Before I left Callum's room, my phone rang.
The woman who owned the Eastmere house was calling to confirm Sunday. I looked at her number, then at him.
“Answer it,” he said.
I did. She had the room ready from one o'clock. She would be there to let us in and show us where the spare bedding was kept. Then she asked whether we needed one set of keys or two.
“Two,” I said.
Callum nodded beside me.
I asked about the little shelf beside the bed, whether it was staying. She said everything in the photograph stayed, including the lamp. The window opened. The heating worked. I could almost feel myself standing in that room, looking down at the unfamiliar street.
When I ended the call, a message came with the address and the time.
I read it aloud.
“One,” Callum said. “We've got time to get food before we go there.”
“I'll be nervous. I won't want to eat.”
“You can be nervous with a sandwich.”
I saved the address. He watched me do it.
“Two keys,” I said.
“One each.”
It sounded so simple. I was used to knocking, borrowing, being given a room as part of a job. A key of my own to a place we'd chosen together felt different.
He got up.
“Come on. We need something to put on that shelf.”
“You have enough things.”
“Those are my things.”
He held his hand out.
I took it.
The charity shop was closing when we reached it. The woman let us look for five minutes while she covered the till. We found two plain white mugs on a low shelf, beside a jug with no handle.
I lifted one mug and checked its base.
“Those?” he asked.
“They match.”
“Is that important?”
I put them side by side. “I like them.”
“Then those.”
He paid for one and I paid for the other. The woman wrapped them in separate sheets of newspaper. I carried both parcels back to his room while he stopped for dinner.
He came up the stairs with hot food in foil trays and a bag of cheap kitchen things we'd forgotten: two forks, a dishcloth, washing-up liquid. There was a bread roll on top.
“We can take the forks,” he said. “Practical.”
“You're planning to use them first.”
“I'm testing them for you.”
We ate sitting on the floor, with the trays on a spread-out towel. I had taken my jacket off. My bag was on the chair instead of over my shoulder.
Callum moved the bread closer when I finished before him. I tore half off and gave the rest back.
“You can have it all,” he said.
“I don't want it all.”
He took the half I'd given him.
Afterwards, I washed the mugs in the basin. He held the tea towel out for each one, dried it and set it on the windowsill. They looked painfully white against the sill's chipped paint.
I found a small cardboard box under his bed and put the mugs inside, with their newspaper tucked round them. The new forks and dishcloth fitted in the gaps.
“Can we take this on Sunday?”
“That's the idea.”
I closed the flaps. He passed me a pen.
I wrote EASTMERE across the top, then, smaller underneath, Kitchen.
“There's no kitchen in that room,” he said.
“There's one in the house.”
“Fair enough.”
He moved the box beside his bag, leaving space between it and the bed so nobody would kick it. Then he sat down and drew me onto his lap.
I settled sideways, one arm round his shoulders. He put his forehead against the side of my neck.
“I wanted this week to be better,” he said.
I rested my cheek against his hair.
“So did I.”
“Once you've given Ruby the tin, she can go to her friend's. We can just go.”
I drew back enough to see his face.
“You won't do something like that again?”
“No.”
He didn't smile it away or make a joke. I put my hand against his cheek, and he turned to kiss my palm.
I wanted to believe that one word. I wanted the address saved in my phone, the box beside the bag, the room at one on Sunday.
“Stay a bit,” he said.
I did.
We lay on the bed with the lamp on, my feet tucked against his shins. He ran his fingers through my hair until I turned and kissed him. When I pulled away, he followed, and I laughed quietly at how little space he was willing to leave.
Later, I put my jacket on and picked up the box.
“I'll keep this with my suitcase,” I said.
He walked me to the door and tucked the loose flap down so it wouldn't catch on my sleeve.
“See you in the morning.”
“With the tin.”
“With the tin.”
I carried our two mugs home together.