42.

The Last Shared Proof

Orbag, Year 189 AGH

Tarren had kept the warm bread away from the proof all the way down the hill. At Runa's door they swapped the bread and portfolio between their hands, discovered that this still left no hand free to knock, and used the corner of the portfolio.

She opened before they had managed a second knock.

“I could hear you arranging yourself.”

“The bread was gaining on the drawings.”

Runa took the paper parcel. A dark patch of oil had already come through it. She looked at the bottom, then carried it to the kitchen board while Tarren put the portfolio on the table.

They knew where there would be room. Runa kept one end of the table for work and meant to keep the other end clear, though the boundary had always moved according to which part she was using. Tonight her lesson sheets were stacked neatly against the wall. Beside them lay Tarren's short measuring rule, a rolled pair of socks and a shirt they had stopped looking for some time ago.

“There it is,” they said. “I was about to charge the table for the ruler.”

“You left it under the field sheets.”

“Then the table has an accomplice.”

Runa folded the oily paper under the bread. Tarren waited for the little sound she sometimes made at the end of a joke she would not encourage. She went to wash her hands instead.

There was a second pile on the chair. The worn bag Tarren used for short teaching walks sat open, its strap laid flat so it would not catch beneath anything. In the bag they could see the edge of a wooden case.

“You don't have to put all that away for me,” they said.

“I want you to take it home.”

Tarren pulled out the chair, then saw that they would have to move the bag to sit.

“Are you using the room tomorrow?”

“Yes. That isn't why.”

Runa dried her hands. She had taught that afternoon; there was still mud in the crease above one boot, and the sleeve she had pushed back to wash would not stay there. She rolled it once more. Tarren remembered her getting impatient with that cuff long before they had known where she kept the clean cloths.

They left the chair where it was.

“I want to finish the proof,” she said. “And I want us to end this.”

Their hand tightened on the back of the chair.

“The book?”

“No. Us.”

From somewhere farther down the street came the scrape of a cart wheel that needed attention. It stopped, started, and stopped again.

Tarren looked at the clothes on the table. The shirt had been folded so that they could see the mended place near the cuff. They had done that repair themself at this table, badly, while Runa kept turning the lamp toward her own work.

“We said we'd think about it.”

“I have.”

“So have I.”

“I know you have.” She put the cloth over the edge of the basin. “I don't want to keep having the conversation and then have another nice evening.”

Tarren had an answer to that, or the beginning of one. They could hear how it would sound before they said it. It would begin with an account of what had made the last evening different.

Runa came back to the table but did not sit. Tarren opened the portfolio. The sheets were still cool beneath the cover, their corners unmarked by the walk. They had put the troublesome illustration on top because they had expected to be pleased about having found the correction.

“I've looked at the shelf,” they said.

Runa glanced down.

“The arrow?”

“Yes. It's too far back. It sends them round the stone before they've found the standing place.”

“That was what I meant. My sentence doesn't help it.”

She reached for the sheet. For a moment she had the same intent look she always brought to a drawing that would make a learner do the wrong thing. Tarren shifted the page toward her. They could begin here. They could clear the work, eat the bread while it was still warm, and afterwards there would be more room to talk.

Runa let go of the page.

“Not now,” she said.

“It would only take a moment.”

“I don't want to do it instead.”

Tarren shut the portfolio too quickly. The cover made a flat noise against the table, and they regretted it.

“I didn't bring it for that.”

“No. We agreed you'd bring it.”

She moved the bread onto a plate. It was a small thing to watch, the careful lifting of the hot underside from the paper, and Tarren could not stop watching it. They had bought the sort with the onions pressed into the top. Runa usually took the edge first.

“Have you eaten?” they asked.

“A little.”

“You should have more than a little.”

“Tarren.”

They looked away from the bread.

“We could walk,” Runa said. “I keep thinking I ought to put something on the stove.”

They nodded. They put the proof back under their arm while she took her key from the hook. At the door they almost reached for the familiar teaching bag, then left it on the chair.

*   *   *

They went along the lower street until the houses gave way to the backs of gardens. Runa kept to the dry strip beside the wall. Tarren walked nearer the ruts, with the portfolio pressed against their side. Twice it struck their knee, and the second time they shifted it to the other arm.

They had walked this way when they last talked about the house. Tarren had proposed staying longer then. They remembered Runa stopping to remove a stone from her boot while they continued explaining how it might work, as though she could only hear the plan if they kept it going.

At the end of the lane stood a broad low wall where people sometimes set baskets while they opened the garden gate. Runa stopped there. Through the gate Tarren could see the pale faces of a few late flowers. Someone had left a fork standing in the earth.

“I could make regular days,” they said.

Runa rested her hands on the top of the wall.

“Which days?”

“Two at first. Three. We could choose them now instead of making a new arrangement every week.”

“And when I have a class on those days?”

“I could work here while you're out.”

She turned to look at them. That had reached her; they could see it in the pause before she answered. Tarren went on.

“I don't need the whole table. I could leave proper things here. I wouldn't arrive with whatever happened to be in the bag.”

“I know.”

“We've been doing it in scraps. It needn't be scraps.”

“I don't want a longer visit.”

“It would be half the week.”

“Yes.”

The answer irritated them more than an argument would have. They had offered something real. They would have to change their teaching arrangements, carry work differently, stop leaving decisions until they could see how a morning had gone. They wanted her to see that they were prepared to do it.

“You make it sound like a few spare hours.”

“I heard you.” Her voice sharpened. “I heard the days. I am saying I don't want them that way.”

Tarren put the portfolio on the wall, away from the damp patch beneath the gatepost.

“Then come up to the hill.”

Runa let out a breath.

“You know what I think about that.”

“I know you've liked being there.”

“I have. I like Eren. I like the garden. I like sleeping there and coming home. I don't want to make my home in the house you and your cousin have made.”

“There is room.”

“I haven't asked for room.”

They looked through the gate again. Beyond the fork, the turned earth was darker than the path. Eren had been trying to persuade them to help turn a patch near the house before the weather changed. They had agreed to do it tomorrow. It was a small task, the sort they could move to another day without injuring anyone, and they wanted it all the same: the place, the argument over where the edge should be, being there when there was no reason to come or go.

Runa rubbed a little grit from the heel of one hand.

“I want to live with you,” she said. “I don't want to keep getting ready for you.”

“Then I could bring the table down.”

The words came out before the rest of the thought.

“By the window,” they added.

“I could move the chest,” Runa said.

For a moment the proposal seemed wonderfully simple. Tarren knew what light the table would get in the morning. They could put their drawing things in the shallow shelves and stop wondering which knife they had left where. Runa would be in the other room, or out teaching, or asking them to get out of the way so she could open a cupboard. They wanted that ordinary proximity with an ache so abrupt that they lifted a hand toward her and let it fall again.

She waited.

Tarren looked at her. They could still make it true. The hill would remain, and Eren would manage her own life, and people moved their things every day.

They imagined a wet morning when they would want to work there, at their own window, with a half-finished drawing spread where they had left it. They would want to go up without arranging a departure. They could already hear the little excuse they would make for staying an extra night, how they would hope Runa understood before they said it.

“I don't want to leave the hill,” they said.

Runa closed her eyes for a moment.

“All right.”

“It isn't that I don't want you.”

“I know.”

“I love you.”

She took her hands off the wall and held them together, pressing the grit between her palms.

“I love you too.”

Tarren waited. They had not realized there was a further sentence they wanted until she did not give it to them.

Runa looked down the lane they had come along.

“I don't want you to stay tonight.”

They nodded, too readily. A nod was an action they could perform without having to know what happened after it.

“And after tonight?”

“We aren't a couple any more, Tarren. We still need to finish the proof.”

“The work needn't stop after that.”

“No. The work can go on when there's work we both want to do.”

That was narrower than the life they had been offering. Tarren reached for the portfolio and discovered how cold the cover had become.

“I could have listened better,” they said.

Runa shook her head, then stopped herself.

“You did listen. Sometimes. You keep coming back with another way to visit.”

“I thought I was finding a way.”

“I know you did.”

They stood with that for a while. Tarren wished she would say something less exact, something they could answer. They also wanted her to stop having to say it.

“I'll finish the drawing tomorrow,” they said.

“I can do the text.”

“Will you be at home in the afternoon?”

“Teaching.”

“I'll leave it in the outside box, then.”

“Yes.”

“And the final sheets?”

Runa considered. “In three days? After my morning group. We can use the back table at the eating place near the printer.”

Tarren knew the table. There would be room for the large sheet if they kept the cups on the sill.

“I can bring your things.”

“I'll bring yours.”

She drew her key from her pocket. The ordinary sound of it against the other small things she carried made Tarren look at her hand. They had known her for twenty-two years and had never needed to know which of them she would reach for next.

At the mouth of the lane, Runa turned toward her house. Tarren went the other way with the proof under their arm. They did not look back until a cart came between them and the lower street.

The hill path had enough light left to show where the surface dipped. Tarren kept finding that they had begun to hurry. Each time, they slowed and then forgot again.

*   *   *

The next morning, Tarren laid the printed proof on the drawing board and a thin working sheet over the image.

The shelf itself was sound. It had two distinct planes, one rough with short hatching, the other carrying the foot that gave the reader a sense of its modest height. The problem was the reference arrow. Its end lay beyond the raised boot, at a point on the rear edge of the stone. A person following Runa's directions could go round the shelf and find the wrong side of the turn.

Tarren marked the correct place lightly. They should have been able to finish before the light reached the far edge of the table.

The little figure beside the shelf had its coat tied up.

They had drawn it after the weather spoiled a distant view. Runa had stepped onto the low stone, one boot planted, the other heel lifted from the path as she looked along the route. She had tied the hem out of the wet with an awkward loop that pulled the cloth higher than she meant it to. The line of her bent leg was clear beneath it. Tarren could remember watching that shape appear before they thought of making it useful.

They had left the knot in the published drawing. It was no more than two crooked lines at that scale.

On the thin sheet they traced a cleaner version. A coat could fall properly. It did not need that snag of cloth at the side, or the little bunching above the boot. They extended the outer line and joined it to a straighter hem.

For a moment they preferred it. The figure stood on the page without bringing the wet path back with it.

They slid the printed proof out from under the working sheet.

The planted boot was gone beneath the new hem. The leg appeared to continue behind the shelf, and the raised heel could belong to a person standing on the far side of the stone. Tarren shortened the coat. Now it looked as though the figure had lifted it deliberately to show the whole knee. They tried a gap, then a fold. The fold crossed the line that showed the weight passing onto the foot.

They put down the pencil.

Outside the window, Eren was working at the edge of the garden. Tarren could see the handle of the fork move and disappear. She had begun without them. They watched long enough to know she had not left the patch where they would have put it.

They could go out. They could argue about the edge. They remained at the table.

Eren came in carrying a small wooden tray and a bowl. She set the tray on the only place that was both flat and free of paper.

“Are you eating here?”

“I haven't decided.”

“The soup has.”

Tarren looked at the bowl.

“I said I'd do that patch.”

“You can do the other half. I found roots.”

“Of course you did.”

“They were already there.”

She moved the spoon off the drawing board and onto the tray. Her prosthetic hand held the edge steadily while she shifted the bowl. Then she looked at Tarren's coat, still on the back of their chair from the night before.

“Are you going down again today?”

“To leave the picture.”

Eren waited to see whether there was more. Tarren picked up the pencil and placed it exactly where it had been.

“Runa and I have ended it.”

“Oh.”

“She wants a home together. I don't want to leave this one.”

Eren's attention moved briefly toward the window. She put her hand on the chair beside the table, without pulling it out.

“Do you want company?”

Tarren did not know. They knew they could not bear to explain the conversation once more, and that Eren had not asked them to.

“For lunch,” they said.

“I'll get mine.”

She went out. They took the printed proof off the table and put it in the portfolio before lifting the bowl. The soup was thick enough to hold the bread at the surface. They ate a mouthful too quickly and had to wait before they could swallow it.

Eren returned with her own bowl and a packet of seed saved from the garden. She set the packet at the far end of the table. While they ate, she told Tarren about the roots she had found and asked whether they still wanted the patch to run all the way to the path. They said they did. She said the path would then become narrower. Tarren said it had been too wide for years.

“Then you can take the wheelbarrow along it,” she said.

They looked at her, and she took another spoonful.

“Afterwards.”

Tarren almost smiled. They ate the rest of the soup while Eren shook the seed packet to bring the contents away from its folded top. When she had finished, she collected both bowls and went back outside. Tarren could hear the door catch behind her.

Tarren took the printed proof out of the portfolio and laid the new working sheet over it again. Beneath the changed lines, the old figure had its coat knotted, foot on the stone, the lifted heel giving the small body its forward inclination. They rubbed out the straight hanging hem.

The first line of the restored hem was too stiff. Tarren erased it, loosening the paper's surface where they had pressed hardest. They made the next line follow the pull of the knot. The boot showed. The stance settled into the page.

They did not need to reproduce every fold. Two of the original marks had survived reduction badly, and Tarren left them out. The knot remained crooked. It had been crooked.

With the figure clear, they moved the reference arrow to the near standing place. They shortened its tail so it would not intrude into the next image and compared the result with Runa's current sentence. There was still a mismatch to discuss. They wrote a small note at the foot of the sheet and began the clean correction.

By the time the ink was dry, Eren had left for an errand of her own. A second parcel of work waited beside Tarren's lamp, a route drawing for another teacher who would not know why this one had taken most of the morning. Tarren opened it, checked what was wanted and set it where they could begin when they returned.

They wrapped Runa's sheet between stiff boards and took it down to town. At her house the shutters were open and the door was closed. They put the packet in the outside box as agreed. A corner caught under the lip, and they drew it out far enough to straighten it before sliding it the rest of the way in.

There was room beneath the cover for a note. They had already written the one the drawing needed.

Tarren closed the box and went to buy paper.

*   *   *

Two days later, Runa was at the back table when Tarren arrived. She had put her bag on the bench and left the broadest part of the table clear. Tarren carried her field tin and the pair of gloves that had spent a season at the hill, tucked together in a cloth bag. Their own shirt lay folded beside her chair.

“I've ordered tea,” she said. “They won't want the table for a while.”

Tarren put the bag beside hers.

“Did the drawing get wet?”

“No. The boards worked.”

They sat. Runa opened the proof to the shelf illustration. She had pinned her revised sentence to the facing page so they could see both at once. Tarren turned the page slightly toward the window. Across the room a woman was setting plates in short stacks. Every few plates she carried a stack away.

“I still think this takes them round the back,” Tarren said.

Runa read her sentence aloud.

“Stand beyond the low shelf, with one foot on the stone, and look for the next turn.”

“Beyond it from where?”

“From where they came.”

Tarren set a finger on the bottom of the picture.

“That's here.”

“Yes.”

“Then beyond is here.”

They moved the finger to the rear edge. Runa followed it, then took the little slip off the page.

“I've moved them before I've told them to stop.”

“Only in a small circle.”

“A useful day's instruction.”

“Quite thorough. They'll know both sides of the stone.”

She laughed, briefly, and bent to write. Tarren watched her cross out the first words without trying to preserve the shape of the sentence.

“Stop on the approach side of the shelf,” she said. “One foot on the near ledge.”

“Then look.”

“Then look. Yes.”

They tested it again. Runa held the picture where the fold in the finished book would be, hiding the edge the reader would lose. Tarren followed the proposed instruction with the blunt end of a pencil. The new arrow remained visible. The foot and the near edge could be read together without unfolding the neighboring page.

“The hem is different,” Runa said.

“A little.”

“You've made it clearer.”

“I took out two folds.”

She leaned closer to see. “I could never tie that coat up evenly.”

Tarren looked at the crooked loop. They had spent so long looking at it, and still the familiarity of her remark caught them without preparation.

“It held,” they said.

“Mostly.”

She put the slip back in place and drew a fine line to show where the replacement words should go. Her hand rested on the margin while she read them once more.

Tarren could hear the pace of their work returning. It was the same pleasure as catching an object someone had thrown without warning and finding that they knew where it would be. They wanted to keep bringing pages to this table.

“We could check the other approach ourselves,” they said. “Before the new copies. It would only take an afternoon.”

Runa kept her eyes on the proof for a moment.

“The approach hasn't changed. I was there with a group.”

“When?”

“Last week.”

Of course she had been. It was one of her teaching routes. Tarren looked back at the illustration.

“I meant we could go.”

“I know.”

She placed her pencil beside the page.

“I don't want to arrange that now.”

They sat without touching the proof. The woman brought the tea and put a small cloth beneath the pot. Runa thanked her and moved the cups to the sill. Tarren held the loose text slip until the woman had gone.

“All right,” they said.

Runa took the slip back. “There's one more line at the bottom.”

They found it. The printer had set a short instruction too close to the image above, making it look as though it belonged to the wrong view. They marked the space to be restored. After that there was nothing left except the approval.

Runa signed for her text and Tarren for the changed drawing. At the front of the packet, both names remained in the author line. Runa checked the sheet that listed the alterations and laid it over the proof.

“What happens with the next edition?” Tarren asked.

“They ask each of us, as before.”

“And if one of us doesn't want to change something?”

“Then that change stays out.” She looked at them. “I'm keeping my work in it, Tarren.”

“I know. I wanted to ask.”

“And yours?” she asked, and pushed the picture a little nearer them.

Tarren glanced down. “Yes. I'm keeping mine in it.”

Runa drew the packet together. The printer would receive the approved correction; each author would still receive their own account and payment. Tarren closed the cover over both approvals.

Runa reached into her bag and brought out a small yellow jug.

“I didn't wrap this,” she said. “It can go in your shirt.”

Tarren looked at it.

“That's yours.”

“No, it isn't.”

“It was on your shelf.”

“Because you left it there.”

“I thought you wanted it near the cups.”

Runa turned the jug in her hands. The lip had a little downward curve that sent liquid along the outside, unless the person pouring made a sudden motion and accepted whatever happened next.

“I thought it had some history,” she said.

“It has a history of wet tables.”

“You never said.”

“Neither did you.”

She began to laugh. Tarren could see the attempt she made to keep it small, which spoiled any chance they had of doing the same. They sat across from one another laughing at a jug both had been carefully drying and putting away for years.

The woman with the plates looked over. Runa lifted the jug, as though that could explain anything. The woman smiled and went on with her work.

“I need a pot for brushes,” Runa said at last.

“Will it hold them?”

“It manages everything except pouring.”

She put it back in her bag. Tarren rolled the shirt around the ruler and packed it with the other returned things in the teaching bag.

The proof lay between them, finished.

“Are you hungry?” Runa asked.

“Yes.”

“Good. I am.”

*   *   *

They moved to a smaller table near the door while the back room was made ready for the evening. Tarren carried the tea. Runa took the proof and put it upright against the wall, where a passing coat would not knock it down.

The meal came in separate bowls, with a dish of greens between them and a sharp sauce that Tarren remembered too late was stronger at this place than it looked. They had already put a generous spoonful over the food.

Runa watched them take the first mouthful.

“You've done that before.”

“I was hoping they'd lost the recipe.”

She pushed the bread toward them. They took a piece and waited. Runa began eating without waiting for their mouth to recover.

For a while it was easy to be hungry. Tarren liked the crisp edges where the food had caught in the pan, and the tea had cooled enough to drink. The light from the doorway lay across one end of the table. People came in, found places, asked what was left. Runa moved her bag beneath her chair when someone passed carrying a child who had fallen asleep.

She told Tarren about a new shelf she had put up in the teaching room. It was too high for the place she had first intended it, and she had moved it after living with it for a week.

“You could have told me,” Tarren said.

“I had the fixings. It was only the position.”

“I meant I'd have helped.”

“I know.”

She took more greens. Tarren realized they were waiting for an invitation to come and look at it, and returned their attention to the bowl.

A little later she asked what else they were working on. Tarren described the other teacher's requested view, the tree that stood exactly where a useful landmark ought to be, and their reluctance to remove it just because it made an untidy page. Runa suggested showing the lower trunk and letting the branches run out of the frame. Tarren said they had tried that. She asked what had gone wrong, and they found they could tell her without taking out a pencil.

They ate the last greens. Runa took the crisp piece left in Tarren's bowl after asking with a movement of her spoon. Tarren moved the bowl toward her. The gesture was so familiar that the next moment, when she looked toward the door, felt like a missed step.

She was checking the light. The printer would still be open if she went soon.

“I'll take the packet,” she said. “I'm going that way.”

“All of it?”

“Yes.”

Tarren nodded. They had already put their agreement on the changes. There was no reason to carry the papers back up the hill and down again.

“When the new proof comes,” they said, “I could bring it round in the evening. We wouldn't have to make a whole afternoon of it.”

Runa set down her spoon.

“Send it to me. Or leave it in the box.”

“I thought we could look together.”

“We can arrange a table if it needs both of us.”

“And if I just want to see you?”

She looked at them for a long time. Tarren wanted to withdraw the question and was glad they had asked it.

“I don't want our evenings to start again,” she said.

“I wasn't asking for all of them.”

“I know. Please don't begin with one.”

Tarren put their spoon across the bowl. They could hear a chair being pulled out at the next table and the scrape of its leg where it caught in a worn place on the floor.

“I don't know how to do this yet,” they said.

“Neither do I.”

“I keep finding another way to ask.”

“Yes.” Runa took a breath. “You can stop asking for today.”

They looked at her, then down at the bill between the bowls.

“All right.”

They paid. Runa counted out her coins and put the change away in the small pocket of her bag. Tarren folded the cloth around the ruler once more, not because it needed protection but because it would otherwise slide against the buckle all the way home.

Outside, the air had cooled. The street was busy enough that they had to move clear of the doorway before they could stop. Runa carried the proof against her side, and the jug's handle showed above the edge of her bag.

Tarren wanted to say something that would leave her glad to have spent the afternoon with them. They could not find a sentence that did not seem to request an answer.

“Goodbye, Runa.”

“Goodbye.”

She adjusted the proof beneath her arm and went toward the printer. Tarren stayed long enough to see her step around a handcart and continue along the street. Then they picked up the bag of returned things and turned toward the hill.

The strap was shorter than they remembered. They lengthened it at the first gate and put the bag over their shoulder. The ruler settled against the folded shirt. Above the last houses the path rose gently before the steeper stretch, and Tarren walked until the street sounds no longer reached them. At the bend they stopped to shift the weight. They could have gone faster after that, but they did not.