Penelope — that night to her Diary

I hadn’t meant to go out. The bus was late and the bench was cold in that particular way that goes straight through a coat and settles in the knees. I remember thinking I should have taken a taxi, then thinking that taxis make one feel faintly ridiculous when there’s nothing urgent to arrive at.

He was already there when I reached the stop. Standing rather than sitting, as if the bench were an invitation he didn’t quite trust. He wore a baseball cap — not trendy or on backwards, just chosen — and he kept glancing between the road and his phone, as though the two were in conversation.

“It’s two minutes away,” he said, turning the screen slightly towards me. An application, apparently. I thanked him, though I hadn’t asked.

It was nearer four.

The first minute passed quickly. The second stretched. By the third, the road had acquired that empty look roads get when they are being watched. I wondered if he would apologise on behalf of the application. He didn’t. Nor did I mention it. It seemed unkind to point out optimism when nothing depended on it.

We spoke, because that is what one does when standing beside another person for longer than expected. About how buses used to arrive breathless, as though they had hurried for you. About how they no longer seem to care who is waiting.

He said something about it being Tuesday. I knew it was Thursday. I let it remain Tuesday. Correcting him would have been an effort out of proportion to the moment.

When the bus finally came, it came without ceremony. No apology. No sense of relief. We sat apart. I could see his reflection in the window, unsteady in the streetlights, and I thought how different people look when they are no longer required to speak.

He got off before me. He nodded — a proper nod, not a wave — and I felt, briefly, that something had concluded, though I couldn’t have said what as I was not really aware that anything had started.

I don’t expect to see him again. But I will remember the extra two minutes.