For Men Who Know

On the way home, Marten had thought of three better answers than nice. All three were too late, and probably not as good as he thought. He put his bike in the hall, where the front wheel knocked his coat off its hook. The coat fell on his head. Fenna could have seen that too. In case she'd been impressed.

He'd lived in this flat for nearly two years and still hadn't moved the coat rack. For now, he could get round it, and everything else was where it ought to be. A large table by the window. A sofa too short to sleep on, which was an improvement on the last one. Three pans in the kitchen, one of them always waiting to be washed. He didn't have to climb over anyone to get at his own things.

He hung his coat up again and moved the bike along a bit. It wasn't a solution. It wasn't an urgent problem either. That was something he liked about living alone: he could keep bumping into the same coat rack for as long as he pleased.

The box of coffee his sister had given him for his birthday was still on top of the washing machine. On the front was a bearded man and the words for men who know what they want. Marten had tried to find somewhere to put it where a packet of coffee wouldn't challenge him every morning. But the kitchen cupboard door wouldn't shut with it inside.

He put the kettle on, opened the fridge and found the bowl of potatoes he'd cooked yesterday. There was half a head of broccoli too. The edges had gone yellow. He cut off the usable part and put a pan on the hob.

He'd ridden well tonight. Nothing special, nothing bad. A session that had done what his coach intended. He could build on it tomorrow without rearranging the rest of his week. Still, he kept thinking about Fenna tilting her head and asking if that was the best he could do. He'd wanted to kiss her. Quite something, considering she'd spoken to him for barely ten minutes altogether and spent half of them laughing at him.

He tipped the potatoes into the pan. They slid against each other in one cold slab. He pressed down with the spatula and sent half of them over the edge.

When his phone rang, he welcomed the excuse not to pick them up yet. Koen. He'd probably heard something about the winter group and wanted to know whether Marten was signing up for another season after all. Signing up was rather a grand way to describe the arrangements he'd raced under in recent years. There had been people willing to sort things out for him, money that sometimes arrived later than hoped and enough support to have another go each time. The contribution he'd relied on last season was ending now.

He answered. 'I'm cooking.'

'I hadn't even asked,' Koen said.

'You're not getting an invitation.'

'Thank goodness. I've eaten at yours before.'

Koen owned a bike shop in a village outside Apeldoorn. They knew each other from a series of evenings when Marten and a few other riders had talked to customers about racing. The customers had mainly wanted to know whether expensive kit would make them faster. At the end, Koen always said that a good bike should at least stay out of your way. Then he'd switch on the light over the till.

Now he wanted Marten to work for him. Four days, including the hours spent leading groups of adult recreational riders. Sales, preparation, helping people choose a bike they'd enjoy, setting up the evenings Koen still had to do himself too often. Not a job title Marten had ever dreamt of as a boy. But work someone was willing to pay him a proper wage for.

'Still on for Friday?' Koen asked.

'Yes.'

'Come a bit earlier, then. You can see us when we're busy. You saw the quiet bit last time. Otherwise you'll think we drink coffee and sell the occasional bell.'

'Sounds exactly like my kind of job, actually.'

'You wanted to know what it's really like, didn't you?'

Marten looked at the potatoes on the floor. 'Yes. I did.'

Koen waited. They'd talked about starting after this winter block, not putting him behind a counter tomorrow morning. He'd gone through the work with Marten, then sent him home to think about it. That last part was proving harder than the first.

'I don't expect a performance on Friday,' Koen said. 'You're coming to have a look. Then we'll see if you're still so funny when someone turns up with a bent mudguard.'

'I could have a very good laugh at that.'

'Then we'll start with the difference between being in front of the counter and behind it.'

After the call, Marten picked up the potatoes. A crumb of something else stuck to his finger, something that had been bread earlier in the week. He wiped the floor and ate at the table, straight from the pan. There was nobody to assume he was doing it because he was upset. Sometimes living alone simply saved on washing-up.

He could have told Koen he'd met someone tonight. That would have been odd. Koen was offering him a job, not an afternoon with their feet up talking about women. Besides, he hadn't met someone in the way people meant when they told the story later. A banana had fallen. A woman had laughed. That was all.

She'd shaken his hand as though she wanted to congratulate him on something and hadn't quite decided what. He took a mouthful and looked at the window. He could see himself sitting there, darker than the kitchen, his cheek slightly puffed out with food. He thought of the mark from his shoe on the helmet again. A convincing first impression.

After eating, he fetched the box that had been waiting for him in the bedroom since Sunday. He'd tried to sort out his wardrobe. The result was a tidy pile of ordinary clothes and a box of cycling kit too full to close. If he put the contents back now, the box could go and he would officially have tidied up. Instead, he pushed it over to the table.

On top lay two white jerseys from a team that no longer existed. They'd had hopes for it at the time. A decent programme, a group of men who got on well as long as they weren't all hungry at once, staff who took them seriously. They'd been good years. Marten smoothed out one of the jerseys and saw the little stain near the hem that hadn't come out since the first trip. Everyone had a different version of what had flown across the bus during that meal.

He sat down with the jersey on his lap. There had been days when he'd honestly thought he was on the verge of something bigger. He didn't have to make fun of that now. He'd done plenty he would never otherwise have done. Woken up in a strange city and known at breakfast exactly who he'd laugh with. Cared so much about riding fast that a coach's clumsy remark could ruin the whole afternoon. Won something, then won it all over again the following evening when someone asked about it.

He would miss it. Even breakfast at six, with someone opposite him sitting in a silence just as stubborn as his own.

Under the jerseys was a pile of gloves. Some had lost their partner. He laid the odd ones in a row and started pairing them by colour. Halfway through, he stopped. What exactly was he doing? Nobody was going to turn him away from the next session because his gloves were slightly different shades of black.

His phone vibrated. A message from his sister. Was the coffee any good?

He took a photograph of the packet with the man on it and wrote underneath that she'd put him in front of a difficult audience.

She replied that he was thirty-six and might be expected to know a thing or two by now.

He rang her. She answered while someone in the background complained there was no whipped cream. His nephew, probably. Lately, he believed every pudding was incomplete unless it had appeared in a photograph somewhere.

'It's Tuesday,' his sister said to someone in the room. Then, to Marten: 'Yes?'

'I'm trying to think about work and you give me a coffee packet with more confidence than I've got.'

'I could have got you the one with the squirrel.'

'That would have been more appropriate.'

'So you've tried it?'

'Not yet.'

She laughed. He heard a drawer open and began putting the gloves back in the box. At the other end of the line, his sister said the cream really wasn't hidden somewhere at the back.

'Are you going to Koen's on Friday?' she asked.

'Yes.'

'Good.'

'You sound relieved.'

'I'd have been glad if you were going to look at something else, too. You've been talking about that shop for a month. I wanted to know if it was still there.'

He picked up a glove and slipped his fingers inside. There was a hole beside his thumb. 'It's still there. He's busy.'

'Very inconvenient if you end up working there.'

He told her about training. She asked whether he'd ridden well. Yes, he said, and that was enough for her. No question about how much better he still needed to get, no awkward rush to change the subject. He thought of Fenna, finished but wanting more. He knew the feeling so well that he'd nearly asked how it had gone. He was glad he hadn't. She probably had enough people discussing her training already.

'There's someone,' his sister said.

He looked at the phone. 'In your room? It sounds like it.'

'No. With you. You sound different.'

'I'm wearing a glove.'

'That must explain all sorts of things.'

He pulled the glove off. 'I've met someone. Though that's a rather grand way to describe someone who immediately pointed out the footprint on my helmet.'

'I bet it's still there.'

He went into the hall. The mark was still there.

'Marten.'

'Yes, all right.' He fetched a dishcloth from the kitchen. 'I'm really going to tidy up now.'

'Just say you want to get rid of me.'

'You want to know if I've finished your coffee and whether I'm going to work on Friday. I reckon we could both keep this going a bit longer.'

When they hung up, the white jersey had ended up among the ordinary clothes again. He folded it once more. Keeping it didn't have to mean getting it out every week. He set aside two good jerseys to wear and made a small pile for the textile recycling bin. No solemn farewell ceremony. One of the sleeves had simply become too thin to stand much more.

He cleared the table and put the empty pan in the sink. The box would close now. He left it like that. It felt good to finish something without anyone having to know he'd put it off all week.

He found Madelon on his phone. Last spring they'd shared a few journeys to the same track meetings. She still remembered more or less everything he'd said on those trips, especially the things he'd rather not hear again. He typed a request for Fenna's number, read it and deleted it. Fenna had said herself that she'd see him on Thursday. Perhaps that was enough.

He went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror as he brushed his teeth. His helmet strap had left a mark on his cheek. He leaned a little closer to the glass. Thirty-six, yes. It didn't suddenly seem a shocking age. He just couldn't picture what came next. In ten years, he didn't want to be telling people he was about to start another season. Nor did he want to pretend tomorrow that everything before it had only been practice.

He rinsed his mouth, went back to the living room and picked up his phone. She'd laughed and she'd sought him out. He didn't have to play it down to save himself from being disappointed.

He sent Madelon: Will you give Fenna my number? I'd like to ask her out. Just to be clear: I can do that bit myself.

Madelon replied with a photograph of a cat on a kitbag. Then: He says it's fine. I'll ask Fenna too.

Marten sat down on the sofa that was too short and put his feet on the table. He'd meant to say she needn't hurry. He didn't send it. It would have been a ridiculous message after a request he'd chosen to make at half past ten.

He opened his conversation with Koen and confirmed he'd be there earlier on Friday. Then he put his phone beside him. He thought of Fenna's face when she'd said she wasn't waiting for him. The way she'd lifted her chin a little, ready to laugh with him if only he could manage a decent answer. He wanted to see her once without either of them having to hold a bike. At a table, perhaps, with something to eat that hadn't come out of a bag. And enough time to find out whether she always looked like that when she liked someone.