In February, we found a house with a narrow kitchen, a temperamental front gate and a room upstairs that caught the morning light. Nick stood in the doorway while I looked at that room. There was old carpet, a crack in the plaster and a radiator that would need to be bled. I could see …
My room in Manchester was smaller with my things in it. The portfolio leaned against the desk. My shoes occupied most of the space beneath the chair. I had brought too many books and not enough hangers, a failure of planning I would have criticized mercilessly in somebody else’s packing list. On the first evening, …
By the last week of the run, summer had begun to look a little tired around the edges. The hanging baskets outside the hotel needed watering. The grass above the harbor had turned pale. At the Portlight, everybody knew which floorboard complained and which dressing-room door needed a shoulder rather than a hand. The play …
We spent our next free afternoon trying to find one weekend we could both promise. At first it was funny. Nick spread the winter tour schedule across my table. I added the Manchester dates, the Portlight closing night and the work I had already agreed to do before leaving. Before we’d chosen a September weekend, …
The offer came on Wednesday, between the matinee and the evening performance, while Nick was eating a banana that was still recognizably a banana. I knew something had happened because he stopped halfway across the wardrobe doorway and looked at his phone as if it had begun speaking in another language. “Nick?” He held up …
On Monday morning, Nick rang to ask whether I could come to lunch instead of supper. I stood in the studio with a length of fabric over one arm, listening while he explained that a recording job had come up in Bristol. The original actor was ill. They needed someone that evening, and the fee …
Nick was outside the café when I arrived, looking at the timetable in a display case left from when the building had been a station. The last train had passed through thirty years earlier. He seemed to be giving the information serious consideration anyway. “Anything useful?” I asked. He turned. “If we hurry, there’s a …
The letter was one page. Nick had crossed out a line halfway down rather than starting again on a clean sheet. Claire, I keep trying to write an explanation that makes what I did smaller. There isn’t one. You asked me not to use the passes for your family. I agreed. Then I gave Daniel …
On Saturday afternoon, Ruth needed help with a fastening she had managed perfectly well the night before. She apologized three times while I worked behind her back. “You don’t have to apologize,” I said. “I know. I just seem to be doing it.” I recognized the feeling. I finished the hook, smoothed the fabric and …
“I asked you not to.” Nick looked at me. “I know.” Behind him, the corridor was still full of people trying to enjoy the evening. Someone laughed near the green room. A glass struck another glass. The ordinary celebration made our small group feel more exposed, not less. Rhys looked from Nick to the passes. …
