On Wednesday Mara asked Tess to come for twenty minutes.
Ben will be here. We have to cancel things. I don't know what you still have.
Tess read it at work. She had spent the morning moving from one ordinary task to the next, surprised that she could do them. She answered at lunch.
The envelopes and spare paper. I'll bring them after work.
She didn't add anything else.
Ben was already at the flat when she arrived. He opened the door. His jacket was still on, but he had taken his shoes off and set them neatly by the mat.
“Hi,” he said.
Tess handed him the envelope. “This is all of it.”
“Thanks.”
Mara was at the kitchen table. The confirmation for Monday lay between her phone and an untouched mug. There was no room photograph.
Tess stood by the door until Mara pointed at the chair. She sat on the edge.
“We're cancelling,” Ben said.
Tess looked at Mara. She nodded.
“Not moving it again,” Ben added. “Cancelling.”
He was speaking to Tess, but Mara's hand tightened around her mug.
“All right,” Tess said.
“You don't need to contact anyone,” he said. “We'll tell them.”
“I hadn't planned to.”
“I know. I just wanted to say.”
He sat opposite Mara. Tess remembered watching them move their chairs together to taste sauce. She was outside the two of them again, but now a whole table separated Ben and Mara.
“I can send the message,” Mara said.
Ben nodded.
She looked down at her phone. “I could say after everything with the ring we need a little longer.”
Tess felt herself go cold.
“No,” Ben said.
Mara didn't look up.
“They don't need all the details.”
“They don't. But that isn't the reason.”
Mara put the phone flat on the table.
“I don't want them asking.”
Ben rubbed one hand over his face. “Neither do I.”
“Then we could just say—”
“We aren't getting married.” He lowered his hand. “Not that we're waiting for Tess to find a ring.”
Tess looked at the mark on the table where she'd set the hot dish. It had left a faint white patch around the cork mat. She hadn't noticed it before.
Mara turned toward her.
“I wasn't trying to blame you again.”
Tess didn't know whether to believe that. The sentence Mara wanted to send would have done it anyway.
“Please don't put that in the message,” she said.
“I won't.”
Mara picked up the phone and began typing. She deleted something, put it down and tried again.
“I wasn't honest about what I wanted for our future,” she said, reading the line aloud. Her voice sounded awkward, stripped of the warmth she usually put into an invitation. “We aren't getting married.”
Ben nodded once.
Mara looked at him. “Can I say we're sorry to change everyone's plans?”
“Yes.”
She added it. There was a long moment before she pressed send.
Tess heard no sound. Nothing in the room moved. It had happened all the same.
Mara set the phone face down.
Ben looked toward the spare room. “The boxes can stay here until we sort them. I'll stop the ring reservation.”
“It isn't bought?” Tess asked.
“No. I didn't go.”
She nodded. He hadn't needed her to find another way to pay.
Mara lifted her mug, then put it down without drinking.
“I don't know what to do with the dress,” she said.
Nobody answered. There was no useful place for the dress in this conversation.
Tess had fastened its tiny buttons three days ago. Mara had laughed at her with a scarf over her head. Tess could still feel the fabric between her fingers.
Ben stood up. “I'll deal with the room call. You do the restaurant.”
Mara nodded. They sounded like people separating the washing-up. Tess wanted to interrupt that sound, but she didn't know what they should sound like instead.
“Do you need anything else from me?” she asked.
Ben looked at Mara. Mara shook her head.
“No,” she said. “Thank you for bringing that.”
Tess got up.
Mara followed her to the hall. At the chair she stopped and put a hand on its back.
“I haven't told anyone about your coffee,” she said.
Tess looked at her.
“I mean, Cal. I don't want people asking you things.”
It was a kindness Tess would once have accepted without thinking. Today she couldn't tell whether it was meant to comfort her or remind her that Mara knew something too.
“It's all right if they know I took it,” she said. “I did.”
Mara shook her head quickly. “I wasn't saying—”
“I know.”
Tess didn't know. She was too tired to find out.
She put on her coat and left. On the way downstairs she realised she hadn't looked at Mara's hand once.