On the Wednesday before Kit's next visit, nearly eight weeks after the wedding, the display company called Lena at the cinema.
They were offering her the twelve weeks in spring. She put down her scissors and opened her diary. She checked the start date against the work she'd already promised to finish.
'Yes,' she said. 'I'd like to do it.'
After the call she wrote the first day in her diary. She wanted to tell Kit when he came on Friday.
Two days later, Lena stood on a station platform at half past ten with a paper bag of food warming her hands.
Kit's train was twelve minutes late. She had finished the display installation at nine, gone home to wash the glue off her fingers, then stopped at the little takeaway near the station. He hadn't eaten properly. He'd sent a photograph of a packet of crisps on the train seat beside him as evidence.
She watched the arrival board change from eleven minutes to seven. She liked that it could do that, give time back.
After the missed weekend, they had tried again. Kit moved his Sunday equipment checks to the end of Saturday's sound check. Lena booked an early Sunday train after her installation shift and paid for a room because his shared work lodging couldn't take her.
The next Sunday Lena took the first train after her Saturday shift, carrying an overnight bag and a tiredness no coffee quite fixed.
Kit met her at the station. They had one afternoon, not a whole weekend: the market half packed away, lunch from a van, a walk beside a muddy stretch of river. At one point they sat on a bench and he held her hand while she fell asleep against his shoulder for ten minutes. They laughed about it afterwards, then went to the room she'd paid for and lay side by side talking until he needed to go back for work.
When her train left the next morning, she was tired and a little poorer and glad she had come. She did not send him a list of what it had cost. He knew. He had seen her fall asleep on the bench.
Now it was his turn to arrive late.
He'd paid a colleague to cover the end of his sound-check slot, finishing the parts only he could do before handing over. Then he'd taken the later train so Lena could keep her evening work instead of missing the installation to meet him. It wasn't a grand sacrifice. It had made his day more difficult, and cost money he could have kept. She kept remembering that while she stood beneath the lights.
The train appeared beyond the bend, windows bright against the dark. Lena moved forward, then back behind the yellow line because a member of staff looked at her. She felt foolishly young.
Kit got off with his bag slung over one shoulder. He saw her before she waved. There were people between them, so he waited, shifting from foot to foot, while a woman folded a pushchair and a man stopped to check his ticket.
Then he was there.
'You brought dinner,' he said.
'I brought food. Dinner suggests chairs.'
He kissed her, hand warm against the side of her neck. She held the bag away so neither of them would crush it. When they separated, he took it from her and looked inside.
'Chips.'
'And something with actual substance. I panicked and bought two kinds.'
'You know me well.'
They walked out of the station together. His train had been late, his bag was heavy, and he stopped beside the taxi rank to put it down and open the food.
'Just one,' he said.
He ate three chips, then handed her the bag. She ate one too. They looked at each other and laughed, without a film to make it belong to.
They walked to the flat. Kit kept moving the bag from one shoulder to the other until Lena took it for the last street. He didn't say he could manage. He was tired, and she could carry it.
Inside, she put two plates on the table. He took his shoes off and came into the kitchen in his socks.
'Can I do something?'
'Find glasses.'
He opened the right cupboard first time. She noticed, pleased. They'd had other visits since the Sunday away: one short night here, one afternoon halfway between work towns. Enough for him to know the kitchen, not enough for anything to become assumed.
They ate until the food was cool. Kit told her about the colleague who'd covered for him, how she'd agreed only if he took one of her early starts next month as well. Lena told him about the new display, a huge moon suspended on nearly invisible wire, and the hour she'd spent persuading it not to tilt.
'You could have left it tilted,' he said.
'I could have left it on the floor. That's always an option.'
'Artistic decision.'
'Very tired moon.'
He grinned. She watched him reach for the last chips and knew he would ask if she wanted them. He did. She said no, and this time meant it.
Afterwards he washed the plates while she dried. She stood close enough that his elbow brushed her arm. It was familiar without being the same kitchen they'd once had, the same jobs, the same life they had expected to fit back into.
'I've got work away through the end of the year,' he said.
'I know.'
'Not all in one place.'
She hung the tea towel over the oven handle. 'Are you telling me or asking me something?'
He turned off the tap.
'Both, I think.'
She waited.
'I want this to be a relationship. Not just visits where we both go home and wait to see if the other one still feels the same.'
Her heart began to beat harder.
'I want that too,' she said.
He leaned against the counter. 'But I don't want to promise I can be here every weekend.'
'I don't want you to. I've got the twelve-week contract in spring. I said yes to it on Wednesday.'
His face opened. 'You got it?'
'Yes.'
'You should have told me.'
'I wanted to tell you when you were here.'
He took her hands. 'That's brilliant.'
She could feel the relief in her whole body, the absence of an argument she had prepared for without admitting it.
'It is,' she said.
He kissed her forehead, then looked at her again. 'We've got to actually look at dates, haven't we? Both of us.'
'Yes. And sometimes they'll be awful.'
'Sometimes it won't work.'
'But we don't get to keep waiting for the other one to lose work.'
He nodded. 'No.'
She turned one of his hands in hers, looking at the line across his palm.
'Three months,' she said. 'Let's try being together for three months. Properly. Not seeing other people. Making plans we both turn up for. Then we talk about how it's going.'
He was quiet for a second. 'You make it sound like a lease.'
She laughed, and he smiled because she'd heard him.
'I don't mean we'll have to end it then. I just don't want us saying forever because we had a good evening.'
'I've had several good evenings.'
'I know.'
He drew her closer. 'Three months, then.'
'Yes.'
'And if I annoy you on Tuesday?'
'I'll tell you on Tuesday.'
He looked at her, the humour softening. 'All right.'
They didn't write the dates down that night. Kit was tired enough to yawn while he kissed her, and Lena was tired enough to find it funny. He stayed this time. They left the kitchen light on until she remembered it, went back to switch it off, then found him sitting on the edge of the bed taking off his watch.
She had no need to pretend to be asleep when he reached for her.
In the morning they ate breakfast at the table. It rained hard enough to make going out seem a ridiculous plan. Kit sat opposite her, hair untidy, looking at the mug in his hands.
'Where's the terrible film?' he asked.
'About us?'
'About the rain. Us. Breakfast. Anything.'
Lena thought for a moment. Then she shook her head.
'Later,' she said, and passed him the toast.