The High Shelf

Blythe found Keir asleep with one foot outside the blanket and a look of faint displeasure on his face.

The folding chair had not been designed for a man of his height. Tamsen’s foresight, though considerable, had limits.

She stood on the bottom stair and watched him for a moment. He was not especially graceful asleep. His hair had risen on one side. A crease from the pillow crossed his cheek. She liked him with an intensity that made no sensible distinction between these things and his smile.

Then she went into the garden before she could use looking at him to avoid looking at it.

The amber flower was clear.

Of course it was. She had been there when the colour went. It was foolish to feel surprised. Nevertheless she crouched beside it with a sudden, ridiculous hope that morning might have discovered a loophole.

Morning had discovered nothing of the sort.

Behind the closed joining strip, the other six turns held. Rose, green, blue. The whole garden was no longer whole, but it was not a ruin. She disliked both the relief and the disappointment in that observation. Part of her had wanted her own decision to be more dramatic, so that nobody could mistake it for an accident.

“You’re looking for it,” Keir said from the doorway.

She turned. He had stopped outside the first copper line, coil capped.

“Yes.”

“I looked for my green turn when I woke.”

She stood.

“Come in. You can come in capped without waiting to be forgiven.”

He came to stand beside her. They looked at the empty flower together.

“It’s rather beautiful as glass,” he said.

She felt herself bristle.

“It was beautiful before.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t want a consolation prize.”

“Then don’t have one. I was saying something else I saw.”

She looked at him, heard the distinction, and let herself feel ashamed without making a ceremony of it.

“I am going to be difficult for a little while.”

“I have eaten your tea. I am prepared.”

“Drunk.”

“That is generous.”

She laughed. The flower remained clear. Neither fact cancelled the other.

They went indoors to make breakfast.

· · ·Scene break

He left after breakfast because he had lamps to deliver. Blythe finished the green bowl, packed two small vases and took them to Tamsen’s shop before noon. The day did not rearrange itself around her private upheaval. A customer wanted a lid that fitted better. Tamsen wanted to know whether the blue bowl’s bubbles could be repeated because the buyer’s sister now wanted one.

“They were an accident,” Blythe said.

“Become accidentally reliable.”

Blythe put the vases on the counter.

Tamsen looked at her. “What happened?”

“How do you know something happened?”

“You’ve set those down without telling me which direction the handles face.”

Blythe turned one vase a quarter-turn.

Tamsen waited.

So she told her. Not about the kisses or the chair. About the flower, the joining strip and the lost colour.

Tamsen did not say how romantic it sounded. Blythe had been afraid she might.

“Do you want the glass put away?” she asked.

“No.”

“Then leave it.”

“Nerida will see.”

“Yes.”

“You could make that sound less like a verdict.”

“It isn’t one. You’ll tell her what you chose. She’ll have thoughts. You won’t enjoy all of them. Shall I wrap the vases for collection or are you going to carry them around until you feel better?”

Blythe let go of the handles.

On the way home she bought thread to match Keir’s coat. It was not necessary. He could mend his own sleeve badly or pay somebody to do it well. She wanted the small useful task, and liked discovering that wanting to care for him did not always require a major declaration.

He came at four, bringing her empty food pot washed and wrapped in a cloth.

“I was going to return it tomorrow,” he said. “Then I discovered tomorrow seemed inconveniently far away.”

“Come upstairs.”

He looked at her.

She enjoyed that for a moment longer than was kind.

“There is a shelf I cannot reach.”

“Ah.”

“You may bring your disappointment.”

The high shelf stood over the landing window. It held ordinary old glass: failed shapes she had kept because a part of them interested her, bowls with uneven rims, a vase that leaned as though listening. Dust had gathered behind them. She had noticed it every morning for months and postponed it for work that mattered more.

Keir fetched the step stool and passed the pieces down to her. He did not offer to correct their defects. This was one of the reasons she was beginning to trust him in rooms that were not ready for inspection.

“Why keep this?” he asked, holding a shallow dish with a dip in its rim.

“Because the dip is good. The rest wasn’t brave enough to match it.”

He looked at the dish again.

“Yes,” he said.

She stood below him, holding a dust cloth, absurdly pleased.

They cleaned the shelf. Nothing magical happened. Keir sneezed violently and blamed her artistic choices. Blythe laughed, took the dish from him and put it on the kitchen table instead of back above the window.

“There,” she said. “A promotion.”

He came down the stool and kissed her forehead.

She tilted her face up. “You have mistaken the location.”

“I was working my way down.”

“At that speed we’ll miss supper.”

He corrected the mistake. She put the cloth down before she forgot she was holding it.

Later, while he told her about an elderly customer who insisted lamps worked better if addressed politely, she mended the scorched edge of his sleeve. He wore a borrowed work shirt of hers while she did it. It was too short in the arms and suited him distressingly well.

“You could keep still,” she said.

“I’m sitting down.”

“Your foot is conducting something.”

He stopped tapping.

“Does it help?” she asked after a while.

“What?”

“Moving. Even when you aren’t working.”

“Sometimes. Does having everything where you expect help you?”

She glanced at the crooked dish on the table.

“Sometimes.”

He nodded. Neither needed to turn the answer into a diagnosis.

She made the final stitch, bit the thread and handed him his coat. He ran a finger along the repair.

“Thank you.”

“It will last longer than your philosophy.”

“Most things do.”

She smiled.

A knock sounded at the garden gate.

Nerida stood beyond it, holding a rolled plan for the conservatory’s central platform.

Blythe went to meet her without asking Keir to remain in the kitchen.

Nerida saw the amber bed immediately.

For a moment the only sound was the ordinary rosemary pot scraping as a gust moved its loose saucer.

“What happened?” she asked.

Blythe opened the gate.

“I changed it.”

Nerida walked to the first turn. She did not touch the flower. Her restraint hurt more than alarm would have done.

“And the connection?”

“Closed. The remaining circuit holds.”

“I can see that.”

Keir stood in the kitchen doorway. Nerida looked at him, then back at Blythe.

“This was your decision?”

“Yes.”

“I would like to hear it from you without an audience.”

Blythe felt Keir begin to move behind her.

“Not tonight,” she said. “I will come to you tomorrow. Tonight I have company.”

Nerida’s fingers tightened around the rolled plan.

Then she nodded.

“Tomorrow, then.”

She left the plan on the bench and went out through the gate. Blythe watched her go, feeling neither triumphant nor forgiven.

Keir came to stand beside her.

“You can go after her,” he said.

“I know.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“I know that too. Stay for supper.”

He took her hand.

In the kitchen, the dish with the flawed rim waited on the table. Blythe put bread in it, and for the first time it looked like something made to be used.