The Stability of Everyday Objects

London, the late seventies.

A man and a woman, Bryn and Lowri, both aged thirty, are driving through the busy streets of London. They have known each other almost all their lives, lives which have taken them in very different directions. Though they have come close to losing touch altogether, the thread that connects them has never quite been broken. Now their paths have recently crossed again.

"So you're saying," I said, stretching out my legs to get the warmth from the engine to my feet, "that it's all right from people in a relationship - an intimate relationship - to go out with other people?"

"That's what the chap who wrote this book is claiming," said Bryn, "and the more I think about it, the more I realise that I agree with him. It's a pretty hefty test of trust though."

"But you trust the other person not to stray," I objected.

"No, that's not quite it. You trust the other person to come back to you."

This was the conversation that started it - their final attempt to be a couple, to break with convention, build a life together, and still give each other complete freedom. Sometimes, though, freedom is the biggest challenge, because you have to know what to do with it, and you have to be prepared for drastic changes in your plans - or those of the other person.