Household Inventory

The private flat was above a shop that sold curtains and repaired vacuum cleaners.

Mum had found the listing during a break between visits. The photographs showed a clean kitchen, two bedrooms and a patch of sky visible through a window. Leila had looked at them so many times on the phone that she recognised the cupboard handles before the agent opened the door.

In person, the kitchen was smaller. Everything in a photograph became more generous when there was no body standing inside it.

Toby went straight to the window.

“You can see the bus stop.”

“That would be useful,” Mum said.

She was using her careful voice. Leila knew it from parents' evenings and calls about bills, a little slower than usual, with the ends of sentences kept tidy.

The agent explained the application process. References. Evidence of income. Deposit and the first rent payment. Mum asked which forms of income the landlord would consider and whether variable hours could be explained through several months of payslips.

The agent did not look unkind. He looked like someone who had explained the same requirements many times and no longer heard how much room they took up.

“You can send the information through,” he said. “The landlord will review the applications together.”

“Are there many?” Mum asked.

“A fair amount of interest.”

Toby had found the smaller bedroom. He stood in the doorway and measured the wall with his arms.

“My bed would fit.”

Leila looked at the opposite wall. There would not be room for two desks. There might be room for a small one if the wardrobe went beside the door and opened the other way.

She stopped arranging furniture in her head because Mum had gone very still beside the kitchen counter.

“Thank you,” Mum told the agent. “I'll look at the figures again.”

Outside, she walked past the car and had to turn back.

Toby was still talking about the bus stop.

“It goes to the school. I saw the number.”

“I know, love.”

“And there's a park behind it.”

“I know.”

Leila put a hand on his shoulder, then removed it when he shrugged her off.

In the car, Mum did not start the engine immediately.

“It isn't going to work,” she said.

Toby's face changed.

“Why?”

“The upfront money. And the rent after that.”

“You get paid.”

“Yes.”

“Then—”

“It isn't enough for that flat, Toby.”

He looked out of the window. Across the road, a man was carrying a repaired vacuum cleaner by its handle like an unusually awkward pet.

Leila wanted to say she could get the gallery job. She had not applied yet. She did not know the hours or whether they would choose her. Even if they did, it would be summer money, not a way to hold a whole flat in place. She knew these things and still wanted to offer the possibility because having nothing to offer felt worse.

“I could work more,” she said.

Mum turned towards her.

“You don't have a job.”

“I could get one.”

“You can look for summer work because you want money and experience. Not because you're responsible for making the rent possible.”

Leila stared at the glove compartment.

“I was only saying.”

“I know. I'm sorry. I'm not angry with you.”

Mum started the car. On the way back, nobody asked to look at another listing.

Sonia Reed rang while they were in the hotel room. Mum put the phone on speaker so she could find documents without holding it against her ear. Leila sat at the desk with a notebook, ready to write down anything Mum needed.

The questions were practical. Who was in the household. Where the children studied. What their journeys now involved. What work hours Mum usually did and which hours changed. What space they had in the room. Whether there were any immediate problems with the placement that needed reporting.

Mum answered carefully. When she said there was a desk, Toby looked up from the suitcase lid where he was doing maths.

“It's got the food on it.”

Mum glanced at him.

“I was explaining that next.”

Sonia said they should describe how the space was actually being used. Her voice was calm without making calmness into a solution.

Leila wrote down the email address twice to be certain she had it right. Sonia could look at travel difficulties and liaise with the relevant teams, but she could not give them a moving date that afternoon. There were things to check and not enough suitable places immediately available.

“Will we have to change schools?” Toby asked suddenly.

Mum looked at the phone.

Sonia answered him directly.

“We'll take your school into account. I can't promise every possible address will be close, but your mum and I are discussing the journeys.”

Toby frowned. He wanted yes or no. Leila could see him trying to fit a qualified answer into those two spaces.

After the call, Mum began gathering the documents. Leila stayed at the desk.

“Can you send the college bit yourself?” Mum asked. “Your student details and the timetable. I'll check the email before it goes.”

Leila nodded.

The form asked where she usually studied at home.

She looked at the room. Toby was on the floor now because the suitcase had needed opening. Mum's work bag leaned against the chair. The corner of the art folder had begun to bend where it rested against the wall.

She typed: Shared hotel room. No separate study space.

The sentence looked too stark on the screen. She nearly added that it was fine, that she was managing, that she did not need anyone to make a fuss. Instead she left the cursor blinking after the full stop.

Mum read over her shoulder.

“That's accurate,” she said.

Leila sent it before she could improve the truth into something less useful.

Later, she went downstairs to ask Mo for another bin bag. He gave her two and told her to ask at reception before putting large cardboard pieces out because the cleaners needed to know what was rubbish and what was somebody's important project.

“Toby's house isn't rubbish,” she said.

“Then don't leave it in a bin-shaped place.”

She smiled and took the bags.

Nina was in the breakfast room with a laptop open beside a plate of toast. Anushka coloured at the far end of the table, making every person purple.

“Job application?” Leila asked before she could decide whether it was too personal.

“Nursery rota,” Nina said. “Trying to agree hours that match what I can actually do. Much less exciting.”

Leila stood with the bin bags in her hand.

“Do they know you're here?”

“My manager? Yes.”

“Was it weird telling her?”

Nina looked up properly.

“Yes.”

“Oh.”

“Then she asked what practical difference it made to my availability. That was useful. The weird part didn't last as long as I'd expected.”

Leila nodded, though she was not ready to apply the information to herself.

On the way upstairs, she called Esme. She stood by the end window in the corridor where the signal was better and spoke quietly while people passed with towels and bags.

Esme answered on the first ring.

“At last.”

“I said I'd call.”

“You did. In a previous historical period.”

Leila leaned against the wall and listened while Esme described a biology experiment that had gone wrong in a way she found deeply unfair. She laughed in the right places. For ten minutes, she did not mention the flat, the form or the room behind the numbered door.

It was a relief to speak about something else.

It was also another chance she had let go.