Theo knew Mara was at the airport before he saw her because a woman near the departures board said, “I don't think you can take a whole cheese.”
He went around the pillar. Mara stood beside her suitcase holding a foil parcel. Freya had one finger pressed into its side.
“It's not a whole cheese,” Mara said. “It's the end of one.”
“It weighs more than my washbag.”
“Your washbag contains an eyeliner and a belief that someone else will bring sun cream.”
“Hello,” Theo said.
Mara turned. Her hair was tied up badly, with a piece loose against the side of her neck. She was wearing the green trousers he liked, and the trainers she'd once declared too ugly to be improved by comfort. He had seen her twice since the day he took his key off the ring: once to collect books and once to move the last boxes. Both times there had been a task between them. On the second visit they had kissed beside the boxes, then gone on carrying them out. He had not known what to say afterward. Here there was a week.
“You're early,” she said.
“I know. I've ruined your prepared remarks.”
She held out the parcel. “Breakfast?”
“Is it breakfast cheese?”
“It's holiday cheese.”
Freya looked at him with the particular careful kindness people had begun using. It made him want to ask for something unreasonable, simply to see what she would do. Instead he hugged her. She hugged him back hard enough to suggest she had never genuinely agreed to be on a side.
Kit arrived with coffees and a bag of pastries he'd already opened.
“We can all do this,” he said.
“Eat?” Mara asked.
“I meant the week.”
“That's ambitious. Let's start with eat.”
They found seats. Theo took the coffee Kit offered and moved Mara's suitcase so the handle wouldn't catch a passing trolley. She watched him, then gave him half of a pastry without asking. The pastry came apart precisely where it always did when she broke one: he got the larger portion, with almost none of the filling.
“A fair division,” he said.
“You get structural integrity.”
He missed her so suddenly that he had to look at the departures board.
For six weeks his rental had contained only the things he thought he'd need. Each morning supplied a new thing he had underestimated: a proper bowl, scissors, someone to tell about the pupil who had tried to explain that the homework was trapped inside a laptop which was itself trapped inside a wardrobe. He had told Kit about the wardrobe. Kit had laughed. He hadn't done Mara's serious face and asked whether the child could at least negotiate access to the hinges.
The final days of term had gone on around him with their usual triumphant exhaustion. His colleagues had asked about Spain in slightly lowered voices. He'd said he was still going, and people had said that was very mature. One of them had immediately asked whether he was sure.
He was sure about very little at the airport except that Mara had packed cheese and he was pleased to see her.
His parents found them before boarding. Sue wore a pale jacket which she took off and put back on twice while explaining how much warmer it would be in Mallorca. Bill was already in shorts.
“There they are,” Sue said, as if the two people travelling on the holiday she knew about had been discovered somewhere unexpected.
She hugged Mara first. Theo watched Mara lower her face to his mother's shoulder. Sue had always smelled faintly of hand cream and whatever she'd eaten on the way. Today it was peppermint.
“You look lovely,” Sue told her.
“It's four hours before I've got anything to look lovely for.”
“There's no reason not to start.”
Then Sue hugged Theo, holding on a fraction longer. He put a hand against her back. Behind her Bill nodded toward the pastry bag.
“Any left?”
“No,” Kit said, at the same moment Mara said, “Yes.”
She surrendered the parcel of cheese instead. Bill unwrapped it, looked delighted and asked whether anyone had a knife.
“It's an airport,” Theo said.
“I meant a plastic one.”
Freya found a small wooden spoon from a yoghurt she had not yet eaten. Bill accepted it as if this were the tool he'd had in mind all along. By the time he folded the empty foil, the spoon had lost its shape. Sue looked at him, then at the spoon, and decided to speak to somebody else.
“We are going to have a wonderful week,” she said to Theo. “Whatever happens.”
He glanced toward Mara, who was debating with Freya whether Bill could be accused of eating more than his share with such an inadequate implement.
“The party's Saturday,” he said. “That hasn't changed.”
“I know, darling.”
There was a lot inside darling. He took a drink of coffee, which gave his mouth something to do.
On the plane he and Mara had the seats they'd chosen months ago. She liked the window. He liked the aisle. The person between them did not arrive until almost everyone else was seated, and then turned out to be Mara's sister.
Leah stood in the aisle with a jacket, a paperback and a look that suggested somebody had done this to her on purpose.
“It's the booked seat,” Theo said.
“I know.”
“We could swap.”
“No. I'm delighted. I've got a whole novel about people making poor decisions.”
“Good of you to prepare,” Mara said.
Theo moved out while Leah sat down. Across the aisle Leah’s husband Daniel raised a hand. He had the seat in front of Bill and appeared to have already made some agreement about snacks.
“You could sit with Daniel,” Mara told Leah.
“Daniel has managed to get himself legroom. Daniel is no fool.”
The flight began with Leah between them, turning pages briskly. When Mara pointed something out through the window, she handed the view across via Leah, who leaned aside with exaggerated patience. Theo asked whether they could use her as a message service for the whole holiday. Leah said there would be rates.
Once they were in the air, she fell asleep.
Her head tipped toward Mara. Mara adjusted the folded jacket beneath it, tugged the edge down to cover her sister's shoulder and went back to looking out of the window. Theo watched her hand linger for a moment on the fabric.
He knew the sight of her loving somebody was not a case he could present to change her mind. He'd spent too long doing small, hopeful versions of that without ever quite admitting it. But he loved the hand. He loved the carelessness with which she gave tenderness when she wasn't being asked what it meant.
She looked across at him. He made a small gesture toward Leah's sleeping head, and she smiled.
“Rates suspended,” she whispered.
They had been good with Iris. He could still feel the child's damp hair beneath his palm when he'd dried it, her weight leaning against him while she insisted she was not tired. He had imagined another evening after the next one, and another after that, clothes drying over a radiator, a small person saying something unreasonable while they tried to leave the house. The untidy ordinary stretch of it. Not only an image of a family he could show his mother.
Mara had wanted that weekend with him. He'd known she had. The mistake had been making wanted larger every time he thought it.
He let Leah's jacket rest where Mara had put it and closed his eyes.
They reached Casa Brisa in the afternoon. Theo stepped out of the transfer into heat which immediately found the back of his shirt. The road had wound through low buildings and dry land and then given them a sudden glimpse of sea, astonishingly blue even after he'd seen the photographs. Now the resort stood ahead of them, pale walls and terraces, a line of palms whose shadows looked too deliberate.
Mara came down from the vehicle behind him, stopped on the bottom step and said, “Oh.”
He was glad she'd said it first.
The ridiculous place was beautiful.
There were stone paths between low buildings, bougainvillea spilling over a wall and people in wet swimwear walking unhurriedly toward a bar. Somebody was carrying a dish of fruit. Theo smelled warm bread beneath the stronger scent of flowers. The music reaching them from the pool had nothing to do with weddings. He wanted to go toward it, take off his shoes, find Mara a cold drink and begin.
Elena met them inside. He recognized her voice before she said her name. She shook hands, then offered both of them a welcome drink and asked about the journey with none of the pity he had braced for.
Mara took the glass and said the place looked exactly as bad for their judgement as they'd hoped.
“That is a good thing?” Elena asked.
“Very good.”
“Then I'm glad.”
Elena had separate envelopes for arriving guests and explained where supper would be served. Some friends were arriving later in the week. The room block was theirs, as planned. Saturday's terrace was theirs, as planned. The flowers, once they arrived, would look particularly good in the evening light.
“Including the vole,” Theo said.
Mara kicked his shoe.
Elena looked from one to the other. “Something to check?”
“No,” Mara said. “Private wildlife.”
The coordinator smiled without requiring further explanation. Theo liked her for it.
Then she gave them the villa key.
It was on a wooden tag. He looked at it for slightly too long before Mara reached for it.
“That's ours,” she said.
Elena offered to show them the way. Theo gathered their luggage, although Mara took her own suitcase out of his hand immediately. Outside, his mother was inspecting a flowering shrub with Bill, who was inspecting the direction of the pool bar. Leah had put on sunglasses. Daniel had taken off the shirt he'd worn over his T-shirt and tucked it into a bag.
“See you later,” Theo said.
“We'll leave you to settle in,” Sue said. “No rush.”
Leah looked at him over her glasses. He pretended not to see the look, then regretted the pretence because she was right to have made it.
The villa was at the end of a short path, a little apart from the rooms. Elena opened the gate onto a terrace. There was a table in the shade, two chairs and a view between the trees to the sea. Mara stopped again.
“We chose very well,” she said quietly.
Inside, everything was cool. Theo was immediately aware of how much he had sweated. There was a sitting room, a small kitchen at one side and a bedroom beyond. The daybed by the window was made with crisp cushions; Elena showed them where additional linen was kept. Separate sleep was entirely possible. Theo looked at the bedroom door, then at Mara, who had gone to examine the coffee machine.
“I can have the daybed,” he said.
“We can work it out in a minute.”
“I don't mind.”
“I haven't seen the bed yet. It might be worse.”
Elena showed them the bathroom, which was unlikely to be worse than anything Theo had ever slept in. There were two robes on hooks and enough small bottles to supply a chemist. Mara lifted one and sniffed it.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Very expensive optimism.”
“We'll need both bottles.”
Elena was laughing when she left. Mara walked into the bedroom. Theo remained in the sitting room, one hand on the handle of his suitcase.
He had thought about another room before they came. He could afford one by doing several other things less well for a while. At his rental he had a chair which was only comfortable if he sat sideways, and he had been putting off buying a second lamp. It seemed absurd to pay to sleep alone in Spain when there was a perfectly good daybed and he already knew how to sleep alone in Bristol.
Mara came back carrying a cushion embroidered with their initials.
“Look.”
“Oh, no.”
“They've made a cushion.”
“For the wedding?”
“No, Theo. For a different Mara and Theo.”
He took it. Their letters curled into each other above a small spray of stitched leaves. It was hideous. It was also rather lovely, in a way he didn't want to have to account for.
“We could use it at the party,” he said.
“We could use it to settle disputes. Whoever's holding the cushion has to shut up.”
He pressed it to his face.
She laughed and tried to pull it away. He held on for a second, then let her have it. Her fingers brushed his wrist. They both stopped smiling quite as much.
“I can ask Elena about a room,” he said.
Mara looked around the sitting room. “Do you want one?”
“Not particularly.”
“Me neither.”
“All right.”
She put the cushion on the daybed. “We can be sensible.”
“In here?”
“With breaks.”
He opened his suitcase and took out the clean shirt he had put near the top. Mara went to the terrace and came back to tell him there was a tiny lizard on the wall. He followed her to look. By the time they were both standing outside, the lizard had gone.
“You've made it up,” he said.
“Yes. To lure you into this terrifying outside area.”
He rested a hand on the warm wall where she said it had been. The sea showed blue through the trees. Somewhere beyond the villas his father's laugh rose above the music, followed by a sound that could only be a chair being dragged closer to a table.
Mara leaned against the doorway, shading her eyes.
“Shall we go and get something cold?” she asked.
Theo turned toward her, his hand still warm from the wall. He had arrived. She was here. It was going to take an enormous amount of sense to remember what else was true.