Theo's cousin Owen believed Mara had rescued him from a train.
Not a moving train. Owen was quite clear about that. Theo had got onto the wrong one, Mara had spotted the mistake and dragged him off just before the doors closed. He'd been attempting to go to Swindon, which was the detail Owen remembered because the whole story seemed less likely if Swindon wasn't involved.
“I didn't drag him,” Mara said. “He had the suitcase.”
Owen nodded, pleased to have remembered most of it.
Across the Tuesday supper table, Freya put down her fork.
“You said a hotel fire.”
“Did we?” Theo asked.
“You absolutely did.”
“It was a very small fire,” Mara said.
“You were in your underwear.”
“Also very small.”
Theo kept his face serious with some difficulty. “There was a disputed alarm.”
“You told us a guided tour,” Nina said from the end of the table. “He was pretending to be the guide.”
“I was qualified,” Theo said.
“You said you knew nothing about the building.”
“There are several levels of qualification.”
Mara was leaning back in her chair, delighted now. Theo knew the look. Give her another minute and she would invent something too complicated to sustain, and he would have to keep it upright with an irrelevant fact.
“The train was coming from the building,” she said.
“Which building?” Owen asked.
“The one that caught fire.”
“A guided tour of a train?”
“They had to evacuate the underwear,” Theo said.
Freya laughed first. Leah closed her eyes. Owen looked from Mara to Theo, then back again, and the pleasure of the whole stupid thing nearly hurt.
“You're lying,” he said.
“Now?” Mara asked.
“Always.”
“It's been six years,” Theo said. “We've had to keep ourselves occupied.”
There was no grand organized supper tonight, just several tables drawn closer after people discovered where everyone was eating. They had met in the terrace restaurant for drinks and found themselves ordering more food. Nina was sitting beside Owen; Kit had come with his injured foot, which Freya refused to discuss before pudding. Daniel and Leah had arrived from their room arguing mildly about whether Daniel's shirt had shrunk or had always belonged to a different man.
Theo was glad to be there. He liked knowing the voices at the table, and he liked finding a place for a new one. Patrick, the man with the suitcase, had joined Bill at a separate table with Sue and two relatives. His luggage had still not arrived. He wore the shirt he'd bought that afternoon and described it as something he would never willingly purchase at home.
Mara said she hoped he would buy an entire new personality by Saturday. Patrick took this as a proposal and went to show Bill something on his phone.
“How did you actually meet?” Owen asked at last.
Leah pointed her fork at him. “Stop asking. It encourages them.”
“I'm curious.”
“Pub quiz,” Theo said.
Owen looked disappointed.
“There was a fire later,” Mara told him.
“Stop.”
She reached for the bread, laughing. Theo watched her hand, the faint red place on her wrist where her bag strap had pressed against it. Earlier in the dance studio she had been close enough for him to feel her breathe. He had thought about it while changing for dinner. Then he'd thought about the man she was meeting tomorrow and put on the first shirt he found. Then he had taken it off and chosen another, annoyed that he was choosing.
The actual pub had been loud and too warm. A friend had asked him to come because their team was short of someone who could do science questions. He'd arrived prepared to be useful and found Mara in a red jumper arguing that usefulness was what people called being dull in the correct area.
“I've brought a pen,” he'd said.
She'd looked at it. “Devastatingly useful.”
He had liked her immediately, then disliked how immediately. She'd moved her bag off the chair beside her and continued a dispute about the height of a monument nobody could remember visiting.
Theo had offered a number. Mara had offered a different one. He had explained why hers could not be right. She'd said she was pleased he had come because she'd been hoping for somebody who could be wrong with confidence.
Their team got the answer wrong.
He stayed afterward because he wanted to. She asked him what he did, and he told her he taught science. She said that explained the pen, but not the monument. He asked what she did, and she said she made things people would throw away look worth buying. He couldn't decide whether it was a joke until she began describing a box for biscuits with the seriousness he had given the bad answer.
She had wanted the biscuits to look as good as they tasted. The company had wanted three more claims on the front. She had put the claims in, hated the result and spent the next afternoon changing everything else. Theo had watched her talking, her fingers shaping the imaginary box between them, and felt the peculiar happiness of discovering somebody who could become absorbed in something he hadn't known mattered.
He had asked her for a drink the next week. She had said yes, then pointed out that this was already a drink and they could use the available time.
He had walked home late with her number in his phone and his reliable pen in her bag.
“You were looking very pleased with yourselves,” Leah said now.
“At the quiz?” Theo asked.
“For most of that year.”
Mara looked at her. Theo put his glass down.
“We came last,” he said.
“A powerful courtship,” Owen said.
“Shared disgrace is very attractive,” Mara told him.
Leah smiled and went back to her food. Daniel touched her arm to show her something on his plate. She looked, then laughed. Theo didn't know what it was. He liked not knowing and being close enough to see them enjoy it anyway.
Kit announced that the tomorrow people were going to have to make their intentions plain. Freya said she had no intentions before ten. Owen was doing another walk. Nina wanted to go somewhere without Owen explaining the shape of things.
“Miniature golf,” Freya said. “I saw it on the way back to the room.”
“Isn't that for children?” Kit asked.
“Perfect for us.”
“I'm not walking around with this foot.”
“You can be the scorer. A vital sedentary role.”
Daniel looked interested. “I'd do that.”
“Scoring?” Leah asked.
“Golf. Or anything.”
Theo took the leaflet Freya passed across. Nine little pictures showed a resort course made to look far more complicated than he believed it could be. There was a curved wall, a low bridge and a blue-painted pool into which he immediately wanted to knock something.
“I could come,” he said.
“You could,” Freya replied.
She didn't add anything about it doing him good. He wanted to thank her, and didn't.
Mara was leaving tomorrow morning for Santanyi with Adrian. She had told him herself after the dance lesson. He was glad she had, though he had spent the time since trying not to picture the two of them leaving.
“Market should be good,” Freya told Mara.
“I intend to buy something I can't use.”
“Cheese?”
“I've established that need.”
“Did Bill finish it?” Theo asked.
“He finished the piece we had at the airport. I bought more here.”
“You're restocking already?”
She raised her eyebrows. “You used to say I bought too much cheese.”
“Only when there were six kinds and we were going away.”
“We are living in optimism.”
He laughed, but more quietly than before. She noticed. Her mouth softened for a moment, and he didn't want her to be careful with him, which meant he had to find something else to say.
“Is there dessert?”
“There is always dessert,” she said.
They ordered. Kit maintained he wanted nothing and accepted half of Freya's before she had finished it. She told him he had to wait until tomorrow to join her team. He said he was sampling opposing tactics. Leah asked Daniel whether he really wanted to spend the morning playing golf, and he said yes, without turning it into a bigger answer.
Later music began at the far side of the terrace. A man with a guitar was playing to a loose group of diners. Bill recognized something and began singing, confidently wrong. Sue tried to supply the line and discovered she didn't know it either. Mara leaned toward Theo.
“We could assist.”
“They deserve professionals.”
“We have one song.”
“A great song.”
She shook her head, smiling. Theo began the introduction under his breath, the little ridiculous descending noise which had made them laugh the first time they heard it driving somewhere in the rain. Mara supplied the second voice. It had been years since either of them listened to the actual recording. Their version had become its own thing, slower in one place, wildly louder in another, with a line changed after Theo packed the wrong shoes for a weekend away.
“Put your shoes beside my shoes,” he sang, quietly enough that only their table could hear.
“We'll lose them all before we land,” Mara answered.
“Two hearts—”
“One suitcase—”
Freya threw a rolled-up napkin at them.
“That song is banned.”
“You've got no authority,” Theo told her.
“I've suffered it in a car.”
“Premium performance,” Mara said. “Very limited seats.”
They finished the chorus beneath the laughter. Theo put a hand over his chest for the last note. Mara reached much too high and held it with magnificent bad judgement. The man with the guitar glanced toward them, smiling without attempting to compete.
Owen asked what the song was, and Freya told him it was classified for the protection of future generations. Mara couldn't stop laughing. Theo watched her try, and briefly the trip belonged to exactly the two people who had decided to come.
Afterward, as they were leaving the terrace, Sue caught his arm.
“You'll come for lunch tomorrow? We thought we'd sit at the quieter place. Your aunt Janette will be here in the morning.”
Theo looked toward Freya and Daniel, who were debating whether the golf course actually opened early enough for people with ambition.
“I've made a plan with them,” he said.
“You'll be finished by lunch.”
“We may eat together after.”
Sue blinked. He couldn't remember the last time he'd simply chosen a different lunch when she had arranged one.
“We'll see you later,” he said. “I'd like to hear about Janette's flight.”
“There's not much to say about a flight.”
“That's never stopped her.”
His mother smiled despite herself and let him go.
Mara was waiting near the steps. Not waiting for him necessarily; she was adjusting her sandal strap, the one he'd fixed after the dance lesson. He stopped beside her.
“You can tighten it another notch,” he said.
“I'll lose circulation.”
“A small price for safe footwear.”
She stood straight and put her foot down carefully. “No. I'll continue to live dangerously.”
They walked back without touching. In the villa she filled a glass of water and set it beside the daybed. He thanked her. She said she'd be leaving fairly early, and he said he hoped the market was good.
At the bedroom door she turned.
“What was the number?”
“Which number?”
“The monument. At the quiz.”
He tried to remember. He could recall the pen, the red jumper, the imaginary biscuit box between her hands. The number was gone.
“Yours was wrong,” he said.
“So was yours.”
“Mine was mathematically wrong. A higher standard.”
She laughed softly, then said goodnight.
He sat on the daybed and drank the water she had left him. Outside the window somebody passed talking quietly. He could hear a bag being unzipped beyond the bedroom door, and then the click of the bathroom light.
Tomorrow he would have a joke she hadn't heard. He tried to look forward to that.