Ben had put his good shirts in the blue suitcase. The shirts were what made Eva stop in the doorway. If he had been going away for work, he would have taken the black bag with the broken zip and the trousers she called his electrical trousers, as though there were separate ones for gas.
He was kneeling on their bedroom floor. Her side of the bed was still covered with the washing she had meant to put away before leaving.
“You're early,” he said.
“The train was on time.”
She had thought this was something she might tell him while he made tea. An unlikely little miracle, after four days of her aunt explaining which train Eva ought to have taken.
Ben stood. A pair of socks came up with him, caught on his watch.
“I was going to ring.”
“Where are you going?”
He pulled the socks free. She watched him fold them together. He never folded socks.
“I can't keep doing this.”
Her overnight bag slipped down her shoulder. She caught it by the strap before it hit the floor.
“Doing what?”
“Us. All the arguing. Going round in circles.”
On Wednesday morning they had argued about a flat with a second bedroom. Ben had said looking at flats wasn't the same as being able to afford them. She had said they had been looking for eleven months. Then he had carried her bag downstairs because one of the buckles caught her hair if she did it herself. He had kissed her through the open car window.
“We had one argument before I went.”
“It wasn't one.”
“Fine. We had more than one. Where are you going?”
He looked at the suitcase.
There was someone else. She knew before he said it, and hated the little space in which she could still hope he wasn't about to.
“Nora's.”
Eva put her bag down properly, beside the bed.
“Nora from the café?”
He nodded.
She pictured Nora tying on an apron, lifting her hair out of the back of it. Nora, who had asked whether Eva's aunt lived by the sea too. Nora, whom Eva had thanked for covering her shifts.
“How long?”
“It happened recently.”
“How recently?”
Ben sat on the edge of the bed. “About three weeks.”
Three weeks ago Eva had spent an entire evening comparing rugs on her phone while Ben lay against her legs. He had voted for the orange one because it would hide baked beans. She had voted against planning their home round his dinner accidents.
“Are you sleeping with her?”
“Yes.”
He said it quietly. She wanted him to say it loudly enough to sound like what it was.
“Before I went away?”
“Yes.”
She sat on the wooden chair by the wardrobe. The seat was cold through her trousers. Ben looked at her as if sitting down had made her easier to approach.
“I didn't want you to come back to this.”
“You were packing.”
“I know. I couldn't work out how to—”
“Tell me? You've had four days.”
He pressed his hands together between his knees. She knew those hands so well she could have found them in a drawer of other people's. The little burn on his thumb had nearly healed. He had got it making toast for her.
“Why her?”
“Eva.”
“I asked you a question.”
“It's easier with her. We don't have to turn everything into a plan.”
Eva looked at the packed shirts again.
“You've managed one.”
“That isn't fair.”
She laughed once. The sound surprised them both.
He got up and moved towards her, then stopped. “I do care about you.”
She wished he hadn't said that. Caring was something she could have argued with him about for hours. The suitcase was much clearer.
“Does she know you live with me?”
“Of course.”
“Does she know you kissed me goodbye on Wednesday?”
“I don't tell her everything.”
Eva looked away first.
Through the bedroom window she could see the washing on the balcony opposite. A red towel flapped over somebody's face as they tried to peg it up. She had lived in this flat for three years. She had seen weddings from that window, football celebrations, one man trying to carry a Christmas tree on a bicycle. It felt wrong that she could see anything ordinary now.
“Is she expecting you today?”
“Yes.”
“Then go.”
Ben swallowed. “There's some stuff I'll need to collect.”
“Another day.”
He zipped the case. It wouldn't close at the corner. Usually he would ask her to sit on it. He pressed his knee into it instead.
In the hallway he paused beside her little table. She had made a bowl out of clay on a rainy weekend and the rim had collapsed in the kiln. They kept their keys in it. Ben called it the tragic sombrero.
He put his hand in his pocket, then took it out empty.
“I should keep my key till I've got everything?”
She nodded. She couldn't decide another thing.
“The old sombrero lives to fight another day,” he said.
He smiled a little, the smile that asked her to join him. Last month he had balanced the bowl on his head and bowed to her while she laughed so hard she couldn't lock the door.
Now she watched his smile go.
“You don't have to worry about seeing her at work,” he said. “Will's giving her regular hours. You'll all know where you stand.”
“What does that mean?”
“Just that she won't be chasing odd shifts everywhere. Will's sorting things out.”
“I wasn't worried about her shifts.”
“I know.”
He picked up the case. One wheel bumped down the step outside their front door.
She stood in the hall until she heard the car start. Then she locked the door, although it was only four in the afternoon.
The bag from her aunt was still by the bed. On top was a paper parcel containing two enormous slices of fruit cake. Her aunt had wrapped them separately so Eva and Ben wouldn't fight over the bigger one.
Eva took both to the kitchen.
She put one on a plate and left the other in its paper. Then she moved the second slice onto the plate too.
For a while she ate standing up, with the suitcase-shaped gap in the wardrobe behind her.