The Open Water

Tressa asked Elian whether he wanted the window seat, and believed him when he said no.

They were at her kitchen table with breakfast between them and the booking page open on her laptop. The room they had chosen for November had one large window overlooking the estuary and a small table which looked too narrow for the hotel’s enthusiastic breakfast tray. Elian wanted the chair nearest the radiator.

“You’re choosing warmth over a view.”

“I’m choosing to see the view while being warm.”

“You have been consistent about comfort.”

He grinned. “Will you let me have the chair?”

“I haven’t booked the room yet. It seems premature to divide the furniture.”

She checked the dates once more: Friday to Monday, three nights, the first full weekend next month. They had chosen a room together this time. She had wanted separate rooms in September. Now she wanted to wake beside him. They had talked about both wishes without treating either as a promise she could never change. He transferred his half of the cost while she checked the cancellation date.

“Ready?” she asked.

“Yes.”

She completed the booking. The confirmation arrived, plain and unromantic, with their dates and a request to state any dietary requirements. She read it twice, smiling.

“Three nights,” she said.

“Three.”

“I may want to spend an afternoon by myself.”

“I may want the radiator chair while you do.”

She closed the laptop and reached across the table for his hand. He turned it palm upwards beneath hers. The small warmth was familiar. She did not confuse familiarity with having exhausted what it could give her.

“I’m glad you’re coming,” she said.

“So am I.”

They finished breakfast and left the dishes to soak. Tressa put a waterproof in her bag after looking out of the window, took it out when the sun appeared and put it back because she was capable of being sensible without becoming somebody else.

Elian watched from the doorway.

“I won’t comment,” he said.

“You just have.”

He laughed and took his own bag.

· · ·Scene break

The Saturday adult session at the lido was busier than the evening one. Steam rose faintly where the heated water met the cold morning air. A lifeguard watched from the chair, and two swimmers stood at the shallow end having a conversation which apparently required their whole attention and none of the pool.

Tressa put her pound in the locker, pulled on her cap and went out to the water. Elian was already on the steps. He looked over his shoulder when he saw her.

“Well?” she called.

“I’ll reserve judgment until my shoulders are in.”

“A sound principle.”

She went down the other steps and pushed away from the wall. The first movement of water across her face was cold enough to stop every thought she had brought with her. She swam a length, turned and came back at her own pace.

Elian was farther along the lane, moving steadily. She did not wait for him before starting another length. They had come together. They did not need to swim in formation to prove it.

After a while they met at the shallow end. He rested his arms on the edge beside hers, breathing heavily enough to interrupt his smile.

“You don’t have to compete,” she said.

“I was competing with myself. I’m disappointed in both of us.”

She laughed and splashed a little water at his arm. He looked at the lifeguard with exaggerated innocence, then turned back to her.

“What?” he asked.

She had been looking at him. The water darkened his hair; a drop remained near the corner of his mouth. She remembered wanting to touch his face at the first swim and being surprised by how entirely the wanting belonged to the present.

It still did.

“Nothing useful,” she said.

His smile came slowly. “Good.”

She did touch his cheek, briefly, after he turned towards her. Then she pushed away and swam another length because that was what she had come to do as well.

When they got out, she took the rail without needing him to offer it. He went ahead to collect his towel, then waited by the changing-room doors. They agreed to meet at the gate, as they had on the first evening, each responsible for getting dressed and remembering the contents of a locker.

Outside, the vending machine offered the same tea. Tressa stood in front of it while Elian joined her.

“Are you considering forgiveness?” he asked.

“I was wondering whether it might have improved.”

“That seems a large burden to put on a machine.”

She looked towards the low wall and the bin beyond it. In September they had sat there with wet things and two disappointing cups, making small admissions they could still pretend were jokes. She liked that evening. She did not want to spend every Saturday trying to recover its uncertainty.

“The bakery,” she said.

“Definitely.”

They walked away without buying tea. At the corner he took her hand, and she kept her fingers threaded through his until they reached the shop.

· · ·Scene break

They took the bus after tea and went to a village along the coast where a path followed the top of a low seawall. Elian had suggested it last night, a place he knew from a walk with other friends. Tressa had never been. She liked being taken somewhere he wanted to show her without pretending that made him responsible for her enjoyment.

The wind was stronger there. She put on the waterproof and declined to look triumphant about having brought it. Elian looked triumphant for her, which was worse.

“You may say one thing,” she told him.

“I admire your preparation.”

“That was the wrong thing.”

They walked until the village fell behind them and the path turned inland around a stretch of marsh. There were signs asking people to keep to the marked route, and they did. Tressa stopped to watch a bird standing so still in the reeds that she first mistook it for a broken branch.

Elian waited beside her without naming it. She liked that he did not have to know everything outdoors merely because he worked there.

“Would you paint it?” he asked.

“I’d turn it into a washing-machine part.”

“A versatile subject.”

She took out her small sketchbook anyway. He went on a few yards to read a sign about the path while she made several marks which would probably mean nothing by the time she got home. When he came back he stood beside her, close enough that their sleeves touched.

“Is that the bird?”

“For now.”

“It looks prepared to dispute the attribution.”

She shut the book and slipped it into her bag. They went on walking.

At lunch they found a café with a table by a window that had begun to mist at the edges. Elian chose the chair nearest the door because he wanted to watch people coming in. Tressa took the other and was pleased with the view. The division of furniture had not become a principle they had to defend.

They ate baked potatoes and talked about the film they would see next week. She told him she wanted to invite her friend for supper, this time after the kitchen renovation ended so she could hear about something else. He said he would like that. He told her he had arranged a Sunday walk with two people from the walking group later in November. She did not ask whether Selwyn would be there. If the answer mattered to her plans, somebody would tell her.

Her phone vibrated once. It was a message from Selwyn asking whether one o’clock was still all right for their lunch. She answered yes and added that she was looking forward to it.

Then she put the phone away. She did not display the message across the table as evidence of a repaired family.

Elian was looking at the dessert board.

“The pudding?” she asked.

“I’m trying to decide whether the description contains a warning.”

She read it. “It’s probably just cream.”

“Probably isn’t certainty.”

They ordered one each, because neither wanted to share and that was allowed too.

· · ·Scene break

They came home in the late afternoon. Tressa’s house was cool, and she turned up the heating while Elian put the damp things where they would dry. He asked before hanging his jacket beside hers, then shook his head at himself.

“I know where the hook is.”

“You can use it. I haven’t reserved it for a better class of coat.”

He hung the jacket and followed her into the kitchen. The breakfast dishes were still soaking in water that had become less inviting than dirty plates. They dealt with them together, mildly regretting their earlier decision.

Afterwards Tressa made tea and carried both cups into the front room. Elian was looking at the postcard from their first weekend, which she had moved from the kitchen to a shelf beside her books.

“Different tide,” he said.

“The wrong one, according to the picture.”

“It was a good weekend.”

“Yes.”

She put down the cups. He turned towards her, and she did not need a reason to cross the room.

“Stay tonight,” she said.

“I’d like to.”

“And tomorrow morning I want to read for a while without talking.”

“I want to finish my book. I can do that beside you.”

She smiled. “You can.”

He kissed her, with the unhurried warmth of someone who had chosen to remain and did not have to prove it by demanding the whole evening. She put her arms around him. Her body knew him better now, and still answered his closeness with a pleasure that could stop her in the middle of an ordinary room.

When she drew back, he kept his hand at her waist until she moved towards the sofa. They sat close. She leaned against his shoulder and he rested his cheek briefly against her hair.

There were things they would still have to ask each other. Whether three nights felt long enough. Whether one week in the north was something he wanted. How they would manage an evening when she felt pulled towards her son and he was tired of being accommodating. Love had not supplied a set of correct answers. It had given the questions somewhere to be spoken.

She reached for her tea, tasted it and passed his cup to him.

“Better?” she asked.

He took a sip. “The view is excellent.”

From the sofa they could see the armchair, the open doorway, a stripe of lamplight across the hall. No sea. No bin. Her own house, with a man beside her who knew she could be impatient and did not call it a lapse in her better nature.

She put down her cup and turned towards him.

“I want another kiss.”

His smile was the one she had waited for at windows before she admitted she was waiting.

“Then come here.”

She did. The house held the sound of her laughter, then the quiet of his mouth against hers. She had not become somebody else’s version of a brave woman. She was sixty-two, she loved her son, and she wanted this man to stay.

When he asked what she would like for supper, she told him.