Robin was waiting on the corner at a quarter to six. Emily saw him outside the windows as the owner locked up the prescription stores for the night and she smiled.
“Thank you Emily, that’ll be all for today,” said Mr. Taylor. He smiled at her smile. He was a widower in his early sixties.
Emily stepped quickly up the wooden stairs to the staffroom and locked the door. She had brought a tote bag of clothes into work, and she changed slowly, knowing she had time, smoothing the fabric of her skirt down over her thighs and applying her make up in a small compact mirror. She took a deep breath, picked up her coat, and left.
Mr. Taylor locked the front of the shop and bid Emily goodnight. Robin stood awkwardly with his shoulders hunched and his hands in his jean pockets, smiling at her, until Mr. Taylor had turned the corner. His hair was moving jerkily in the wind.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “I was early.”
Emily moved towards him and hesitated. He smiled and relaxed his shoulders and put his arms around her. She hugged him back, and kissed him lightly on the cheek as they parted.
“It’s okay. You’d be surprised at how much I prefer that to the alternative.”
She lay her arm in the crook of his and they began to walk. Her heels were loud on the paving stones. Robin looked across at her and she turned to him, too, without stopping. He smiled, pleased to be open with her.
“I wasn’t sure where you wanted to go,” he said. “What kind of food do you like?”
“Oh, anything. I’m not fussy.”
“Would you like to go to the White Elephant?”
“What, the Indian place on Frith Street?”
“I mean, if you don’t like Indian, there’s Italian just up from there, only I’ve never been in.”
“No, the Elephant is fine,” she said.
The Parade was heavy with traffic and they stopped, waiting to cross. Emily was holding his arm closely. Robin looked quickly into her eyes and kissed her on the mouth, and she held him there and with his eyes closed Robin felt deeply peaceful and excited at the same time. When they finished kissing, the crossing was clear.
“Come on,” she said, and tugged his arm gently.
They crossed the street and they were both smiling.
“I wondered if you would call,” she said. “I promised myself I wouldn’t do that again.”
“Do what?”
“Give someone my number and not take theirs and just wait for them to call.”
“Oh, right.”
“Not that it happens a lot, mind you.”
“No? I told you I would call.”
“Again, you’d be surprised,” she tucked herself tighter into him and he put his arm around her. She shook her hair in the breeze when they turned the corner.
“What are you in the mood for?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I’ll just look at the menu.”
They crossed another street where the lower backs of the big buildings were and the streets ran narrow. A few of them had been converted into restaurants and shops. They passed Piccolino’s, the Italian restaurant, which was busy through the glass, and stopped outside The White Elephant. Robin ran his finger down the menu in the window. The restaurant had white net curtains hanging in the windows so that it was difficult to see the interior. Emily put her face close to the glass.
“Here’s the menu. What do you fancy?”
Emily shifted back and looked at the menu quickly, running a finger down the glass as Robin had done, trailing off at the end of the last column.
“You know what I fancy?” she said, brightly.
“What?”
“I’ve got two frozen pizzas and a bottle of wine in my fridge. What do you say?”
She kissed him again before he could answer and it ached him when she pulled away.
“Okay,” he said, whispering.
When she was naked she moved in a different way to the two girls Robin had slept with. She meant it when she moved and she gave of herself in each movement and you could see her intent in the motion. And she felt different. Her skin was gentler, and it gave more under his fingertips and he liked that she was soft. She was asleep on his arm and the orange of the lights on her street made a thin fine line of colour on the walls of the room which was dark.
He looked at her and tried to see the age in her face. Her forehead was crumpled against the skin of his arm, but apart from that there was not a line on her skin that he could see. When she was awake there were the smile lines around her eyes and the curve of her cheek was defined, but she was asleep and she was ageless.
A car went past outside and the lights spanned across the bedroom wall.
He kissed her forehead and gently lifted her head off his arm and pulled a pillow underneath, being careful not to snag her hair. She did not wake up. He slipped out from between the sheets and left the bedroom and walked naked into the kitchen. The oven was on. Robin turned it off. The two pizzas lay wet and defrosted on the worksurface, and the bottle of wine was open but not touched. He walked through to the bathroom and used the toilet.
When he came back into the kitchen the tarpaulin floor was cold on his feet and he stopped in the middle of the room. He looked at the fridge for a moment and then opened it. There was nothing he could eat quickly, so he closed the door and turned around. There was a photograph framed on the wall and Robin peered at it. It showed Emily laughing with a man he did not recognise.
Robin did not sleep well, so when the orange street light outside Emily’s bedroom curtains switched off and the low paleness of the morning replaced it, he got up and made himself a cup of coffee. She followed when the noise of the kettle woke her.
“It’s early,” she said, and she kissed him on the cheek when she came into the kitchen. She was wearing a pink dressing gown and her feet were bare.
“I couldn’t sleep,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Did I talk much in the night?”
“You mumbled a bit, but that’s all. Do you do that a lot?”
“Apparently,” she said.
Robin looked at the photograph. Emily did not notice.
“Kettle’s just boiled,” he said.
“Thanks.” Emily moved over to him and as he put his drink down she slipped her arms around him and rested her cheek on his shoulder.
“Oh God,” she said. “I’m going to have to throw those pizzas away, they’ve been out all night.”
“It’s okay. Not the end of the world,” said Robin, squeezing her.
They kissed.
“Oh bugger, and the wine, as well,” she said, and smiled.
“That could be the end of the world. Was it a good bottle?”
“Not really. And you didn’t eat! What kind of a hostess am I?”
They were both smiling and they kissed for a long time.
“I need to go,” said Robin. “I have lectures today and I need to get home and change.”
“Do you want something to eat before you go? I’ve got some eggs.”
“No, no, it’s okay. I’ll have something at home before I go into campus.”
She stepped away from him and got a mug out of the cupboard. Robin looked at the photograph again and took a deep breath.
“Who's in the photograph?” he asked.
Emily looked over her shoulder at the frame on the wall as she unscrewed the lid of the jar of instant coffee.
“David,” she said. “My ex-husband.”
She paused.
“But you’re not stupid. You knew that,” she said.
“I wondered if you were just separated or-”
“No. We’re divorced. Came through two months ago.”
Emily looked at Robin and he did not like her expression. Her features were tense and her mouth was thin. She poured the water into her mug and stirred the coffee hard, and the spoon caught the sides.
“He left. He just left me, left his job, everything, and went.”
Robin’s breathing was shorter and quicker and he was nervous.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Emily did not say anything, but she raised her head and looked at Robin and her face was still hard.
“How long were you married?”
Emily’s cheeks rose as though she was about to smile and her eyes narrowed.
“Four years.”
“Oh.”
She smiled intensely at him, breathing deeply.
“It’s okay. It was happening anyway. He left because it wasn’t working. It was probably for the best.”
Robin reached out and she took his hand and squeezed it.
“How long ago?”
“A year, more or less. It was last October.”
All of the strength and tension was gone from her stance and she looked tired. Robin let go of her hand and put his arms around her.
“Hey,” he said, and kissed her.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I was going to tell you but I didn’t want you to get scared.”
He lifted her face up in his hands and looked her in the eye. She was blinking a lot.
“Do I look scared?” he said. “Do I look scared?”
“No,” said Emily in a small voice.
They stood and held each other.
“I need to go,” he said.
“I know, I know,” she said and she pulled away from him and wiped her cheeks because she was starting to cry.
“I really need to. Any other day and I’d stay.”
“It’s all right. I’m fine, really.”
Robin hesitated. He wanted to cry as well because he did not know what to do.
“Okay.”
He kissed her goodbye and she stood at the door watching him as he walked down the street. He crossed onto The Parade through the park. There was no traffic and the streets were clear. He was very hungry and when he saw people working through the window of a bakery he crossed the street. A sign on the door of the shop said that it was closed it wouldn’t be open until eight o’clock. A woman in a purple shirt and a white apron smiled at Robin apologetically through the glass.
When he let himself into his house nobody was awake and he very quietly had a shower and some toast before picking up his bag and leaving again. The bus to campus was half-full and Robin had a full seat to himself and he sat and stared out of the window for the whole journey.
Emily had to work that Saturday because Tina was off sick, but Robin met her afterwards. The afternoon was colder but there was very little wind.
“Hi,” she said, coming out of the chemist door in her work clothes. She smiled at Robin and he kissed her.
“Let’s definitely eat, this time,” he said, and she laughed.
“I’m in the mood for Italian,” she said.
“But not pizza?” said Robin.
“No. Not pizza,” she said, and they kissed again.
They walked up The Parade and through the park and Robin sat on Emily’s bed and watched her and she smiled at him while she took off her clothes and pulled on a dress. He did not touch her until she came over to him and bent to kiss him.
“Wow,” he said. “You look phenomenal.”
“Thank you,” she said. “Now. Before we forget. Food.”
“Food.”
They were shown to a table for two towards the back of Piccolino’s, and the waiter held back the chair for Emily. She thanked him as they sat down and the waiter placed two glasses of water on the table.
“Would you like anything to drink?” asked the waiter. His accent was thick.
“Nothing for me, thank you,” said Emily.
“Peroni, grazie,” said Robin.
The waiter handed them their menus, nodded, and left. Emily sipped her glass of water.
“Come here a lot, do you?” she smiled.
“I think I've been here twice,” said Robin.
“Your Italian accent seems pretty good,” she laughed.
“Thank you,” he said. “I do it at uni.”
“Italian? Oh, I suppose it’s all those painters, Leonardo da Vinci and that.”
“Well, it’s part of my course,” said Robin. “I’m doing a term in Venice in the new year.”
“Venice!”
Robin nodded. The waiter brought the bottle of beer and placed it in front of him.
“I’m jealous. I’ve always wanted to go to Italy. I’ve only ever been to Spain,” said Emily. “When are you going?”
“Early January. The fifth or sixth, I think. I can’t remember.”
“That’s wonderful. It’s supposed to be beautiful. Have you been before?”
“No, but I’ve read a lot about it,” said Robin.
The waiter came up to the table again.
“Are you ready to order?” he asked.
“Sorry,” said Robin, “I’ve not even looked at the menu yet.”
“That’s okay,” said Emily.
The waiter left.
“Venice. Wow.”
“Yeah. The university has a centre there, and I’m doing a module on the Renaissance in Venice and Florence, lectures, libraries, galleries, everything.”
“That sounds wonderful.”
“I hope so,” said Robin. “I’ve got to go regardless. What do you want to eat?
“The vegetable lasagne, I think. You?”
“The zitti. It looks good. Are you sure you don’t want any wine?”
“No, I’m fine,” said Emily.
Emily reached across the table and took Robin’s hand. There was a small tea lamp in a glass jar in the middle of the table and the flame flickered as Robin sighed.
“I was really nervous about today,” he said.
“I was too.”
“It’s just that I saw the mark on your finger and I wasn’t sure but I thought you’d say something and I really like you and it didn’t matter to me if it didn’t matter to you, so I thought I’d just keep quiet but then there was that picture so I had to ask.”
“I know. I only stopped wearing the ring when the papers came through. I don’t know why. And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before, but it seemed too soon. I didn’t want to scare you. I didn’t want this to affect that.”
“It won’t.”
“Sure?”
“Yes. I don’t want it to. It’s okay.”
“Good.”
The waiter came over to the table again and they ordered. Emily handed her menu to the waiter and smiled at Robin when he had gone.
“And I really like you, too,” she said.
The next morning before Robin woke up Emily took the photograph off the nail in the wall of the kitchen and put it in a suitcase behind the settee.
The flat was very quiet and the day was going to be grey. Emily returned to bed and the movement woke Robin.
“Morning,” he said.
“Hi,” she said, and kissed him.
She relaxed between the sheets next to him and sighed.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine,” she said.
He kissed the top of her head as she lay it on his arm and she tilted her head up and kissed him on the mouth. She shifted her weight across the bed and on top of him and they made love.
