The day stretches ahead of her, with nothing in it till six o’clock when she must be at the theater. She heads down to the South Bank, to the British Film Institute, where they are showing a Bergman season. She gets tickets for the longest of the films, then buys coffee and a slice of cake and sits in the window to wait for the cinema to open, watching the faces of the people as they pass. Perhaps he will appear. It is not, surely, beyond the realm of possibility that Nathan might treat himself to an afternoon movie. Perhaps that will be how it happens—to bump into him, to let coincidence take care of the plot. Or she could text him again. Tell him where she is. Invite him down.

But of course he doesn’t come. He is a busy man. It is only people like her who can sit in a cinema on a weekday afternoon, tasting the equivocal pleasures of time on their hands. She should make a joke of it, she thinks, of Bergman on a birthday. But there is no one to make the joke to.

She is the first into the cinema when it opens, handing her ticket to the usher, sitting in the darkness before the thin safety curtain rises, before the advertisements come on.

Hannah

SHE SEARCHES FOR A HOTEL IN WHITSTABLE FOR THE FRIDAY and the Saturday night, finds one that has only recently opened but has good reviews on TripAdvisor. There is the requisite mention of Egyptian cotton. There are driftwood mirrors in the bedrooms. A neutral palette of white and gray. She calls them up and a pleasant-voiced woman tells her she is in luck, they have had a last-minute cancellation, a room is free but there is a shared bathroom. It is either that or the Travelodge, so Hannah takes it. As she hands over her credit card details, she pictures wide skies—walking on the beach on Saturday morning. She books lunch at a restaurant she has heard of, further along the coast. She looks at the menu: oysters, salt-baked celeriac, Aylesbury lamb. They will eat oysters. They will walk on the beach. It will all fall into place. She has been wrong. It is the controlled, clinical side of things that has brought them to this. Nathan is right, Lissa is right: they should take a break—let things happen naturally. Maybe everyone is right. The message boards are full of people’s stories of conceiving after IVF has failed. It is not the end. It is only the end of the beginning. She has been holding too tight. There is still time, there is still a chance—she just needs to relax. To be spontaneous. It will do them good to get away.

Bras

2008