The Long Way Round

We took the bus to Bracken and played miniature golf badly enough to attract advice from a child.

“You have to aim,” she told Eli.

“I've been trying that.”

“Try harder.”

He thanked her solemnly. She walked away with the air of a consultant whose work was undervalued.

I won the first hole by accident and immediately became unpleasant about it. Eli won the second by an equally accidental route and accepted my explanation that the windmill had shown favouritism. By the ninth, neither of us knew the score because I had written a shopping item on the card instead of a number.

“This is why designers shouldn't be allowed to run competitions,” he said.

“This is why boatbuilders shouldn't trust a windmill.”

We bought ice creams and sat on a bench facing a car park rather than the sea. It was unexpectedly restful to look at a place neither of us had spent our lives turning into a symbol.

“How's Westport?” I asked.

“Still there.”

“Useful start.”

“The room's affordable if I share. Two other apprentices. One collects old radios.”

“Promising. You can both repair the wrong thing while avoiding the washing-up.”

He grinned.

We discussed the practical parts without pretending they were the entire relationship. He would be busy. So would I, whether Bell Lane offered me a place or I found another route into the work. Travel would cost money. Some weekends would belong to family or friends or the basic task of doing laundry before every item of clothing became a warning.

“I don't want a schedule where missing one call means something terrible,” I said.

“Neither do I.”

“But I do want us to make actual plans. Not just say we'll see.”

“Yes.”

He looked at me properly then.

“I'm not asking you to pretend you won't mind.”

“I know. I think I was asking you to mind so much you wouldn't go.”

“That's a fairly expensive way to prove something.”

I nodded.

A car alarm began several rows away. Nobody moved towards it. The sound continued with the confidence of a machine that did not understand the limits of public concern.

“I like you,” I said. “Not just the version who's nearby with tools.”

He smiled slowly.

“I like you too. Including the version who loses at golf and accuses architecture.”

“I didn't lose.”

“We have no reliable records.”

“Exactly.”

He reached for my hand. This time I didn't interpret it as proof that every difficult conversation had been permanently resolved. It was his hand in mine, on a bench, on a Saturday we had both chosen to spend together. That was enough work for the moment to do.

We wandered through the arcade afterwards. Eli spent a pound trying to win an ugly duck from a machine and failed because the claw appeared to have ethical objections to holding anything firmly. I won a paper fan from a different game without understanding the rules. We traded our remaining coins for a packet of sweets and called it financial maturity.

At the bus stop, rain began in a fine ordinary mist. I opened my umbrella. One rib had been repaired with a visible sleeve of blue fabric. Eli noticed and asked whether I was going to include it in the portfolio.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because it's just my umbrella.”

He smiled as though he understood something important about that answer.

The bus was late. We stood close beneath the repaired canopy, watching drops gather along its edge. I could have made the delay into a calculation of everything I ought to be doing. Instead I leaned against him and let the evening remain the evening.

When the bus came, we took the seats at the back. Eli's shoulder was warm through his jacket. I told him about the remote assessment, including the part where the panel might still say no. He told me about being afraid he would arrive at the boatyard and discover that being good in Stan's shed had not made him good anywhere else.

“I don't think you have to arrive finished,” I said.

He looked at me.

“What?”

“Nothing. I like hearing you say it.”

I kissed him before he could improve the moment with a joke. The bus went over a bump, our teeth touched awkwardly, and we both laughed into the space between us.

At Morrow, he walked me to the shop. The sale sign shifted slightly in the breeze. Inside, the old bells waited above a door that still belonged to us for now.

“Next Sunday?” he asked.

“After the fair. Before the assessment. Something very undemanding.”

“Excellent. I'll bring my worst skills.”

I watched him go, then went upstairs to put the day's photographs on my laptop. Three showed us making ridiculous faces, one showed the car park and none showed a useful object.

I kept them all.