Two Tickets

Marten found the cinema receipt under his glove. He'd bought two tickets for a film about which Fenna had said only that the lead actor looked miserable for someone who got to save the whole world. He'd taken that as interest. The start time on the receipt still seemed comfortably within reach.

She was due to finish at the warehouse at half past two. Then come here, change, leave the car and walk. He'd bought the tickets because he knew a free afternoon at home could easily turn into half a training session's preparation. Sorting out a bag, looking up a result, one more conversation. Now there was a time and a room in which he had to keep his mouth shut. For some kinds of being together, that helped.

The tubs his sister had given them yesterday were in the kitchen. He'd opened one and discovered the sprouts were back. Fenna had laughed loudly at the photograph. She'd said he could keep taking them along until February, like a family heirloom nobody wanted to inherit.

He closed the tub. His phone rang. Koen, who wouldn't know he'd officially had a girlfriend since yesterday, but would probably hear that he was laughing again before anything had been said.

'Am I interrupting?' asked Koen.

'You're here now.'

'I could put a leaflet through your door instead.'

'Then I'll end up joining something.'

Koen wanted to arrange their next conversation. In January he needed to settle the staffing for February; he wasn't holding the position open indefinitely. Marten took his diary and chose a morning early in January. That felt much closer than next month had. Lately he'd often mentioned the shop as if he already worked there and at the same time didn't have to do anything about it.

'I wanted to ask you something about Saturdays,' he said.

Koen waited. Marten heard a doorbell in the background, then someone asking where the pumps were. 'One moment,' said Koen, not to him. A few seconds later he was back. 'Saturdays, then.'

'If I take it. Could I swap the occasional Saturday? Not every week. More like once a month, or a little further apart.'

'We can arrange things in advance. But those four days weren't chosen at random. Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday. You can't decide every Friday afternoon you'd rather work Monday.'

'That's not what I mean.'

'Where do you need to go?'

'Denmark.'

Koen made a small noise. Marten expected a joke and didn't get one. 'Then you really do need to plan ahead. I'm happy to talk about it, but we need somebody here to open the shop.'

'Yes.'

They agreed that on his visit Marten would see the normal opening routine and the busy hours too. After the call he wrote the four working days on an envelope already lying on the table. Two afternoons free, he thought at first. Then he saw the Saturdays on which a visit would have to begin, and the evenings when Fenna would be on the track. He slid the envelope under the laptop. It wasn't a problem he had to solve today. He just found it difficult to get it out of sight.

At quarter past two Fenna messaged to say she'd be late. The warehouse stocktake was running over and her aisle had to be finished first. She thought three o'clock. He sent back the film's start time with a question mark. She replied that she could make it if she didn't come to his first. He would keep the tickets and meet her at the entrance.

He left a little too early. He took the car after all; after the film he would drive straight to the hall. On the way he bought a bag of liquorice, which he never bought at the cinema: too expensive, too little, and you could hear the bag in the next screen. In the supermarket there was suddenly enough choice to be irritating. He chose a kind Fenna might not even like and put the bag in his coat.

Outside the cinema he studied the film posters for a while. The man who had to save the world did indeed look as though he'd rather have phoned someone else to do it. Marten photographed the poster, added that he sympathised with the workload and sent it to Fenna.

She rang back. 'I'm not going to make it.'

He looked at the entrance. 'When will you get away?'

'I don't know yet. Some boxes are missing and they don't want us leaving the count half done. I've said I've got plans, but I can't pretend this isn't my shift.'

'We'll go later, then.'

'You've got training tonight.'

He knew that. It was irritating that she said it before he'd managed to turn it into an appealing suggestion himself. He looked for another film on the screen by the entrance. No start time could give him back the afternoon.

'We could go tomorrow,' he said.

'I'm at my mum's tomorrow. I told you, didn't I?'

She had. He pictured himself yesterday, happy at his sister's, apparently convinced that after a day like that seeing her again would get easier. 'Yes. I know.'

'I'm disappointed too.'

'They're only tickets.'

He heard how unlike what he meant it sounded. They were quiet a moment, not because something momentous needed saying, but because neither of them felt like correcting him just now. In the background someone called Fenna's name.

'I have to get back,' she said. 'I'll call when I'm leaving.'

'All right.'

After the call he stayed by the poster. The woman at the box office asked whether he had tickets already. He said yes, took a step towards the door, then turned back. He'd paid for this film. He could perfectly well watch a moderately happy man on his own.

In the auditorium a couple behind him were trying to find the best place for their coats. The woman tapped her partner's arm to show him something. Marten put his own coat on the empty seat beside him. That was excessive; a coat didn't need a seat. He left it there until somebody wanted to get along the row, then folded it on his lap.

The film was loud and quite good. He laughed when nobody else did, possibly because he'd spotted something that wasn't meant to be funny. Halfway through he ate the liquorice. The bag crackled exactly as loudly as he'd expected. It wasn't the idea of a girlfriend he missed; he wanted to know what Fenna would say about a supporting character with an ever-growing wound that nobody ever treated. He wanted her knee next to his. And he resented enjoying something less because he missed her, when once it would have seemed a pleasant afternoon.

Outside he listened to her voice message. She was on her way home now. She said sorry, then told him she'd found a box in a place where three different people had said it couldn't possibly be. He rang back as he walked to his car.

'Was it any good?' she asked.

'Yes. He saved it.'

'The world?'

'Broadly speaking.'

She laughed. He told her about the wound. She immediately asked the wrong practical questions, about washing and sleeping with a face like that. He stood beside his car longer than necessary. It didn't bring the afternoon back, but he didn't need to make sure she could hear him still suffering either.

'Shall I come over after your training?' she asked.

'It'll be late.'

'It's hardly my first-ever visit to Mum's tomorrow. She can cope with me having had half an hour less sleep.'

He said he'd ring her after training. Then he went to his own group. That evening Bram left no room for him to run the film through his mind again. Marten had to concentrate on the blocks on the programme, the men he was working with and his own body, which could still do more than he'd wanted to admit after last Sunday. It was good to be wholly occupied by something. When he finished, his irritation hadn't gone, but it was smaller. He rang Fenna beside his car before driving home.

Fenna was outside his door with a loaf and a jar he couldn't identify. 'Mum thought I could pick this up now. Otherwise she'd give me everything at once tomorrow and, according to her, I'd never get away.'

He took the jar. 'Is this more vegetables?'

'No. You needn't worry.'

It was pear jam. She'd handed him a knife from his own drawer before he'd taken off his coat. She cut bread on a board that was too small and, instead of blowing the crumbs off the worktop, swept them together with her hand. He watched her back, the familiar movement that had only been familiar for a few weeks. It touched him more than the apology at the cinema.

They sat on the sofa with the jar between them. Fenna put her feet on his lap. He thought of the envelope under the laptop and began telling her about Koen. About the Saturday they could arrange now and then, if they knew in advance.

'That doesn't sound impossible, does it?' she asked.

'No.'

'Not particularly easy either.'

He nodded. She took another bite and was visibly thinking. For once he didn't want to help her by telling her what she ought to think. She looked at the crust in her hand.

'I just want to go to the cinema with you sometimes,' she said.

'That's what I wanted this afternoon too.'

'I know.'

She put her plate down and moved beside him. He drew her close. A few minutes later he was telling her about the film again, including all the scenes he hadn't wanted to spoil and could no longer keep to himself. Fenna started protesting, listened anyway and guessed the ending wrong halfway through. He enjoyed being right so visibly that she pushed a cushion into his face. The jam just about stayed upright. Later, clearing the table, he put the two tickets in the paper recycling. He didn't need to keep them as evidence. Next time he wanted her with him.