The Spare Ticket

Fenna returned my programme corrections with three ticks, two crosses and a note asking me not to move the interval.

I read the note twice. The first time I thought about the interval. The second time I thought about how seldom she had needed to write such a thing before.

She had come to the print shop again, at lunchtime this time. I had slept at Gethin’s, caught my bus, finished a run of folded cards and spent half the morning touching my unadorned ear. Now I was holding a sheet of paper as though it were the only interesting thing that had happened to me.

“The later break leaves a long stretch at the beginning,” I said.

“The hall kitchen needs it there.”

“I could speak to—“

I stopped.

Fenna waited.

“All right,” I said. “That stays.”

She took the sheet back, then seemed to reconsider and left it with me.

“Could you give me a clean copy with just these changes?”

“Yes. This afternoon.”

“Thank you.”

That was the work. It ended there. I had time to notice that she had a new scarf, dark yellow with a narrow green edge.

“I like that,” I said.

She touched it. “Sale.”

“Of course.”

“Full price would have made it a different colour.”

I laughed. She smiled, and for a moment I wanted to tell her everything: the wrong earring, the good fish, the way he had sounded when I asked to leave a toothbrush. Happiness pressed against my ribs, looking for somewhere to go.

Then she asked whether I would be at Friday that evening, and I told her yes.

“You needn’t come early,” she said. “We’ve got enough people.”

“I know.”

I did not know. I had been planning to come early in order to establish that I was perfectly capable of behaving like someone who did not need to.

She put two anniversary tickets on the bench. They were cream card, heavier than the programmes, with a small blue border I had chosen months ago.

“Your two. The numbers are on the back.”

I turned them over. Seventy-three and seventy-four.

“We used to save ourselves the first ones,” I said.

“We used to forget to put ourselves down at all.”

That was true. The first tickets had usually been whatever was left after we remembered our own names.

I set them beside my bag.

“Fenna, I am looking forward to it.”

She glanced at the tickets.

“I hope you can.”

I could not tell whether that was generosity or a warning about the evening I had chosen. It might have been both. I let her leave without asking her to make it simpler.

· · ·Scene break

At Friday I came through the door at seven, paid my admission and discovered that arriving after the chairs had been arranged meant taking a chair somebody else had chosen.

It was against the wall near the speaker. Too near, I thought immediately, then sat there until the music started and found that the sound was tolerable.

The woman who had seen Gethin and me on our walk came to sit beside me. She wanted to know whether the replacement bulbs in the corridor were supposed to be that bright. I said I hadn’t noticed. She looked surprised, then told me about her shopping trolley, whose wheel had jammed on the way home that evening.

She did not ask about him.

For the first hour I waited for a question nobody had promised to ask. Then someone invited me to dance and I went, giving the floor more attention than the door. I made a mistake on a turn and laughed before I apologised.

Across the room Fenna was finding a seat for a late arrival. I knew the arrival disliked being put beside the speaker. Fenna knew too; she moved a bag from a quieter chair and gestured him over. I watched her do it without me, and the room went on being kind.

There was relief in that. There was grief too, in a small and unreasonable form. I had no wish for anything to fail. I wanted to remain necessary to its success.

At the interval I handed Fenna the clean running order. She checked the two places she had asked me to change, thanked me and put it with her papers.

I went back to my seat.

My phone held a photograph from Gethin. My earring rested beside a mug, with a handwritten scrap behind it: Supervised.

I laughed aloud. The woman beside me glanced over, smiling because I was.

“Something nice?”

“Yes,” I said. “Something nice.”

I put the phone away before I could explain it into insignificance.

· · ·Scene break

On Saturday we met by the market. I had asked for an afternoon out because I wanted to see him somewhere that belonged to neither dance room and required no cooking.

He returned my earring in a little paper envelope. He had folded it badly.

“You need more lessons,” I told him.

“I was hoping you might notice the care rather than the workmanship.”

“I notice both. It’s a burden.”

I slipped the earring into my purse. He bent to kiss me, and I leaned up before he reached me. I was still learning how readily I could do that.

We wandered past stalls of winter scarves, old books and fruit sold in quantities too large for either of our kitchens. Gethin bought three pears from a woman who tried to persuade him to take six. I bought one out of his bag to help, which led to an argument about whether we had accidentally created a business.

At a stall of chipped crockery I picked up a blue plate. He held another against it.

“They don’t match.”

“They nearly match,” I said. “That’s worse.”

“I shall remember that.”

“You needn’t. It only matters if you care.”

He considered the plates, then put his down and bought the one I was holding.

“For what?” I asked.

“Breakfast. One plate is allowed to be by itself.”

I looked away towards the next stall so he would not see quite how much pleasure I took in being included in the word.

We ate our pears on a low wall by the market square. Mine was harder than I had hoped; his was softer than he wanted. We exchanged them without a discussion. It was the kind of small success that, at a different time in my life, I might have mistaken for proof we would never disagree about anything that mattered.

I had Tuesday fresh enough to know better.

“I brought your ticket,” I said.

I passed him the cream card. He turned it over.

“Seventy-four.”

“You can request a more significant number, but I shall refuse.”

He looked at the front again. I could see him reading the familiar club name, the place he had left and talked himself further away from.

“It’s strange,” he said.

“Do you still want to come?”

“Yes.”

He put the ticket in his wallet, behind his bank card. It would go home with him, come out when he paid for something, remind him of a choice that was no longer a pleasant idea in my kitchen.

“We could sit at the back,” I said.

“Would you like that?”

“I don’t know. I’d like not to spend the whole night explaining where we’re sitting.”

“Then let’s choose a chair when we get there.”

“Such disregard for my profession.”

“You’re a print finisher.”

“My other profession.”

He smiled, then reached for my hand.

“I know it matters.”

“I want to be able to have a lovely time without making her think I’m glad I lost my part.”

“She might not think that.”

“I might. For a minute. Then I’ll want to put all the chairs in different places.”

“I’ll try not to stand in your way.”

“That isn’t helpful.”

“I’m not always helpful.”

He said it lightly. I liked that he did not offer to keep me good.

We walked to the little park beyond the square. On a bench he put his arm along the back and waited for me to lean into it. I did. His fingers brushed the top of my shoulder, a small touch that brought Thursday back with enough force to interrupt my next sentence.

“What were you saying?” he asked.

“I’ve forgotten.”

He looked at my mouth. “I may have too.”

The kiss was brief, in the open air, with a pigeon making a considerable fuss beside our feet. We laughed when it flapped away, and I rested my head on his shoulder again.

“Sunday tomorrow?” he asked.

“Yes. I want to dance with you.”

“I’m not on the door this week. We could eat afterwards.”

“At mine?”

“I’d like that.”

I thought of the cream ticket in his wallet and mine beside my keys. Two places in a room I had helped build. On Sunday I would enter his room freely, with no role except the one we were making together.

I stayed on the bench until my hand was cold. He warmed it between both of his and told me about something entirely unimportant. I remember the pleasure of listening better than what he said.