“Do you have any tea?” Patrick Jane is standing in my kitchen, looking into a cabinet he has opened without permission.
“You have just walked into my house,” I say, “and that's the first thing you ask?”
He turns around, holding a tin of tea, and gives me that infuriatingly pleasant smile.
“It's a very important question. People tell you all sorts of things about themselves when you ask them direct questions. They lie, they exaggerate, they give you the version of themselves they'd like you to believe. But tea?” He taps the tin lightly against his palm. “Tea is much more revealing.”
“Because you can tell a person's character from the tea they drink?”
“Among other things.”
“And what does this one tell you?”
He looks at the label. “Darjeeling. Very respectable. A little predictable, perhaps.”
I take the tin from him.
“That's enough. You are not insulting my tea collection before you have even been offered a cup.”
“Ah.”
He looks delighted. “So, you do take your tea seriously.”
“I take many things seriously.”
“I know…”
I narrow my eyes. “You have been here for less than three minutes.”
“And already you have told me that you dislike people making assumptions about you, particularly when they are doing it with confidence. You also don't like people touching your things without asking, although you were willing to let the tea incident pass because you were curious about what I would say next.”
I stare at him.
He smiles.
“It's a gift.”
“It's an irritating habit.”
“Those are often the same thing.”
I turn towards the kettle. “Fine. What would you like?”
“Surprise me.”
“No.”
“No?”
“You don't get to walk into my kitchen, inspect my cabinets, insult my Darjeeling, and then refuse to make a decision. Choose something.”
He leans against the counter, watching me open the cupboard where I keep my teas. There are tins and boxes arranged across several shelves, some neatly labelled, others tucked behind their more frequently used companions. I have teas for different hours, different weather, different moods. There are days when I want something strong enough to bring me back to myself, and evenings when I want a tea that asks nothing of me. Sometimes I choose a tea because I remember where I bought it. Sometimes because of the way it smells when I open the tin. Sometimes I stand in front of the cupboard until one of them feels right.
Patrick watches me for a while.
“You don't have a favourite.”
“I have many favourites.”
“That's not the same thing.”
“No,” I say. “It isn't.”
He looks at the shelves again. “You choose according to your mood.”
I pause with a tin in my hand. “How did you know?”
“Because you looked at three different teas before reaching for that one. You weren't comparing their qualities. You were trying to decide which version of yourself you wanted to spend the next twenty minutes with.”
I look at him properly now.
“That,” I say, “is an annoyingly good observation.”
“Thank you!”
“It wasn't a compliment.”
“I know, those are often the most reliable kind.”
I make the tea as he watches me measure the leaves, pour the water, and wait. He doesn't interrupt, which is unusual enough to make me suspicious.
“You know,” he says eventually, “most people would simply ask for tea.”
“Most people don't have a tea collection like mine.”
“Most people don't have a collection of anything without having a favourite!”
“Maybe… I don't want every cup to be the same experience.”
He considers this.
“Or perhaps you like keeping your options open.”
“Is that your diagnosis?”
“I am not a doctor.”
“Ah! I am relieved.”
He laughs, and for a moment, he looks younger than he usually does on the screen, less like a man who can read a room before entering it and more like someone who has found an unexpectedly interesting place to spend an afternoon.
I set his cup in front of him. He smells the tea before taking a sip.
“Interesting.”
“Good interesting or bad interesting?”
“I am deciding.”
“You mean you don't know?”
He looks up, amused. “You do realise that uncertainty isn't a crime?”
“Coming from you, it sounds like a confession.”
He takes another sip. “Very nice.”
“That's all?”
“What would you prefer? A detailed analysis of your personality based on the leaves?”
“I thought that was your speciality.”
“It is. But I suspect you wouldn't enjoy being told that your tea collection is an attempt to impose order on an unpredictable world, or that your elaborate rituals around choosing a cup are a way of exercising control over the small things because the large things refuse to cooperate.”
I say nothing. His expression changes slightly. The teasing remains, but he is watching me more carefully now.
“Have I got it wrong?”
“Not entirely.”
“Ah…”
“Tea isn't always about control. Sometimes I just want a particular taste. Sometimes I want to remember a place. Sometimes I want to sit with a book and have something beside me that makes the hour feel like my own.”
He nods.
“And sometimes,” I continue, “I don't know what I want until I find it. I think that's the point. I don't want to decide in advance what every day is going to feel like.”
Patrick turns his cup slowly on its saucer. “That's a rather good way to live.”
“You sound surprised.”
“I am. Most people spend a great deal of time trying to understand themselves. You have found a way to ask yourself how you are feeling without having to put everything into words.”
I look down at my own cup.
“I write, so I suppose I am always trying to put things into words.”
“Yes, but perhaps you don't always need to.”
There is a small silence between us. Outside, the afternoon has begun to soften. The kettle has cooled, and the kitchen smells faintly of tea leaves.
Then he says, “May I see the rest of your collection?”
I laugh. “Of course you may. You have been waiting to ask since you arrived, haven’t you?”
“Not at all.”
“Patrick?”
“All right. Since the Darjeeling incident.”
I open the next cabinet. He gets up at once, carrying his cup.
“Careful,” I tell him. “Some of those are difficult to find.”
He looks over the tins, his expression turning serious in the way it does when he encounters a puzzle he genuinely wants to solve.
“I see. This one for melancholy, this one for nostalgia, this one for days when you want to feel productive but would prefer not to be disturbed.”
“That's not what they are for.”
“No?”
“No. That's just what I happen to choose sometimes.”
He glances at me.
“There's a difference?”
“A very large one. You are trying to turn my teas into a personality test. I simply like tea.”
He smiles, accepting the correction with suspicious ease.
“Fair enough.”
He picks up another tin, reads the label, and puts it back exactly where he found it.
“Tell me something,” he says. “If I came here tomorrow, would you make me the same tea?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Why?”
“Because you would be a different person tomorrow.”
He goes quiet for a moment and then looks at me with a smile that is gentler than the others.
“I think I am going to like coming here.”
“You haven't even finished your tea.”
“I am pacing myself.”
“Of course you are.”
He settles back into his chair, and I return to my own cup. Neither of us speaks for a while.
For once, I don't feel the need to fill the silence with a question, and he doesn't seem inclined to offer an observation.
It's a good tea. It's the right tea for this particular afternoon.
I suspect Patrick Jane knows that. I suspect, too, that he will be back tomorrow, asking for tea as though he has never been here before, opening my kitchen cabinets with that unrepentant smile, and trying to work out what sort of woman keeps so many different teas in her house.
I will let him wonder. After all, a person ought to be allowed a few mysteries of her own.