The Photograph

In winter, when nobody in the village wanted to learn to swim, Ana worked in the restaurant by the sea. She was not very good at it. She told people what to order.

Every afternoon at four, an old woman arrived with the wind behind her and sat at the same table by the window. She ordered tea and toast. Then she took a photograph from her bag, stood it against her cup and looked at it while she ate. Never once did she speak to anyone.

On the third afternoon Ana put the tea on the table and looked straight at the photograph.

"Who is that?" she asked.

The woman put her hand over the photograph and said nothing.

"Fine," said Ana.

The next afternoon Ana asked again. "Who is in the photograph?"

The woman paid, left a large tip, and said nothing.

On the Friday Ana sat at her table, right across from her. "What I want to know," she said, "is who is in that photograph. You can tell me now, or I can ask you every day until one of us dies. I have more time than you."

The woman looked at her for a long time. Then she ordered more toast.

It was the storm that changed things. One wet afternoon the sea turned the colour of the sky, and the old woman stood in the middle of her meal, took her coat and hurried to the door. The photograph was still against the cup.

Ana looked at it. Two young women stood on a beach with their arms around each other, laughing, their hair everywhere in the wind. It was soft at the edges, and there was dust in the corners. On the back, in careful letters, someone had written: "Us, before we were wise."

Ana followed her into the rain. The woman was at the corner, holding her coat closed. When she saw the photograph in Ana's hand, something in her face opened. So grateful was she that for a moment she could not speak. Then she came inside again, and for the first time she talked.

Her name was Ruth. The other girl was Ellen. They had been friends since they were children: same street, same school, same everything. Then one summer they had a fight, and Ruth could not even remember what it was about. Money, perhaps. A boy. Nothing at all.

"It was pride that did it," she said. "We were both waiting for the other one to speak first."

"How long ago?" asked Ana.

"Sixty years."

"That is a long time to wait," said Ana. "Did you ever say sorry?"

Ruth opened her bag and took a letter from it. The paper had gone yellow, and it was breaking at the edges. "I wrote this the week after," she said. "I have carried it ever since. I never posted it."

"Post it," said Ana.

"She may be dead."

"She may not be. Post it."

"An apology gets heavier the longer you carry it," said Ruth. "Only now do I understand that."

"Then it is very heavy," said Ana. "Post it."

The restaurant was silent. Outside, the rain fell on the sea. Ruth returned the letter to her bag and paid, and for once Ana wondered if she had said too much. It was not a feeling she had often.

The next afternoon the woman did not come. Nor did she come the day after that. After two weeks Ana stopped watching the door.

Then, on a bright cold morning, the door opened and Ruth arrived with another old woman on her arm. This one was smaller and slower, and she had to be helped into her chair. They ordered two teas and two plates of toast, and they sat at the table by the window and talked for three hours. They laughed. Then they argued about who had been right sixty years ago. Neither of them would say sorry first.

Ana brought more tea. "You were both wrong," she said.

Both women looked at her. For the first time in sixty years, they agreed completely about something: they did not like Ana.

When they left, Ruth stopped at the door and put the photograph into Ana's hand.

"Keep it," she said.

"Why?"

"It has done its work."

Ana put it on the wall by the window, where the light was good. People ask about it sometimes.

"Two friends who did not speak for sixty years," Ana tells them. "Over nothing. They come every week now. Do not sit near them."