asked.

“He’s cooking Tuesday.”

“And after that?”

“I don’t know. He mentioned a concert.”

“Have you asked him anywhere?”

Lavinia folded a towel already folded once. “Of course.”

Benita waited.

“I suggested the café after the film.”

“Have you asked him for a whole evening?”

“Why does it have to be a whole evening?”

“It doesn’t. I’m asking because you look as if I’ve suggested stealing his car.”

Lavinia put the towel down. She wanted to explain that he was still settling into ordinary life, that his freedom mattered, that she did not want to crowd it. All true. None answered the question.

“I like him asking,” she said.

“I’m sure.”

“It tells me he wants to.”

“He could tell you after you asked.”

“He says yes to everything.”

Benita considered that. “Then ask for something you want, and give him room to answer. You don’t find out whether a man can say no by ensuring he never needs to.”

It was annoyingly good advice from someone who could not persuade six friends to choose a hill. Lavinia said so; Benita threw a piece of peel at her.

After her friend left, Lavinia looked up a small exhibition of illustrated travel posters in a town an hour away. She had wanted to go before she met Hugo. She would enjoy going alone; that did not mean she could only invite him if she did not care about his answer.

She wrote a message asking whether he would like to come in late summer, when a Saturday opening included a talk. Then she deleted the sentence saying it probably wasn’t his sort of thing.

His answer came while she was putting away the laundry. He would like to go. Could she send him the dates so they could choose one together?

She sent them, surprised by how much his ordinary yes pleased her. It was less dramatic than being pursued. It required more of her.