At the Bus Stop

Tressa saw Selwyn coming towards the bus stop and moved her bag before she knew why.

There was nobody beside her. The bag occupied half the bench; she was moving it to make room. That was one true account of the gesture. The other was that she had thought, absurdly, of concealing something, as if her son could read an appointment from a canvas shopping bag.

“Mum.”

“Hello.”

He stopped in front of her with a folded coat over his arm. It was Tuesday afternoon, too late for lunch and too early for supper. He had a shopping bag of his own, from a hardware shop, and looked surprised rather than displeased.

“Are you going home?” he asked.

“In a little while. I’m waiting for Elian.”

There was the change. A slight tightening at his mouth, a glance down the road which he stopped before it became a search.

“Right.”

She did not add an explanation about where Elian had been or how long the arrangement had existed. They were meeting to buy a new bulb for his reading lamp and then go for an early meal. The smallness of the plan did not make it less real.

“You can sit down,” she said, touching the space beside her. “If you’d like.”

Selwyn looked at the bench. “I should get on.”

“All right.”

The words felt abrupt. She wanted to tell him she was not pushing him away, but he had not accused her of that. She had offered a seat. He could decline one without beginning a whole account of their relationship.

He held up the bag. “Gate hinges. The man you recommended said he’d fit these.”

“Were they the ones you wanted?”

“They’re the ones that fit. I’m trying to develop affection for them.”

She laughed. He smiled, and for a few seconds they were two people discussing a gate.

Then he looked down the road again.

“I don’t want to do an accidental meeting,” he said.

Tressa kept her hands still. “Neither do I, if you don’t want it.”

“That sounds as though I ought to.”

“It wasn’t meant that way.”

He looked tired. She had been learning that fatigue was not an invitation to investigate, but she could still see it.

“I know,” he said.

A bus pulled in, brakes sighing. Neither moved towards it. The driver opened the doors for a woman behind them who took time arranging her bags before stepping aboard. Tressa watched her with the strange gratitude she had begun to feel towards strangers who interrupted nothing, only continued having lives.

When the bus moved on, Selwyn said, “Could you tell him—“

He stopped.

She waited.

“No,” he said. “I’ll tell him.”

“Yes.”

He looked at her, almost smiling. “You didn’t even ask what.”

“I’m making an effort.”

“I can see that.”

There was affection in it, though it did not sound like praise. She was glad; she did not want a reward every time she left somebody else’s business alone.

He shifted the coat on his arm. “Are you free on Sunday? Not this one. The first Sunday next month.”

She knew she was. She also knew how easy it would be to answer too eagerly, as if a place had been restored to her and she must grab it before somebody reconsidered.

“I think so. I’ll check my diary. Lunch?”

“If you’d like. At mine.”

She felt the pleasure before she could protect herself from it.

“I’d like that very much.”

He nodded. “Just us.”

“Yes.”

He looked relieved and then uncomfortable about showing the relief. She knew the combination now; she had worn it often enough herself.

“You don’t have to make it sound like a condition,” she said gently. “I can want lunch with you on its own.”

Selwyn looked down at the bag of hinges. “I suppose I’m still trying to work out what’s allowed.”

“So am I.”

The admission seemed to surprise him. She had spent decades making motherhood look as if it came with more instructions than it did.

“All right,” he said.

He bent to kiss her cheek. She touched his arm and let him go without proposing he wait another five minutes. An accidental meeting would have been easy to arrange now, easy to call chance. She had no wish to begin their next Sunday with that small dishonesty beneath it.

He walked away towards the side street. At the corner he looked back and lifted a hand. She lifted hers. Then he turned out of sight.

Tressa sat down again.

She could feel how much she wanted to tell Elian about the lunch. Not the private conversation, only the fact of an invitation. It was hers to share. The danger lay in the use she might make of it: evidence that the romance could now be less inconvenient, a reward for Elian’s patience, the happy conclusion of a problem her son had not agreed to become.

She would tell him. She would not ask it to mean more than it did.

· · ·Scene break

Elian arrived six minutes later, apologising for a shop whose clock was faster than his watch.

“Did it charge you for the difference?” she asked.

“It had closed. I have the wrong sort of bulb and no opportunity to defend myself.”

He sat beside her and took a small box from his bag. She read the print, then passed it back.

“This won’t fit your lamp.”

“That has been established. I was hoping for sympathy.”

“Come here, then.”

He leaned towards her. She kissed him on the mouth, briefly, feeling his surprise give way to pleasure. When he drew back she kept her hand on his arm.

“Selwyn was here,” she said.

Elian glanced towards the road. “Just now?”

“A few minutes ago. He went on. He didn’t want a chance meeting.”

“All right.”

She watched the little disappointment cross his face. It was possible to see it without being required to remove it.

“He asked me for lunch next month,” she added. “Just the two of us. I’m pleased.”

Elian nodded. “I’m glad.”

There was no demand in his answer, no request to know whether he had been discussed. She did not congratulate him for that either.

“I don’t know whether it’s easier for him yet,” she said.

“You don’t have to know.”

“No.”

He put the bulb back in the bag. “Are you still hungry?”

“Very.”

“Then I would like an early supper with a woman who has opinions about lighting.”

She stood and took his hand. They walked past the side street where Selwyn had disappeared. She did not look down it. Looking would not have harmed anybody, but she wanted the simple dignity of going where she had said she was going.

The restaurant had only just begun serving evening food. A waiter showed them to a table by a window and asked whether they were celebrating something.

“Tuesday,” Tressa said.

Elian looked at her and grinned.

“A difficult day to buy a bulb,” he added.

The waiter accepted this without needing it explained. They ordered, and Tressa took off her cardigan because the room was warm. Elian watched her settle, then looked at the menu again. The brief attention was familiar now and still made her want to touch him.

“I don’t need you to be pleased about lunch because I’m pleased,” she said.

He put down the menu. “I am pleased for you. I’m also sad that seeing me by accident is still something he wants to avoid. They can be different feelings.”

“I know. I keep forgetting in practice.”

“So do I.”

She took a drink of water. There was more she could say, and none of it would improve the truth he had given her.

“Tell me about the lamp,” she said.

“It’s a very short tragedy.”

“Then you may have time for the workday as well.”

He told her about moving benches in the park and discovering that the people who complained most about where they stood had never agreed where they ought to go. Tressa listened, asked questions and let him be irritated without finding the public’s point of view for him. When she did disagree, he looked so pleased to argue about something ordinary that she nearly laughed.

They ate slowly. Outside the window people hurried towards buses, collars raised against a wind which had found its strength after sunset. Tressa saw their reflections in the glass when the waiter cleared the plates: her hand lying palm upwards on the table, Elian’s fingers resting in it. She remembered the market mirror and how deliberately she had linked her arm through his. This touch had arrived while they discussed potatoes. She had not checked the room first.

· · ·Scene break

They walked to his flat after supper. He put the unsuitable bulb on the table and switched on a smaller lamp, which gave the room enough light to be itself. Tressa hung her coat beside his.

“I haven’t brought a bag,” she said.

“You don’t have to stay.”

“That wasn’t what I meant.”

He turned. She could see him choosing not to supply the rest of the sentence for her.

“I would like to stay,” she said. “If you’d like it.”

“Yes.”

“I can go home for my things.”

“Or I can lend you what you need for tonight. You decide.”

She considered. The borrowed shirt would be comfortable; she had a toothbrush in the small bag she had brought to his bathroom on Monday, after their conversation in the garden. She could go home in the morning. Nothing about that depended on making the evening more significant than it was.

“I’ll stay,” she said.

He came to her then, his arms closing only after she reached for him. She kissed him with the relief of a choice that no longer needed elaborate architecture around it. He moved back enough to look at her face.

“You’re smiling.”

“I’m having a very good Tuesday.”

“Despite the bulb.”

“Its sacrifice will be remembered.”

He laughed and kissed her again. The room was dimmer than her kitchen, but she did not feel hidden. She had been seen on a bench, on a pavement, across a restaurant table. She was here because she had wanted the evening to continue, and he was holding her as if he wanted the same thing.

Later, when she lay beside him, she remembered Selwyn turning at the corner to lift his hand. The memory did not intrude. It belonged to her day, as did the warm weight of Elian’s arm and the sound of a bus moving away below the window.

She turned towards him and let the day remain whole.