Run: 2026-09-23-01M37HM2QJG6C8G7605B0RX3MP

Rory had come downstairs to borrow a lemon. There were three in the bowl behind the bar, though none in her flat, and she had already put water on for tea. She meant to take one, tell Silas in the morning, and go back upstairs. But the rain had driven people in from Soho, and Silas was busy drawing a pint for a man who kept tapping his card against the counter as if it might hurry the beer. Rory waited by the end of the bar, beneath a photograph of a bridge she had never thought to ask him about. The green neon sign outside cast a thin wash of colour across the front window. Each time the door opened, rain blew over the threshold and someone complained about the weather. Rory took a lemon from the bowl. She was turning it in her hand, looking for a soft spot, when the woman beside her said, “You used to do that with oranges.” Rory looked up. Eva stood with one elbow on the bar. For a moment Rory could see the girl who had sat next to her in classrooms in Cardiff, pressing her thumb into every orange at lunch until she found one that gave. Then Eva turned fully towards her, and the resemblance became difficult work. Her hair, once long and coppery, was cut close to her head and dyed a dark brown. She wore a charcoal coat with its belt tied neatly behind her, and there were fine lines at the corners of her eyes that Rory had no right to be surprised by. “Eva?” “I wasn’t sure it was you.” Eva’s gaze dropped to the lemon. “Then you did that.” Rory set it down. “What are you doing here?” “Having a drink.” Eva glanced at the glass in front of her. It held water, half gone. “I had a meeting nearby. I saw the sign and came in out of the rain.” Silas looked over from the taps. His eyes moved from Eva to Rory and stayed on Rory a beat longer. She gave him a small nod. Whatever he made of it, he turned back to his customer. “You’re in London,” Rory said. “For tonight.” It was such an ordinary answer that Rory almost asked where Eva was staying, whether the meeting had gone well. Years ago, she would have asked everything at once. Instead she rested her palms against the edge of the bar. The wood was tacky beneath one hand. “You look different,” she said. Eva gave a short laugh. “That bad?” “No. Your hair.” “I got tired of looking after it.” Rory remembered winding that hair around Eva’s pencil during a lecture at university. She had been avoiding the notes in front of her, a page full of terms she’d chosen because her father would recognise them. Eva had left the lecture early for a shift at the cinema and later called to ask what she’d missed. Rory had read the terms aloud, making both of them laugh, and then helped Eva finish an essay over the phone. Their lives had seemed close enough to borrow from each other then. Eva tucked a hand into her coat pocket. “I wondered if you still lived here.” “Above it, yes.” “I remember you telling me about the flat.” Rory looked at her. “That was a long time ago.” “Yes.” A group squeezed past them towards a table under the old maps. Rory shifted closer to the bar to let them through. Eva moved too, and they ended up standing shoulder to shoulder, both facing the bottles lined against the mirrored wall. Silas came down to their end. “Rory. Everything all right?” “Yes.” She picked up the lemon. “I was just stealing this.” “You know where the till is.” He looked at Eva. “Can I get you anything?” Eva lifted her glass. “I’m fine, thank you.” “Silas, this is Eva. We grew up together.” “Ah.” He held out his right hand. His silver signet ring caught the light as Eva shook it. “Good to meet you.” “You too.” Rory had told Silas about Eva when she first arrived in London. He knew she was the one who had told Rory to get on a train, and the one who had answered the telephone every time Rory nearly went back. Looking at him now, Rory couldn’t tell whether he remembered. “I’ll be upstairs in a minute,” she said. Silas’s gaze flicked to the lemon. “Kettle on?” “It was.” He went to serve someone else. Rory placed the lemon beside Eva’s water. She could make tea later. “How long has it been?” Eva asked. “Six years since we’ve seen each other.” Rory did not have to count. “Nearly four since we spoke.” Eva ran a finger around the rim of her glass. “I wasn’t going to bring that up straightaway.” “Why not?” “Because I’d only just found you.” Rory looked towards the front window. Beyond the green reflection, people crossed the street under umbrellas, their shoes breaking the shine of the pavement. She had spent the first months in London listening for footsteps on the stairs outside her flat. When the phone rang, she let it ring until it stopped, even when she knew the number. Eva’s calls had become less frequent. Rory had understood why at the time, or told herself she did. “I should have answered you,” she said. “You answered sometimes.” “Not at the end.” Eva took a drink of water. “I was angry with you.” “I know.” “I thought you’d gone back to him.” “I hadn’t.” “I know that now.” Eva set the glass down too hard, and a little water jumped onto the bar. She caught it with her sleeve. “I didn’t know then. I called the restaurant because your mobile was off. The woman who answered said you were out on deliveries. I didn’t want to ask her anything else.” “Yu-Fei would have told me you called.” “She did. You still didn’t ring.” Rory folded her arms, then unfolded them. The crescent scar on her left wrist showed below her sleeve. She pulled the cuff down, annoyed with herself for doing it. “You were the only person who knew everything,” she said. “I couldn’t talk to you without talking about him.” “You could have talked about what you’d had for breakfast.” “I know. I know that now.” Eva watched her. She had always been patient when Rory struggled to say what she meant, though patience had once made Rory push harder against her. “You were frightened,” Eva said. “Yes. And I was ashamed that you knew.” “I never wanted that.” “I know.” The man with the pint was telling Silas an elaborate story about a lost umbrella. Silas listened while he wiped a spill from the counter. At the far end of the bar, someone laughed loudly enough to make the man pause. Rory felt a brief, unreasonable gratitude for the noise. She and Eva could stand close together and say things neither of them could have managed in a quiet room. “You could have been angry,” Rory said. “You’d paid for the ticket. You came to the station.” “Of course I came.” “I was awful to you on the platform.” Eva looked down at her hands. “You were trying to get on a train.” Rory remembered a vending machine that ate Eva’s coins, the departure board changing while they watched, Eva offering to call Brendan and Jennifer when Rory reached London. Rory had snapped that she would handle her own parents. Eva had stepped back. Later, through the train window, Rory had seen her standing where Rory had left her, one hand raised without quite waving. “I wanted you to come after me,” Rory said. “Once I was here. Then every time you tried, I made it impossible.” “That sounds like you,” Eva said, and smiled a little. Rory smiled back before she could stop herself. Then she saw how carefully Eva held the smile, as though either of them might ask it to do too much. “Are you still in Cardiff?” Rory asked. “No. Bristol. I moved three years ago.” “What do you do there?” “I work at a hospice. Administration, mostly. Rosters, referrals, chasing people for forms.” Eva looked towards the crowded room. “I spend a lot of time trying to make sure someone gets the right chair when their family visits.” Rory pictured Eva at a desk with a telephone tucked against her ear, moving names around on a list until there was space for one more person. “You’d be good at that.” “Some days.” Eva gave her a sidelong look. “You still deliver food?” “Four days a week. Sometimes five.” “And the other days?” Rory thought of the books stacked on her table upstairs, the applications she had started and not sent, the hours she spent helping Silas sort invoices when his knee troubled him. “They go quickly.” Eva nodded, but Rory could see she was waiting. “I meant to finish my degree,” Rory said. “When I got here. I kept thinking I’d settle down and go back to it.” “Do you want to?” “I don’t know.” It was the first time she had said so without trying to turn it into a plan. Eva took that in, then glanced at the photograph above them. “Your dad must have asked,” she said. “He still sends me articles about Cardiff’s law courses. Mum asks whether I’m eating properly. They’re both being kind.” “They miss you.” “I visit.” “I know.” Eva hesitated. “I’ve seen your mother once or twice. At the market.” Rory could imagine Jennifer standing by a vegetable stall, talking to Eva about the weather while both of them thought of her. The thought made her turn the lemon beneath her palm again. “How is she?” Rory asked. “Your mother? Good, I think. She said she’d taken a pottery class. She showed me a picture of a bowl.” “She made me two. Neither sits flat.” Eva laughed. This time it came easily. Rory heard the girl she remembered in it and had to look away. Silas passed behind them carrying a crate of clean glasses. He favoured his left leg after a long evening, though his pace did not slow. He caught Rory watching and raised his brows. She shook her head. He took the crate through the door at the back. Eva followed her gaze. “He looks after you.” “We look after each other.” “That’s good.” Rory wanted to tell her about the first winter in the flat, when Silas had noticed she kept buying bread but nothing to put on it. He had begun leaving soup downstairs at closing time, always too much for himself, he said. She wanted to tell Eva that Yu-Fei still sent her out with an extra carton when she knew Rory had missed lunch. There had been good days in these years, and people who knew her on them. Eva had not been there because Rory had stopped letting her in. “I’m sorry,” Rory said. Eva leaned an elbow on the counter. “For not calling?” “For letting you think you’d failed me.” Eva’s face changed. She turned towards her glass and held it with both hands. “I did think that.” “You got me here.” “I know. I can look at it sensibly most of the time.” She drew a breath. “But when you stopped answering, I went over everything I’d said. I wondered if I’d pushed you too hard, or if I’d made you feel you owed me.” “You didn’t.” “I’m glad.” Eva pressed her lips together. “I wish I’d known sooner.” Rory nodded. She could offer an explanation for every unanswered call. None would give Eva back the years she had spent wondering. They stood without speaking while Silas returned from the back and the rain eased against the window. At last Eva checked the time on her phone. “I need to get to the station.” “Already?” “My train’s at ten.” Rory looked at the clock behind the bar. There was time, if Eva left soon. She found herself wanting to ask her to miss it, to stay upstairs and drink the tea Rory had meant to make. She knew almost nothing about Eva’s life now beyond where she worked. There was so much to ask that the twenty minutes left to them felt unusable. “I could walk you out,” Rory said. Eva nodded. Rory put money beside the lemon bowl. Silas saw it and shook his head, but she left it there. At the door, Eva stopped to fasten her coat. Rory held it open, and the damp air touched her face. The street was bright after the bar, headlights passing over wet brick and the feet of people hurrying home. “Would you want to have coffee sometime?” Eva asked. “I come to London for work every few months.” “Yes.” Rory took out her phone. “Can I have your number?” Eva recited it while Rory entered it. When Rory sent a message, Eva’s phone lit up in her hand. For a second they both looked at the screen. “There,” Rory said. “I’ve got you.” A taxi slowed near the kerb, hoping for a fare. Eva stepped aside to let it pass. Rory thought of the station in Cardiff and the train window between them, how young Eva had looked as it pulled away. She knew Eva must remember a different Rory standing on the other side of that glass. “Text me when you get back,” Rory said. “If you like.” “I will.” Eva put her phone away and touched Rory’s arm, briefly, above the wrist. Then she started down the street towards the station. Rory watched until Eva reached the corner and turned. Inside, someone was asking Silas about the photographs on the wall. Rory went back to the bar and picked up the lemon. Its skin had warmed in her hand. Upstairs, the kettle would be cold, and she would have to fill it again.