The overnight bag looked too small when Delia set it beside the cinema door. She had packed for one night, then removed a spare sweater, then put it back. Now she wanted to take the bag to her car and arrive carrying nothing at all, as though the visit had happened by accident.
Soren opened the side door before she could do anything so foolish.
“You found the entrance.”
“It was where you said it would be.”
“That’s an improvement on your garage.”
He kissed her, then reached for the bag. She gave it to him and followed him up the stairs. They were as steep as promised. At the top, a narrow landing held a pair of boots and a folded umbrella. He moved the boots aside with his foot before opening the apartment door.
The first thing she noticed was the light. His front room looked out across the street, and the afternoon sun fell through two tall windows onto a table covered in papers. A plant leaned toward the glass. The sofa had a worn patch on one arm and looked perfectly serviceable until she sat on it and sank much lower than expected.
“Oh.”
“I warned you.”
He set her bag by a chair. Delia looked around without trying to conceal it. There were books, discs, a framed print hung slightly crooked, and a mug holding more pens than anyone could reasonably need. The place smelled faintly of soap and warm wood. From below came a muffled thump, then silence.
“Bathroom through there,” he said. “Kitchen here. Bedroom’s the one with the bed.”
“Useful system.”
“I thought so.”
She stood, less gracefully than she intended, and went to the window. From here she could see the pavement where she had stood on her first evening, deciding whether to buy a ticket. A person in a red coat passed the cinema without looking up. Delia wondered how many times Soren had watched the street while she was somewhere in the cottage trying to decide what to do next.
He came to stand beside her, leaving a little space between them.
“I have to go down for the start of the afternoon show,” he said. “About an hour. You can stay here, or come down, or—”
“I can find something to do.”
“Right.”
She touched his wrist. “I’m not annoyed.”
“I know. I’m trying to remember everything I meant to tell you.”
“Tell me whether the door locks behind me.”
“The outside one does. Call me if you go out. I’ll let you in.”
“That’s useful.”
He showed her where to leave the bag, then kissed her again, more slowly. She caught his shirt at the waist. For a moment the afternoon show seemed an unreasonable invention. He drew back with a reluctant breath.
“An hour,” he said.
“Go.”
She watched him leave and listened to his steps on the stairs. Then she stood in the middle of his room with no idea where to put her hands.
She had been alone in other people’s homes before. Friends had given her keys, her mother had sent her to find things, Russell had often left her at his place while he went somewhere. This felt different partly because she wanted it to. Every ordinary object offered information she could turn into a sign if she wasn’t careful. A book left open facedown. A clean towel folded over a chair. The cleared space beside the bed where he had set her bag.
She washed her face, changed into a lighter top, and went out for a walk. At the corner she passed a shop she had visited during her holiday. The assistant did not recognize her. That pleased her more than it should have. She bought a small card with an illustration of a sea bird for Yasmin, who liked ugly birds, then walked to the water.
It was too windy to stay long. She stood with her hair blowing into her mouth and watched a dog chase a ball it could never quite catch before the next wave took it. She did not photograph the view. When she returned to the cinema, Soren was at the counter talking to his assistant. He looked up and smiled in a way that made her feel the distance she had just walked through her whole body.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Whenever you are.”
He finished the conversation, checked one thing on a sheet of paper, and came around the counter. The assistant wished them a good evening without making it sound significant. Delia appreciated that too.
Upstairs, Soren opened a cupboard and looked inside with unexpected concern.
“I’ve forgotten something.”
“What?”
“The thing I was going to cook.”
She laughed before she could stop herself.
“Not all of it,” he said. “One part.”
“A principal part?”
“Fairly principal.”
They considered the contents of the cupboard. He had enough for a different meal, provided they abandoned the one he had planned. Delia offered to help, then regretted it when he handed her a knife and a board. Her cooking failures were funny when described over the phone; she was less eager to demonstrate them at close range.
“How small?” she asked.
He showed her with his fingers. She cut one piece, looked at it, and cut it again.
“That’ll do.”
“It isn’t the same size as the others.”
“They won’t mind.”
She worked slowly while he moved around the small kitchen. They reached for the same drawer twice. Once she turned with the board and found him directly behind her, close enough that his hand came to her waist to keep them from colliding.
“This kitchen needs traffic lights,” she said.
“I usually cook alone.”
He said it simply, but she heard the adjustment in it. He moved a pan to give her more space. She finished the cutting without trying to improve every uneven piece.
At the table, he shifted the papers into a pile and put them on the chair by the wall. Delia noticed a page with film titles and arrows, then deliberately looked at her plate. He saw the glance.
“The weekend series,” he said. “Still thinking.”
“You don’t have to hide it.”
“I’m not. I needed somewhere to put your plate.”
She smiled. The meal was good, although one part was softer than intended. He admitted he had lost track of the time while talking to her. She told him about the burned dinner, this time with the detail she had omitted on the phone: she had briefly considered serving the unburned part on a different plate and pretending the rest had never existed.
“Who were you pretending for?”
“Myself. A demanding audience.”
They ate with the windows open. Below, a few people gathered for the evening show. Their voices rose and faded. Soren paused once to listen, then returned to what she was saying. Delia noticed but did not ask whether he ought to go down. He had arranged the cover. She could let him use it.
He left the table to fetch a photograph from the shelf. It showed the cinema frontage before he had taken over. The paint was duller, the lettering different, but the windows upstairs were the same.
“That’s what I bought,” he said.
Delia took the photograph. “Did you know how to run it?”
“Some of it. I learned the rest expensively.”
“What did you get wrong?”
He sat again. “I thought choosing films would be the hard part.”
“And it wasn’t?”
“It is. But so is finding somebody who’ll come out when a pipe leaks on a Friday evening.”
She studied the picture. A ladder leaned against the entrance. In one corner, almost cut off by the frame, stood a younger Soren with a paint mark on his face. He looked exhausted and pleased.
“Who took it?”
“My ex-wife.”
She kept her eyes on the picture, trying to imagine the woman behind the camera.
“She helped?”
“At the beginning. More than I remembered to thank her for.”
Delia looked up. He was rubbing a small mark on the edge of the table with his thumb.
“You said work took over,” she said.
“It did. I let it.”
He didn’t add a defense. She handed the photograph back, and he returned it to the shelf with the others. There were pictures of friends, a landscape, a dog she hadn’t asked about. His life before her occupied a real amount of space.
“I thought I might feel strange here,” she said.
He turned. “Do you?”
“A little. But I meant strange in a bad way.”
He leaned against the shelf. “I’ve moved that pile of papers three times today. I finally decided you’d notice if I put the table in a cupboard.”
“I hid my work when you came. Then I took it out again.”
“I liked seeing it.”
“I know.” She looked down at the plates. “I didn’t know that before.”
He came back to the table and picked up the empty serving dish. She collected the plates. For once she did not feel obliged to find a better ending to the conversation. She had said what she meant, badly enough to be recognizable, and he was still there carrying the dishes beside her.
Afterward, she began washing the dishes while he put things away. He reached past her to turn the tap lower.
“You’re soaking the floor.”
She looked down. A thin line of water ran from the edge of the sink.
“Your sink is badly designed.”
“My sink has managed until now.”
“Then it should be grateful for this challenge.”
He handed her a cloth. She wiped the water, then flicked the cloth at him when he looked too pleased. He caught her wrist before she could do it again. For a second they stayed that way, the damp cloth hanging from her hand, his fingers warm around her wrist.
“Put that down,” he said softly.
She did. He kissed her, and she leaned into him with a force that surprised her. The edge of the counter pressed against her back. His hand moved to her waist, waiting there while she drew him closer.
When they broke apart, she could hear the water still running.
“Tap,” she said.
He turned it off without looking away from her. That made her laugh, and then she was kissing him again.
They moved out of the kitchen. In the front room he stopped, one hand still holding hers.
“Delia. Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
She looked at him properly. He seemed less certain of his own welcome than she had expected, his face serious beneath the flush at his neck. She lifted her free hand to his cheek.
“I want to stay with you,” she said. “I want this.”
He nodded. “So do I.”
There were things to say, practical questions she would once have been embarrassed to ask in a moment like this. They spoke quietly, without rushing past them. She was grateful that he answered plainly. When he kissed her again, she could stop listening for the question she hadn’t yet asked.
At the bedroom door she paused, not because she wanted to stop, but because her bag was in the way. He moved it with his foot and nearly caught the handle. They laughed at the same time. The small awkwardness loosened the last of the stiffness in her shoulders.
She took his hand and brought him into the room. He closed the door behind them. The last light from the window fell across the rumpled cover, and she drew him down beside her.
Later, the sound of people leaving the cinema drifted up through the open window. Delia lay beside him with one knee bent beneath the sheet. His arm rested across her waist, heavy in a way she liked. She had expected to feel exposed afterward. Instead she was hungry, which seemed both ordinary and wonderfully inconvenient.
“There’s bread,” he said when she told him.
“You don’t have to get up.”
“I want some too.”
He found his shirt and went to the kitchen. She listened to a cupboard opening, then a small clatter and a muttered complaint. When he returned, he carried a plate and wore the shirt unbuttoned. She sat up against the pillows and took the slice he offered.
“You keep everything very high,” she said.
“I noticed you moving the glasses.”
“I moved one glass.”
“A serious start.”
She smiled and ate. He sat beside her, careful with the plate. In the quiet, she could hear a car start in the street and someone laugh far below. This was the part of a visit no cottage had prepared for her: the room around him, his shirt against her shoulder, the crumbs he tried unsuccessfully to keep off the sheet.
He asked what time she wanted to leave tomorrow. The question touched a small sore place before she understood it was practical.
“After lunch, if that works.”
“It works.”
“I should be home before evening.”
“Then we’ll have breakfast. Maybe a walk.”
She nodded. Her mother would probably call. There would be laundry waiting, and a proposal on the desk that had not written itself during the drive. She could go back to all of it tomorrow.
“Which side do you usually sleep on?” she asked.
“Your side.”
“I’m on it.”
“I’ve noticed.”
She started to move, but he put a hand lightly against her shoulder.
“Stay. I can manage the other side.”
“What if I need the lamp?”
He reached behind her and switched it on, then off, demonstrating. She laughed and settled back. He moved the plate farther from the edge of the bedside table before lying down, and she drew the sheet over them both.
Soren turned toward her. She put her hand on his chest, feeling the steady warmth beneath his skin. He kissed the inside of her wrist, and she let the next thing she had been about to say disappear.