Episodul 234 · Enough for Four

Maxim came through Krista’s door with a paper bag held above Lucky’s nose.

— Lunch, he announced. Before anyone starts thanking me, there’s a chicken in here and I’m tired.

Soles got up. Maxim put the bag down and caught him in a hug. The pressure pulled at Soles’s ribs; he shifted, and Maxim loosened his arms.

— You could have mentioned the holes.

— I was waiting to see what you’d brought.

Maxim held him a moment longer, then let go.

Tesa came in behind him. She stopped in front of Soles, taking in his face and the dressing showing at his cuff, then put her hand against his shoulder, clear of the cuts.

— You look like hell.

— I’ve missed you too. Every day of it.

She pulled him close, briefly, keeping her arm high across his back. When she stepped away, she wiped a streak of dust from his sleeve. Across her left knuckles ran a row of small white scars he did not know. He looked at them, then at Krista, and decided that was one of the things he had missed.

Krista had opened the bag.

— You bought half a chicken.

— Enough for four sensible people, Maxim said.

Tesa took off her coat.

— So you’re eating on the way home?

Soles laughed, properly, for the first time in months. His ribs caught halfway through, and he put a hand against his side.

— Damn it. Give me a chance.

— She’s had months to prepare, Maxim told him. I’ve been taking these alone.

Krista made room on the counter. Soles reached for plates, but Tesa was already at the cupboard.

— Sit. Tell me where they are.

— You’re holding them.

— See? Useful already.

He sat beside Krista. Maxim lowered the chicken onto a dish while Lucky followed every movement. Mina had stayed beneath Soles’s chair; when he moved his foot, she leaned harder against it.

For a few minutes he could keep up. Maxim complained about the price, Krista checked the receipt and found the pastries he had bought for himself, and Soles helped him argue that a man carrying lunch deserved payment in advance.

Tesa ate one of the pastries while they were arguing.

Then Maxim asked about the journey. Soles told him about the change of trains and the coffee he had paid for and abandoned after one mouthful.

— Next time call before you get on, Tesa said.

He reached for his cup.

— I did call.

— This time.

— He wrote to me, Krista said quietly. Before he left. I read it on Sunday, under the bridge.

Maxim stopped pulling the paper away from the bread. Tesa kept her attention on Soles.

— You decided you were going. We got to find out afterward. Then we were meant to carry on until you decided to answer.

He remembered the room before he left, the reasons that had seemed to fit together so neatly.

— I thought it would keep you out of it.

— We were already in it.

The cup was warm between his hands. He could explain the bargain, what the agency had held over them, how little room he had felt he had. Tesa knew enough of that already.

— I know. I should have spoken to you.

— You should have let us answer.

He set the cup down.

— Yes.

She held his gaze a moment, then reached across for the bread.

Soles stayed still until Krista moved the plate closer to him. He took a piece. Tesa was cutting the chicken, giving him time to do something ordinary.

— How’s work? he asked Maxim.

— Which part? The driving, the lifting, or lying awake doing both?

— The bit you charge for.

— Oh. Could be worse.

Maxim tore bread from the loaf. Soles waited.

— I’ve had help with the runs, Maxim added. Turns out other people can find addresses. Some can even reverse.

— Terrible news for the business.

— I drove over to check one delivery. Got there after he’d unloaded. He asked if I’d come to carry the empty straps.

Tesa passed him the dish.

— Had you?

— I was supervising.

— From another vehicle, Soles said. Expensive way to stand around.

Maxim pointed the bread at him.

— He’s been back ten minutes.

Soles smiled, then asked him what he wanted to do about it. Maxim took longer over that answer.

— Keep the work. Let somebody else get on with some of it. I’m trying.

His phone sounded in his coat. He checked the screen, typed a reply and put it back. When he reached for it again, Krista offered him the chicken.

He took the dish instead.

Tesa had brought Soles the smaller pieces. He thanked her and asked about her brother.

Her knife stopped against the plate.

— Later. Not over chicken.

— Can I help?

— You can listen. After.

He nodded.

— I mean it, she said. It’s a long one. I want to tell it properly.

She resumed cutting. Soles kept his questions to himself this time and ate what she had put on his plate.

Across the table, Maxim was letting Lucky smell his empty hand.

— You had breakfast, he told the dog. I watched you have it. Mina watched you have it. There were witnesses.

Lucky put his chin on Maxim’s knee.

— That’s the face he uses when I open his bill, Soles said.

Krista laughed into her cup. Tesa pushed the pastry paper farther from Lucky’s reach.

Soles wanted another afternoon of this. He wanted to hear about a late customer and an ordinary bad day at the exhibition. He turned to Krista.

— And you? How much have I missed?

She rubbed a spot of grease from the table with her thumb.

— Quite a lot.

— Still the catalogue?

— That too.

Tesa put her knife down. Beside her, Maxim drew his chair closer to the table.

Krista got her bag and brought out a second notebook. Its cover was bent; dust remained in the join beside the spine. She laid it in the space between their plates.

— Some of the days I said I was working, I was somewhere else.

Soles recognized the care in the small drawings on the first page. He drew his plate back to give her room.

Tesa reached over and turned to a page farther in.

— Start here, she said. He’ll need this bit first.

Soles settled back beside Krista and listened.