The Saturday We Kept Separate

Leah recognised Finn's handwriting before she saw him. He had written KITCHEN on a box of books. The K leaned forward as if it were trying to leave without the rest of the word.

She stood on the landing with a roll of packing tape caught around her wrist. Below her, someone was arguing with a door that would not stay open. Above her, their friend Rosa was explaining to a removal man that the wardrobe came apart, although she had never tried taking it apart.

Finn came up the stairs carrying a chair.

"That's not kitchen stuff," Leah said.

He looked at the box. "It was when I started."

Two years had made his hair a little longer and had done nothing about his habit of smiling when he was caught. She had forgotten how much she liked that smile. Remembering it was inconvenient.

Rosa appeared with a screwdriver between her teeth. She took it out before speaking.

"Before you both decide I've arranged this, I haven't. The lift broke yesterday. I need everyone who said yes."

"I said yes," Leah answered.

"So did I," Finn said.

It was an ordinary fact, and still it stayed between them.

The chair would not go through the kitchen doorway. They left it on the landing while Finn went for a smaller load. Leah sat on it to retie her shoe. When he returned, he offered her the box with the wrong label.

"Books?"

"Kitchen books," she said.

They carried it downstairs together. It was too heavy for either of them to make much conversation.

At eleven, Rosa made tea in whatever cups she could still find. Leah received a pale yellow mug. Finn's was blue, with a thick handle that made him hold it awkwardly.

The yellow mug had once lived in Leah and Finn's flat. She had bought it at a market and left it behind when she moved out. Later, Finn had given Rosa a box of kitchen things.

"Do you want it?" Rosa asked, seeing her turn it around.

"You've just made me tea in it."

"After the tea, obviously."

Leah looked at Finn. He was studying the remaining strip of carpet beneath the sofa, as if it needed his full attention.

"Yes," she said. "If you're sure."

"One fewer thing to pack. Take the blue one too. They can be a pair."

"They don't have to be," Finn said.

Rosa lifted both hands. "Two separate mugs. No ceremony."

Leah laughed, and Finn looked up. For a moment the room was the old room again: half-finished tea, somebody else's furniture, a joke that needed no explanation.

Then her phone rang. A costume supervisor wanted to confirm Saturday's fitting. Leah repaired and altered stage clothes, mostly in borrowed workrooms and on tables she cleared before supper. This was her first paid fitting on a larger production. She went into the empty bedroom to hear the details.

When she returned, Finn was wrapping the mugs separately.

"Big job?" he asked.

"A chance at a bigger job."

"Good."

He said it simply. She waited for the question about the hours, but he didn't ask it.

By late afternoon, Rosa's possessions had gone in the van. Rosa herself left in her sister's car, waving through a window already misted by their argument about the best route.

Leah and Finn stayed to sweep. They found a coin, a button and the flat piece of cardboard Rosa had used to stop a table rocking. Finn put the coin on the kitchen counter for the next person. Leah put the button in her pocket.

Outside, rain had started without much conviction. Finn walked with her to the bus stop. Neither had suggested walking farther.

"Do you still work Saturdays?" she asked.

"Some. Not all. I have a Saturday thing now."

"A thing?"

"I sing. Badly enough that they put me in the middle."

She turned to him. "A choir?"

He nodded, suddenly self-conscious.

He had sung while washing up when they lived together, stopping whenever he noticed her listening. She remembered asking him once to keep going. She couldn't remember whether he had.

"We're doing a small concert next Saturday," he said. "I'd ask you, but your fitting."

"It's all day."

"Then another time."

Her bus came around the corner. She wanted to say something that was neither a promise nor an excuse.

"I'd like to hear you."

"I'd like that too."

He gave her the paper bag with the yellow mug. He kept the blue one, though neither of them had discussed it.

From the bus, she saw him standing beneath the narrow shelter. She lifted her hand. This time he was looking.

On Monday, Finn sent her the name of a cafe between their workplaces. No concert ticket, no message about what they ought to be now. Just: Tea on Tuesday? Six?

She arrived at ten past. He had chosen a table beside the window and left both chairs free of his coat. Her green scarf slid from her shoulder when she sat down. He caught it before it touched the floor, then handed it back instead of hanging it somewhere for her.

The small courtesy almost made her cry. She was annoyed with herself for that.

They talked about Rosa's new place, Finn's work repairing library furniture, a waistcoat Leah had rescued from a badly placed candle. He told her about the choir conductor's ability to hear one wrong note through twenty right ones.

Eventually he said, "I'm glad you came to help."

"Rosa would have managed."

"I meant I'm glad I saw you."

Leah put her cup down.

"So am I. I don't know what to do with that yet."

"We could finish the tea."

They did. Outside, the lamps came on while the street was still light.

At the door, he asked whether she wanted supper the following week. She said yes. Then she kissed his cheek, because she wanted to, and because waiting for a perfect account of her own feelings seemed likely to take the rest of the year.

His hand touched her sleeve, lightly, without holding her there.

"Tuesday?" he asked.

"Tuesday."

She walked away smiling at a shop window and had to pretend she was looking at the shoes.

On Thursday, the fitting moved. The production needed the workroom on Saturday morning and could offer Leah only a late-afternoon start. She would finish after the concert began, but perhaps not long after. Perhaps she could catch the last songs.

She sent Finn a message while waiting for a bus: Might make some of it after all.

He replied with a smiling face and a photograph of the programme. His name was in the list of singers, halfway down the second column.

For the rest of the journey, she imagined slipping into the hall, seeing him see her, returning a little of what they had lost.

At home she checked the route. Then the probable fitting time. Then the route again. There was no honest way to turn an unknown finish into an arrival time. She knew that. She had known it when she wrote the message.

She called him.

"I shouldn't have said that as if it were likely."

"You said might."

"I know. But I wanted the answer you'd give me if I said yes."

He was quiet. In the background she heard a kettle click off.

"I did rather hear yes," he said.

"I'm sorry. I want to be there. I also want to do this fitting without watching the door all evening."

"Then do the fitting."

The words sounded easy. His voice did not.

"Are you all right?"

"Not quite yet. Can I call you tomorrow?"

She said yes. Afterward, she left the route open on her phone until the screen went dark.