An Ordinary Wednesday

On Tuesday evening Marten knew his group's programme before Bram explained it. He listened anyway. The coach had changed the groups a little and asked whether everyone understood the arrangement for the last section. Marten nodded, at the right moment this time. It helped to have something where he didn't need to learn what an answer meant all over again.

He hadn't done much with his phone on Sunday or Monday. It hadn't required courage. The messages he wanted to send were so ordinary he couldn't use them to explain why he was sending them anyway. A photograph of a ridiculous advert. A question about how her shift had gone. It all sounded like a small continuation of what they'd ended.

Bram called his name. Marten looked up.

'You're with the second group,' he said. 'I just said that.'

'Yes. Sorry.'

His coach looked at him briefly and repeated the groups. That was all. Marten felt grateful for the ordinary irritation in the repetition. Something had gone wrong with Fenna, and it didn't suddenly have to turn him into a man who needed wrapping in cotton wool all evening.

In the first block he stayed too occupied with how he felt. Every hard acceleration became a statement about his mood. He knew how useless that was and did it anyway, until the men he was riding with demanded his attention. Somebody accelerated earlier than he'd expected. Marten had to respond, and for a while afterwards there was no room to watch himself from outside.

The sadness hadn't suddenly made him ride better. It was a decent session with parts that could improve. Afterwards Bram pointed out two of them. He asked a question in return, got a brief answer and realised he genuinely wanted to know. That desire was still his. He didn't have to retrieve it from the weekend.

Rik came over as Marten packed his things. They talked about the final race meeting without acting as if the start list already contained the result. Rik had spoken to someone who might not come. Marten said he'd still have enough men to race against, then. He heard the old tone in his voice, glad it hadn't entirely gone.

Then he drove home alone. The hall was behind him, lit above the car park. He hadn't seen Fenna. They each had their own preparation and their own times; they had before anything began between them. Now he had to stop expecting her face in every doorway he passed.

His sister had messaged about the bookcase. Not asking whether he finally had time, just whether Wednesday afternoon still suited him. He'd rearranged it after his cancelled day with Fenna, then almost forgotten why it was this Wednesday. He confirmed and went to shower. As he dried himself he thought of her mouth against his shoulder. It was impossible to arrange a day so sensibly that that stopped happening.

The next afternoon he walked into his sister's and found the bookcase half empty already. Books lay on the floor, not stacked by subject but apparently in the order they'd come off the shelves. His nephew sat on the sofa in headphones. He saw Marten and didn't turn the sound off, which seemed normal rather than rude.

'We only need to get it to the other wall,' his sister said. 'You don't have to build me a new house.'

'Pity. I had a bit of time this afternoon.'

She looked at him and smiled briefly. First they took out the remaining books. Marten discovered a travel guide he'd once given her, still bearing its price sticker. He pointed at it.

'I went there,' she said. 'With a different guide.'

'Nice that you're keeping this one for its sentimental value.'

'It looks lovely in the bookcase.'

They worked steadily. The bookcase had to come away from the wall, then move a little without hitting the low table. His sister had measured the space and knew which way to move it first. He did as she asked. It was pleasant work, not for the chance to be useful but because his body was doing something that didn't need to mean anything outside this room.

Once the bookcase was in place his sister stepped back to look. 'Yes. Better.'

Marten looked at the empty wall. He wouldn't have thought of it himself. Now he could see the difference too. The window was clearer, the room seemed wider. His nephew slid one side of his headphones off his ear and said it would have been better to turn the sofa round. His sister said he could make an afternoon free himself next time, then.

'I am free,' he said.

'Then you can do the books now.'

He looked at Marten, who raised his hands innocently. 'I'm only here for the heavy thinking.'

The boy put the headphones away and began carrying books to the bookcase. He arranged them by height. His mother let him. Marten felt the urge to move one into another section because a series belonged together. He left it and watched his nephew put an apparently very important thin book in the middle. It was about fishing. Nobody in this house fished.

'Is Fenna coming for dinner too?' his nephew asked.

The name came so easily that Marten didn't answer at once. His sister looked up from the box she was taking the last books out of. She didn't know yet. He hadn't wanted to tell her between a question about a bookcase and a photograph of a broken bicycle bell she'd found in the street.

'No,' he said. 'We've split up.'

His nephew looked at the book in his hand. 'Oh.'

'I'm sorry,' his sister said.

He nodded. A question appeared in her face, but she didn't ask it straight away. His nephew wanted to know whether the large books should go at the bottom. Marten took two and stood them side by side. His hands could keep doing this while other people knew something about him that he still couldn't quite picture for himself.

Once the bookcase was full again, his sister asked him to fetch the potatoes from the kitchen. He went with her. She stood by the worktop and looked at him.

'When?' she asked.

'Sunday.'

'Did you have a row?'

'Yes. But it's not just the row.'

She waited. He told her about the weekend, as honestly as he could without laying out every word as evidence against either of them. He said he'd asked Fenna to stay here. His sister asked whether Fenna wanted that.

'No.' He laughed briefly. 'I knew that already, really.'

'And you didn't want to go with her.'

'No.'

She nodded and cut a dark patch out of a potato. He watched the small knife. He could have made a grand story of it: timing, the sport, the freedom she still needed and he no longer did. He wanted his sister to understand that nobody had done anything unkind, except for the things they had both certainly said. In the end something much simpler came out.

'I miss her.'

His sister put the knife down and put her arms round him. At first he put on the brave face he thought meant carrying on normally. Then he pulled her closer. She simply stayed until he let go.

'Are you staying for dinner?' she asked.

'If there's enough.'

'There's always enough. You remember coming here at Christmas?'

He laughed, and this time he didn't have to pretend it cost him nothing. His nephew called from the living room that he was hungry. His sister said he could set the table, then. Marten took three plates from the cupboard.

Over dinner his nephew asked whether he could come to Marten's next race. Apparently he'd been talking to his mother about the final meeting. Marten looked at her. She shrugged, a little caught out.

'Only if you'd like that,' she said.

'Yes,' said Marten. He heard how much he meant it. 'Very much.'

His nephew wanted to know whether he could still win this last time. Marten considered. He could give the boy a good story, with a good chance of a happy ending. Or he could turn his cycling into a sort of farewell with nothing left to do with a result. He chose neither.

'I just want to ride well. There'll be good men there. I'll still be there too.'

'You'd have to be,' his nephew said.

Marten burst out laughing. So did his sister. They ate and talked about school, a neighbour nobody ever saw without his bike, and what to do with the wall they'd freed up. At times Marten felt entirely ordinary, until something came up he wanted to tell Fenna. Then there was a brief emptiness. His nephew carried on talking, and he had to listen not to miss the next question.

After dinner the boy suggested a game. It was a card game Marten didn't know, in which, according to the explanation, you mainly had to remember what the others weren't allowed to know. His sister said they'd used different rules last time. Her son replied that he understood them better now. Marten immediately decided this was a dangerous opponent.

He lost the first round by looking far too pleased as he put down a card. His nephew had read his face without even needing to guess. In the second round Marten tried to show as little expression as possible. It didn't help: his sister kept laughing before he'd done anything. He accused them of years of home advantage. The boy told him with visible pleasure that he could also just play better.

It was past ten when Marten stood to go. He'd wanted to stay longer than the bookcase had required. He didn't have to invent a reason. At the door his sister gave him half a loaf that would otherwise go stale. 'If you're feeling this fed up again tomorrow, give me a ring,' she said.

Outside he looked at his phone. No message from Fenna. They hadn't arranged one. It didn't lessen the disappointment, but made it more clearly his own. He put the phone away and drove home.

In the hall he put his shoes beside the bike. Tomorrow he would get back to preparing what he'd discussed with Bram. There was still one final meeting to work towards, and somewhere beyond it a shop that opened in the mornings without waiting for him. He hung up his coat and went to the kitchen. He put the bread on the worktop, cut two slices although he wasn't hungry, and bagged them for tomorrow. Then he went to bed with the afternoon and his nephew's laughter still clear in his head. He missed Fenna just as much.