What We Keep for Ourselves

Dear Maeve,

I asked Elian to come swimming and left my son’s name out of the invitation. Selwyn had just driven away. I had been keeping Elian in the kitchen with an account of the dishwasher which would not have survived a second question.

I am sixty-two. I can invite a man to a public swimming pool without assistance. Apparently I cannot do it without moving the pepper mill.

Elian is forty-nine, and he is Selwyn’s friend. I met him fourteen months ago at my son’s house. He had an opinion about the chair he’d been given. I liked the opinion. Since then I have found rather too many reasons to remember it.

At the pool he told me I didn’t seem very patient. Maeve, people have been praising my patience for years. It was a pleasure to be correctly accused. Then he asked which way I would go if nobody needed collecting at the other end, and I discovered I had an answer.

We drank terrible tea. We walked farther than we needed to. On Sunday I put lipstick in a bag with two apples and a waterproof, as though I might require it in an emergency.

There was something less easy on that walk. I asked whether Selwyn had told him why he seemed tired. Elian wouldn’t answer. He said he couldn’t know which things would feel private to my son. I was embarrassed, then grateful, then embarrassed by how long it had taken me to be grateful.

He is allowed to be Selwyn’s friend. I don’t want to borrow that friendship to get closer to either of them.

I asked Elian to my house after our next swim. I put two mugs out before I left, then hid them in the cupboard. When we got home, I asked him to kiss me. Then I asked him again.

Afterwards I wanted the big kitchen light on. I didn’t want to be reassured that I looked younger. I wanted to be there as I was, with the man I had invited. He put the light on without making a speech about it.

I have had a full life since my marriage ended. I like my house when it is quiet. I like going places alone. I would also like Elian’s hand at my back, and I am tired of trying to make that sound like a sensible use of my time.

Selwyn doesn’t know yet. He deserves to hear something true from me. I would prefer to tell him without first inventing a version in which nobody has any reason to be uncomfortable. That may require more practice than the swimming.