My wife and I are sitting opposite one another on a train heading north. Planned engineering works have added an hour to the journey, but we have a table, and the landscape rolling by is pleasingly misty. My wife is asleep with headphones on and my coat draped over her, mouth slightly ajar.
I distinctly remember her once responding to an idle proposal of mine with the words, “Never, ever try to take me on a mini-break”, but the weekend away was her idea, even though it’s not quite a weekend.
“Sunday to Monday,” she said. “The hotel is half the price.” I don’t mention that I associate this kind of cost-cutting exercise with old age, like eating in restaurants at 6pm, or wearing down vests in the house. Suddenly the carriage seems chilly. I eye my coat with envy.
When I next look up, my wife is awake, and wholly focused on whatever is happening in her headphones. I turn again to the world outside the window: a felted stillness occasionally interrupted by the degraded silhouettes of spindly trees. I look at my wife, and she looks at me.
“What?” she says, lifting the headphones off one ear. I repeat myself.
“‘Foggy?’” she says. “You interrupted my thing to say ‘foggy’?”
“What are you listening to?” I say.
“It’s a podcast about a woman whose husband is having an affair,” she says. “She’s not happy.”
For the rest of the journey I switch between the window and my wife. Sometimes her eyes are wide with shock; sometimes she looks stern. Through the window I see a man with a camera standing on a lonely platform. When I turn back, my wife is wagging an admonishing finger in my direction.
“I’m not the man in your podcast,” I say.
“What?” she says, pulling back her headphones.
“Trainspotter,” I say, pointing.
“What are you, five?” she says.
Despite our late arrival, we’re still too early to check into our hotel. We go to the pub beneath it and order two beers.
“How did your podcast end?” I say. “Are they reconciled?”
“Yes, but…” my wife says.
“But what?” I say.
“The wife can’t stop being snide,” she says.
“A snide wife,” I say. “How does he cope?”
“Shut up,” she says.
“How are enjoying your mini-break so far?” I say. My wife shudders a little at the word.
“It is a sort of mini-break,” she says. “But we’re also visiting our middle son at university.”
“A combined visit and mini-break,” I say. “This is the mini-break part.”
“I’ve texted him,” she says. “He’s on his way.”
“Do you want to hold hands?” I say.
“No, thank you,” she says. We look towards the door for a long moment.
“Name a kind of bird that has a penis,” my wife says. “I’ll start: goose.”
“OK,” I say. “Wait, what?”
“If you don’t know, just say, ‘I don’t know,’” she says. “Duck.”
“I believe some flightless birds have penises,” I say. “Like ostriches.”
“Emu,” she says.
“Are you sure about that?” I say. “I’m not sure about that.”
“We’ll look it up, shall we?” she says, pulling out her phone.
“Do owls have penises?” I say.
“Emus and other large flightless birds, yes,” she says. “Swans have penises.”
“I was about to guess swan.”
“It says I last visited this webpage on 10 January.”
“This does seem familiar,” I say. “Sitting in a bar, just the two of us, looking at the bird penis page.”
“Christ,” she says. The door opens, but it’s just another couple of about our age, standing on the threshold in silence.
“Check owls,” I say.
