A Forbidden Word

On Wednesday, at the end of Fenna's shift, an order remained which the screen said was already in the lorry. The lorry had gone. The order stood in front of her on a trolley, shipping label facing out. She looked from the screen to the trolley and back. Looking more closely wasn't going to help much this time.

The supervisor came and stood beside her. He rubbed his chin and asked who had signed off the lorry. She didn't know. She did know this wasn't a crate you could slip unnoticed into a coat pocket. It had simply stayed there while somebody else decided it was no longer there.

She helped him check the rest of the shipment. Not to stay longer in the warehouse, but because she knew what belonged on that trolley and otherwise he would have to start again. Nothing was missing. All the boxes were there, diligently numbered, as though they had done everything right on their side.

Once they reached the driver, it turned out coming back was no longer an option. It could go on another run tomorrow. Fenna sent the confirmation to the right place in the system and cleared her workstation. She felt the urge to do one last thing. There was always something to find that could delay leaving until it no longer felt like a choice.

Tonight she wanted to go to Marten's. That was reason enough to stop. She had kept the evening free when her week hadn't yet looked full. Now it was here, she found it strange how easily her mind still tried to lay an ordinary working day over it.

She hadn't needed time to know she wanted him. She had needed it to get used to how good it felt that he wanted her too. On Sunday they had walked at a pace that had done neither of them any good. She had joked about that twice, until he took her hand and asked if she would finally like to give it another try. Then she had shut up. Not for long, but long enough to notice she was enjoying herself.

She thought of it as she went outside. The mud along the path, the story he had interrupted halfway through to kiss her. She still didn't know how it ended. She had decided to ask tonight, even at the risk of him starting the whole history again.

At his front door she could smell food. He opened without the grand greeting she had prepared in her head. He pulled her towards him, kissed her and took her to the kitchen. She felt his hand on her back and forgot what she had wanted to say.

'I've got a suggestion,' he said.

'If it's about food, I'm very agreeable.'

'We finish it together. Then I can't take all the credit for the result.'

Vegetables and a pan not yet on the hob stood on the worktop. They had agreed to cook together. He had done the shopping; she would do the part she knew something about. When he had written that, she had asked which part he intended to do himself. He had said he was very good at standing nearby and asking interesting questions.

She washed her hands and stood beside him. He asked what still needed chopping. She told him and watched him do it. Quietly, without constantly looking to her to see whether he was doing it right. There was something pleasant about this small task where they both knew what they wanted to eat and neither had to win.

'You didn't finish Sunday's story,' she said.

'Which story?'

'The man with the caravan.'

'Oh, him. I thought you interrupted me on purpose.'

'I did mean to, but now I want to know whether he ever found out.'

Marten looked at her and began again so solemnly she knew at least half the story was being invented on the spot. It concerned an older rider who slept in a car park on a training weekend and discovered only the next morning that the coffee he had been given by his neighbour hadn't belonged to that neighbour. He had knocked on the wrong caravan and got somebody else to pass a whole cup through the door without showing his face.

'Do you believe this yourself?' Fenna asked.

'I'm standing here under my own name.'

'Not quite the same thing.'

'The story has improved over the years.'

She laughed and gave him a piece of pepper. He ate it without taking his eyes off her. Before she knew what he intended, his hand was on her hip and he was asking if she wanted more interesting facts about him. She said she wanted to make dinner first. When he kissed her, she didn't stick very convincingly to that decision.

Cooking took longer than the instructions said. They talked, ate bits of what was supposed to go on the table later, and halfway through disagreed about how hot something should be. Marten thought he had developed a thoroughly responsible instinct for it. Fenna thought he was mainly giving his own instinct plenty of scope. When they tasted it, the food had precisely the level of heat neither would have claimed to choose.

They added yoghurt and ate it anyway. For the first few minutes they were too busy eating to defend their own position. Then he said this was probably good for their perseverance. She said she practised perseverance quite enough already. She would prefer a nice meal.

'Isn't it nice?'

'It tastes as if somebody's trying to teach us something.'

He laughed and got up for more yoghurt. She watched him go. Just him, in his own kitchen, wearing the socks that had rested against her legs. She couldn't remember the last time she had wanted to be somewhere so much on a Wednesday evening.

After dinner they stayed at the table. He asked about the order left behind. She told him how the supervisor had kept trying to shift the mistake to another department, until he saw it only meant more phone calls for him. She hadn't caused the problem or solved it on her own. Mainly it had taken time she would rather have spent here.

'I could have picked you up,' Marten said.

'Then you'd have been on the trolley too, until somebody realised you were still there.'

He held his hands out in front and arranged his face into something particularly saleable. She laughed. He lowered his hands and asked how much training she had done today.

'Enough. As planned.'

'An excellent answer. How did it feel?'

'As though I had to say something you'd say in an interview.'

He sat straighter at once. 'We gave it everything.'

'No, you're not allowed that.'

'Not allowed what?'

'Giving it everything. That's what people say when they don't want to answer any more.'

'What words am I allowed, then?'

Together they devised an interview that used as many words as possible to say nothing. He had to describe a race without using form, feeling, today or in the end. He could barely do it. He searched for an answer that didn't end in another joke, and only after a whole sentence noticed she could still catch him using a forbidden word. She planted her finger on the table and announced with satisfaction that he was out.

'I wasn't given time to explain.'

'Every loser thinks that.'

'The interviewer was biased.'

'You hear that a lot too.'

He looked at her with the smile she now knew and couldn't get enough of. She was having fun, felt sharp and noticed, and wanted to say one more thing that would make him look at her like that.

'Soon you'll just get paid to ride slowly,' she said. 'I've yet to work out how to get that as a job.'

His smile stayed a moment, then went. Not dramatically. He looked at the middle of the table and ran a finger along the edge of his plate. At first she thought he was working out what to say back.

'I won't only be riding slowly,' he said.

'I know.'

'It is work.'

'I didn't say it wasn't, did I?'

Now she heard herself. Too quick, as though she could still win the next round if she only responded at once. Marten picked up his glass and drank. He took his time. She waited until he put it down and felt the excitement of a moment ago turn into something more difficult.

'It was a stupid joke,' she said.

'Yes.'

She wanted to say he made much worse jokes himself. That she spent all day in a warehouse and didn't look down on somebody for working for a living. All true, and none of it would improve what had just happened. He had told her something that mattered to him. She had made it sound mostly like an easy way out.

'Sorry,' she said.

He looked up and nodded. 'It's all right.'

She believed he wanted it to be. He just couldn't immediately look at her the way he had before she said it. She found that unpleasant and a little unfair. He ought to know she hadn't meant to ridicule him. He probably did know. Apparently that wasn't always enough.

They cleared up without the pace of the first hour. She asked if he needed more help and he shook his head, not angrily, more distractedly. She stood at the window and looked outside. Across the way the table was still beneath the same bright light. She had found it funny on her first visit. Now it was simply a room where somebody was still awake.

Marten came up behind her. He rested a hand against her back. She turned and looked at him.

'Do you still want to stay?' he asked.

'Yes.'

'Me too.'

She smiled briefly. It was an awkward answer that told her exactly what he meant. She leaned against him. He put an arm round her and looked outside with her. They hadn't ruined the evening. She would have liked to be able to feel that straight away.

Later they sat on the sofa watching a film whose first scene they had both missed because they were still asking each other things. Halfway through Fenna wasn't sure which man belonged with which woman. She didn't ask. Marten's hand held hers. When she moved her fingers, he squeezed them. She shifted closer and tried simply to watch the rest of the film, without having to make it a good Wednesday again in the process.