Nell: An Afternoon with Other People in It

Luca arrived at the library wearing sunglasses and carrying a packet of biscuits on his lap.

“I was promised a route test,” he said. “I have brought a fee.”

Kit hugged him carefully from the side. They knew each other from the theatre, where Luca operated sound equipment and possessed the ability to make grown adults apologise for touching a cable they had been told not to touch.

Taz arrived two minutes later with no biscuits and several opinions.

“Are we being studied?” she asked.

“Only informally,” I said.

“That sounds worse.”

We needed people other than ourselves to test the flatter route behind the harbour. Kit and I could count steps, check surfaces and notice gates, but our two bodies were not a universal measuring system. Luca used a wheelchair and had already pointed out three places on the official map that looked fine in a photograph and were irritating in practice. He had agreed to tell us what the route was like for him, not to certify it for everyone in the world. Kit made that distinction before I could accidentally ask too much.

“I've got two hours,” Luca said. “Then rehearsal. If you strand me in a scenic location, I'll invoice you.”

We began at the library. Taz took the notes for the first section because she said I could not simultaneously lead the route, watch everything and argue with a sign. She was correct, but I disliked how quickly she established it.

At the first narrow gate, Kit asked Luca what would help rather than grabbing anything. He asked her to hold the gate fully open. We wrote down the width and the awkward angle without turning the moment into a moral victory.

The route was good in places. It was also longer than the steep version, exposed near the water and missing a clear sign at the fork behind the boat sheds. Taz followed the wrong branch deliberately to see where it went. It led to a delivery area and a man unloading potatoes.

“Not a recommended attraction,” she reported.

“Depends on your interests,” Luca said.

We stopped at the view above the lower harbour wall. It was less dramatic than the top of the steps but had room to sit together without anyone balancing on an edge. Kit photographed the open space, the approach and the bench. I began drafting a description aloud.

“A quieter way to see the harbour, with—”

“Don't say hidden gem,” Taz warned.

“I wasn't going to.”

“You had the tone.”

“With boats,” I finished. “There. Informative.”

Luca laughed so hard he nearly lost the biscuits.

We ate them on the lower terrace. Taz asked Luca about the theatre show. He described a rehearsal in which an actor stepped over the tape marking the edge of a platform, then blamed the tape for being insufficiently persuasive. Kit added a story about a fog machine that had once triggered a discussion nobody wanted with the building manager.

I listened to them talking in a language of cues, timing and equipment. Kit was different with Luca: less guarded, quicker to interrupt, less interested in checking whether a joke had become a weapon. I liked seeing it. I also felt jealous of a friendship that had continued to grow while ours sat in a box labelled unresolved.

Taz caught my eye. I looked away too late.

“So,” she said to Kit, with an innocence she did not possess, “how's co-authorship treating you?”

Kit glanced at me.

“We have a comments system.”

“Sexy,” Taz said.

I inhaled biscuit crumbs and spent the next thirty seconds proving that romance was not the only way a person could die in public.

Luca passed me water. Kit looked amused and slightly pink. Taz patted my back with the satisfaction of someone who had created a small social emergency and was now helping resolve it.

When I recovered, I asked whether we could return to practical feedback. Everyone agreed too readily.

Luca's main suggestion was to give choices rather than pretend one route worked for everyone. The steep route had a different view. The flatter route took longer and had an exposed section. People could decide with accurate information. We should also make clear which observations we had checked ourselves and when, because a gate open today might be locked next month.

I wrote it down. It was good editing advice as well as good route advice: say what you know, show the limits, stop trying to make one sentence do every possible job.

On the way back, Taz walked beside me while Kit and Luca discussed rehearsal schedules.

“You like her,” she said quietly.

“I have always liked her. That's part of why the situation was annoying.”

“I meant now.”

“I'm seeing Henry at the music night.”

“That isn't an answer to the question I asked.”

“You didn't ask a question.”

“Fine. Do you like Kit?”

I watched Kit turn to photograph a painted sign on the side of a boat shed. The wind moved her hair across her face. She pushed it away, laughed at something Luca said and looked, for one unguarded second, exactly like the person I used to know and nothing like a person I could claim still to understand completely.

“I don't know what kind of like it is,” I said.

Taz nodded. “That's an actual answer. Well done.”

“You're insufferable.”

“Documented.”

Back at the library, we thanked Luca properly and agreed to show him the description before printing his comments. Taz stole the last biscuit. Kit and I stayed to transfer the notes.

At the bottom of the page, beneath the route information, I wrote: Best with people who don't mind changing the plan.

Kit read it over my shoulder.

“Keep that,” she said.

I did.