On This Side

The customer didn't know which bike was his. That was the first thing Marten heard as he entered the shop. Three city bikes stood in a row by the counter, all dark, all with a basket on the front. The man pointed at the middle one, then withdrew his hand.

'I didn't have that bell,' he said.

Koen looked at the label on the handlebars. 'According to this, it's yours. You asked for a new bell.'

'Oh, yes.' The man pressed it. The sound was clear and offended. 'That works well.'

'That was the idea.'

Marten hung his coat over a chair and waited where they'd agreed. Koen had told him to come at opening time this visit. An ordinary day, before there was any chance of turning it into a sociable evening. Within ten minutes Marten knew the man with the bell had another question about his rear tyre and the next customer had an opinion on it. Nobody looked at the clock on the wall except him.

He didn't feel trapped. That surprised him. He'd feared his whole body would protest at a morning under fluorescent lights, with roads outside and a track session waiting later. Instead he watched Koen finish a conversation without making the customer feel dismissed. The door opened, the door closed. At the end of each conversation something was a little more as it should be.

'Come through,' Koen said once the queue was gone. 'Otherwise you'll think we only sell bells. You said you quite fancied that.'

At the back of the shop it smelt of rubber and wet coats. Two colleagues were busy with their own work. Koen introduced Marten again as the man he was discussing a job with. No star signing, no famous face on a poster. A woman in a grey work jumper asked whether he would be there on Saturdays too. When he said that was the plan if it went ahead, she nodded with satisfaction and returned to her list.

It was the first time he'd felt wanted because he would be somewhere on a Saturday. A modest kind of importance. He didn't want to look down on it, yet caught himself waiting for someone to ask what he'd raced.

Nobody did. She asked whether he could take her mug back to the front. He took it, glad he wasn't going to tell her anything after all.

Koen showed him a programme for an adult recreational cycling group. Existing customers, a few people wanting to come with a friend, and a woman who'd already asked whether it was only for men in matching shirts. Marten laughed at that.

'What are you laughing at?' asked Koen. 'You look as though you've got a clothing committee sometimes.'

'The committee's done very little about my objections.'

The preparation and group evenings fell within the proposed thirty-two hours. Four paid days, with the hours shifted on a day when there was an evening group. The rest was simply the shop, customers and whatever needed setting up. Marten could see what he'd enjoy and what he'd find tedious. A man asking for the fourth time whether a different saddle might be cheaper wouldn't automatically interest him because he'd decided he wanted another life.

'I've never built up a group like this,' he said.

'That's why we'll start together. You don't have to walk in here knowing everything.'

'Some of the customers do.'

Koen pointed towards the shop. 'We've already got those.'

They sat in the little room at the back. Marten moved a pile of leaflets aside and put his phone face down. He didn't want to begin this morning by messaging Fenna about how strange it was. He would tell her tonight, once he knew what he thought of it himself.

Koen went over the terms again. About two thousand one hundred euros take-home a month, on the arrangements they'd discussed. Marten knew the figure by now. He also knew what was going out of his account. His savings would see him through the winter, not a whole new season. He couldn't keep living as if another contribution would turn up by itself.

'At the start of February I need to know who's starting here in the second week,' said Koen. 'Sooner is better, but the end of January is the absolute deadline. And if you don't want it, I need to know that too.'

Marten nodded. It wasn't an ultimatum born of irritation. Koen had work that needed doing and couldn't wait indefinitely to sort out the staffing.

'I want to ride that last meeting,' he said.

'I know.'

'Ride well.'

'I hope you do.'

Koen said it without the kindly haste with which people usually changed the subject when they talked about a last time. Marten had to swallow. He wanted to tell him he wanted the job, but in his mind he couldn't yet hear yes without something after it. After the meeting. When he was sure he was ready. If Fenna wasn't going to be somewhere far away on her own while he worked in a shop that smelt of wet coats.

'I'll get back to you before the end of January,' he said.

Koen nodded. 'Come and look at the front as well before you go. I want to know whether the new lighting hangs too low. You're taller than I am.'

Marten stood. They walked through the shop, where a woman was standing before a row of helmets wearing one that sat crookedly over her ears. She asked Koen if that was right. When Koen answered, she looked at Marten as if he belonged to the shop too. He only pointed to the mirror. She looked, laughed at herself and took the helmet off.

Outside he paused by his car. He'd seen a morning that hadn't put him off. More than that: there were things he'd watched today that he would have enjoyed doing himself. He drove home with a leaflet on the passenger seat, picked up out of habit. At the first traffic lights he realised he hadn't taken it because it had his photograph in it somewhere.

Fenna came round that evening after her own training. She still had helmet hair, and she took off her shoes without undoing the laces. There would be plenty of muttering about that later. Marten watched and said nothing. He loved the sound of her arriving, her bag hitting the floor, her asking whether he had food because on the way she'd misjudged how hungry she was.

He had enough. They sat at the table and he told her about the man with the bell. Fenna laughed with her mouth full and gestured at him to stop doing the customer's voice. He did it once more. It was the best reception the morning could have had.

Then he told her he thought he wanted to take the job. Not because he had nowhere else to go. He'd walked round and found himself curious about the next day.

'Then you should do it,' she said.

He leaned back. 'That was quick.'

'Would you like me to look worried first?'

'No.' He smiled, but it didn't quite help. She put down her cutlery.

'I'm pleased for you. Really. You don't have to start by pretending it's less fun than trying for another season.'

He looked at her hands beside the plate. There was a little split beside one fingernail. He wanted to touch it and wondered why something that had made him happy this morning was so difficult now.

'I want it to be something to look forward to,' he said. 'A week. Knowing what I'm doing on Tuesday and that there's something afterwards too.'

'There is, isn't there?'

'Yes.'

She waited. He could have told her what else he meant: that she would be there somewhere at the end of a working day, that he wouldn't always have to put a stupid story about a customer into a phone. He'd told her what he wanted, he thought. In fact he'd only invited her to finish the rest for him.

'I'd like to see you here,' he said.

She looked up. 'Now?'

'In February. In March. When I come home from there.'

Fenna moved her plate aside. She looked tired. He shouldn't have talked round it just then, but at the same time he felt his longing didn't only exist when she was rested enough to receive it.

'I want to see you too,' she said. 'But you know where I want to be then.'

'Yes.'

She stood to take her plate away. He felt the urge to tell her he hadn't asked for an answer. That would have been feeble. He'd talked round it precisely to avoid having to ask.

In the kitchen she took his tea towel and dried a glass that was already there. 'I'm not rejecting you, Marten.'

'I know.'

'You sound as if you know it in theory.'

He stood behind her and rested his hands on her hips. She didn't stiffen, as he'd briefly feared. She leaned against him. He kissed the spot below her ear where her hair was still damp.

'Sometimes I'd simply rather have you close than be sensible,' he said.

She turned with the glass still in her hand. 'You don't always have to be sensible.'

'That opens up possibilities.'

She smiled. He took the glass and put it down. This time it was easy to kiss her. Her hands slid under his jumper, cold at first, then warm. He stayed with her until no new argument began in his head. But when she got up later because she had an early start tomorrow, he wanted her to stay again.

At the door she couldn't get her shoe on. She muttered something at the lace. He stood beside her, enjoying for a moment that he'd seen this coming. When she looked at him, he started laughing.

'Not a word,' she said.

'I'm being very helpfully quiet.'

She pulled the knot loose and nudged him aside with her elbow. Outside she turned and raised a hand. He watched until she was in her car, then shut the door. Koen's leaflet lay on the table. Marten smoothed it, put it beside his diary and cleared the rest of the table. He still wanted the shop. This evening hadn't made that any less true.