Mara had to put the case on its side to find her keys. They were at the bottom of her bag beneath the pen, the lipstick and a folded napkin she'd apparently decided belonged to her.
She stood outside the flat's door holding all four things, trying to give the keys room to act. Theo would have taken the bag. She could almost feel the small lift which would have left her hand free.
Instead she put it down, unlocked the door and brought the case inside.
The flat smelled closed, warm at the windows, faintly of the cleaning spray she'd used before leaving because she wanted to come back to something nice. She opened the kitchen window first. Then she opened another in the sitting room and stood between the two, letting the evening find a way through.
There was a small pile of post on the floor. She picked it up without reading it and put it on the table. A plant she'd watered thoroughly before flying seemed to have interpreted her absence as encouragement. One new leaf reached toward the window, bright and ridiculous among the older ones.
“Showing off,” she told it.
Her voice surprised her in the room. She laughed once, then went to bring the case in from the hallway.
She didn't unpack properly. She took out things which needed immediate attention: the bag with worn clothes, the dress, the dish. The dress had creased where she'd folded it. A little mark near the hem might have been cake or sauce or a small part of somebody else's drink. She hung it on the bedroom door, intending to deal with it later.
The wedding dress remained in its bag inside the wardrobe. Mara looked at it while finding a hanger, then closed the door without deciding what would happen to it.
Back at the table she unwrapped the dish carefully. First the shirt, then the scarf, then the towel. The fish emerged whole, looking as disapproving of Bristol as it had of the market.
She turned it over and checked the base. No cracks. She ran a finger along the rim and found nothing wrong there either.
“Well done,” she said.
She put it in the middle of the table, on top of the post, then moved the post because it made the plate tilt. The blue looked brighter here, among the ordinary mugs and the old table's scratches. It occupied more space than she'd imagined when she bought it.
Her phone vibrated. Leah, asking whether she'd arrived.
Home, Mara wrote.
Her sister replied with a heart and a complaint that Daniel had packed something still wet in the wrong part of his case. Mara smiled. She could hear them arguing about it, a small ordinary dispute which would last less time than the unpacking.
She wrote that the fish had survived. Leah asked whether the fish wished it hadn't. Mara laughed and didn't answer immediately.
She wanted a shower, clean clothes, something to eat. None of the wants seemed difficult until she stood in the kitchen and discovered she'd brought the good salt home but had almost nothing to put it on.
There were tomatoes in the fridge, older than she'd meant to leave them, one soft enough to be discarded and two which still had a meal in them. She took the good ones out. Bread waited in the freezer, where she'd put it before leaving so she wouldn't need to go shopping the first night.
She had prepared for this evening. The earlier Mara had been considerate, practical, still sure a week away would leave her ready for the flat.
Mara put two slices in the toaster and went to wash.
In the bathroom she took off the clothes she'd traveled in. The toaster clicked in the kitchen. Her shoulders still carried a little color, a faint mark where the yellow dress's strap had rubbed. The lotion she wanted was in the case. She used another bottle from the shelf and was startled by its familiar smell, a part of her ordinary life which had gone on waiting while she was elsewhere.
She showered quickly, then stood under the water for longer after she'd finished, head bowed. Tears came without any useful thought attached. She let them, one hand against the tiles, until she was cold enough to want a towel.
She dried herself, put on clean shorts and a T-shirt, and went back to the food. The toast waited in the kitchen.
She cut the tomatoes. Two were still too many for one piece of toast, so she used both slices and put the extra cut pieces beside them. Salt, oil, a knife to push the slippery things back where they belonged. The plate she normally used sat in the cupboard, but she'd already carried the food to the table and the fish was there.
She put her dinner on it.
The result was absurd. Two pieces of toast occupied a small island at one end, tomatoes gathered beneath the painted creature's disapproving eye. The rest of the dish remained empty enough to suggest she'd failed to provide for a committee.
Mara sat down.
Through the window came the ordinary sounds of Sunday evening: a car door, somebody calling upstairs, a laugh which rose and disappeared before she could hear what had caused it. The light on the wall was different from Mallorca, paler, caught by a building opposite instead of the sea.
She ate. The bread had gone a little cool while she showered. The tomatoes were good enough, the salt excellent. She would need more food tomorrow, but tomorrow's version of her could go and buy it.
Her phone lay beside the dish. She thought of taking a photograph for Adrian, olives or something, properly occupied as he'd asked. This wasn't olives, and she didn't want to arrange dinner for an absent audience. She put the phone beside the post instead.
Then she thought of Theo.
He would have sat opposite her. He would have inspected the arrangement with apparent seriousness, perhaps objected to the fish's authority, perhaps eaten one of her tomatoes before she could complain. She remembered their exchange at the airport about its terrible face. She knew how his own face would change when he saw this dinner beneath it.
She laughed, quietly. Then she put down the toast because she was crying again.
For a while she sat with the tears, looking at the empty chair. The room did not become more bearable because she could explain why he wasn't in it. She didn't try.
When she could eat again, she reached for the toast. One piece had broken at the corner. The larger bit lay almost bare, the tomato gathered on the smaller fragment beside it.
“Structural integrity,” she said.
The voice came out hoarse. There was nobody to accept the worse half, nobody to accuse her of dressing selfishness as engineering. She picked up the large piece anyway, added a tomato and ate it.
Afterward she washed the knife and cup, leaving the fish dish on the table because it was too big to face while tired. She wiped the oil from one corner with the napkin she'd brought home. The napkin had a small piece of cake dried into its fold.
She looked at it and remembered Theo trying the cake from her fork, his mouth closing while she watched. The sudden ache was so physical she had to lean against the table.
She stayed there until it eased enough to move.
In the sitting room his remaining books occupied one end of the shelf. She left them alone. She pulled the curtains halfway, then opened them again because there was still light outside and she wanted it.
She went back for a glass of water. The dish sat at the middle of the table, too large for the evening's remains. Mara moved it a little so the fish faced the empty chair.
“You can supervise,” she told it.
Then she sat down beside the open window, put her feet on the other chair and stayed while the last of the light moved across the floor.