Kit: The City at the Other End

On Friday, Manchester did not look like leaving when I arrived. It looked like a station with too many exits and a man trying to carry three coffees without a tray.

Mum had printed the appointment details. I had them on my phone. Neither of us mentioned that hers would continue working if my battery died, because she was already enjoying herself enough.

We found the college after going round the wrong side of a building that occupied more street than seemed necessary. The entrance was smaller than I'd expected. Inside, somebody was moving a piece of scenery shaped like half a kitchen. A painted cupboard door swung open and was caught by a girl in enormous headphones.

“Sorry,” she said. “Domestic incident.”

I liked the place immediately.

The course tutor, Martin, showed a group of us the workshops, the black-box theatre and the equipment store. He did not tell us that every moment would be inspiring. He told us that labelling cables correctly was a form of kindness and that people who thought sweeping up was beneath them generally misunderstood theatre.

Mum made a pleased noise at that.

I wanted to stay. Not because Marden was too small or because the people there didn't understand me. I wanted the rooms. I wanted the boards covered in plans and the racks of equipment I couldn't yet use. I wanted to stand behind a desk and know which of six possible sounds would make an audience turn towards an empty door.

At lunch, I sat beside the girl with the headphones. Her name was Asha. She had travelled from Sheffield and had already lost the map somebody gave us.

“You can have mine,” I said.

“Are you sure?”

“I photographed it.”

“Organised. Terrible first impression. Now I'll have to improve.”

We talked about the course. She liked building tiny models of sets, especially rooms where something was wrong with the proportions. I showed her a photograph of Nell beside our page headed PRIVATE TEST RECORDING. She laughed at the label.

“Who's that?”

“My—”

I stopped.

Asha waited, eating a chip.

“Someone I'm working with. We're making a guide.”

“Your face suggests the guide's going well.”

I put my phone away. “It's complicated.”

“Most printed material is.”

The funding appointment was less exciting than the theatre and more important. Mum asked about payment dates, travel costs and which materials were included. I asked whether I could work locally alongside the course without missing practical sessions. The adviser did not solve every problem, but she gave us a schedule and the name of somebody who could answer the accommodation questions we still had.

Afterwards, Mum and I walked to the suggested hall. The room we saw had a desk, a narrow bed and a view of a brick wall. It was not lovely. It was mine in a way no room had quite been before: a possible place I would have to learn to occupy.

“Too small?” Mum asked.

“No.”

“You don't have to like it because we've come.”

“I do like it. I'm also trying to imagine where I'd put everything.”

“Under the bed, based on your current method.”

We found a café before the train. Mum took off her glasses and rubbed the marks beside her nose. She looked tired, not reluctant. I had been so worried about whether she would be sad that I hadn't thought enough about the practical effort of helping me go.

“Thank you,” I said.

“For the sandwich?”

“For coming. And all the forms.”

She put her glasses back on. “I'm very good at forms.”

“I know.”

Outside, a tram moved past with a sound I wanted to record. Mum watched me watch it.

“You don't have to apologise for wanting this, Kit.”

“I wasn't.”

“You were getting ready.”

On the train home, I wrote down the cost questions while they were fresh. Then I opened Nell's message about the printed pages.

The photograph showed her hand holding the proof against the library window. I recognised the little scar on her thumb from the time she'd tried to open a tin with the wrong tool on a school camping trip. I remembered the story she told afterwards, in which the tin had been unusually hostile and she had behaved with admirable restraint.

I could be excited about this city and miss her before I'd even properly left. The two feelings did not cancel each other. They just made the journey back feel longer.

Mum glanced at the screen when it lit up again. “How is Nell?”

“Good.”

“That's comprehensive.”

“We're going out tomorrow.”

“To work on the guide?”

“No.”

She turned towards the window. Her smile was reflected in the glass, which was unfair of public transport.

“Don't,” I said.

“I haven't said anything.”

“You're thinking loudly.”

“I'll try to be quieter.”

At home, I put the college papers on my desk and the map in a folder. Nell's ridiculous joint-liability drawing was already there. The fork lay beside it.

I took out the tie I'd bought in Market Lane and held it against a shirt. It was too much for chips by the sea. It was probably too much for several formal occasions.

I wore it anyway the next evening. There were worse ways to admit that something mattered.