After the Applause That Didn't Happen

There was no applause at the end of the exhibition because exhibitions did not generally finish that way. Leila had known this and still felt faintly cheated when the evening ended with stacking chairs and looking for someone's missing coat.

On Friday morning, she woke in Room 214 with the extractor fan running and Toby asking whether there was any clean milk, by which he meant milk that had not spent too long outside the shared fridge. The work had been seen. The room was still the room. She felt flat enough to wonder whether being pleased had been an error in the previous day's calculations.

Mum noticed.

“Big thing's over,” she said while putting on her shoes.

“I know.”

“Sometimes the day after feels small.”

Leila did not want an explanation, but the smallness was easier to bear once named.

She went to college to collect the packaging and check when the work could be taken down. Dylan was there repairing the underpass model after a child had leaned on the edge. He was not angry; he seemed almost pleased that someone had wanted to look closely enough to damage it.

“Did your family like it?” he asked.

“Yes. Yours?”

“My dad asked if I could make the real underpass look that good. I said I lacked permission.”

Leila laughed. They spent an hour doing unglamorous things: removing tape from the floor, sorting reusable card, finding a missing label behind a table. The work steadied her.

Armitage asked whether she wanted a short feedback conversation the following week. Leila said yes, then asked whether there would be things to improve.

“Certainly.”

The immediate answer stung and relieved her. The exhibition had not been the final version of her ability. There could be another piece, another decision, another way of looking.

In the afternoon, she met Micah by the library. They bought ice creams from a shop that gave them wooden spoons too flat to be useful. He told her the apprenticeship paperwork was complete. He would start in September, with a training schedule that meant early trains on some days and work closer to home on others.

“Are you happy?” she asked.

“Yes. Scared as well.”

“Good.”

“Good that I'm scared?”

“Good that it's not only me.”

He nudged her shoulder. They sat on a bench where the sun reached one half and left the other in shade. Leila took the shaded side because she was tired of squinting.

“What happens to us in September?” she asked.

He considered the question instead of answering with something large and romantic.

“We look at the timetables. We find days. We see how it goes.”

“That sounds very practical.”

“I can say it while holding your hand.”

She laughed and let him do that. The plan was ordinary enough to be possible.

He asked whether she wanted to visit Calder before he started. There was a public open day. She said she would look at the date and the fare, and he said they could plan it together. Neither treated checking the cost as a failure of enthusiasm.

When she got back to the hotel, Mum was on the phone to Sonia. The final checks at Bellbridge had been completed. There were papers to sign and an appointment for collecting the keys.

Mum put the phone down and looked at them both.

“Next Friday,” she said.

Toby stood up so quickly that his chair hit the desk.

“Actually?”

“Actually. Provided the signing goes as arranged, but this is the proper date now.”

He groaned at provided, then began smiling anyway.

Leila sat on the bed. The room seemed to shift around the date. Things that had been permanent irritations became objects that would need packing. The window was a window she would leave. The desk drawer held a name badge she must remember to collect.

For the first time, she understood that she might miss small parts of the place without wanting to stay.