The Wall Between Kitchens

I took the cleaning bottles out from under the sink before the plumber arrived.

The stopcock had begun to weep in cold weather. Each morning there was a silver bead at the joint, and beneath it a dark spot on the shelf, smelling faintly of pennies. I put down a folded tea towel and watched it turn green at the edges.

The plumber said he would come after lunch. I cleared the cupboard, wiped away the flour dust, and removed the thin wooden board at the back so he could reach the pipe.

There should have been brick behind it. The kitchen wall faced the narrow side garden, where rain had flattened the rosemary and filled Peter's old watering can.

Instead, there was another kitchen.

I saw the bottom half of it through the square opening: blue cupboards, red tiles, a chair with one leg repaired in pale wood. A man's slippers stood beneath the table. Somewhere above the opening, a kettle clicked off.

I crouched on the floor with the board in my hands.

The other kitchen was almost mine. The cupboards had the same brass catches, though mine were painted cream. The tiles followed the same crooked line behind the cooker. Even the crack in the skirting board was there, running down from the corner like a fine black root.

A hand appeared and set a mug on the floor.

It was one of our wedding mugs, the heavy brown pair we had bought in Latchford. Peter had broken his while washing up. Mine was still on the dresser, holding wooden spoons.

The hand was older than I remembered. The little finger bent inward.

"Tea's there," a man said.

I knew his voice before I saw his face. That was the cruel part, or perhaps the kind part.

He bent down.

His hair was white at the temples. Peter's never had the chance to go white. There was no scar above his eyebrow, and he wore his wedding ring on the wrong hand, but his eyes were Peter's, mild and grey, with the permanent look of someone listening to rain.

For a little while neither of us spoke.

Then he said, "Mara?"

At the same moment, I said, "Peter?"

We both drew back.

The kettle in his kitchen began to mutter as it cooled. In mine, the clock above the fridge moved its minute hand with a small, dry click.

"My wife," he said at last. "You look nearly like her."

I nodded. It seemed important not to comfort him too quickly.

"Is she upstairs?"

"No."

"Ah," I said.

He sat on his floor. I sat on mine. Between us ran the copper pipe, bright where the leaking joint had been rubbed clean. He passed the mug through the opening, and I drank. He had made the tea too weak. Peter always had.

We talked until the plumber knocked. Not about deaths. We spoke of loose cupboard hinges, and whether the back step became slippery in frost. His garden had a pear tree where mine had rosemary. His Mara disliked music in the kitchen. His own name was not Peter, though he asked me not to say what it was.

Before I replaced the board, he touched two fingers to the pipe.

"So that's where the knocking came from," he said.

The plumber changed the washer and complained that I had put the screws somewhere awkward. When he left, the stopcock was dry and the cupboard smelled of damp plaster and his orange soap.

That evening I loosened the board again.

The other kitchen was dark. A mug stood near the opening, with a fresh tea stain inside. I placed mine opposite it.

Between the two cups, under the quiet pipes, there was room for a hand.