Somewhere on the Other Side of Town

Sonia rang on Monday evening with a possibility in Bellbridge.

Not an offer. She said that twice, carefully. There might be a property becoming available through a scheme the housing team worked with. The details still needed checking. She wanted to understand what a move in that direction would mean for the family before anything went further.

Mum put the phone on speaker and reached for a notebook. Leila fetched a pen. Toby paused the television with the expression of someone who had learned that certain phone calls could change the furniture around him.

“How far?” he asked.

Mum raised one finger to ask him to wait.

Sonia explained the general area, the expected size and the uncertainties. Three bedrooms, though one was small. An upper-floor flat. Shops within walking distance. No address to visit yet and no date she could promise.

Leila opened the route planner. Bellbridge was not another town entirely, but it occupied a part of Fenwick Vale she knew mostly from the ends of bus routes. The route to Briar would take longer than it used to from Hawthorn Road and, depending on the exact location, perhaps no longer than the hotel journey. Toby's new secondary school was less convenient. Mum's first work calls would be farther away.

“Parking?” Mum asked.

“That's one of the details I'm checking,” Sonia said.

“Rent and any other charges?”

“I'll send the figures when they're confirmed. I don't want you making a decision from an incomplete amount.”

Leila was grateful for the precision and impatient with it at the same time.

After the call, Toby demanded to see Bellbridge. Mum showed him the map. He zoomed in until the streets lost their context, then zoomed out so far that the entire county appeared.

“Is there a football team?”

“Probably,” Mum said. “But we aren't moving your club tonight.”

“Would I have to?”

“We don't know enough yet.”

There it was again, the answer that protected them from a false promise and left them with nowhere to put their hopes.

Leila looked at the hotel beds. Three bedrooms. Even one small room would be enough for a desk if the desk were narrow. She could keep paper flat. She could close a door without needing the toilet as a reason.

“Don't,” Mum said gently.

Leila looked up.

“You're measuring it in your head. So am I. We haven't seen it.”

“I'm allowed to think.”

“Yes. I just don't want the thinking to become a place we've already moved into.”

That made Leila angry because it was exactly what had happened at the flat viewing. She had built a life out of two windows and a bus stop, then resented the numbers that took it away.

She put on her shoes.

“I'm going downstairs.”

“For what?”

“Air.”

“Outside, then. There isn't more air downstairs.”

Leila almost smiled, which annoyed her further. She took her notebook and left.

Outside the hotel, the strip of grass beside the car park held a tree too young to provide much shade. Someone had tied it to a wooden stake with a flexible band. Leila sat on the low edge of the planting bed and drew the place where the band met the bark.

Mo came out carrying an empty cardboard box. He flattened it against the wall, saw her and nodded.

“Drawing the landscaping?”

“Trying.”

“It was supposed to be low maintenance.”

“Isn't it?”

“Depends how low your expectations are.”

He took the box to the recycling cage. When he came back, he stopped a few feet away rather than standing over her.

“Everything all right upstairs?”

“Yes.”

He waited long enough for her to change the answer if she wanted to. She looked at the tree.

“They're talking about a flat. Maybe.”

“Ah.”

“Everyone says not to get excited.”

“That's difficult advice.”

“Do people usually know when they're leaving?”

Mo rested his hands in the pockets of his fleece.

“Some do. Some get very little notice. Sometimes a date changes. I know what comes through to reception, not what it feels like in the room.”

She appreciated that he did not pretend otherwise.

“Have you worked here long?”

“Long enough to know which window catches the rain.”

“Which one?”

“Third floor, end of the corridor. Reported repeatedly. A celebrated local feature.”

He looked at the sketchbook, but did not ask to see inside.

“When we moved here from the other side of town,” he said, “my son insisted the journey to school was going to ruin his life. He was nine. It added twelve minutes.”

“Did it?”

“Ruin his life? Not that part. He found other causes later.”

Leila smiled.

“I won't tell you to be grateful for a room you've not seen,” Mo added. “People like saying grateful when they don't want a more complicated conversation. You're allowed to want it and worry about it.”

He went back inside before she had to answer.

Leila finished the band around the tree. She had drawn it too tight the first time; in reality, there was space for the trunk to move. She loosened the line and added the shadow beneath it.

Upstairs, Mum was on the floor helping Toby lay out his football kit. His last home match was Saturday. Dad had still not said definitely whether he was coming.

“Do you want to look at the route with me?” Mum asked Leila.

“Now?”

“Just the general route. No imaginary furniture.”

They sat on the bed with the phone between them. Mum found a bus Leila had missed, one that joined another route near the hospital. It would not make everything easy, but it changed the shape of the journey.

“Your work?” Leila asked.

“I'd need to speak to the coordinator about my first calls. There might be another round. I don't know yet.”

“Would you hate changing?”

Mum looked towards the window.

“I like some of the people I visit. I'd miss them. I also like the idea of not explaining to my daughter why the entire kitchen is in a plastic bag.”

Leila leaned against the headboard. “I want the small room.”

“We don't know there's a small room we can have.”

“I know.”

Mum smiled tiredly.

“So do I,” she said.

They let themselves look at the map for five more minutes before putting it away.