I met Lyall that Saturday afternoon. A light drizzle speckled the pavement. I was slightly late, having gotten quite caught up in a novel I was reading, and I apologized to him.

"Quite alright," he said. "I expected you were a bit hesitant to come out in the rain, but I see you have an umbrella. I never remember to take mine."

"I usually don't either," I admitted, "but I didn't want to go out to a restaurant with my hair all drenched."

We walked a few blocks to a street with quaint little shops and cafes. Cardiff wasn't the most cosmopolitan of cities, but it still felt more sophisticated than Aberstwyth. I told Lyall all about growing up on the coast, about my sister and my college. He was quiet and solemn-seeming but his expression flickered with mirth whenever I exaggerated about the bureaucratic paper storm that was my workplace. How I missed that life, later on—living in the city, going to dances, never fearing for my own protection. I suppose that's how my father felt after the war, but I could not have understood at the time.

Lyall took me to a small, cramped cafe called Blevin's Tea, located a half-storey below ground. It was accessible by a narrow set of crooked stone steps leading down from the pavement. I never would have even noticed it from the street, had he not known about it. Remus has long since grown bored with hearing the story, but I can't help but describe the decor again for your sake. Glowing aquariums lined the walls, but inside them were no fish, nor water; it was as though a miniature world was contained in each tank. Tiny townhouses, their chimneys no thicker than crochet hooks, were lined up on roads cobbled with stones like coarse grains of sand. Both cars and horses pulling carts passed on the roads. There were little factories, some with smokestacks pouring actual smoke; even tiny rubbish bins and a few run-down houses with caved-in roofs.

"Oh my," I whispered, leaning over one tank to look inside. There was no lid on any tank; they were entirely open on top. "May I touch it?"

"Erm, I don't think so," Lyall said uncomfortably. "I think it's just for show."

"Look at the horses! They're actually walking! It doesn't look like they're on wheels... Do you know how it works?"

Lyall shrugged sheepishly, though there was a glint in his eyes. "I can't make more than a guess."

"Maybe it's electric? Something with a radio signal?" I asked.

He merely smiled and brought two menus to a round coffee table with two chairs, one poufy and wing-backed, the other small and wooden. Lyall eyed the poufy chair and then sat down on the hard one. He spread the menus out on the table and straightened them into a neat column.

"Baked apples...I don't think I've had one since I was a child," I said.

"Now's then the time, then,"

"I don't know," I blushed, "it's an awful lot to eat at this time in the afternoon, with ice cream on the side."

"I might be able to help you with that, if it's a problem." He looked serious, all stiff upper lip and knotted tie, but there was a crinkling at the corners of his eyes that betrayed him.

"Now that you mention it," I said, "I don't think it will be. Excuse me, sir—" I flagged down the waiter, a silver-haired man in a violently purple smoking jacket.

"All set, then?" He addressed Lyall, as if I wasn't there.

"Yes, thank you, Demosthenes. A cup of ginger tea and, er—" Lyall shot me a questioning glance. I nodded at him. "Two cups of tea and a baked apple with ice cream, please."

"Certainly," said the waiter, with a curt bow.

"And two spoons please," I added, but Demosthenes ignored me, retreating to the kitchen. I felt more puzzled then offended, not knowing as I do now why he would treat me not so much with disdain, but as if I simply didn't exist. Being young and female, I was unused to invisibility, of either the magical or mundane variety. Later on, it was little Remus, only three or four at the most, who noticed the small slights—the unanswered questions, condescendingly worded greetings—and asked, in the innocently blunt manner of a child, "Mammy, why don't the magic people want to talk to you?"

Lyall, however, was unusually attentive. I chattered on about this and that—my job, my few friends in Cardiff, the loneliness I'd felt upon moving out to Cardiff on my own—and despite how colourless, how utterly boring I sounded to myself, he smiled and nodded at all the right bits, occasionally asking me questions. He listened to my answers with a slightly furrowed brow, as though he was thinking hard about everything I said. I hardly noticed when the tea and baked apple arrived on mismatched china.

Lyall took a fork and what looked to be an exceedingly dull butter knife and neatly sliced the baked apple in half in one clean motion.

"You can have this side," he said, "it's got more caramel anyways."

"Oh, that's alright—if you want—"

"Don't mind that," he said briskly. "I'm sorry—I forgot to ask for a second plate. Why don't you start in and I'll ask the waiter for an extra?"

"Oh, that's alright," I giggled nervously. "We can share the plate." My cheeks grew warm after I said that—it hadn't seemed as strange until I realized that Lyall was nearly a stranger to me. Yet, his presence already felt familiar enough.

"Are you sure?" asked Lyall as he straightened his dark blue tie and spread a napkin on his lap neatly.

"Yes. Yes, if you don't mind, I mean."

He replied by taking a spoonful of ice cream and turning the spoon upside down in his mouth. "Hmm. Excellent choice."

"I've got such a sweet tooth," I murmured, "it's really terrible."

"Better sweet than sour. I can't stand sour."

"No? What about buttermilk?"

Lyall shook his head somberly. "Absolutely not. My mother tried foisting that on me when I was a child. She learned very quickly not to do that." He looked serious, though his gaze was gentle, fixated on mine.

I laughed and ate a heaping spoonful of my dessert. "What about sour cream, then? Surely you must eat sour cream?"

"Never." He was telling the absolute truth, I later learned. It wasn't that sour foods made him sick—he just disliked them. Lyall chose not to eat foods he disliked and when he chose not to do something, he never did it. Like copper wire, the more you hammered at him, the more unyielding he became.

(Naturally, when I was expecting Remus, all I craved was sour cream and sour apple candies.)

"I'm not too picky," I explained. "I like mostly everything, which is just as well since I'm a lousy cook."

"Now, I find that hard to believe."

"That I'm not picky?"

He shook his head and brushed a single stray hair on his forehead back into its place. "That your cooking is lousy. I'm more inclined to believe you're being modest."

I smiled despite myself. "Now, how would you know that? You've never had my burnt omelettes?"

"Call it, er, intuition." He gave me a swift grin and then ate a large forkful of baked apple dipped in melting ice cream. A dribble of ice cream was forming at the corner of his lip, but he took a napkin and quickly wiped it off before I could say anything.

"Well, your intuition is wrong in this case, but I know what you mean. When I know something, there's hardly a reason for it. I just know. Do you understand what I'm—well, of course you do." I sipped my tea. The ginger was strong, but it tasted wonderful.

"Erm. I wouldn't say that I usually believe things without reason. I suppose it's a kind of cynicism, but I'm probably less intuitive than, er...practical."

"Oh?"

"Not that there's anything wrong with intuition," he added quickly. "Some people have great facility that way."

"Oh, definitely. My sister is very clever, but she thinks in leaps and bounds—nobody can follow her train of thought but her."

Lyall was tracing his spoon around his saucer idly, leaving a trail of melted ice cream in its wake. "Yes," he said softly, his brow slightly tensed in thought. "Sounds like a good friend of mine."

My expression must have soured at that, because Lyall finished his ice cream in one spoonful and sat forward, his chair squealing in protest against the ancient wood floor.

"Shall we get the cheque?"

"Oh—yes, I think so. If you're finished..."

He made eye contact with Demosthenes and neither of them said a word, but Lyall seemed satisfied that the message had been sent. Demosthenes lumbered over to a counter and wrote out a receipt with a dripping fountain pen

"Well, I hope I haven't kept you too long," I said, folding my hands into my lap. "Weekends are so short, I find."

"I'm in no hurry," he said amiably. He looked at me, but the reflection of lamplight in his glasses made it hard to probe his gaze. "Unless you have somewhere to be, in which case—"

"Oh, no. No, I haven't," I backtracked.

Demosthenes arrived with the cheque and placed it on the table. With the tips of all five fingers, he pushed it unceremoniously to Lyall, who took out his wallet. I took the cheque and opened my clutch.

"Don't worry about that," he said.

"Oh, but it's the least I could do," I insisted. "You saved my life."

"And you have already repaid me as I asked." He spilled a few coins out of his pocketbook, counting them. Some of them looked unusual—probably foreign. I wished I could travel so often that my money was all mixed up with foreign cash.

"No, don't—please," I said, taking the cheque away from him. "I'm very grateful and it's just a very small gesture."

"It wouldn't feel right." He fell silent and looked through the window at our side. The view was of crooked steps and cobblestones. Then he added, "But if it makes you feel better, then go ahead and I will buy lunch next time."

A pregnant pause lasted the length of my swallowing.

"If there is a next time, I mean," he said more softly.

"I hope so." I had spoken aloud before my mind had formulated a response. Or so it seemed.

"Hope," murmured Lyall. Then, more melodically, he repeated my name, contemplating the word as if he had never heard it before. "You must always be hopeful."

"I am." I placed my fourteen shillings on the table and Demosthenes appeared and disappeared with it almost instantaneously.

"I'm sorry, that was terribly obvious. I am slightly ashamed—you must have heard that so many times."

I laughed. "Yes, Lyall," I said, smiling. "But not from you."