The Bench

The Bench

The bench had been there longer than either of them. Green paint over old green paint, slats worn smooth in the middle where people sat, rough at the edges where they didn't. A coffee cup on the armrest between them, cooling.

She had brought the coffee. She had set it on the armrest. She had not touched it in twenty minutes.

"It's cold," he said.

"It's been cold," she said.

He looked at the water. The sea was grey because it was early, and because the sky was grey, and because the water took its colour from whatever was above it. He had always thought this was obvious. The water was grey because the sky was grey. When the sky changed, the water would change. There was nothing to read into it.

"The water's grey," he said.

"It's the before," she said.

"The before what?"

"The before. The thing that comes before the thing."

He didn't ask what she meant. He had known her long enough to know that asking would make it worse. She would explain, and the explanation would be larger than the original statement, and he would be further from understanding than when he started. He looked at the water instead.

A fishing line drifted from the railing. Someone had left it there - a hand-line, no rod, just a spool and a hook and a line trailing into the grey water. The line was taut. Something was on it, or the current was pulling it. Either way, it was moving.

"There's a fish on that line," he said.

"Or the current," she said.

"It's a fish."

"It's the current."

He watched the line. The taut part moved left, then right, then left again. It could be a fish. It could be the current. There was no way to know without pulling it up, and neither of them was going to pull it up.

She picked up the coffee. Not to drink it - to hold it. Both hands around the cup, the way someone holds something when their hands need something to do.

"You're not drinking it," he said.

"I'm holding it."

"Same cup. Same coffee. Same cold."

"Different reason."

He wanted to say: there's only one reason to hold a cup. You hold it to drink. You hold it because it's warm. You don't hold it because it's cold. That's not a reason. That's a habit that doesn't know what to do with itself.

He didn't say this. He watched the fishing line instead. The line moved left. The line moved right. He thought: the fish doesn't know it's a fish. The fish thinks it's going somewhere. The fish thinks the line is the current, and the current is the line, and both of them are the before.

He thought: now I'm doing it. Now I'm reading the water.

She set the cup back on the armrest. Same spot. Same position. Handle facing the same way.

"The cup is a cup," he said.

"The cup is mine," she said.

"I know it's yours. I'm saying it's a cup."

"I know what you're saying. I'm saying it's mine."

A man walked past them on the pier. He had a dog. The dog was old and walked slowly. The man walked slowly to match the dog. They passed the bench, and the man looked at the coffee cup on the armrest, and the dog looked at the fishing line, and then they were past.

"He looked at the cup," he said.

"He was looking at the dog."

"He was looking at the cup."

"You don't know that."

"You don't know he wasn't."

The fishing line went slack. Whatever had been pulling it - fish or current - let go. The line drifted. It was just a line in the water now. It was just a thread with no tension.

"See," she said. "It was the current."

"Or the fish got away."

"Same result."

"Different reason."

She almost smiled. He saw it - the corner of her mouth, the almost. Not a smile. An almost.

"Different reason," she said.

The water was still grey. The sky was still grey. The coffee was still cold. The fishing line drifted. The bench held both of them. The pier went on.

He said: "The water will be blue later."

She said: "The water will be something later."

The cup sat on the armrest. Same cup. Same coffee. Same cold. The handle faced the same way. Neither of them touched it.