The Unstamped Envelope

1. Two things to buy

Inés had carried the batteries in her pocket since yesterday. She felt them against her thigh with every step, yet allowed Nico to say they needed to buy some. He needed bread. The shop stood opposite the courtyard, but at the crossing he continued towards the bridge.

“It costs more here,” he said.

Inés glanced at the price beside the door. It was the same as always. She could have pointed it out, but was in no hurry to return to rehearsal. Alba and Teo were arguing about a song’s beginning. A letter had arrived that morning, folded now inside her notebook. She wanted to read it where nobody could watch her face.

Across the road Nico stopped at a closed window and asked whether the electrical shop opened on Saturdays. Inés said perhaps. The batteries knocked together. She put a hand into her pocket to quiet them.

The envelope contained neither a love letter nor an urgent notice. It was a reply from an instrument restoration workshop. Months earlier she had asked whether they would take somebody on to learn. They offered three afternoons a week for a trial period, unpaid at first. Afterwards they would see. The workshop was several hours away. Its friendly letter left every important question suspended.

She had told nobody about applying. She had not decided whether that made the envelope a secret. Nico carried an empty bag, folding and unfolding it as he walked. Every bakery they approached gave him a reason to continue.

Inés asked whether he wanted a particular kind of bread.

“One that isn’t hot.”

“You could buy it and wait.”

He studied the bag as though that possibility had only just occurred to him. They crossed the bridge without entering a shop.

2. The bakery round the next corner

The second bakery was closing. Its assistant swept between tables and said two loaves remained. Nico bought one and stared at the other. Inés bought water. Outside, his bag of bread struck his knee with each step.

“Batteries now,” she said.

He pointed down a street towards a square. There was a hardware shop somewhere there. Inés knew it was closed for repairs. She followed anyway. Their unspoken agreement, under which neither had to justify the distance, was beginning to amuse her.

In the square a man was selling second-hand books. He offered them an incomplete atlas. Several pages were missing. In their place were a gas installation plan and a croquette recipe. Nico checked the index. Inés examined the torn edges. The pages had come away from the spine, rather than being deliberately cut out.

She liked repairing objects that showed where the fault was. If a string failed to vibrate, you could check the bridge, the nut, the tension. The workshop’s letter contained no broken part she could identify. Its offer might be an opportunity or three afternoons of unpaid work until her savings disappeared. Both readings fitted the same sheet perfectly.

Nico bought the atlas. She asked what he wanted it for.

“There are still countries in it.”

“You’ll have to carry it.”

He put it under the wrong arm and crushed the bread. They redistributed their parcels. Inés ended up with the atlas, considerably heavier than its missing pages suggested it should be.

His phone vibrated. Alba wondered whether they had moved into the shop. Nico replied that they were looking for batteries. Inés felt a small cylinder beneath her fingers. For the first time the lie no longer seemed entirely her own. She considered taking the batteries out there and then, but he had already put the phone away and begun describing a quicker way home that led in the opposite direction.

3. Correspondence

They sat in a square they did not know. The bench faced a school wall, with sunshine reaching only one end. Nico opened the bread bag and offered a piece. Inés broke it against her knee. Neither had eaten before leaving because the errand was supposed to take five minutes.

Nico said he needed a stamp. The explanation followed too long a pause. Inés looked at the atlas and then at him.

“Have you got a letter?”

“No.”

“Then you can wait until you write it.”

He held a crumb between his fingers. He wanted to call a former colleague who had asked for help moving a keyboard. Nico had said he was busy, then seen the man crossing the street alone, struggling with one end of the instrument. He did not know how to telephone without pretending the request had only just returned to his memory.

Inés had expected something worse. His problem irritated her, which surprised her. She carried an enormous decision in her notebook; he was talking about a call. She told him rather unkindly that if he had the number he could press it.

He put the bread away.

“If it were that simple, you wouldn’t have carried that folded letter since we left.”

She looked down. One corner of the envelope showed between the pages. She considered getting up, finishing the imaginary shopping and returning alone. Instead she took the batteries out and set them on the bench.

Nico looked without touching. He began laughing, cautiously at first, then with an indelicacy she found difficult not to share. She explained she had bought them yesterday. How many shops had she planned to visit before mentioning that?

“As many as necessary.”

She gave him the letter. He read from beginning to end, then returned to the first line. He did not tell her to accept. He asked where she would sleep, what the journey cost and whether the workshop had written down what happened after the trial. She had answers to two questions and assumptions for the others.

He borrowed her pen. On the reverse he made a list, leaving space for replies. His handwriting was much clearer when he was not writing music in a hurry.

One board at the end of the bench was loose. Before standing, Inés tried tightening its screw with a key. Nico held the wood, but they gave up. They needed a proper tool. He suggested bringing one next time. Would he really return all this way for a screw? He picked up the atlas, open at a page without a map, and said they knew the way now. She wrote the square’s name on the back of the letter. Beside her workshop questions she added a small word: screwdriver.

4. An unfamiliar street

They called the workshop from the bench. A woman answered who did not initially remember sending the letter. Inés gave her name twice, then asked about hours, insurance and the work itself. The woman answered some questions and promised to consult somebody about the rest. She did not sound offended. Nor did she sound quite as delighted as the letter.

After hanging up, Inés had another appointment to talk and several numbers in the margin. The offer remained, less shiny and more precise. Nico asked whether that was good. She folded the paper along its existing creases.

“I don’t know yet.”

He nodded and found his colleague’s number. This conversation was shorter. Nico offered help tomorrow, listened and agreed that yes, he had been an idiot. He used none of the sentences rehearsed during their walk. Afterwards he said the keyboard was upstairs already, but its legs needed assembling.

They checked the map. The application had joined their movements into an absurd shape: a loop, two crossings, almost a figure eight. Inés closed the screen with her thumb. They could go back by the bridge. There was also a narrow street behind the school which seemed to lead close to the courtyard.

Nico asked whether she was sure. She said no. He stood and tried putting the atlas into the bread bag. A corner ripped the paper and the loaf fell onto the bench. They picked it up, brushed the crumbs away and decided to carry things separately.

The street did not lead near the courtyard. It ended at a small garden with two entrances and a dry fountain. They had to go round. Along the way they found a shop selling envelopes individually. Nico bought one for loose atlas pages. Inés asked for another, without a stamp.

Back at the courtyard Alba was making coffee. Teo had an alarm clock open on a table and a screw between his lips. Inés left the batteries beside him. Nico placed the bread nearby, so flattened it appeared to have travelled underneath somebody.

“You took your time,” Alba said.

“We went for a walk,” Nico replied.

Inés put the letter in its new envelope. This time she left it on top of the notebook, visible. Before playing she would tell them about the workshop. First she wanted more bread and to hear how they had resolved the song’s opening in her absence.

Teo inserted the batteries. The alarm sounded immediately. Nobody could find the button. They ended up laughing round the table, hands occupied with tools and crumbs. Nico repeated something he had said all morning: they could take the long way round. Alba asked whether that belonged in the lyric too. He went looking for a pencil that still wrote.