The Spare Key

Veda let the lie stand for four seconds too long.

“Useful having someone inside their group,” the other boat owner said. “At least you’ll hear which way they’re moving.”

They were in the back room of the quay café on Sunday morning, with tomorrow’s public session on the table between them. Her submission was clipped to a plain folder. She had intended to talk about access to the outer grounds, not Roscoe.

“We’re seeing each other,” she said.

“Yes, well. No harm in knowing what they’re thinking.”

Someone passed the sugar. Someone else asked whether they should all speak separately. The conversation moved, and Veda let it carry her.

She did not say that she and Roscoe did not exchange private campaign information. She did not say that kissing him was the least strategic thing she had done in years. She sat in the old comfort of being one of the people at the table, and accepted a version of herself that could remain there without explanation.

Arden, beside her, said nothing. That made it worse.

Afterwards they walked to their cars. Arden stopped with her keys in her hand.

“You heard that.”

“Yes.”

“Are you going to leave it?”

“No.”

“When?”

Veda looked at her. “You could let me do one shameful thing before lunch without supervising.”

“I could. I’d still have to work beside you tomorrow.”

There was no humour in it. Veda put her folder under her arm.

“I’ll correct it.”

Arden nodded, accepting the promise without pretending it was already done.

· · ·Scene break

Roscoe was waiting in the little park above the quay when she arrived that afternoon. They had agreed to walk before deciding on supper. His Monday statement was in a folder on the bench beside him, because he had been working on it before she came.

Veda looked at the folder and felt the morning change shape. He had never pretended he would leave it unwritten because she had asked for a whole night.

He stood and smiled. She wanted to be greeted by that smile for a long time. The want made the next part difficult enough to count.

“I need to tell you something before you kiss me.”

His smile faded. “All right.”

She sat. He sat beside her, leaving space.

“At the owners’ meeting, someone said seeing you would give me information from the campaign. I said we were seeing each other. He repeated the suggestion. I didn’t correct him.”

Roscoe looked down at his hands.

“I haven’t asked you for anything,” she said, and heard the defence in it. “That doesn’t make leaving it all right.”

“No.”

“I liked not having to explain myself.”

“To them.”

“Yes.”

He picked up the folder, then put it on his other side, a small movement that hurt because she understood it.

“Did you tell them anything I said?”

“No. Nothing private. Nothing from our dates.”

He looked at her. She held his gaze until he nodded.

“Thank you for telling me.”

“That sounds as though we’ve finished.”

“We haven’t.”

A child on the far side of the park called to an adult by the swings; a dog shook water onto its owner’s trousers. Ordinary Sunday continued around them. Veda was grateful nobody they knew appeared to demand a version of the scene suitable for public use.

“I won’t be your way into a meeting,” Roscoe said. “And I can’t be someone you explain away as research.”

“I know.”

“I don’t need everyone to approve of us. I do need you not to make me into something else so they can approve of you.”

The sentence found the exact place she had hoped to protect. She had been prepared to defend her right to want him; she had not defended his right to be wanted honestly.

“You’re right.”

He shook his head slightly. “I’m not enjoying it.”

“I wasn’t offering it as a prize.”

His mouth moved, almost a smile, then settled again.

She rested her elbows on her knees. Down the slope she could see a corner of the water between the buildings. She had corrected more complicated mistakes at work. This one required no skill she could display to make herself feel better.

“I will tell them.”

“All right.”

“I should have done it before I came.”

“Yes.”

There was a pause long enough for her to hear the park gate close.

“Do you still want me?” she asked.

He turned towards her at once. “Veda.”

“I need the answer, not my name.”

“Yes. I still want you. Very much.”

She let that reach her. It did not undo the conversation. It gave her something worth conducting it for.

“I want you too. I want what I said at my house.”

“A whole night.”

“Yes.”

His hand lay between them on the bench, palm down. She did not take it yet.

“Tomorrow I’m speaking for the recovery area,” he said. “I won’t make you discover that at breakfast.”

“I know what tomorrow is.”

“I don’t think you don’t know. I want it said while we can still choose.”

She looked at him then. He was afraid. Not theatrically, not enough to ask her to fix it, but in the set of his shoulders and the care with which he left his hand still.

“What if I come tonight and find I can’t do it?”

“Then we talk. Or you go home. You don’t owe me a night because we discussed one.”

“And if I decide this is all too difficult?”

“I’ll be unhappy. You will still be allowed to decide it.”

She let out a small, unsteady laugh. “How irritating.”

“I’ve been told.”

She took his hand at last, not to promise an answer but to stop pretending she did not want comfort from the person she had hurt. He folded his fingers around hers.

They walked one circuit of the park. He told her he would be home that evening, that she could come to talk whatever she decided, and that a message was enough if she preferred not to come. She could hear no trap in it. There was an open door and a road leading away.

At her car she kissed him once, briefly. It was not a farewell she understood yet.

· · ·Scene break

At home, Veda put her own key on the kitchen table.

She had found a spare while searching for a clean cloth that morning. It lay beside the other one now, an ordinary thing she could give a person if she wanted them to arrive without waiting outside. She moved it into the drawer. Tonight was not the time to make a small object promise more than either of them had chosen.

She took out her phone. The boat owners’ message group was still discussing tomorrow. She typed a correction, read it, and deleted the opening sentence about misunderstandings. Nobody had misunderstood what she allowed them to believe.

The new version said she and Roscoe were seeing each other because they wanted to. She had no private campaign information, would not seek it through him and should have corrected the suggestion at the table.

Her thumb hovered over send.

If she sent it and then stopped seeing him, she would still have done the necessary thing. That made the choice clearer. It was not a ticket to his bed.

She sent it.

Then she put the phone face down and stood at the sink. The garden wall held a strip of late sun. She could make tea, cook an omelette, sleep in her own bed. She could ask him for more time. She could go to his house and say that she could not learn the shape of his mornings while waiting to hear him argue away hers.

Or she could go and stay.

Tomorrow, whichever she chose, Roscoe would put on the badge she had kissed beside on the quay. He would enter the public room with his statement. She would be there with hers.

Veda turned off the tap. The evening was still hers to decide.