One More Season

At breakfast Marten still knew how to make Fenna laugh. He told her about the man at reception who'd recommended a walk yesterday, then warned him about the mud at such length that Marten had thought he was supposed to promise not to go. Fenna laughed, rested her elbow on the table and asked whether he'd let the man know his shoes had survived.

It was lovely. He didn't want to pretend afterwards that the morning had been bad from the start. She'd slept well and was beside him, her leg against his. Upstairs their things were still mixed together. He could always empty a room quickly. Today he wanted to take his time packing.

'We could come here again in the spring,' she said.

He looked up. 'In the spring.'

'When I come back for a few days. Or after the programme. It's lovely here.'

'Yes.' He cut a piece of bread. She'd tried to say something nice. All he heard was how far into the future she was pushing the days when he wanted to see her.

'You look as if I've asked you to look after the dog,' she said.

'You haven't got a dog.'

'Exactly. It's a very easy suggestion.'

He wanted to laugh with her. The smile didn't quite make it. She kept looking at him until he put his knife down.

'I'd like to do it a bit more often too,' he said. 'Not just when you get back.'

'Then we'll go there. We've talked about visits.'

'Yes.'

She picked up her glass and drank. He saw her face grow weary at the thought of this conversation, and it angered him. It wasn't just about the same rota they'd looked at before. He wanted to tell her that something about the way they were together was eating at him, even here, somewhere they'd chosen especially for it.

'We had a few hours yesterday,' he said.

'And Friday evening. And last night. And now.'

'I know.'

'It doesn't sound as if you do.'

He looked round. Somebody at another table pushed a chair back. He didn't want to discuss this within strangers' hearing. 'Shall we go upstairs?'

She nodded. He stood and went ahead of her. By the stairs he wanted to take her hand, as they had yesterday. He didn't. It would offer reassurance he couldn't give just then.

In the room Fenna sat on the chair by the window. He stayed standing beside the bed. It bothered him that she had to look up at him like that. He sat on the bed and put his hands between his knees.

'I did have a good afternoon yesterday,' he said.

'So did I.'

'But I'd hoped we could have a whole weekend. Without you always having to go off again.'

'I told you I was training.'

'You said it was short.'

She looked at the window. 'I made it sound shorter. Because I wanted to come away with you. That wasn't clever.'

He waited for more. Nothing came. She'd admitted her mistake; he could accept that. But February was already waiting beyond this weekend, and he couldn't keep treating that month as if they'd automatically come up with something.

'What happens afterwards?' he asked.

'After today?'

'After the six months.'

Fenna leaned back. 'I don't know yet.'

'If it goes well?'

'Then I hope I can go further. Maybe there, maybe something else. I genuinely don't know, Marten.'

He could have worked out the answer. Yet it felt like discovering something she'd kept from him. In his mind the six months had at least had an end. He could look past them to a time when they'd be in the same kitchen again. Now he heard that afterwards there would simply be another chance to leave.

'So this isn't just going away for six months.'

'I'm going for six months. Nothing's agreed beyond that.'

'For you there might be something better again afterwards.'

Her head drew back a little. 'Better than what?'

He could have said he meant the sport. That wouldn't have been entirely true. 'Than here.'

'Yes. Maybe. I still want to get good. Better than I am now.'

'You can do that here too.'

She stared at him. He already knew how it sounded and tried explaining it further anyway. About the training she had now, about Gita, about a life in which she didn't have to let go of everything at once. She let him finish. That was worse than an immediate interruption.

'Here I've got twenty-four hours of work, rent, and training I keep having to find room for,' she said. 'There I can spend six months just riding. With a group of my own. I've wanted that for years.'

'I'm not saying it's nothing.'

'You're saying I could just as well do it here.'

'I'm saying there's something to be said for staying here too.'

She leaned forward. 'Yes. You.'

The relief came so fast he couldn't speak for a moment. Then he saw her face. She hadn't offered a solution. She'd named the request he'd been putting into different sentences all this time.

'That can count for something, can't it?' he asked.

'It does.'

'But never enough for you to change anything.'

'I do change things. I'm here. I try to go away with you, find time. You want me to change something completely different.'

He stood and went to the window. Outside, a couple with two dogs were walking to the car park. Both wore rucksacks; one talked, the other listened. Marten had no idea where they were going or what arrangements they'd made to be walking together at this hour. He envied something he'd invented himself.

'I just want someone in my life,' he said.

'Then stop acting as if I'm not in it.'

He turned. 'Lately I keep feeling as if I'm waving you off.'

'I haven't even left yet.'

'Exactly.'

The word stayed between them. He saw how she took it. An accusation about something that would soon be worse. That was what he meant, and wasn't. He wanted her to feel how difficult he found it. Now she did, all he could see was that he was hurting her.

'Do you know what I don't want?' she said. 'For every good thing to make me think: how do I tell him without him getting angry again?'

'I'm not angry because you're riding well.'

She looked at him. She didn't have to mention Apeldoorn. He remembered his own remark and hated how easily he'd handed her the comparison.

'That was one shitty remark,' he said.

'I know. You've made a few more today.'

He rubbed his face. They had the room for a little under an hour. He thought of the bill they would split, the woman downstairs asking whether everything had been to their liking. That ordinary ending began to loom larger than the conversation he actually wanted to have.

'Couldn't you stay here for another season?' he asked.

She said nothing.

'We've only just started. We don't have to act as if distance is the only option straight away.'

'You're asking me to turn it down.'

'I'm asking whether you'd consider it.'

She stood. 'No.'

He saw her swallow. He'd asked a question she was allowed to think about, he told himself. That didn't make it any less clear that her no had suddenly given him the rejection he'd feared all morning.

'Fine,' he said.

'No, not like that. It's not fine. Don't stand there acting as if I'm dismissing a perfectly ordinary suggestion just because I have to get my own way.'

'You do want your own way.'

'Yes. I want this. I want you too. That's not the same as having to stay.'

He looked at the floor. 'You can never just be done with something.'

As soon as he said it, he knew speaking more softly wouldn't take it back. Fenna looked at him with an expression he didn't know. The fierceness had gone. She seemed to be looking at him from further away.

'It's been your last season for years,' she said. 'If anyone knows how not to let go of something, it's you.'

He felt it in his stomach. Not because it was a lie. Because she knew how hard he found it to say last aloud, and had just used that against him.

'That's how you talk about me?' he asked.

'Then don't use it against me.'

'I haven't used your sport against you.'

'You just asked me to put it off because you've finally got another plan.'

'Finally.' He nodded. 'That's what it is, then.'

She shook her head. He saw she already wanted to put right what she'd said and didn't let her. 'Just say you think I'm stuck. Then you don't have to be so nice about the shop.'

'I don't think that.'

'It came out quickly enough.'

She sat on the edge of the bed. He stayed standing. There was nowhere left in the room where a movement didn't mean something. If he sat beside her, he'd touch her. If he went into the bathroom, she'd think he was ending the conversation. He didn't know what to do and grew angry with the room for not having an extra corner.

'I think the job's good for you because it makes you happy,' she said. 'Not because I think you're past it.'

He nodded, not because things were all right but because he heard her. A door shut on the other side of the wall. The people next door were leaving. He looked at his own bag and began putting in the things already laid out.

'We don't have to have an answer right now,' he said.

'But you have asked a question.'

'Yes.'

They stood for a while doing nothing. Then Fenna packed her clothes. They worked beside each other, carefully enough not to forget anything. Her bike still had to go to the car. He didn't help, and saw from her face that even that seemed a choice. He was tired of wondering which version of helpfulness she would like just now. He didn't immediately push the unkind thought away.

Downstairs they did indeed ask whether they'd enjoyed their stay. Fenna said yes. It wasn't even a lie. They each paid their share. Outside she kissed his cheek and he held her elbow for a moment. There was so much he'd wanted to end the weekend with. Another date. A joke about the walk. Her mouth on his.

'I'll call you,' he said.

She nodded and went to her car. He stood until she drove away, which had never felt like helplessness before.

At home he didn't get out straight away. He sat with his hands on his thighs, looking through the windscreen at a man unloading a crate of shopping. Everything went on. That was the most unfair thing about a morning when you'd hurt someone: there was no pause in which you could put it right first.

He had a session with his own endurance group later. He'd signed up and his things were ready. During the preparation he forgot the room for a while. Bram asked for his plan for the block and Marten gave an answer his coach could use.

On the track he managed to hold his attention longer than he had at the table that morning. There was something shameful about it. Apparently he could listen to a whistle, to the man beside him, to a task that would be over in a few minutes. With Fenna he'd kept asking until she said something he could hold against her.

Afterwards he didn't linger. He drove home, ate something and opened their conversation. There were no new messages. He typed that he was sorry for what he'd said about never just being done with something. He left the sentence there. Then he asked whether they could see each other again tonight. Not to do the weekend over. Just talk, without having to hand back a room key afterwards.

Fenna replied a few minutes later. Yes. I'll come to yours. He looked at the screen and felt relieved. He didn't know how much that relief meant. They had arranged to meet. He didn't yet know what they could give each other when they did.