He was already in the water when she came out.
Mara had been prepared to walk across the tiles under observation. Instead Elias was at the far end, swimming toward her with an untidy competence that threw more water than was strictly necessary. She put her towel on a chair and lowered herself by the steps before he reached her.
“It's cold,” she said.
“It's heated.”
“Then I'm expensive to operate.”
He caught the edge beside her. Water ran down his face. She had seen him in shirts for ten days; his bare shoulders felt like private information supplied too soon.
“You get used to it.”
“People say that about almost everything awful.”
He pushed away from the edge. “Come on.”
She went under before she could object. The shock was brief and then the water held her, all her ordinary sore places relieved of their task. She had forgotten this. The long reach of an arm, the roll of a hip, the pleasant selfishness of getting to the other end.
On the fourth length she overtook him. He looked across, saw her, and sped up so obviously that she laughed water into her nose.
“You can't just start a race without announcing it,” she said when she could breathe.
“You passed me.”
“Yes, Elias. That's swimming.”
He grinned and pushed off again. She went after him.
They raced three lengths. She won one, he won one, and the third ended with her foot slipping on the wall and him stopping to check she hadn't hurt herself. She accused him of fleeing a likely defeat. He demanded another race. She refused on the grounds that she was now a woman of leisure.
She floated on her back, eyes on the dark glass roof. Beyond it she could see only her own dim reflection and a small red light on some distant piece of building. There was no reason to make herself useful. For a whole minute she didn't.
When she put her feet down he was a few yards away, watching her face.
“What?”
“You look happy.”
“Try not to sound amazed.”
“I was going to say I'd forgotten what you look like when you're not concentrating.”
“That's worse.”
“Yes.” He wiped water from his forehead. “It came out worse.”
She laughed and splashed him. He splashed her back, one flat palm sending a sheet of water high enough to hit her shoulder. She gave an indignant gasp and went for him. He retreated laughing, not fast enough, and she got both hands on his shoulders before either remembered the game could end somewhere else.
He stood still beneath her hands.
Water lapped against her chest. Her foot found the floor between his. She could feel his breathing without looking at him, a small lift under each palm. When she did look, his amusement had not gone. It had become attentive.
“That was a very bad strategy,” he said.
“I hadn't finished.”
“All right.”
She left her hands there for another second, then let go and swam to the steps. He followed at a distance which gave her time to pull on her robe. She was grateful, but she also rather wished he hadn't been quite so considerate. Desire, apparently, could be tiresome in both directions.
The kitchen had closed. In the small sitting area beside the changing rooms stood a vending machine whose contents had less to do with health than its location suggested. Elias fed it coins for crisps and a chocolate bar. The chocolate caught on its metal spiral.
“Don't kick it,” Mara said.
“I wasn't going to.”
He pushed at the machine's side with the heel of his hand. Nothing happened. She bought the next bar, which brought both down. He looked affronted by the expense of the solution.
They sat on plastic chairs with their bare feet on the cool tiles. He gave her the extra chocolate. She broke it in half and handed some back, which seemed to please him more than accepting all of it would have.
“Did you swim much?” he asked.
“I used to. Then I always seemed to have something else to do.”
“I come down when I can't sleep.”
“Is there a lifeguard?”
“There are staff on night duty.”
“That wasn't the question.”
He opened his mouth, then shut it. “No.”
“Bad idea.”
“Probably.”
She ate a crisp. “I once slept in a client's dress.”
“What?”
“Not inside it. On top of it. I'd laid it over the sofa and thought I'd close my eyes for five minutes.”
“Was it damaged?”
“I had to steam a cheek print out of the train. No one ever knew. Until now.”
He looked at her cheek as though trying to picture it. The interest warmed her more than the robe.
“The worst argument we ever had,” he said, “was about a bath mat.”
She blinked. “You and Clara?”
He nodded. “She wanted it in front of the basin. I wanted it by the bath. We moved it back and forth for six weeks.”
“You owned a hotel. You could have had two.”
“I bought a second one. It was the wrong green.”
Mara began to laugh. He had given her no warning and was looking at the crisps with such serious dismay that she couldn't stop.
“What happened?”
“We stopped sharing the bathroom.” He waited until she'd recovered. “That sounds worse than it was. There were other reasons. The mat wasn't the decisive event.”
She wiped her eyes with a corner of the towel. “I hope you put it in the exhibition.”
He laughed then, a full foolish laugh that changed him. She wanted to hear it again. She wanted to be the person making it happen. That want, simple and greedy, was more frightening than his bare shoulders.
They fell quiet gradually. He asked about the bell above her shop door and she told him it had rung throughout a whole consultation when the council dug up the road. He told her the hotel had once advertised a honeymoon package which included a fishing trip. She asked who had booked it. Three people, apparently, and all three marriages had outlasted the package.
At half past nine she put on her shoes. He walked with her as far as the changing-room door.
“I'd like to kiss you,” he said.
There was a damp curl against his temple. She reached up and smoothed it back, because she'd been wanting to for most of the evening.
“I'd like that too.”
He came close. She felt the warmth of his hand at her waist through the robe before his mouth touched hers. The first kiss was gentle enough that she could have mistaken it for uncertainty. She leaned into the next one. He made a small sound, low in his throat, and she discovered that she'd had quite enough of gentleness for one evening.
She put a hand behind his neck and kissed him properly.
He held her closer, not carefully now, though she could feel how carefully he was attending. She was barefoot again; she'd stepped out of a shoe without noticing. The tiles were cold beneath her foot and his body was warm. When she drew back they were both breathing as though they'd finished another race.
“Not upstairs,” she said.
He touched his forehead to hers. “All right.”
“I'm not being coy. I'd like to. That's why I'm saying it now.”
“I understand.” His hand moved once along her back, then settled. “Dinner on Sunday?”
“An actual date?”
“An actual date.”
She kissed him once more, for the pleasure of finding she could. Then she put on her lost shoe and went in to change, smiling so hard her face felt unfamiliar.