Room to Turn

The bin lorry woke Ada. At first it sounded like a cupboard being knocked over beside her bed. Then came the familiar rattle of bins. She looked at her bedside clock and lay still a while, one hand tucked beneath the edge of the duvet.

Wednesday. She knew that. She only had to work out why she'd already begun looking for her work coat.

Yesterday's green coat lay on the chair. She'd put it there because the hooks were full: a raincoat, her indoor cardigan and a scarf that refused to stay on anything. Her work coat was at the shop. Ada slipped her feet into her slippers and went to the kitchen.

She had bread, just not the kind she wanted. The last slice's crust was hard. She toasted it, then scraped a dark edge over the sink. Breakfast immediately smelt of rushing, though Kamal wouldn't arrive for hours.

The notebook was in the bag beside her chair. She took it out to put away. The slip she'd used to check the new hours stuck out near the front. Mara had taken her laptop home. The shop sign clearly stated when the change began. This week, everything stayed as it was: closed today, open from nine tomorrow.

Late on Tuesday afternoon, someone had taken a small clock from his bag. Ada had asked him to wait before putting it on the counter. He wanted it serviced, preferably before the holidays. She hadn't accepted it. She'd told him when there was time in January for an initial look. He hadn't taken her up on it. He needed to discuss it at home, he'd said, and taken the clock away.

So there was no new job on the bench she could half-finish now. Things were waiting for Thursday, but they'd been there on Monday too. She put the notebook in the cupboard and ate her toast.

She checked her own mobile. A message from the sports group: use the side entrance, because something was being set up in the main hall. One from Mara last night, asking what time she might ring on Sunday. Ada wrote back that after dinner would be good. She knew her daughter had visited Ellen on Saturday. She'd said it had been nice, and there'd been pasta left over.

In the bedroom, she searched for socks that would fit her sports shoes. The first pair was too thick, the second had a hard seam. She found the right ones at the bottom of the drawer with a flannel that didn't belong there. She left the flannel on the bed and pulled on the socks. Then she had to return to the kitchen because her tea was still on the worktop.

The plan was simple. Lesson at twelve. Something to eat, then the sports hall. Her bag held her shoes, a water bottle and the little towel she always forgot to wash unless she put it on the washing machine straight away. Today there was a clean one. She didn't check for a tape measure. That would still be in the other bag.

By the time she went out, the bin lorry had gone. The pavement shone. Water trickled from an overturned lid into the gutter. Ada crossed the road and waited at the agreed corner. No need to pass the shop. The other way was shorter.

Kamal arrived two minutes before twelve. Ada saw the car before he slowed down, its roof sign shining wetly. He stopped in the agreed place and moved something off the passenger seat.

‘Different car park today,’ he said once she'd got in.

‘Which one?’

He named the supermarket on the edge of the centre.

‘On a Wednesday?’

‘Yes.’

Ada looked outside. ‘It's busy there.’

‘We'll have a look.’

She put her bag on the back seat and took time to adjust her seat and mirror. At first she'd been tempted to hurry while he waited. He didn't seem to notice the wait. He wrote something, set down his pen and asked what she'd found difficult last time.

‘Thinking I was already in the right place.’

‘And were you?’

‘Not according to you.’

He smiled briefly. ‘Nor according to the line.’

It took a few streets before she felt settled. Her hands seemed large on the wheel. At the second junction, she wondered whether she'd heard the direction correctly. She asked again. Kamal repeated it, without adding anything about last time.

A van overtook them on the main road. Ada noticed her shoulders rising and loosened her coat at the neck when they stopped at the next lights. The car smelt of a cleaning product she couldn't identify, somewhere between lemon and wet sponge. A slip lay on the dashboard; Kamal held it down whenever air came through the vents.

The car park was fuller than she'd hoped. Cars occupied not only the bays but the routes between them, waiting for spaces someone might be about to leave. A woman pushed a trolley towards a car, a bag underneath it and no hand free to keep it in place. Ada watched the handle dragging on the ground.

‘What can you see?’ Kamal asked.

‘That bag.’

‘What else?’

She looked further. A car about to reverse, an empty bay, a cyclist dismounting by the fence. Saying it was slower than seeing it. Everything she named had moved by the time she looked at the next thing.

They drove to a quieter part. Three cars stood beneath bare trees. The bay they'd chosen seemed large until she actually steered towards it. Ada finished the manoeuvre and sat still. The car had stopped.

Kamal asked her to look. She looked at him first.

‘Outside,’ he said.

The line was closer on her side than on the other. Plenty of room remained in front. She felt a brief irritation, not only with him. Same car, same width: why didn't her hand know that?

‘I'm crooked.’

‘A little.’

She corrected it with his guidance. This time, she took time to see the difference properly. It didn't happen in one movement. The second attempt was better. She stopped, looked at the lines, then ahead, and only then at Kamal.

‘There.’

He nodded. ‘Now you can get out.’

‘Are we doing the shopping?’

‘I'm not.’

He had her look from outside at the car's position in the bay. Ada was inclined to open the door only a crack, although there was plenty of room on that side. She stepped out, walked partway round the car and saw the distances that had been so unclear from her seat. A small round mark from an old sticker remained on the rear window. She'd never noticed it.

When she got back in, the next bay was occupied. A man had parked, checked his phone and walked towards the entrance. He knew nothing of her two attempts. Ada rested her hands in her lap while Kamal explained the next part of the lesson.

They practised again elsewhere. Pulling away, she had to look carefully afresh; the empty bay had taken too much of her attention. Kamal intervened once with a brief instruction. Ada heard him, looked and waited. A car passed which she hadn't properly noticed. Her face grew hot.

‘I saw that too late,’ she said.

‘Yes. Take your time and try again.’

She'd wanted to say something about the tall car beside them. It really did restrict the view. She waited for the other car to pass, then started again. No excuse needed afterwards. On the way back, she turned a street later than last time. Even at a familiar junction, she had to think. Knowing it on a bicycle wasn't the same as sitting here in a car.

They discussed the lesson at the end. Ada asked what they'd do next week. Kamal named a few things they'd practise again. They arranged the next lesson. Ada put the confirmation in her diary and picked up her sports bag.

‘Managed the supermarket,’ she said as she got out.

‘You parked there,’ he said.

That sounded smaller. She liked the sound of it anyway. From the pavement, she watched the car leave. Then she checked the time and walked to the sandwich shop near the bus stop.

She ordered soup and a sandwich under a name not used on the menu. The lad behind the counter asked twice which bread she meant. She pointed. He said its name and picked it up. Ada sat by the window, her sports bag on the next chair.

The soup was hot. She ate slowly while people outside straightened their hats before walking on. A screen above the counter cycled through the same six offers. One photograph was so green that even the tomato looked like raw grass. She looked at it again every time.

At the table behind her, two women discussed something said at a birthday party. Ada couldn't keep the names straight. She listened for a while anyway. One woman kept starting at the beginning until the other said she'd got it now. Then came something about a neighbour. Ada ate the last of her bread and searched for a napkin.

The bus was on time. In her bag, the water bottle's cap clicked against something hard. The locker coin, which she'd already lost twice without its ever leaving the bag. She put it in the inside pocket. At the sports hall, she followed the message's instructions to the side entrance. The door was shut, but someone opened it from inside.

‘Can't get through the other hall now,’ said a man carrying a crate of shuttlecocks. ‘They're laying a floor.’

Ada looked past him. Something rolled up did indeed resemble an enormous carpet rather than a floor. She went to the changing room and changed her shoes. Her coat went on an unoccupied bench. Five minutes to two.

The nets were up. Ada wrote her name on the board and took a borrowed racket. Leonie sat on the bench, hair still loose. Beside her lay a hairband stretched into a thin strand.

‘Have you got a spare hair tie?’ she asked.

Ada searched her bag. A receipt, tissues and the coin she'd just put away so carefully; she'd opened the first compartment again after all. No hair tie. Leonie fastened her hair as best she could with the slack band.

‘I'll be looking through a curtain now and then today.’

There was confusion over the order of play. Ada thought her name was still with the previous game; she'd put it below the line instead of above. Another woman assumed she was waiting for someone and walked onto the court.

‘I wanted to play now,’ Ada said.

‘You were there.’

The woman pointed at the board. Ada went closer. An old chalk smear had almost turned her A into an H. The line ran just above her name. She moved it to the right place and asked whose turn it was. Four names needed shifting. The man with the crate drew another line and rewrote the order.

‘We'll play that short one first,’ Leonie said. ‘Then swap round.’

It wasn't particularly short. Ada missed the first serve. On the second, she caught the shuttlecock at such an angle that it flew over the next net. A woman returned it with a smile Ada recognised from her own face when someone held a clock too cautiously. Ada thanked her and tried again.

On the next point, she returned the shuttle unexpectedly well. Leonie looked round, apparently not expecting such a high shot. Across the net, someone had to step a long way back. It came back; Ada hit it, then Leonie, then the man opposite. The rally lasted long enough for her to forget she'd been grumbling over the first two attempts.

When it finally hit the floor, she laughed. No sound, only breath. Leonie gave her arm a brief tap with the side of her hand.

‘That last one was mine.’

‘I wouldn't have got it either.’

‘You don't know that.’

They changed ends. Ada's hand felt warm round the racket. Later, she ought to remember that a grip of her own might be more comfortable; this one sometimes twisted. Now she mainly wanted to hit the next shuttle. The sports floor yielded differently from the stone behind the counter. Among shoes, voices and the racket's small dry tap, Leonie called something Ada didn't catch. She asked and got the score again.

They lost the next game. Ada had remembered the score wrongly and asked whether they still needed a point. Leonie shook her head. They drank water on the bench while the others played. Leonie said she was going to a concert with her sister on Friday and didn't know whether she'd get away from work in time for the train. Ada asked who was performing. The name meant nothing to her.

‘Nor to me until she sent me a ticket,’ Leonie said. ‘I'm going for my sister. And the chips on the way home.’

Ada asked whether she'd come next Wednesday. Maybe, Leonie said. She'd let her know. Someone else wanted to play doubles with Ada too: the woman who'd returned her shuttle raised a hand. Ada took another sip and stood up.

Afterwards, she fetched her coat from the bench. It had slipped onto the floor. A white smear on the sleeve brushed off under her hand. She put it on, returned the racket to the other borrowed rackets and handed back her locker key. The coin came free of the lock. She put it in her bag's inside pocket.

The lamps were already lit outside. At the stop, she stood beside a woman still in her sports trousers, a long coat over them. They discussed whether the bus might already have gone. The display said four minutes. Ada watched four become three, then four again. She held her bag strap in both hands and waited.

At home, she left her sports shoes by the door. The towel went straight onto the washing machine, the bottle into the sink. She washed her hands and made something hot from the vegetables left in the fridge. A parts supplier's mailing lay on the table, with January order lists. She slid it under the notebook for tomorrow. Her food would go cold if she unfolded it now.

After dinner, she took her own mobile and added her name to next Wednesday's list. She messaged Leonie to wish her a good time on Friday. A thumbs-up took a while to arrive.

Ada took the empty mug into the kitchen. The shop's landline was where it always was, behind the counter at the shop. She couldn't hear it here. In the hall, she took her house key from her coat pocket and laid it on the little cupboard by the door. The shop key was on the other ring, in her bag.

In the sitting room, she moved her chair towards the lamp and picked up the newspaper. On the culture page was a photograph of the singer Leonie had named. She looked at his face, read the first lines and didn't turn the page when the neighbours' television started.