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“I’m like a wild boar. I’ll eat anywhere.” Marius appeared on the side of the hatch and passed out the promised Tupperware box of pierogi. “Are you leaving yet?”
“What’s in them this time?”
“Food.”
Juggling coffee cups and pierogi, the woman returned to her partner. Then she gave Marius a cheery wave. “See you tomorrow. Love to Leo.”
And Marius—caught in the mortifying act of having friends—muttered ominously. “Look,” he said, when we were alone again. “Since I’m here, do you want a drink? I could make you a cup of tea and you could sit on the roof for a bit. It’s nice. I need to get back to my painting before I lose the light.”
That was when I realised he was trying. In his own way, he was trying.
I smiled. “That sounds lovely.”
“Great.” He stuck his head further out the hatch. “What about you, Aida? Do you want anything?”
“I’m good thanks,” said Adam.
“I won’t spit in it.”
“Nice to have that confirmed. Still no.”
While Marius prepared my tea, I took a moment to appreciate the narrowboat itself. It was glossy green, with brass fittings and the details picked out in cream. The back panel, where Marius was working, had been painted cream entirely, Demoiselle swooping across it in a flourish of gold and jade. Next to the word was a half-finished insect. I thought, at first, it was a dragonfly, but the body-shape was wrong.
“What are you painting?” I asked.
“The boat,” Marius told me.
“What are you painting on the boat?”
“Well, the boat is called the Demoiselle, as in Beautiful Demoiselle, so I thought I’d paint a fucking damselfly.”
Although they were only partially complete, I could already see the delicacy of the wings, the promise of iridescence as the light moved over them, and the tracery of veins that criss-crossed their surface to some elusive design of the creator.
“They’re the canal ways.” Marius emerged from the boat, cup in hand. “On the wings. I used one of Leo’s maps.”
I swallowed. “It’s perfect.”
“It’s nothing.”
“I’m so glad you’re—”
But he cut me off with his usual impatience. “Don’t get too excited. It’s just painting.”
“But it’s still—”
“I don’t want to hear it, Edwin.” He gestured towards the bow. “Best place to sit is up there. Don’t go walking over the solar panels or knocking our plants off, though.”
Our.
The word tolled out like church bells for me and Marius didn’t even notice he’d said it. And then I was promptly distracted by the fact the roof of the boat—now I was expected to get onto it—suddenly looked high up and far away. “How do we…”
“There’s toe steps. You’ll see them.”
And so the visit to my ex that I’d spent my whole holiday fretting over came down to Adam and me sitting at the front of a narrowboat together, while Marius got on with his painting at the back. If I’d wanted to talk to him, I’d have had to shout—though he wouldn’t have thanked me for interrupting him—and talking to Adam would have felt strange with Marius not quite in or out of earshot. In the end, we simply sat, side by side with our feet dangling, while the air grew colder and the slow-setting sun dappled the water gold like lights from a city in the sky.
Marius hugged me before we left. It was brief and reluctant, like most of his hugs, but he offered it freely.
And that was when I understood what was different about him.
