Room 214

By the fourth night, Leila knew which sounds belonged to their room and which came through the walls.

The tap in the bathroom clicked twice after it was turned off. The folding bed complained whenever Toby moved his left knee. At half past ten, a pipe somewhere above the ceiling made a low knocking sound that went on long enough to become part of the weather of the place.

The restaurant fan was constant. She noticed it most when she tried not to.

Mum had left food in a bag beside the kettle and a note saying which containers could go in the microwave. Leila read the labels anyway. She was hungry enough to resent every extra step between opening a packet and eating what was inside it.

Toby lay on the bed with a school library book open against his knees. He had been on the same page for twenty minutes.

“Coming down?” she asked.

“Do I have to?”

“I'm not carrying everything back up.”

“Why not?”

“Because I've got two hands and one of them is for the key card.”

He marked his page with the screw from the old house.

“That'll tear it,” she said.

“It hasn't.”

“Yet.”

He left it there and put on his shoes without tying them.

Downstairs, Mo had changed from the cardigan into a fleece with the hotel name on it. He was explaining to a man that a parking space was not guaranteed to remain his simply because he had used it yesterday.

Leila waited beside the desk, holding the food bag against her stomach. Toby leaned towards the bowl of mints.

“You've had one,” she said.

“On Friday.”

“That wasn't an ongoing subscription.”

Mo looked over. “One per visit to reception, within reason. I'm not opening a separate accounts department for mints.”

Toby took one before the ruling could change.

The breakfast room was long and narrow, with framed photographs of countryside and a sideboard arranged for morning toast. A woman stood by the microwave holding a plastic tub while a small girl lay beneath a table singing to the chair legs.

“Two minutes,” the woman told Leila. “Then it's yours.”

“It's fine.”

“I'm Nina. That's Anushka, despite her current claim to be a horse.”

The girl made a sound that supported the claim only loosely.

“Toby,” Toby said, with the solemnity he used when introducing himself to younger children.

Anushka looked out from under the table.

“Can you be a horse?”

“No.”

“Try.”

He looked at Leila. She raised her eyebrows. After a moment he made a noise that caused Anushka to laugh so hard she hit her head gently on the underside of the table and became offended with it.

Nina put down the tub and crouched to check her.

The microwave beeped. Nobody was ready for it.

Leila waited. At home, waiting for dinner had meant standing in the kitchen doorway asking questions while Mum moved around her. Here she had to negotiate with people whose evenings were as crowded as hers.

When Nina took her food out, she wiped the turntable with a paper towel and stepped aside.

“How long have you been here?” she asked.

“Since Friday.”

Nina nodded. “We've been in a bit longer. Ask at the desk if you need extra bin bags. Don't let them tell you one tiny bathroom bin is enough for a family.”

It was useful information, offered without any request for their story. Leila was grateful for that.

She heated the potatoes one container at a time. Toby set out plastic forks on a table near the window. When she brought the food over, he had arranged the napkins into triangles.

“Restaurant,” he said.

“Very good. Where's the menu?”

He pointed to the packet.

They ate while Nina persuaded Anushka that horses occasionally needed to sit on chairs. Outside, car headlights moved across the glass. Leila could see their reflections layered over the room: her own shoulders hunched above the plate, Toby scraping the last bit of filling from the potato skin, a little girl holding a fork in her whole fist.

It was not terrible food. That made the sadness harder to explain. There was nothing dramatic to object to, only the absence of a drawer where the forks belonged and a sink she could use without asking.

Upstairs, she washed their containers in the bathroom basin. Toby stood in the doorway holding his toothbrush.

“Can I get past?”

“In a minute.”

“I need to brush.”

“I'm nearly done.”

He waited three seconds.

“Now?”

She turned too quickly, and water ran from the container onto her sock.

“Toby.”

“What? I didn't do that.”

“I know.”

“Then why say my name like that?”

She put the container down.

“Sorry. Come in.”

They stood shoulder to shoulder at the small basin. He brushed his teeth while she rinsed the last fork. In the mirror, his face was narrower than she expected. He had begun losing the softness around his cheeks, but the toothpaste still gathered at one corner of his mouth because he talked while brushing.

“Will we be here for my transition day?”

“I don't know.”

“What if I don't know the bus?”

“Mum will sort it.”

“What if she's working?”

Leila dried her hands on a towel already damp from the morning.

“We'll sort it.”

He nodded as if she had given him a date and a route rather than two words.

When Mum came back after ten, Toby was asleep with one foot outside the blanket. Leila lay on her side of the double bed reading messages under the cover. She had not called Esme. There had never seemed to be a moment when calling would not require other people to listen.

Mum set her bag down quietly. In the bathroom, the tap ran. Then she came out in a large T-shirt and folded her work trousers over the chair.

“Did you eat?” she whispered.

“Yes.”

“Both of you?”

“Yes.”

Mum sat on the edge of the mattress to take off her socks. There were red marks above her ankles where the elastic had pressed all day.

“Your forms are in my bag,” Leila said. “The ones you printed.”

“Thank you.”

“Did the housing person say anything?”

“Sonia's ringing tomorrow. She needs a few more details about the school journeys and my work pattern.”

“Do you have to tell college?”

Mum looked over her shoulder.

“Enough for them to help with the practical things.”

“I don't want everyone knowing.”

“Everyone doesn't need to know.”

“They always do, though. One person tells another because they're being helpful, and then someone asks whether you're okay in front of six people.”

Mum turned fully towards her.

“Has that happened?”

“Not yet.”

“All right. Then we'll ask for it to be handled privately.”

Leila picked at the seam of the duvet cover. She wanted a promise stronger than a request to other adults.

Mum's face softened with fatigue rather than reassurance.

“I can't make everything invisible,” she said. “And I don't think it should have to be.”

“You don't have to go into college.”

“No. I have to go into work and explain why I'm late to a morning visit because my children are sleeping forty minutes from where we used to live.”

Leila looked at her.

Mum lowered her voice again, though Toby had not stirred.

“I know it's different. I'm not saying it isn't.”

For a moment, Leila could see both things at once: the way people at college might look at her, and Mum standing beside a car before sunrise, trying to sound reliable on a phone.

She moved her bag off the bed to make space.

Mum lay down carefully, as though the mattress might object to another person. The room went dark except for the small green light on the television.

“Are you asleep?” Mum whispered after a few minutes.

“No.”

“I'm sorry about the room.”

Leila stared at the shape of the curtain.

“You didn't build it.”

Mum let out a small breath that might have been a laugh.

“No.”

They did not say anything else. Leila listened to the fan outside and the breathing of the two people nearest her. She had never been this close to them for so many hours and felt so unable to explain where she was.