The Lamp Left On

Gethin opened the door with a tea towel over his shoulder and asked me not to judge the smoke.

“What smoke?”

“Then we’re doing well.”

I stepped into a narrow hallway where shoes stood in an untidy pair beside a very tidy row of books. He took my coat and offered me a hook. I hung it up myself, pleased by an arrival that did not involve deciding where other people’s things should go.

“I brought nothing,” I said.

“I can see. I’m coping.”

His kitchen was at the back of the flat. There was a pot of parsley on the sill, looking much reduced since its contribution to my supper, and a roasting tin on the hob. The dark edges of the potatoes accounted for his warning.

“They’ll be crisp,” he said.

“Some of them appear to have moved beyond that.”

“Those are for structural support.”

I laughed and kissed him, catching him in the middle of whatever defence he intended next. His hand found my waist. I had thought about this in the print shop all afternoon, each time I lifted a finished stack off the bench: the warm weight of his hand, the first quiet moment in his house.

“Hello,” he said against my cheek.

“I have been looking forward to this.”

“I hoped the potatoes wouldn’t alter that.”

“They’re on probation.”

He had made fish with lemon and a pan of greens, and I sat at the kitchen table while he brought it over. For once I could watch someone finishing a meal without offering to improve the order of operations. He forgot the serving spoon, remembered it, and nothing dreadful happened.

The fish was good. I said so. He looked relieved enough that I put down my fork.

“You were nervous.”

“A bit.”

“You know I’ve fed you a paving slab.”

“You might have been doing it to lower my expectations.”

“I was. You’ve fallen for an elaborate plan.”

He grinned. I ate the darkest potato myself; the middle was soft and hot, the edge sharp with salt. It was quite good too.

We did not begin with Tuesday. He asked about a mark on my thumb, and I told him how we used a bone folder to crease heavier stock, demonstrating with the folded napkin. He tried it with the edge of a teaspoon and made a crooked line.

“You’ll have to practise,” I said.

“Will there be an examination?”

“No. You’ll just have to live with it.”

He propped the badly folded napkin against his glass. I left it there.

After supper we washed up, neither of us insisting the other must be a guest. He washed; I dried. The cupboard where the plates lived was above my head, and when he reached past me to put one away his arm brushed my shoulder.

I turned before he moved back.

He waited, plate still in his hand.

“Put that down,” I said.

He found a space for it without looking away from me.

I drew him close by the front of his shirt. He kissed me with his back against the counter, and the slight surprise in him was a pleasure I had not expected to discover. He could want me without always knowing what I would do.

His hand moved into my hair. I liked the careful pressure of his fingers, the warmth of his mouth, the way the familiar kitchen noises continued around us while I stopped attending to them. I had spent years being aware of every open cupboard and unfinished job. The dishwater could cool.

When he lifted his head, I followed for another kiss.

“Coralia.”

“Yes?”

He smiled, a little unsteadily. “I was checking whether I could still say it.”

I laughed and rested my face against his neck. He smelled of soap and the lemon he had cut. I wanted to stay close enough to learn the differences between those things and him.

“I’d like to stay tonight,” I said.

His hand went still in my hair.

“I’d like that.”

“I haven’t brought anything.”

“There’s a shop at the corner. For a toothbrush. Or we could leave that problem for a minute.”

“A minute would be good.”

We stood holding each other. The decision did not sweep me into another person. I remained a woman who had work in the morning, who would have to borrow a towel, who wondered whether her happiness was too visible. Gethin rubbed his cheek against my hair and made it impossible to mind the last of those.

· · ·Scene break

I went with him to the corner shop because I wanted to walk beside him after saying it.

We bought a toothbrush, milk and a packet of biscuits neither of us needed. At the till he asked whether I wanted tea in the morning or coffee, an ordinary question that made me look down at the basket until I could answer without smiling quite so much.

Back at his flat he put the milk away and showed me the bathroom. I came out to find him in the sitting room, turning off a lamp by the window.

“Leave that one,” I said.

He left it on.

There was a sofa with a faded green throw and a chair holding three folded shirts. I sat on the sofa and took off my shoes. Gethin sat beside me, close but not touching, as though we had returned from a walk and might discuss the weather.

I put my hand on his knee.

“You can come closer.”

“I don’t want to assume what staying means.”

“Neither do I. I want to find out with you.”

He turned towards me then. I kissed him slowly, letting the moment last until the awkwardness became part of what I liked. He was not polished at this. His elbow caught the cushion; mine knocked the biscuit packet off the table. We laughed, left it where it fell and began again.

When his mouth moved to my neck, I tipped my head to give him room. The feeling drew a small sound from me that I would once have tried to swallow. He paused, his lips still against my skin.

“That’s good,” I told him. “Don’t stop for that.”

He kissed me there again, taking his time. I kept my hand at his shoulder, feeling the strength of him held quiet beneath it. Wanting him did not make me graceful. It made me impatient with the space between us, with the sleeve catching beneath my wrist, with my own habit of hiding any appetite that someone might remember later.

I let him remember this one.

I said his name when I wanted his attention back on my face. He lifted his head at once, and I kissed him until the serious line between his brows disappeared.

“What is it?” I asked.

“I want to get it right.”

“You can ask me. I’ll tell you.”

He nodded. I could feel him listening, and it was more intimate than being watched.

Later I stood and held out my hand. He took it. At the bedroom doorway I stopped, not from doubt but because I wanted to look at him in the warm light from the sitting room.

“Still yes,” I said. “Just slowly.”

“We have time.”

I drew him in with me.

The evening became a succession of things I could ask for and receive: the lamp left on low, a kiss made softer, a pause when I needed to laugh at my own tangled sleeve. He had wishes too, offered close to my ear, and I found pleasure in answering them without trying to anticipate every one. Nothing had to be performed convincingly. We could say when we were unsure and discover something better.

When I grew quiet, he asked whether I was all right. I put his hand back where I wanted to hold it and told him I was happy. The word sounded inadequate and enormous. He kissed me as though he understood both.

We kept the rest of that night for ourselves.

Afterwards, lying close beneath the light blanket, I watched him reach to turn the lamp off.

“Not yet.”

He withdrew his hand. “Too bright?”

“No. I want to see you.”

His expression changed. For all his confidence on a dance floor, being looked at without a task still seemed to catch him unprepared.

I traced the line beside his mouth with my fingertip. He kissed the finger and drew me against him. My bare shoulder rested against his chest, warm beneath the blanket, and I let myself be held without considering when it would be polite to move.

“There’s a glass of water on your side,” he said.

“You planned that.”

“Some things I can manage.”

I drank and passed it to him. He put it back within my reach.

“I don’t need you to tell me I’m less trouble than Tuesday,” I said into the quiet.

His arm settled more securely around me.

“I wasn’t comparing.”

“Good.”

A car went past outside. Light crossed the ceiling and disappeared. I had work in the morning and a bus to catch, but neither required an answer at that moment.

He asked whether I wanted the lamp off now.

“Yes.”

In the dark I found his hand, and he held mine until I fell asleep.

· · ·Scene break

His alarm was a disagreeably cheerful sequence of bells.

“You chose that,” I said.

“I needed something I couldn’t sleep through.”

“You could have arranged roadworks.”

He reached past me to silence it and kissed my shoulder on the way back. I rolled towards him, warm and reluctant, and for five minutes we behaved as though time had made an exception.

It hadn’t. I showered while he made coffee, then put on yesterday’s clothes with none of yesterday’s uncertainty. The toothbrush stood in a tumbler beside his. I considered taking it and decided to ask instead.

“Can I leave that here?”

He looked towards the bathroom, then back at me.

“Please do.”

The pleasure in his voice stayed with me while I buttered my toast. He was eating standing up until I pointed at the chair.

“Four minutes,” I said. “You can spare four.”

He sat. We ate together while the kitchen clock made its small impatient noise.

At the stop our buses went in different directions. He kissed me without checking the pavement first. I held his coat for a second after he drew back.

“Have a good day,” I said.

“You too.”

It was not an adequate farewell to the night. It was, however, something I could imagine saying to him often.

My bus came first. I took a seat and discovered I had put on one earring and left the other beside his bed. I sent him a message about it.

His reply arrived before the next stop.

I’ll keep it company.

I smiled all the way to work.