A Place in Town

Adela took Oswin’s hand before they reached the harbour rooms, then wondered whether she had done it for him or for everyone else.

“Too much?” she asked.

He looked at their hands. “For walking? I think we’ll manage.”

“I’m being strange.”

“You’ve warned me about that already.”

She smiled. They went through the door together.

The room smelled of bread and hot tomatoes. Somebody had moved all the usual chairs against one wall and borrowed tables from a church hall; several wore protective cloths of unrelated sizes. A handwritten notice explained what the roof repairs would cost. Rain had marked one corner of the ceiling, an honest piece of evidence directly above the collection tin.

Adela had spent a morning here two winters ago repairing torn seat covers. Sennen had once run a stall in this room and miscounted the float so enthusiastically that they had thought it profitable until the end of the afternoon. Merewick offered very few rooms unoccupied by a memory.

The woman taking money at the door looked from Adela to Oswin and back again.

“Two?”

“Two,” Adela said.

Oswin paid for his own bowl. Adela paid for hers. There was comfort in how ordinary that was: two people choosing to be here, neither arriving as the other’s obligation.

They found a table near the window. Adela could see the woman who had brought the unnecessary loaf to supper sitting on the far side of the room. She was speaking to a man in a checked shirt and did not notice them immediately.

Oswin set down his bowl. “Is here all right?”

“Yes.”

“You keep looking at the door.”

Adela turned towards him. “I was wondering who might come in.”

“Would you prefer another table?”

“No. This one.”

She sat. He sat opposite her, and for a few minutes they dealt with soup that was too hot and bread that required tearing because there were no knives. A draught reached under the door and lifted the corner of their cloth. Oswin put the salt pot on it.

“Repair within budget,” he said.

“Don’t tell the committee. They’ll put you in charge of the roof.”

He smiled. She felt herself stop sitting like a person being photographed.

Then the woman from supper came over.

“Adela. I thought that was you.”

“Hello.”

The woman glanced at Oswin. He greeted her by the same ordinary hello and received a smaller one in return.

“How are you?” she asked Adela.

“Well, thank you.”

It was a silly word for so complicated a fortnight. It was also true enough for a room full of soup.

“I spoke to Rhoswen yesterday.”

Adela put down the piece of bread she had been tearing. “Right.”

“She’s very upset.”

“I know.”

Beside the woman’s shoulder, a volunteer carried a stack of empty bowls towards the kitchen. Adela wanted to look at him. Wanted an interruption she could not decently manufacture herself.

“Perhaps this isn’t the place,” the woman said.

“No,” Adela agreed. “It isn’t.”

The woman looked taken aback. Adela could hear how readily her answer might become a story about being cold. She could soften it. She could stand and lead the woman away, apologise for making the afternoon awkward, offer enough private explanation to make everyone feel informed.

Instead she said, “I spoke to Rhoswen myself. We’re giving each other some space.”

“I only thought you ought to know.”

“Thank you. I do know.”

Oswin looked at the woman. “Would you like to sit down?”

It was such a straightforward offer that Adela almost missed its courage. He was not asking to be excused. He was making a place at the same table where somebody had just announced the cost of his company.

“I’ve got people waiting,” the woman said.

She went back across the room. Adela watched her sit down and lean towards the man in the checked shirt. She looked away before deciding what was being said.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

Oswin stirred his soup. “You didn’t bring her over.”

“I knew there would be something.”

“So did I.”

He spoke too evenly. Adela recognised the effort because she made it herself.

“You don’t have to be marvellous about it.”

He looked up.

“I wasn’t planning on marvellous,” he said. “I was trying for not throwing a bread roll.”

The laugh surprised her. He smiled, briefly, then looked back at his bowl.

“It’s odd,” he said. “Hearing yourself discussed as if you’d arrived attached to someone.”

“Yes.”

“I nearly offered to go and fetch something. So she could say the rest.”

Adela leaned forward. “I didn’t want you to.”

“I know. That’s why I didn’t.”

There was no grand declaration in it. A small habit interrupted: his own absence, offered before anyone had to ask for it. She wanted to reach across and kiss him. She also wanted to let the choice be his without turning it into a lesson he had learned correctly.

“Your soup’s getting cold,” she said.

“At last.”

They ate. The room went on around them. Nobody made an announcement. No line formed to deliver a judgment. A woman at the next table asked for their salt, thanked Oswin when he passed it and resumed her conversation about a builder who had not returned a call.

Ordinary indifference had never felt so generous.

After a while, a man from the ferry came over carrying a tray of cups.

“You two want tea?”

Oswin said yes. Adela did too. The man set down the cups, sat without waiting for an invitation and asked Oswin whether he had heard about the wrong seals arriving for a pump.

“I’ve been trying not to,” Oswin said.

“They’re exactly right if we buy a completely different pump.”

“Forward planning.”

Adela listened to them argue about whether the invoice or the parcel was wrong. The man included her by asking if customers ever ordered the wrong thing and blamed her for providing it. She had an example ready. Then another. By the time they finished, Oswin was laughing at her account of a woman who insisted the blue sample had turned green in transit.

The man stayed to finish his tea. He asked how they knew each other, and Adela felt the familiar machinery start: an old friendship, years of acquaintance, a complicated explanation designed to make the new fact appear less sudden.

“We knew some of the same people,” Oswin said. “Now we’re seeing each other.”

The man nodded. “Good. He could do with somebody pointing out when his jumpers have holes.”

“I mend chairs,” Adela said. “I’m not accepting a transfer.”

“Worth asking.”

That was all. A small glance from Oswin, a smile she gave back, and the conversation moved on.

She wished it could always be that easy. She was glad it could be that easy once.

· · ·Scene break

At the end, Adela began stacking cups before she remembered she had bought soup rather than signed up to clear away. She looked towards Oswin. He was helping the man from the ferry fold a table.

There was nothing wrong with helping. She liked helping. It was the part where she quietly became responsible for the whole afternoon that exhausted her.

She carried one tray to the kitchen, told the volunteer she was leaving, and went to find her coat.

Oswin met her at the door. “Ready?”

“Yes.”

“There’s a woman in the kitchen looking for someone who knows about chair covers.”

Adela stopped.

He held up his hands. “I didn’t identify you.”

“Good man.”

“I said there was probably an expert in the next town.”

She put her arm through his as they stepped outside. The afternoon was bright after the crowded room. A few people stood by the railings, cups in hand, arguing about whether the roof could really cost that much.

The woman from supper was among them. She saw Adela and raised a hand, not quite a wave. Adela returned it. No ending could be made from the gesture. It was less than warmth and more than nothing.

They walked away along the water.

“Was that awful?” Adela asked after a while.

“Parts.”

“You could say the nice thing.”

“The soup was good.”

She bumped his shoulder with hers. He caught her hand and kept it.

“I’m glad we went,” he said.

“So am I.”

“I wanted to leave when she said Rhoswen’s name.”

Adela looked at him. “I thought you might.”

“Not because of you. Because I could see the whole conversation before we’d had it. What everyone would say. What I’d have to pretend didn’t bother me.”

“It did bother you.”

“Yes.”

They stopped at the railings. Below them a rope knocked softly against a mast, irregular enough that Adela could not predict the next sound.

“You don’t have to pretend with me,” she said.

“I know that in theory. I’m trying it in practice.”

She turned to face him. “How’s it going?”

“You haven’t made me leave yet.”

“That’s a low standard.”

“I’m starting where I am.”

She rested her head briefly against his shoulder. Let the remark be serious without making it sad. She was starting where she was too: pleased she had stayed, exhausted by a conversation that had taken less than a minute, still checking the faces behind him.

“Tea at mine?” she asked.

“We’ve just had tea.”

“I was being conventional. I want you to come home with me.”

He turned towards her, and the look on his face warmed her more than the sun had.

“Then say that.”

“Come home with me.”

“Yes.”

She kissed him there by the railings, because she wanted to, not because the woman from supper might see. When she stepped away she did not look behind him to check.

· · ·Scene break

At home, Adela’s phone held a message from a number in the supper group. Lovely to see you today. Sorry we didn’t get a chance to talk properly.

There was no mention of Oswin. She could read exclusion into it or allow a friendly sentence to remain one. She showed him the message.

“What do you think?”

“I think they didn’t get a chance to talk to you properly.”

She laughed. “You’re no use.”

“That’s not what you said about the tomatoes.”

They were in the kitchen, his jacket hanging on the hook, her shoes already abandoned beneath the table. Adela put the phone down. She was tired of inspecting every word for the shape of a refusal.

She went to him and put her arms around his waist.

“What are you doing next Sunday?”

“Working until two. Why?”

“I don’t know yet. I’d like to plan something after.”

He brushed her hair away from her cheek. “Ask me when you know.”

He did not offer her every Sunday for the rest of the winter. She did not ask for them. There was room to want something before arranging it for everybody concerned.

Adela kissed him and left the phone on the counter, where the friendly message could wait for a friendly answer.