Amani Vele & Dario Mbeki

Three weeks after I met Amani, she told me she had applied for a job in another town. I said, “That's good,” in the voice people use when they have just stepped on something sharp.

She heard it. Of course she heard it. She spent her working days listening carefully to people who avoided saying what they meant.

We had met on WaBanja at a time when I was beginning to believe I had become too fixed in my routines to meet anyone. I repaired equipment at a small food-processing business. I knew what time I liked to eat, which roads I preferred, and how much conversation I could tolerate before my first cup of tea. I mistook these habits for a settled life.

The job she had applied for was a six-month contract. It was better work, with a chance of becoming permanent. She had sent in her application before we met. I understood all of that. Understanding did not stop me from quietly calculating the distance between us.

For several days, I tried to be impressively relaxed. I asked sensible questions about accommodation and transport. I told her to let me know when she heard back. What I didn't say was that I was afraid of becoming a pleasant person she used to know.

Eventually, she asked why I had stopped suggesting we meet.

I said I didn't want to get in the way of her plans. She put down her cup and looked at me for a moment.

“You haven't been asked to stand in the way,” she said. “You have been asked whether you'd like to keep getting to know me.”

We agreed to continue without pretending we knew the ending. If she got the contract, we would talk about what a realistic visit looked like. If one of us became unhappy, we would say so. We were not going to arrange our lives around a promise neither of us was ready to make.

She got the job. I helped her carry a few boxes, though she insisted that helping her move did not mean I could criticise the quality of every chair in her new room. The chair was terrible. I kept my opinion to myself for almost a full day.

Visits required planning and money. We took turns when we could. We didn't pretend the cost was romantic. I missed one trip because an urgent repair kept me at work, and Amani was upset. I wanted her to praise me for being responsible. She wanted me to understand that being responsible did not make her disappointment unreasonable.

The photograph was taken during one of her visits home. We walked up to a rocky viewpoint with food packed in a container that leaked slightly into my bag. Amani wore the patterned dress because she had decided she was tired of saving her favourite clothes for events that required invitations. I wore a white shirt and discovered that rocks make poor chairs when you are trying to remain spotless.

We are still working out the geography. The chair in her room has been replaced. She says that is the development I should lead with when telling this story, since it is the only problem I solved on the first attempt.