The Anniversary

Gethin was waiting at the end of my street when I came down, with his ticket in his hand and no equipment whatsoever.

“You can put that away until we arrive,” I said.

“I wanted to check I had it.”

“You’ve checked.”

“Three times.”

I took his free hand. His fingers were cold. Mine weren’t much better, despite the ten minutes I had spent indoors deciding whether the dress from the fundraiser was a declaration or merely clean.

It was the same dress. I had left the badge in a drawer.

“You look lovely,” he said.

“I look familiar.”

“Both.”

There were things I could have said to that, all of them designed to make receiving it easier. I kissed him instead. He tucked the ticket safely away before he put his arm round me.

We walked slowly. I knew we would miss the first arrivals and that Fenna would be doing the greeting without me. I could imagine her standing at the desk, turning each person towards the room with a remark she had remembered to make them. I had never thought she needed me to be good at it. I had liked being beside her while she was.

At the hall Gethin paused to let a couple come out through the entrance. They were fetching something from their car; the man recognised him and stopped.

“Didn’t know you were coming.”

“Coralia invited me.”

“Oh. Well. Good to see you.”

His wife smiled at me. They went down the steps, and the small exchange was over. Gethin looked through the doorway rather than at me for an assessment.

I took him in.

Fenna wore the yellow scarf over a dark blouse. She had made the cash box into a ticket tray, lining its sections with paper so the slips didn’t disappear into the corners. There were flowers on the table, and the woman beside her was trying to pin a badge to a cardigan that resisted every attempt.

“Evening,” Fenna said.

“Evening.”

I handed her our tickets. She checked them against the list, though she could hardly have forgotten my name.

“Gethin.”

“Hello, Fenna.”

For a second I felt the need to explain him rise through my whole body. He had written something better. He was sorry. We had had a difficult week. All those true things would have made me the person standing between them again.

Fenna placed the tickets in the tray.

“There are programmes inside. The kitchen opens at the interval.”

“Thank you,” he said.

She looked at me. “I’ve kept the box. For your things afterwards.”

“Thanks.”

That was all. She turned to the next arrival; I could hear the pleasure in her greeting as we went through the inner doors. The difference hurt. I had no right to demand that she make every greeting sound the same.

Our usual table stood near the entrance. Fenna’s papers lay there beside a vase and a half-empty glass of water. There was space for another chair if somebody brought one.

I went past it.

“Here?” Gethin asked, stopping at two seats a little farther down the room.

One looked directly towards the welcome desk. The other faced the floor. I chose the second, put my bag beneath it and hung my coat on the back.

My chair. For an entire evening, including any part of it I failed to enjoy.

Gethin sat beside me. Across the floor the music organiser was adjusting a programme on the stand. A cable lay neatly taped along the wall; the hall’s operator tested a microphone. Everything was going to happen without a single useful word from either of us.

“We agreed a dance,” I said.

“We did.”

“Before we begin improving the occasion.”

He held out his hand.

· · ·Scene break

I had expected to feel watched. For the first few turns I did, noticing each face we passed and giving the faces far too much authority over my feet.

Gethin stopped at the edge of the moving dancers.

“Is it the hold?”

“No. My head.”

“We can sit.”

“I don’t want to sit.”

“All right.”

I put my hand more firmly on his shoulder. His dark shirt was soft beneath my palm. I looked at the tiny pale stitch on its collar and remembered having wanted to smooth a thread while I was angry with him. Here was the same man, still capable of making me angry, waiting to discover what I wanted next.

“Take the corner more slowly,” I said.

He did. I followed him round it, letting my foot find its own place instead of trying to complete the movement before somebody judged it.

The next turn was easier.

A pair brushed close behind us. Gethin shortened his step and I felt the adjustment through his hand. I knew that pressure now. I had met it in kitchens and on a river path, at the back of my waist when I leaned towards him. My body recognised him more readily than my mind could stop arguing with the room.

I smiled up at him.

“There you are,” he said.

“I’ve been here throughout.”

“You were inspecting the ceiling for some of it.”

“It needs attention.”

“Later.”

I laughed. He smiled at the sound, and I wanted to kiss him so much that for a few steps I forgot we had anything to prove.

At the end I did kiss him. A brief kiss, his hand still in mine, beside the floor where I had spent ten years carrying chairs. Nobody interrupted us. A man went past asking whether anyone had seen his glasses, which was as much notice as our private revolution received.

Gethin looked pleased enough to spoil my attempt at composure.

“Don’t look like that,” I said.

“Like what?”

“As though you know.”

“I was hoping I did.”

I squeezed his hand before I let it go.

We went back to our chairs. An old Friday friend came over, the woman who had greeted Gethin at the fundraiser and later invited him to lunch. She asked after him, then looked at me.

“Will you dance the next one?”

I had been preparing to tell her about us. The preparation left me briefly behind the question.

“Yes. I’d like to.”

She had danced with me for years. She liked to lead and made her intention clear early, a kindness I had always enjoyed. On the floor she told me that the soup had been too salty at the lunch, despite Gethin saying otherwise.

“He’s quite capable of admitting bad food,” I said.

“Was yours worse?”

“Mine could have held this building up.”

She laughed. We turned past the windows, where I could see Gethin talking to a man I didn’t recognise. He was not watching to find out whether I spoke about him.

I gave my friend my attention.

· · ·Scene break

The cake was cut before the interval, to my private disagreement. People would have to hold plates while finding drinks. Then they managed it, as people frequently managed things I had not designed for them.

Fenna made a short speech. She thanked the volunteers, the hall staff and everyone who had continued to come through the doors. When she named me she looked towards my chair.

I lifted my hand. It was strange to receive applause sitting down. I could not turn it immediately into a request for somebody else to clap, or move to the microphone and make an efficient joke.

Beside me Gethin clapped too.

The woman with the badges came over carrying two pieces of cake.

“That was your work on the programmes, wasn’t it? Lovely. You must be glad of an evening off.”

I looked at the blue border, then up at her.

“I’m glad to be here. I miss doing some of it.”

“Oh,” she said, surprised. “Yes. I expect you do.”

She gave us the plates and went back for more. Gethin offered me his fork because mine was bending under the icing.

“No bright side?” I asked.

“You’ve got the better fork.”

I laughed and took it. He had remembered what I asked on the bench after the meeting. He didn’t need to tell me he remembered; I could eat my cake beside him and be a little sad.

Later a man stopped at our table to tell Gethin he had seen the reply under his old post.

“Took you long enough.”

Gethin lowered his plate.

“Yes. It did.”

“Shouldn’t have needed all this.” The man glanced at me.

“It shouldn’t have needed Coralia,” Gethin said. “You’re right about that.”

The man looked as if he had expected a defence he could keep arguing with. He settled for a nod and moved on.

Gethin put his fork down. I waited until the man was out of hearing.

“Are you all right?”

“I don’t enjoy it.”

“No.”

“I’m not going to leave because I don’t enjoy that part.”

I touched his wrist. I could hear the effort in his plain voice. The reply on his phone had arrived cleanly set on a screen; this was what it cost when somebody answered in person.

After the interval he asked the music organiser to dance. She said she had promised the next one elsewhere. He thanked her and came back with water. When someone else asked him two tunes later, he went. I watched him go without turning the earlier refusal into a report on whether the evening was working.

I danced, sat, ate the last crumbs from my plate. Once Fenna caught my eye while she searched beneath a table. I almost rose. Then she found her own pen and held it up with an expression I knew well, half annoyance and half victory.

I grinned back.

The last slow tune arrived before I had begun counting how many were left. Gethin stood beside my chair.

“This one?”

“Unless you’re waiting for the music to improve.”

He heard the old joke and bent his head, smiling. “This one.”

On the floor I moved nearer. His palm warmed the place between my shoulder blades, and I let my cheek rest against the side of his face for a few unmeasured steps. He said my name close to my ear, with no question attached.

I had brought him into the room. There were people in it still angry with him, people who were glad to see him, and Fenna, carrying on with an evening she had wanted to share differently. None of them disappeared because he held me.

I held him back.