The Exchange

It happened slowly, the way things do when neither person is pushing.

On Wednesday he was at the allotment again when she cut through, this time with the shed door closed, but he was outside it sitting on the low wall with the sketchbook on his lap and when he saw her coming he did not close it. He just turned it slightly so it was not facing her directly.

She stopped.

"Same route," she said.

"Same route," he agreed.

She sat on the wall a little way along from him. Not close enough to see the sketchbook. Just on the same wall, in the same afternoon, both of them looking at the allotments.

"What do you draw?" she asked. Then, quickly: "You do not have to say."

He was quiet for a moment. "People, mostly," he said. "Faces. I find faces interesting. Everyone has the same parts but they all look completely different."

"That is a nice way to think about it," Lena said.

"What do you write?" he asked.

She went still. She had not told him she wrote. She had not told anyone.

He seemed to realise this. "Sorry," he said. "The notebook. I assumed. You do not have to say either."

"Poetry," Lena said. She said it at the wall, not at him. "I write poetry. I have been writing it since I was nine and I have shown it to nobody and I would very much like to keep it that way."

Silence. Then Marcus said: "I have been drawing since I was eight. I have shown it to nobody except my grandmother, who asked to see it once, and she cried, which was not the response I was hoping for."

"Why did she cry?" Lena asked.

"She said it was beautiful," Marcus said. "Which was kind. But also she cried for about ten minutes and then told all of her friends. So I stopped showing her."

Lena looked at him. He was looking at the allotments with a small, private smile that she did not think he knew was on his face.

"My grandmother would do the same thing," she said.

"They mean well," Marcus said.

"They absolutely mean well," Lena agreed.

They sat on the wall for another ten minutes. The afternoon went golden around them, the light through the allotment trees going long and soft. Neither of them mentioned the poetry or the drawings again. They talked about other things, school, a film that was on, the man with the green cap who Marcus said was called Mr. Adebayo and was teaching him which plants needed which soil.

Marcus put the sketchbook away without showing her. She did not ask to see it. That felt important, not asking.

When Lena stood up to go she felt lighter than she had when she sat down, the way you feel after you have put something down that you have been carrying for a long time without noticing the weight.