The Departure Board

Orson wanted to ask her not to go. The wanting arrived while Anouk was searching his kitchen drawer for string, wearing his old cardigan over her dress because she’d come downstairs cold. It was not a noble moment. She was swearing at a knot, and he wanted the next morning to contain her doing something equally unremarkable.

“Here,” he said, handing her scissors.

“I could have won.”

“I believe you.”

“You don’t sound convinced.”

“I’ve seen the string.”

She cut it and tied the paper round the small parcel she was taking to Meriel: a book and a thank-you card. Then she turned towards him, still holding the scissors safely closed in one hand.

“What is it?”

He could have said nothing. He had become good at making an expression into an inconvenience nobody needed to attend to.

“I’d like you not to be leaving tomorrow.”

She set the scissors down.

“I know.”

“I’m not asking you to change it.”

“I know that too.”

She crossed to him and put her arms around his waist. He held her, pressing his face into her hair. The house smelled of coffee and the warm cotton of the cardigan. He wanted to remember that and hated himself a little for already making memories out of a woman who was still there.

“I don’t want to go away from you,” she said. “I do want to go.”

He closed his eyes. “That’s difficult to hear.”

“Yes.”

“It’s better than the other thing.”

“What other thing?”

“Being told you’ll hate it. You won’t.”

She drew back enough to look at him. “No. I won’t.”

He kissed her then, partly because the honesty hurt and partly because it was one of the things he loved about her. The word came so plainly into his mind that for a moment he almost said it. He didn’t. Not because he doubted it, but because he would not put it in her luggage as a last-minute weight.

She met his kiss with an urgency that made his restraint feel less lonely. Her hands moved up his back, gripping the fabric of his shirt. When they separated, she rested her forehead against his chest.

“Come out with me,” she said. “For the afternoon. I don’t want to spend it folding things.”

“Where?”

“The place we ruined the peaches.”

He smiled into her hair. “All right.”

· · ·Scene break

They took no picnic this time, only water and the rug. Anouk had finished the necessary packing. Meriel had her keys. The train ticket was on her phone and printed in her bag because she distrusted batteries at significant moments. There was nothing practical left to settle, which meant there was nothing left to hide behind.

On the headland the grass had yellowed in patches since July. The same curve of beach lay below them, and the flat stone still looked capable of supporting fruit with unrealistic ambitions. Orson spread the rug. Anouk sat and pulled him down beside her before he could arrange anything further.

“I missed this,” she said.

“We came two weeks ago.”

“I can miss things quickly.”

He looked at her. She was watching the water, but her hand had found his on the rug.

“What will you do tomorrow evening?” she asked.

“Probably laundry.”

“Liar.”

“Laundry while feeling sorry for myself.”

“Better.”

“What will you do?”

“Stay in the room I booked for the journey. Eat something near the station. Call you when I’m settled, if you’re free.”

“I will be.”

“Don’t cancel anything.”

“I haven’t arranged anything.”

She accepted the answer. He appreciated that she didn’t make him manufacture a social life for her peace of mind.

They lay back on the rug. Anouk turned on her side to face him, propping her head on one hand. The wind lifted the hem of her dress against her knees. He looked at her face, then allowed himself to look where he wanted because she smiled when he did.

“I like being looked at by you,” she said.

“Good.”

“You always look as if you’re trying to remember something.”

“I might be.”

“Don’t only remember.”

She leaned down and kissed him. Her hair fell around his face, making a private room of the open afternoon. He put a hand at the back of her neck and felt her settle into the kiss, unhurried and certain. There was no need to turn it into farewell yet. He let it be desire, warm and present, the pleasure of her choosing his mouth again after she could have stopped.

When she rested against him, he felt the whole length of her sigh.

“I want October,” she said. “Not only because I miss you. I want to see you in the place I like.”

“I want that too.”

“You may hate the kitchen.”

“I shall be tactful.”

“No, you won’t. You’ll offer to fix the cupboard.”

“Does it need fixing?”

She laughed so hard he felt it through her shoulder.

They stayed until the water bottle was nearly empty. On the way down she took his hand over the uneven part of the path, then kept it after the ground levelled. He noticed. He was learning that some of the things he most wanted arrived without being announced.

· · ·Scene break

That night she asked him to leave the light on.

“Not the big one,” she said, laughing when he looked at the ceiling. “The lamp.”

He switched it on. Its warm circle fell across the bed, leaving the corners of the room soft.

“Like this?”

“Yes.”

She came towards him and took his face between her hands. For a moment she only looked, and he understood with a force that made it difficult to breathe: she wanted to remember too.

“You don’t have to be careful about wanting me tonight,” she said.

“I’ll always be careful with you.”

“I know. That’s why I can ask.”

He kissed her with all the feeling he’d been keeping polite. She answered at once, drawing him closer, her breath catching against his mouth. There was hunger in it and tenderness, neither cancelling the other. He listened when she spoke. She listened when he did. They paused to laugh when the cardigan sleeve caught on her bracelet, and the laughter made the return to kissing sweeter.

Later, beneath the warm weight of the covers, she lay facing him with one leg tucked against his. His hand moved slowly over her back. She watched him rather than closing her eyes.

“I’ll miss your hands,” she said.

He swallowed. “I’ll miss you telling me where you want them.”

Her smile was small and devastating. She kissed him again, and for a while there were no dates, only the room, the lamp and the certainty of being wanted. When quiet finally came, it wasn’t empty. It held her palm against his heart and the damp warmth at the edge of her hair, his own astonishment that he could feel this much and still let the morning arrive.

He did not say stay. She did not offer a promise she couldn’t keep.

At some point she whispered, “I’m glad we didn’t make this smaller.”

He held her closer. “So am I.”

· · ·Scene break

In the morning she forgot the cardigan. Orson found it over the chair after breakfast and took it downstairs, prepared to return it to the cupboard. Then he stopped.

“Do you want this?” he asked.

Anouk looked up from closing her bag. “To take?”

“If you’d like.”

“I would.”

He handed it to her. She folded it carefully, then shook her head and put it on instead. It was too warm for the day. Neither mentioned that.

They collected her suitcase from Meriel’s. The goodbye there was brisk because Meriel preferred emotion to have something to do with its hands. She checked that Anouk had the book, hugged her twice and told Orson not to let her pretend the case was light.

“It is light,” Anouk said.

“Compared with a piano.”

Orson took one side down the stairs while Anouk took the other. At the bottom she reclaimed the handle, and he let her.

They walked to the station slowly enough to use the time, quickly enough not to create a problem. On the platform she stood close, her suitcase between their feet. The departure board changed. A voice made an announcement neither needed to hear.

“I don’t know how to do this elegantly,” she said.

“You don’t have to.”

“I might cry, which is irritating.”

“I won’t mention it.”

“You’ll notice.”

“Yes.”

She laughed, then did cry, just a little. He wiped one tear with his thumb after she nodded, and she kissed his palm.

“I am coming back,” she said.

“I know.”

“December third.”

“I know.”

He believed she meant it. That was what he could carry today. Not certainty about every December afterwards, not proof that the next three months would be easy. Her intention, offered without coercion, and his own.

When the train arrived, he kissed her once, deeply enough to feel her answer, then stepped back so she could get on. She found a seat and looked through the window. He could see his cardigan at her shoulders.

She lifted her hand. He lifted his.

The train moved. He stayed until the last carriage had gone, then went home by the longer route because there was no reason to hurry and no virtue in pretending otherwise.

At the house he found her second toothbrush still in the bathroom. She had left it deliberately; they had talked about it while packing. A small, practical object for a return already planned.

He did the laundry. He ate lunch. At six he walked round to Zadie’s because she had asked him to help choose between two colours for the front step and he had promised an opinion, not labour.

That evening Anouk called from a room with an aggressively patterned curtain. She turned the phone to show him.

“I’ve made a terrible mistake,” she said.

He laughed, and the sound surprised him with how much of himself was still in it.

“About the curtain?”

“Only the curtain.”

They talked for twenty minutes. He told her about the colours. She told him about the sandwich she’d eaten standing up. Neither made the day prettier than it had been.

Before they ended the call, she brought the phone close enough that her face filled the screen.

“I wish I could kiss you.”

“So do I.”

She touched two fingers to her mouth, then held them towards him, smiling at the absurdity of it. He did the same.

It was nothing like enough.

It was not nothing.