The hall door caught the corner of Ruby's box on the way in. She stopped, backed up and tried again sideways.
‘There is a bigger door,’ a man said behind her.
‘Good to know now.’
‘I thought you might enjoy finding it yourself.’
She turned enough to see him. Dark hair, sleeves pushed up, a tape measure hooked to his waistband. He held the door open without reaching for her box.
‘Where am I going?’ she asked.
‘Bev's over there.’ He pointed across the empty hall. ‘Possibly deciding whether to kill me.’
‘Will I be interrupting?’
‘I'd appreciate it.’
Ruby carried her samples towards the woman sitting at a folding table. Bev had a notebook open and three pairs of reading glasses hanging from the neck of her jumper.
‘Ruby. Lovely. Put them here.’
The man followed. Ruby felt suddenly conscious of the small box, the newspaper she'd used to pack it, her decision to bring only the pieces she could bear to have judged.
‘Jonah, you can have the end space,’ Bev said without looking up. ‘If you put a frame round my fire exit, I will take it down.’
‘That's only happened in your imagination.’
‘I like to plan ahead.’
He went back to measuring. Ruby unwrapped the shallow blue bowl, a pale green jug and a little dish with a red line across the rim. Bev picked up the jug by its handle, which made Ruby want to put both hands beneath it.
‘Feels nice,’ Bev said. ‘People like something they can hold.’
‘Yes.’
‘You teach as well?’
‘I did. I'd like to start again.’
Bev set it down. ‘You can put a list on your table. Interest first, dates when you've got them. Don't promise me a class you haven't got room for.’
Ruby nodded. It was an ordinary, useful instruction. Much easier to follow than encouragement.
They agreed the stall fee and space. Ruby paid the stall fee on her phone before she could worry about paying it. Bev wrote her name on the plan. Seeing it beside a little rectangle made Ruby's stomach tighten.
‘Will that hold all your work?’
‘It'll have to.’
‘Then bring the best of it. Nobody needs to see your whole cupboard.’
At the other end of the hall Jonah stretched his tape along a table. He had laid a framed print against its leg: a purple sky, a square orange sun, three black boats floating at different and impossible angles.
Ruby stared at it as Bev went to answer someone at the door.
‘I know,’ Jonah said.
‘Do you?’
‘It's upsetting you.’
‘The sea appears to be on a slope.’
‘Strong current.’
‘And the sun's square.’
‘Different planet.’
Ruby crouched beside the frame. The wood was a warm, soft brown. Against it, the purple looked almost deliberate.
‘You've done something good round something terrible.’
Jonah crouched too, with the tape measure still in his hand. ‘Thank you, I think.’
‘Why that frame?’
‘The orange needed a friend.’
Ruby glanced at him. He was entirely serious for about half a second. Then his mouth moved and she laughed.
‘That is a very lonely orange.’
‘It was worse in silver.’
She looked again. ‘I wouldn't put anything round it. It might encourage the artist.’
‘Artist's my customer. Wants to give it to his wife.’
‘Does he like his wife?’
‘Very much, apparently.’
‘She'll have to keep it forever.’
‘She might love it.’
Ruby considered that. He didn't look annoyed by the argument. He turned the frame a fraction, letting the light catch the grain.
‘Fine,’ she said. ‘But you should have put the boats straight while you had it.’
‘I only do the edges.’
He stood and offered her a hand. She could have got up herself. She took it anyway. His palm was warm and slightly rough, and he waited until she was steady before letting go.
‘Do you make those?’ He nodded towards her box.
She showed him the dish. He ran his thumb along the red line without touching the glaze, following it through the air.
‘You stopped it short.’
‘I ran out of red.’
He looked up.
‘Not really,’ she said. ‘But I like that better than what I usually tell people.’
‘What do you usually tell people?’
‘Something about space.’
‘That sounds convincing.’
‘It is. You have to pay extra for it.’
He laughed properly then, tipping his head back a little. Ruby looked down at the dish. She couldn't remember the last time she had made a stranger laugh and enjoyed the exact moment he did it.
Bev returned with a bundle of posters, handed one to each of them and told Jonah his table measurement was overdue.
Ruby repacked her box while he wrote it down. Her time in the hall was finished. She found herself smoothing newspaper that was already smooth.
‘Do you walk along the front?’ Jonah asked.
‘Occasionally.’
‘Tomorrow? I finish at four.’
Ruby tucked the last piece into the box. ‘Is there more art I have to be rude about?’
‘Quite a lot. The town's full of it.’
She smiled, then lost the smile while she thought. He noticed; his hand stopped halfway towards his tape measure.
‘I've recently come out of something,’ she said.
‘Right.’
‘A relationship. That sounded more mysterious than it is.’
‘I did wonder whether you meant prison.’
She laughed despite herself.
‘A walk is all right,’ she said. ‘If a walk is what you mean.’
‘A walk is what I mean. I'd also like your number.’
There was no little performance of indifference. He wanted to see her again and was letting her know. Ruby liked that enough to be a bit frightened of it.
They exchanged numbers beside Bev's stack of posters. Jonah put her in his phone as Ruby, and added a red circle after her name when she accused him of forgetting the dish already.
Outside, Ruby set the box on a low wall to adjust her grip. The air smelt of rain and the sea. Her stall fee had gone out of her account. She had a place on the plan and a man in her phone.
She sent Mae a message.
I'm booked. Also met someone. Don't start yet.
Mae's answer arrived before Ruby had lifted the box.
Too late. Starting.