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He does this the way he does everything — without strategy, without announcement. The mountain from the waterfront. The cable car view. The hotel terrace in the morning. I am in some of them, a shoulder, a hand on the table, half my profile at the edge of the waterfront shot, because I was there and he was pointing his phone at the things he found worth keeping and I was one of them.

I think about this and find I don't mind at all.

The third afternoon. Camps Bay.

Patrick goes into the Atlantic without hesitation. I watch this with the expression I deploy for things I find unreasonable and inevitable in equal measure.

While he is in the water I check my phone.

A photograph has appeared — not Patrick's, someone else's. The waterfront. Patrick and me at the edge of the frame. Someone has asked whether I am the man from his recent posts. Another person has replied with a question mark.

Curiosity. Nothing more.

I put the phone away.

Patrick sits beside me, dripping and entirely pleased with himself, cold water still running from his feet into the sand. He starts telling me why the Atlantic here feels different from the North Sea. We talk about nothing for half an hour and I think: this. This afternoon. This is a thing I will remember.

The waterfront restaurant he has been meaning to come back to. The wine I had opinions about — he let me order a second bottle, which is the correct response to my opinions. Walking back along the harbour in the dark with his arm around my shoulders.

The last morning, the hotel room, early light. Patrick awake before me, which I heard rather than saw — the sound of someone trying not to make sounds. When I opened my eyes he was lying on his side looking at me with the quality he has when he's thinking something he hasn't decided to say yet.

"What," I said.

"Nothing," he said. "Go back to sleep."

"I'm awake."

"I know." He reached over and pushed the hair off my forehead, which is something he does and which I have decided not to comment on. "This has been the best four days," he said.

"Yes," I said.

He looked at me. Something in his face. "I didn't know it could be like this."

I looked at him. At Patrick being honest — undefended, entirely present, no performance in it at all.

"Neither did I," I said.

He pulled me in. I let him. The Cape Town morning, his arms around me, the mountain somewhere outside the curtains.

For a while neither of us said anything.

Then: "I like waking up next to you," I said.

He was quiet for a moment. Then he pulled back just enough to look at me, the expression he has when something has landed and he is deciding how much to show of it.

"Good," he said. "Because I already wanted to tell you… I’m not going to my apartment when we get back. Just so you know. Just because."

I looked at him. "Just because."

"Just because," he said. Completely unbothered. Like this was the most ordinary thing.

I looked at him for a long moment. Then: "Okay."

"Okay," he said.

We stayed like that until we had to get up.

Saturday evening. The airport.