The wedding dress arrived in Mara's workroom at eleven on Monday morning and immediately made everything else look like washing.
It stood in the middle of the floor, taking the light, while she tried to find a place for the empty cover. Her own display form had been borrowed from the florist's window years earlier and wore a dark mark on its neck where a necklace had rusted. The new form was padded to Clara's dimensions. It had come with the dress, lent through the exhibition office, and was rather better dressed than anyone else in the building.
“Turn it,” Mara said.
Elias turned it the wrong way.
“No, towards me.”
“You said turn it.”
“I was pointing.”
“I was watching the bottom.”
The skirt caught lightly against the cutting table. They both stopped. Mara supported the edge while he moved the stand out of the way.
“We're all right,” she said after checking. “Try again.”
He took a breath and turned it. This time it fitted between the table and the sewing machine, leaving a narrow route to the sink. Mara put her hands on her hips. The room looked impossibly full.
“I can take the table apart,” he said.
“No.”
“You can't work around that.”
“I can move the rack.”
He looked at the rack, which was full. “Where?”
“Out back. The coat linings won't mind the florist watching them.”
“Then why don't I move it?”
“Because you're still holding the stand.”
He looked at his own hand and laughed. She grinned despite herself. The move had been arranged independently, the carrier already gone, and now there was no task keeping him here except the one she invented next.
“You can put the kettle on.”
“Where?”
She pointed at the sink behind him. He turned, surveyed the two feet of space and the kettle beside the soap, and said, “Right.”
At noon she started the day's actual work. He sat on the windowsill with tea that had gone cold and answered emails. She unpicked a section of old waist stay, supporting the cloth beneath it. The original tape had gone brittle at the fold. A fine loose powder came away on her fingers.
“Don't replace all of it,” he said.
She looked up. “I need to support that side.”
“I understand. I mean the rest.”
“I wasn't planning to.”
“The first proposal said replacement.”
“The first proposal was made before I got inside it.”
He put down the phone. “I'd like to keep as much as possible.”
“So would I. I'd also like it not to fall apart.”
“I don't need you to speak as though I haven't understood a sentence.”
She put the needle down. He was flushed, and she could feel heat in her own face. The smallness of the room made their irritation immediate and embarrassing.
“Look,” she said, and held the damaged tape across her palm.
He came close to see, bending without putting his weight on the table. The light caught the fresh grey at his temple.
“I read the proposal,” he said. “That's all I had to go on.”
She rubbed the powder off her fingertips. “Sorry. I should have shown you.”
He nodded, still looking at the break.
“That section needs replacing,” she said. “The old piece can stay with the record.”
“Fine.”
“Fine?”
“Yes.” He looked at her. “Do you need a longer argument?”
She laughed, surprised enough to lean against him for a moment. His arm came around her.
She turned her face into his neck. He smelled of soap, clean wool and the outside air. The desire she'd carried from the pool, carefully folded into the less convenient days since, opened so suddenly that she had to close her eyes.
“You can't do that while I'm holding a needle,” she said.
“I thought you'd put it down.”
“I have.”
He kissed the top of her head. “Then I can.”
She stayed there long enough to feel his breathing change. When she stepped away she did it slowly, allowing her hand to travel down his arm.
“I have three hours' work,” she said. “Then I'm going to make dinner upstairs. You could stay.”
“I'd like to.”
“You don't have to sit there the whole time.”
He had meetings. Of course he did. He went back to the hotel, promising to return at seven, and Mara spent the next three hours almost unbearably aware of the evening waiting beyond her work.
She made pasta with mushrooms and too much garlic. At half past six she showered, tried on a dress, took it off and put on loose black trousers with a blouse she liked but ordinarily saved for a reason. Then she stopped looking in the mirror. At seven he knocked on the downstairs door with bread from the bakery, which she'd asked him to bring. He had changed his shirt. She liked him for bothering.
The table upstairs was too small for the bowls, the bread and both of their glasses. They ate with their knees touching, and he told her about a guest who had posted the television remote home by accident. She described the January dress and found herself sketching the sleeve with a finger on the table.
“You like that one,” he said.
“I haven't agreed to make it.”
“Why not?”
“I don't know.”
She did know. He asked about the fabric instead, and she told him. Soon she was describing how a woman ought to be able to reach for a plate without her whole dress following her arm.
“I'd like to show people that,” she said. “Not just have a thing standing in a window. Let them see it on someone who needs to move.”
He put down his fork. “You'd be good at that.”
“I might be unbearable. There's only one way to find out.”
After dinner he washed while she dried. The kitchen gave them no room to pass without touching. Twice he moved out of her way; the third time she put the tea towel down and stopped him.
“You can stay closer.”
He looked at her, then set the wet bowl in the rack. “Here?”
She put her hands at his waist and brought him to her. “Here.”
The kiss was nothing like the pool. There was time in it now, and no one had a robe to clutch shut. She felt him smile once against her mouth before the smile became something else. His hand moved along her back beneath the loose fall of her blouse, warm through the fabric. She pulled him nearer, then leaned away enough to look at him.
“I'd like you to stay tonight.”
“Yes.” He touched her cheek, careful now for a different reason. “Are you sure?”
She kissed the centre of his palm. “I'm sure.”
She took his hand and led him past the small table, past the chair with her discarded dress on it. In the bedroom he stopped beside her while she unfastened the first button of his shirt. His eyes stayed on her face. She undid the next button slowly, enjoying his attention.
He said her name. She heard the question in it and answered by drawing him back to her, laughing softly when they knocked the lamp crooked. They set it straight together. Then she switched it off, and the remainder of the evening was theirs.