Kit: Proof

Fran's first bound proof had a harbour photograph upside down.

It was not her mistake. I had rotated the image to check the composition, exported the wrong version and then looked at it so many times on screen that my brain had apparently decided the sea belonged above the sky.

Nell held the booklet at arm's length.

“Experimental.”

“Don't.”

“Challenges the reader's assumptions about gravity.”

“I know.”

Fran leaned over the counter. “This is why we make a proof.”

I wanted to disappear into the paper cupboard anyway. For the past week I had been insisting, correctly, that approval and accuracy mattered. Now a physical object contained a large, wet reminder that I could be careless too.

Nell turned the page. She didn't try to make my error equivalent to hers, which I appreciated. She just found a missing full stop and circled it.

“We'll go through the whole thing,” she said. “Slowly.”

Fran gave us two pencils and a quiet corner of the worktable. We checked every page against the approved files. Costs. Opening hours. Credits. Phone numbers we had permission to include. The distinction between an activity we'd tested and information that might change. The note telling readers to check current event listings rather than relying on a printed date forever.

We caught three more small errors. None was glamorous. One would have sent a reader to the wrong side of the library building.

“I'm glad we found that,” Nell said.

“I'm annoyed it was there.”

“Both available.”

She had been learning to say things plainly. Sometimes she still made a joke first. I didn't want her to stop being funny. I wanted the joke not to be a locked door in front of the truth.

At lunch, Fran showed us how the booklet would be folded and stapled. Nell was fascinated by the machine and asked whether it ever stapled the wrong thing.

“Only if somebody gives it the wrong thing,” Fran said.

“An excellent general policy.”

We carried the proof back to the library in a folder because I did not trust the weather or myself. Jo checked the budget and the final approval sheet. We both signed off the corrected files after seeing the changes in place. Fran confirmed the collection date.

The project now existed outside our laptops. That should have made it feel finished. Instead it made the remaining work more concrete: distribution, the launch, the digital version, the short public explanation of what we had actually made.

At home, Dad put the proof on the shop counter and read it between customers. He asked whether he could display copies when they arrived. I said yes, provided he didn't describe the cycle route as suitable for anyone with legs, which was his first suggestion.

“Wheels, then,” he said.

“Dad.”

“I'll use your wording.”

Mum read the museum page at dinner.

“This is useful,” she said.

It was a better compliment than beautiful. I had wanted both, but useful meant somebody had understood the job.

After dinner, Dad asked me to sit down with the course costs. We went through the first month: accommodation, travel, food, materials, the money I'd saved from the shop and the project fee. There were things he could help with and things I would need to manage. He didn't make it sound like a debt I owed him in gratitude. He did make it sound like money, which was what it was.

“I'll look for weekend work once I know the timetable,” I said.

“Not before you know it.”

“I know.”

“And ring if the numbers stop making sense. Don't wait until you're living on biscuits.”

“Depends on the biscuits.”

He smiled. “Your mother will have opinions.”

Later, Nell came round with the revised launch introduction. We worked at the kitchen table while Mum watched a crime drama in the next room and periodically objected to the police procedure.

Nell had written two speaking parts, clearly labelled with our names. Mine wasn't a token paragraph about the photographs. It included the original route problem, the design choices and what we'd changed after reader feedback.

“Does this sound like you?” she asked.

“Mostly.”

“Change the bits that don't.”

I did. She didn't hover over the edits.

When we finished, we sat on the back step with the door open behind us. The yard smelled of warm rubber from the workshop and the mint Mum kept in a pot. It was not an especially picturesque place to be seventeen and in love, but I was beginning to think picturesque places were overrated.

“Are you nervous?” Nell asked.

“About the launch?”

“About any of it.”

“Yes.”

“Me too.”

She leaned her head against my shoulder. I rested my cheek on her hair.

We didn't discuss whether that meant we were officially back together. We had already chosen to try again. The choice was becoming ordinary through repetition: a message answered honestly, a change asked about before it was made, a hand taken without using it to pull the other person somewhere.

From the living room, Mum shouted, “You cannot just take the evidence home!”

Nell started laughing. I laughed too, and for a minute the whole evening was simply warm and ridiculous and ours.