"and every tuesday evening when i finished my classes at 5 and yours were over by 3:30 we would get the train to your parents' place by the lake, dodging the ticket inspectors if there were any, and sneak over the iron fence to open the door with the key in the mud by the willow tree, blowing earwigs off it, if there were any. it wasn't much of a place really, but it was quiet, and to walk there from the train station meant stopping a few times on the way: always once at the rock that cut over the cliff face, and once at the beach covered in seaweed that you couldn't see from the water. straight away we'd get there and you'd turn on the bath taps while i scrounged around for some matches, which were always scattered in books under sofas or behind the stove, and lit the dozens of candles that spilt over the rim of the bath and crowded out the salts and sponges on the windowsill, and melted and mixed together over the floor like some shattered lino. there were so many that the matches would burn down to my fingers and i'd curse and throw them into the corner with the empty shampoo bottles and cigarette packets, and you'd laugh from the other room with the kettle in one hand, unbuttoning your shirt with the other. i'd have climbed inside before you walked into the room, with a scented oil in your hand that you'd drip into our bath, picking past the candles and confusing the shadows that flickered on the four bare walls. there was always too much water by the time you got in, and every time we lifted an arm the ripples would break onto the floor and spread beneath the panelling. sometimes i would read the newspapers stacked up beneath the sink, and tell you all the stories from the final few pages. you were always quick to empathise with them, these characters from someone else's news. we'd prize open the window as little as it would go, and hear the water on the rocks and the trees against the wooden walls and sometimes smell the rain on the tarmac, or the earth. there wasn't any point in talking. if we'd remembered tapes, you'd play iron & wine or songs: ohia through the cassette deck in the kitchen, and the music would come through the windows as loud as through the door i propped open with my books, but we wouldn't even hear the words. when the light from outside drew up and the water grew cold, you'd let some out from the plug at your end as i coaxed a little more heat from the taps. eventually, when the oil formed in pools on the bath's murky surface, and the candle wax had dried in patterns by the faucet, we'd run to the towels in the cupboard by the door and smother ourselves across the seats on the deck. the dark was such that we couldn't even draw the border of the lake with the land. we would drink wine, and try to translate the foreign words that wrapped around it. when the last of the day's heat was gone, you'd stretch on the sofa as i picked the plug out with a spoon and let the last dirt of the city swirl away. the candles burning from the floor around the bath were still the only light we had, so the big room hid its corners behind the cabinets and rugs. over the broken xiu xiu tape you talked about morality, and i defended religion even though i didn't believe in it. i'd frustrate you with idiot's logic until you tore the blankets in liberal agony, but you'd always laugh at my pessimism and tell me that no matter how afraid i was, good things would always happen. gradually, we would light new candles forced into the empty wine bottles, to replace the dimming light from the other room. when the sun rose from behind us and crawled forwards across the surface of the lake, we would go to bed and try to block out the noise of the birds. you always double-checked the lock on the door, even though i never once saw another person there. if we made love it would be silent, and i would keep my eyes closed even as you breathed into my neck. we would never really sleep, but try to catch the other open-eyed and then refuse to look elsewhere, sometimes for hours at a time. when we picked about the house for our clothes, you would stroke my side as i passed and i would press against you and exhale. on the train back we would watch the people who sat around us and give them names and stories, which we shared in huddled whispers when the train was moving. to you, all the girls were far too busy to be loved, and all the boys too keen to appear careless to find time to love at all. often we would have breakfast in the station when we got off, and reacclimatise to the pace and the noise. you drank your coffee with too much sugar, and i would finish your toast. sometimes we would see the train we took the night before, and surreptitiously i would see you watch it as it pulled away, then sigh and smile at me. we never boarded it those mornings."
