Page 15 of Crosswind

"Maya and I ended things months ago. This isn’t…” I stop. "Jan isn't the reason Maya and I ended. That was already done."

Anders nods slowly. "Okay." Then: "What's he like?"

I think about Jan on my sofa with his book. Jan at the market examining cheese with the concentration of someone defusing a bomb. Jan's face when he's asleep. Jan in 1A saying it's adequate with complete neutrality.

"Extraordinary," I say.

Anders looks at me for a moment. Then back at the arrivals board. "Okay," he says again. Differently this time.

The arrivals doors open. People come through in the stream of long-haul passengers — slightly dazed, slightly relieved, recalibrating to gravity. I watch the stream.

And then Jan.

He comes through the doors with his carry-on and his composure, someone who has assessed the situation and knows exactly where he is going. He is looking for me. He finds me — eye contact across the arrivals hall, and something in his face does the thing it does, the thing that is not quite a smile but contains one, and he walks toward me.

I meet him halfway.

I kiss him. Right there, arrivals hall, Cape Town International, with Anders behind me and three of my crew somewhere in the vicinity and the general public going about their business. Jan makes a small sound of mild surprise and then kisses me back and I put one hand on the side of his face and think: there it is. There is the whole thing.

When I pull back he looks at me with the expression of someone recalibrating.

"Hello," I say. I am aware I am smiling. I don't do anything about it.

"Hello," he says. His eyes move briefly over my shoulder to where I know Anders is standing, then back to me. His voice drops. "Your crew is right there."

"I know." I keep my hand on the side of his face. He doesn't step back.

"You don't care."

"Not particularly." I look at him — at the composure he is holding together, the thing underneath it that he is choosing to let me see. "Do you?"

He holds my gaze for a moment. Something moves across his face — surprise, then something warmer, then the decision to not make anything of it.

"Not particularly," he says.

Then he picks up his carry-on.

Anders appears beside us with the expression of someone being professionally composed about something they find privately significant.

"Jan," I say, "this is Anders, my first officer. Anders, this is Jan. My boyfriend."

Jan extends his hand. "Anders."

"Jan." Anders shakes it. "Good flight?"

"Smooth," Jan says. "Patrick's landing was excellent."

Anders looks at me. I look at the arrivals board.

"It was adequate," I say.

Jan says nothing. But the corner of his mouth goes.

The crew takes the hotel bus. Jan and I take a taxi.

The city is dark beyond the taxi windows, its geography reduced to lights and roads I recognise but Jan does not. The mountain is there somewhere, invisible against the night sky.

"You can't see it yet," I say.