Theo knew Mara had finished in the shower because she began singing badly.
Before that there had been water, then a stretch of silence while he sat on the terrace trying not to think about what he could hear. Now there was one terrible note and the sound of a drawer opening. He smiled at the view.
His phone had a message from his mother asking whether he knew what time the photographer was coming tomorrow. He looked for the information, sent it and put the phone away before she could begin a second subject. He also had a message from Kit containing the picture of Owen's face-shaped rock again, now wearing somebody's digitally added hat.
It was not nearly as good as Brian. He smiled anyway.
Mara came out in a dark red dress, her hair wet and twisted up, her feet bare. She carried the market scarf in one hand and apparently had no reason for doing so, because she put it on the table and forgot it immediately.
“You're still covered in salt,” she said.
“A preservative measure.”
“Go and wash.”
“Is that an invitation or a criticism?”
“I can offer several things at once.”
He stood. She moved past him to the kitchenette, and he caught the clean scent of her skin where she'd passed. He had been beside her all day. It was different in here, with no Adrian, no laugh from another table, no one arriving to borrow a chair.
In the bathroom he took off his shirt and looked at the red place on one shoulder. He'd missed it with sun cream. Mara would tell him. He found himself looking forward to the complaint, then turned on the shower and stopped trying to make sense of how much he wanted familiar things.
Afterward he put on shorts and a clean T-shirt, looked at himself once in the mirror and went out before he could choose something else to mean more.
Mara had put two plates on the terrace table. The fish dish sat between them, containing olives she'd found in the small fridge and a few pieces of fruit which had survived the market. There was bread, the remaining cheese she'd bought near reception and a packet of tomatoes she said she'd bought on the way back from the shower, which made no geographical sense until she added that she'd been to the little shop again.
“You left?” he asked.
“I wasn't going to live on fruit.”
“We could go out.”
“We can still. I thought this might be nice first.”
He looked at the table. Two chairs in shade, a ridiculous fish, her dress against the warm stone wall. The sea was turning a different blue between the trees.
“It is.”
She glanced up, then went back to cutting bread. He fetched glasses. She found the good salt she'd brought from Bristol.
“You packed that?”
“I knew you wouldn't.”
“There's salt here.”
“There's salt everywhere. Not the same thing.”
He laughed, then put his hand over hers when the bread shifted toward the edge of the board. They steadied it together. She turned her wrist beneath his fingers and looked at him.
“I've got it.”
“I know.”
He let go. She sliced the rest and put it in the dish. The fish disappeared beneath bread, perhaps improving its disposition.
They sat. Mara tore cheese into a shape smaller than she intended, frowned, ate the damaged piece and tried again. He waited for his share with the exaggerated patience she deserved.
“You're looking very holy,” she said.
“A difficult position to maintain with this service.”
She held out the larger piece. He accepted it, then reached for the tomatoes. His knee touched hers under the table.
Neither moved.
They talked about the day. Aunt Janette's attempted sale of her nephews. Nina's mysterious sunglasses. Kit searching for an estimate of his own book's value and receiving several unnecessarily low offers. Mara told him she had complained to Freya that Theo had stolen her date by getting on with Adrian so well.
He looked up.
“I didn't know what to do with you both,” she said.
“You could have joined us.”
“More chairs.”
“A very rich subject.”
She smiled, then looked down at her plate.
“I liked him,” Theo said.
“I noticed.”
“Would you rather I didn't?”
“No.” She tore another piece of bread, considered it and put it down. “Possibly a little.”
He began laughing. She did too, reluctantly.
“I wanted you to be fine,” she said. “Not quite so enthusiastically fine.”
“I wasn't always.”
“I know.”
They sat with the answer. He didn't want to ask about yesterday. He knew she had gone swimming; Adrian had said so, and she'd come back with salt in her hair. There were other parts he could imagine well enough without making her describe them. The man was leaving Friday. Theo was leaving Sunday. The whole week had become unreasonably interested in endings.
Mara moved her knee closer. It was a small, deliberate motion.
He reached for his glass and then didn't drink.
“Did you want to go out later?” he asked.
“Do you?”
“I'm quite happy here.”
“Then let's be here.”
They ate what she'd brought. It was not enough for a proper dinner, and then it was more than either wanted because they'd kept talking and the bread had become something to do with their hands. He put an olive on the end of the fish's painted nose, and she removed it with a solemn objection to cruelty.
“You chose that face,” he said.
“It asked me.”
“You couldn't refuse.”
She shook her head. The laugh she was holding stayed low in her throat. He watched her and wanted to go around the table, put his hands in her wet hair and stop having to express every feeling through things they both found funny.
There were years he wanted to bring into the room and years he didn't know how to have with her. She had been beside him during days when he felt stupid, or tired, or pleased with something nobody else would hear about. He had loved being the person she came to with an impossible imaginary story and a box of biscuits whose design she'd fixed. That afternoon she'd looked at him on the boat, reached out to rub sun cream from his face, and he'd felt the same enormous, inconvenient thing.
She put down her glass.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“Not nothing.”
He looked at her fingers on the table, then at her face.
“I've wanted to kiss you all afternoon.”
She did not make a joke. He was grateful, and frightened by how much that left him to do.
“You can,” she said.
He stayed seated for another second. He could get up, clear the plates, carry the whole evening into a shower of ordinary noise and safe separate sleeping. He knew how to do all of that. He also knew exactly what he wanted instead.
He went around the table.
She stood as he reached her, her hand going to his chest with the familiarity which made the first touch seem both small and impossible. He kissed her. She put her other hand at the back of his neck, drew him nearer, and he felt her mouth open beneath his.
The table pressed against his thigh. He moved away from it, taking her with him. She laughed against his mouth when the chair caught behind her knees, then he held her more firmly and kissed the place below her ear where her hair was damp.
“You smell better now,” she whispered.
He laughed. She looked at him, not moving away.
“You're red here,” she said, touching his shoulder through the T-shirt.
“I knew you'd notice.”
“Did you leave it for me?”
“A little task. In case you got bored.”
She shook her head, smiling, and kissed him again.
He had forgotten, or persuaded himself to forget, how her fingers could become impatient in his hair. He let his hand move along her waist. Beneath the thin dress she was warm from the shower and the day. She drew a breath which he felt before he heard it.
“Come inside,” she said.
He looked through the open doorway. The daybed was in shadow. Beyond it the bedroom door stood open.
He touched her cheek with his thumb.
“Mara.”
“I know.”
He didn't know which part she was answering. It was enough that she looked at him, eyes open, her hand still on his chest.
“I want to,” she said.
He nodded, then kissed her forehead because it was close and he loved her and the moment had become more than his body could put in one place.
They left the bread on the terrace. He carried the glasses in, set them beside the sink and turned to find her waiting in the doorway. She reached for his hand.
This time he didn't let go after the step.