The Move Between Them

The last sunlight on the Isle of Skye lay in a bright strip across the sea, catching the white tower at Neist Point and the green shoulders of the headland. Ruth paused on the established path, safely back from the cliffs, with the wind pressing her jacket against her arms. She had seen this view in photographs, but none had prepared her for the sound of the water far below or the way the light moved over the grass. Nor had a year of letters prepared her for Adam's voice when he said her name.

He was taller than she had imagined and less certain of himself. This was a relief. In his letters he had seemed quietly capable of anything, including winning a chess game that had occupied them for eleven months. In person, he had introduced himself twice and then apologized for the second introduction. Ruth, who had spent the morning deciding which perfectly practical jacket made her look least practical, had liked him at once.

They had met through a correspondence chess club. Ruth joined after her father persuaded her that losing to strangers might improve her game more than losing to him. At forty-one she had taken this advice with appropriate skepticism, but the slow exchange of moves suited her. Adam, forty-five, worked in hospital administration in Edinburgh; she managed a neighborhood cinema in York. A move on a card gradually became a paragraph about a film, then a letter that had very little to do with chess. When she mentioned a planned week on Skye, he said he would be there visiting his sister. The decision to meet had taken them three increasingly elaborate letters to reach.

Ruth had arrived with one question she had promised herself not to ask too soon. In their last game, Adam had resigned from a position she was almost certain he could have saved. She had reconstructed it twice before traveling. There was a stubborn rook on the seventh rank and a reply so characteristic of him that she could not believe he had missed it. He had offered no explanation beyond congratulations. The mystery had acquired an importance that a chess result alone did not deserve.

They had walked down earlier while the light was higher, keeping to the concrete path and leaving the lighthouse buildings alone. On their way back they stopped to let a group pass at a wider place. Among them, a sultry woman with sea-green eyes and a wine-red scarf thanked them as she followed her companion uphill. Adam waited beside Ruth until the path cleared, close enough for her to notice the faint scent of laundry soap on his collar. She had known what he thought about three different film endings before knowing this small thing about him, and the reversal felt wonderfully intimate.

The conversation grew easier as they climbed. He was funnier aloud, though his jokes sometimes arrived just after the moment they were intended for. She told him this, and he admitted that letters gave him a misleading advantage: he could take two days to appear spontaneous. Ruth laughed, then felt him watching her with an expression so open that she forgot what she had intended to say next. For months she had imagined attraction as a possible complication to a friendship she valued. Now it seemed to have been waiting here, ready to become the simplest fact of the evening.

At a broad, level place beside the path, well away from the edge, they stopped to rest. The sun had found an opening under the clouds. Gold spread across the sea, while the lighthouse remained sharply white against the darker water. Ruth took two oat biscuits from her bag, and Adam produced a flask with the satisfaction of a man who had remembered one useful thing. She accepted a cup and finally asked about the rook.

He stared at her for a moment, then looked down at his biscuit. He had wondered when she would notice. The saved position was real; she had found the same continuation he had. There had been no lost move, no confusion over the board. He had resigned deliberately.

Ruth felt a small, unwelcome disappointment. She liked winning, but she liked being taken seriously more. Before she could put this into words, he explained that he had made a foolish distinction. He wanted to write to her without needing a chess move as an excuse. Ending the game had seemed, on paper, an elegant way to discover whether she wanted the letters to continue.

“You could have asked me,” she said.

“Yes. I've had considerable time to appreciate that.”

She looked at him more carefully. There was no cleverness in his expression now, only embarrassment and the willingness to let her see it. He apologized for disguising the question inside a result. Ruth thought of his congratulations, the letter she had written back about her journey, and the pleasure with which she had watched for his answer. They had both continued. The evidence was sitting beside her with a flask balanced between his boots.

She told him they would resume the game from the disputed position. He would earn his loss properly. His smile returned, and with it the warmth she had felt before the explanation. Then she added that the letters were allowed to concern whatever they wanted. She was interested in him when he had no move to offer. Saying this made her face warm, but she held his gaze until she saw that he understood.

The wind freshened, and they packed away the cups. Adam offered his hand as they stood. She kept it after she had found her balance. They walked the remaining path toward the parking area at an easy pace, their joined hands occasionally brushing the side of his jacket. By the time they reached level ground, the sun had slipped behind the low clouds and the evening was turning blue. They had left enough light for the return, and neither needed to pretend that lingering beside their cars was part of the walk.

Adam asked if he could see her tomorrow. Ruth said she would like that, then told him she also wanted something less dependent on a holiday coincidence. He could come to York. She could come to Edinburgh. They need not settle the whole arrangement now, but she wanted to know they were discussing the same possibility.

He answered without hesitation. He would like to take her out, properly, both here and when they went home. The plainness of it moved her more than any beautifully revised letter could have.

Ruth stepped closer and touched the front of his jacket. He glanced at her mouth and waited. When she said he could kiss her, he did so with a care that made her want to draw him nearer. She did. His hand warmed the side of her face, and the second kiss was less tentative, full of the accumulated pleasure of knowing someone and the surprise of discovering him again.

They agreed on a meeting place and time for the following afternoon before getting into their separate cars. Ruth sat for a moment with the window lowered while Adam checked that she knew her route. Then he asked what she intended to play against his rook. She smiled at him in the fading light and said he would have to wait for the letter. Tomorrow, she had decided, belonged to something else.