Tom shut the bedroom door and took off his shoes. He set them neatly beside the wardrobe, toes facing out.
Lena stood by the window. The beach had disappeared. All she could see now was the reflection of the room, his back, the bed between them.
'Bea knew,' she said.
'About the ring? Yes.'
'How long?'
'A few weeks.' He turned. 'I asked if she'd mind. I know you're not supposed to do it at somebody else's wedding.'
'At the reception.'
'After their dance. She said she'd like it. That it would be lovely for both of you.'
Lena remembered the quiet conversation by the windows, the place Bea had pointed to. A space for Tom to stand. A space for Lena to be delighted in front of everyone.
'I've stopped it,' he said. 'I told her tonight. She'll change the music back.'
She looked at him. He was rubbing one foot against the carpet.
'I thought it would be good,' he said. 'You don't like things hanging over you. Decisions. I thought if I showed you I was sure—'
'Tom, I'm leaving you.'
His foot stopped moving.
She had said it too abruptly. Yet if she went back now, put cushions round the words, he would hear a different sentence.
'I don't want to be in this relationship any more,' she said. 'I'm sorry. I should have told you before we came.'
He stood perfectly still. She could hear water moving in the pipes behind the bathroom wall.
'Before we came,' he repeated.
'Yes.'
'How long before?'
She twisted a fold of curtain between her fingers, then let it go.
'Six weeks. That's when I knew.'
He sat on the edge of the bed. One of the biscuits lay beside him, knocked off the towels when he got ready. He picked it up and put it on the bedside table.
'Six weeks.'
'I kept putting it off.'
'We've done quite a lot in six weeks.'
'I know.'
'My birthday. Your display opening.' He looked up. 'That Sunday at the lake. You wanted to go. You booked it.'
She had. The little boat they hired had leaked, slowly enough to be funny, and he had rowed them back to shore with his socks off. Afterwards they ate breakfast from a paper bag in the car. She'd wanted to keep having things like that with him, even knowing she couldn't keep the rest.
'I wanted to be with you that day,' she said.
He shook his head. 'I don't understand.'
'I love you. I do. But the life you want us to have—I don't want it. I don't want the shop. I don't want to be looking at houses there. And every time I say it, we end up talking about how to make me want it.'
'I thought you were worried. About money. About being stuck.'
'I said no.'
'Today you said it was lovely.'
She closed her eyes briefly. 'The drawing is lovely. I was wrong to leave it at that.'
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. 'Then I'll change it. You don't have to do anything at the shop.'
'That isn't enough.'
'I can wait while you do the travelling job. It's twelve weeks, Lena. I'm not saying you can't go.'
He looked at her as if he had solved it. She wanted so badly to take the answer that her throat hurt.
'This has been happening for months,' she said. 'Before that job. You keep planning for us and I keep letting you. I don't feel the way you do about our future.'
'You could have told me.'
'Yes.'
'You could have told me before I bought a ring.'
'Yes.'
He pressed his palms together. They were broad, with the little cuts on the fingers which never completely healed. He had built a shelf for her paints in his old flat without telling her, then stayed up until two in the morning because he'd got one of the brackets wrong. It hung above her worktable now, in the flat they shared. She didn't know whether he would want it back.
'Is this because he's here?'
'No.'
Tom looked towards the door. 'You went outside with him.'
'I know. But I decided before I knew he was coming. Before today.'
'Why didn't you tell me on the drive? We had four hours.'
She couldn't blame the horsebox, the wrong turning, the silly voices that had let her pretend everything was all right.
'I wanted to get through the wedding. I didn't want to upset Bea. And I didn't want to do this in the car when we still had to come here together.'
'And then get back in it on Sunday.'
'I hadn't worked that out.'
He gave a short laugh, with nothing happy in it. 'No.'
She sat on the sofa. It was low, and the edge of the cushion pressed against the back of her knees. She put both feet on the floor.
'I'm sorry,' she said again.
Tom stood and walked into the bathroom. He didn't shut the door. She heard the tap, then it stopped. He stayed in there for a while. Lena looked at the small pile of clothes in her open bag, the book she'd brought as if she might read it, the spare tights rolled inside a shoe.
When he came out he had washed his face.
'What am I supposed to do now?'
'I don't know.'
'Go downstairs and tell them? Drive four hours home? I haven't even unpacked properly.'
'You can stay. Of course you can. Owen's your friend too.'
'And you'll do what?'
'I'll stay as well. If you can bear that. I promised Bea I'd help tomorrow.'
He looked at the room. 'There's one bed.'
'I'll ask if they have another room.'
'And tomorrow? It's full then. Bea told me. They've got guests in half the places along the front.'
'I can ask somewhere else.'
'I don't want you wandering round town looking for a bed at ten o'clock.' He rubbed his forehead. 'God. Listen to me.'
She waited. He was still taking care of her, and had caught himself at it.
'I can sleep here,' she said, touching the sofa cushion. 'It's only two nights.'
'Your feet won't fit.'
'I'll bend them.'
He looked at her for a long moment, then sat down on the bed again.
'I'd like to stay for the wedding,' he said. 'I've been looking forward to it.'
'All right.'
'But I can't have everybody knowing. Asking me things. Not tomorrow.'
She felt relief so quickly that she was ashamed of it. 'We don't have to announce anything.'
'Bea knows we've had a row.'
'Has she said that?'
'She asked me what was wrong. I said we'd argued.'
Lena leaned forward. 'I don't want you thinking this is an argument we can sort out.'
His face tightened. 'I heard what you said.'
'I know. But if we stay together in the room and don't tell anyone—'
'What would you like? A sign on the door?'
She looked down at her hands. He rubbed his mouth, sorry or angry or both.
'I just want one day,' he said. 'Without having to explain myself to people I barely know.'
She nodded. 'Then we won't tell anyone unless they ask.'
'And if they ask?'
'We can say we're taking some space. We'll talk after the wedding.'
He watched her.
'But talking doesn't mean getting back together,' she added. 'I need you to know that.'
He stood again. 'I know.'
She could not tell whether he did. She had said it. She would have to keep saying it if he asked, even when he looked like this.
'No couple photographs,' she said. 'I can't stand there and do that.'
'Fine.'
'And no making plans for us. For later.'
'Fine, Lena.'
He went to his bag and opened the front pocket. She stayed seated as he took out the ring box. This time he did not hide it.
'I chose it in the shop near the cinema,' he said. 'The one you always look in.'
She swallowed.
'It wasn't easy, choosing.'
'It's beautiful.'
He looked at her, and she knew she had done it again.
'But I can't marry you,' she said.
He held the box for a few seconds longer, then shut it in his bag.
Lena got up and went downstairs to ask for an extra blanket. She took the stairs rather than the lift because she needed something to do with her body. In the lobby, a woman was gathering tomorrow's orders for breakfast. Someone in the bar laughed so loudly that heads turned.
The receptionist gave her a blanket in a plastic bag and said she hoped everything was all right in the room.
'Yes,' Lena said. Then, 'The sofa's for me. Do you have another pillow?'
The woman brought one from a cupboard. Lena thanked her and carried both upstairs.
Tom was standing at the window when she came back. She couldn't see his face. She put the pillow on the sofa and folded the blanket back.
'You take the bed,' she said.
'You said.'
She changed in the bathroom. It was difficult to look at herself in the bright mirror, so she looked at the taps. She cleaned her teeth, put her brush in a glass, then moved it to the other end of the basin. There was no reason for doing that. She left it there anyway.
When she came out, Tom had turned off the main light. He lay on top of the bedcovers in his T-shirt, hands across his stomach. He hadn't put his phone on charge again.
Lena curled onto the sofa. Her feet fitted if she turned onto her side. She pulled the blanket over her shoulder.
Outside, the wind caught something loose on the terrace. It knocked once, paused, knocked again. Tom was close enough for her to hear him breathe.
She nearly said goodnight in their usual silly voice.
Instead she said it plainly.
'Goodnight,' he answered, after a while.
She lay awake, watching the line of light beneath the door. The wedding was tomorrow at two. She would need to be downstairs by nine. She had brought pins, glue, a spare pair of scissors. For once there was nothing among her things that could mend what she had done.