An Ordinary Friday

Marten woke before the alarm. Fenna lay with her back to him and one knee against his leg. Her hair spilled over the edge of the pillow, most of it the wrong way round. He had never slept beside anyone who took up space so determinedly even in her sleep. He wanted to say something about it as soon as she woke.

She moved before the beeping began. She switched it off, turned and looked at him. The same eyes as last night, but in no hurry to arrange an attractive expression.

'Good morning,' he said.

'You're still very polite.'

'I'm still working out where I am.'

'With the celeriac.'

He laughed. His laugh was still rough with sleep, but she smiled as if he had made it especially for her. He slid a hand along her arm and drew her closer. She let him, kissed him, then said she really had to get up. He asked how really.

'Enough to get unpleasant in fifteen minutes.'

'I'd like to learn the difference.'

She squeezed his side and got out of bed. He stayed lying down, looking at the light beside the curtains. Yesterday he had wondered what this would look like in the morning. He hadn't got beyond a vague, pleasant suspicion. Now he heard the shower and saw her book beside the bed, open face down, and wanted to know what it was about. He didn't touch it. She would tell him if he asked.

When he reached the kitchen she had put out bread and two plates. The coffee was ready to make. She wore her work clothes and combed her hair with the calm of someone who knew exactly how long it took. He stood by the tap and began asking where the spoons were. She pointed without looking up.

'I know,' she said. 'A complicated house.'

'I just don't want to start opening all your cupboards straight away.'

'The most exciting thing in them is porridge oats.'

They ate at the little table. He had his jumper on again and thought of her hands beneath it last night. She saw him looking and took another deliberate bite. There was little he could do about it. This apparently pleased her, because she made a point of chewing slowly.

'You do like yourself,' he said.

'Yes. And now I've got an audience.'

He reached across the table. She put her hand in his and briefly squeezed his fingers. Then she let go again and spread something on her bread. So it could be this simple. Getting up together without having to guess whether the other person wanted you out of the door.

She asked what he was doing today. He told her about visiting Koen. This time he wanted to see more than what the shop looked like: how an ordinary Friday went. They had arranged it for later in the morning so he could get his things at home first, rather than having to hold a grown-up conversation somewhere straight from her bedroom.

'You're quite good at grown-up conversation,' she said.

'I'm not giving any guarantees this morning.'

'You haven't got any buttons undone. That helps.'

He looked down. She laughed. Nothing was forgotten or wrongly fastened; she had simply wanted to see if he would look. He leaned towards her and kissed her. She stayed seated with her hand round his wrist, a moment longer than she needed to kiss him back. Then she checked the clock.

They went downstairs together. He walked her to her car. It was still early enough to hear a door closing some way off clearly. She put her bag behind the seat and turned to him.

'I had a lovely time,' she said.

'Me too.'

It was so little of what he meant that he kissed her again. She didn't make a joke. She stayed close against him and ran her thumb along the edge of his jumper. Then she got in. He watched her go and walked to his own car with a need for coffee that wasn't entirely about coffee.

At home he showered and put on ordinary trousers. He thought of her hand round his wrist at the table and found he was looking forward to another morning at her place.

He drove to the bike shop. Outside stood a row of bikes apparently ready for test rides. A woman pointed to the saddle of a dark-blue one and said something to her husband. The man listened as seriously as if they were amending his will. Marten said hello as he passed. She returned the greeting and resumed her argument.

Koen stood by the workshop door. He wore a dark cardigan and had a pencil behind his ear. He welcomed Marten without ceremony, pointed to the coffee machine and returned to his customer. Marten poured a cup, hung his coat where Koen had shown him last time and listened for a while.

The work was different from what he had imagined. Not slower or faster. There were always two conversations at once. Somebody came to collect something; somebody else had a whole story to tell first. An order needed checking. One customer had already decided what the problem was and wasn't pleased that the mechanic disagreed. Koen listened without thinking everything a good idea. He could interrupt someone kindly in a way that would probably take Marten three sentences.

The woman with the dark-blue bike came in. She wanted to know if a different bike might help her get up hills. Her husband said they lived in the Netherlands. She replied that he had sounded very different last summer when she had had to push him.

Marten quickly looked into his cup. He couldn't quite contain his laughter. The woman turned to him.

'It's all right for you to laugh,' she said.

'I've been on the other side of a hill once or twice.'

'There,' she told her husband, as though Marten had completed an investigation in a single sentence.

Koen showed her two bikes suited to her plans and asked a few ordinary questions. About their trips, their luggage, how often they actually rode at home. Marten stood listening and noticed how much he wanted to hear the answer. Not so he could name the right brand from memory afterwards. He wanted to know if that woman would go home with a bike that let her keep putting her husband right for an entire holiday.

When they went outside again, Koen pointed to a little table at the back. There were plans for several sessions with recreational cyclists. No great sporting ambitions, just people wanting to ride together without one always going faster and the others apologising afterwards.

'That's the part I'd like you involved in,' he said. 'I can fill an evening. I just don't have the energy for every evening any more.'

Marten picked up the top sheet. No selection, no team place. An ordinary announcement with times and a price for participants. He would have to remember the names of people who came to enjoy their free time. He could imagine doing the work well. The thought didn't instantly cheer him. There was too much he would be giving up for it.

'You don't have to decide now,' Koen said.

'I'm just looking.'

'You look as though I've asked you to start sorting bike bells by pitch.'

'Could be a good afternoon.'

Koen chuckled and had to go to the front again. Marten put the sheet down. In the photograph on the announcement, people in ordinary sports clothes were laughing. One man had his hand up and did not look his best. Nobody had cropped him out. Marten noticed he was looking at that for longer than the words beneath.

A customer with a thin grey beard came to stand beside him. He was looking for a helmet and didn't know his size. From behind the counter Koen said he would be there shortly. The man waited, studying the announcement.

'I went along once last year,' he said. 'It was fun.'

'With this group?'

'With Koen. You do have to like talking. He's got all sorts to tell you on the way. You'd think he was quiet, seeing him here.'

Marten looked at Koen, now searching a box for something for a boy by the till. 'That wasn't my first impression.'

The man laughed. He told him about his rides, how he had taken up cycling again after retirement and discovered not all his friends still wanted to come with him. He had met new people, he said. He sounded delighted, as though he hadn't entirely expected it himself. Marten listened and asked where they went.

There was a story about a ferry they had just missed. About a wrong turning that became the best day of the summer. Marten had dozens of stories like that. It was nice that the man didn't need a race result to go with one. He told him about crossing the same square three times in an unfamiliar town before realising he was walking in circles. The man laughed so loudly Koen looked up.

'Marten races,' Koen said as he joined them. 'He might be doing a few things with us soon.'

'Oh, lovely,' the man said. He looked at Marten. 'You'll get more use out of this than I would, then.'

He pointed to a helmet gleaming under the ceiling lights. He had no idea who Marten was. That was clear enough to sting for a moment. Marten wasn't famous. He merely knew how easy it was on a race day to think everyone more or less understood what your name meant.

'I'm mainly here to look,' he said.

'I've been doing that for twenty minutes. Still haven't decided.'

Koen took over and had the man try something on. Marten stayed beside them. He liked the way the conversation continued without anyone needing further proof of his expertise. A little later the man left with a box under his arm and a cheerful remark about the weather. Marten still didn't know his name. He did want to meet him at one of those sessions again.

Koen returned with two coffees. They sat at the back. Marten thought of the four working days in the offer: Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Two of them days on which he now usually began a race weekend. He used to look at a calendar like that when training suddenly had to give way to a family occasion.

'Saturday will take some getting used to,' he said.

'For me too. At last I won't be the only one here all day.'

Marten laughed. Koen put down his cup and asked what he had noticed today. He told him about the customer and his new cycling plans, the overlapping conversations and the group announcement. He found he didn't have to pretend it all came naturally. Koen knew that already. He had never offered him exactly the same life for a different sum of money.

'Come and have another look if you like,' he said as they parted. 'But let me know in time if I need to find someone else.'

Marten promised he would. It was a reasonable request that suddenly carried more weight now he knew what he might miss by saying no.

In the car he took out his phone before driving away. There was a message from Fenna, sent during her break. She asked how the shop was. He typed that somebody had told him a story in which nobody sprinted to win. It had been a relief to everyone.

Her reply came while he was still in the car park. Do you fancy a walk on Sunday with somebody who's going to find that very difficult?

He rang. She answered with her mouth full of bread and said to give her ten seconds. He waited, watching the woman put the dark-blue bike back outside the shop. She pointed at her husband. He raised both hands.

'Yes,' Marten said when Fenna returned.

'You don't even know where.'

'I'll follow you.'

'I'll choose a route you won't get lost on.'

He said he had high expectations. She laughed, had to get back to work and rang off with a quick see you Sunday. He sat a moment longer. The shop was still there. His bike was at home. And on Sunday there would be somebody willing to slow her steps deliberately to keep him beside her. He started the car and drove away before he made a more complicated story of that too.