Kit: The Weight of Ordinary Things

Packing made every object demand an explanation.

The recorder was obvious. The laptop, clothes and course papers were obvious. The chipped mug from the museum was less obvious, especially because Mum pointed out that Manchester contained mugs. The small stone Nell had given me when we were eleven was impossible to justify to anyone who expected luggage to be sensible.

I packed it anyway.

Dad weighed the first bag by lifting it and making a noise that was not a unit of measurement.

“Books?”

“Some.”

“Bricks?”

“Only emotionally.”

He looked at me. “She's contagious.”

I smiled and took three books out.

Mum had made a list of practical things I might forget: medication I actually used, chargers, laundry supplies, the details for the accommodation office. She did not label the list things you cannot survive without your mother to remember, though the temptation was visible.

We checked it together. I wanted help without being treated like I was six. She wanted to help without making me feel six. We didn't get every minute right.

“I know where my documents are,” I said too sharply when she asked again.

“All right.”

She left the room.

Ten minutes later, I found the document folder under a pile of clothes and went downstairs to apologise.

Mum was washing a mug that was already clean.

“I wasn't trying to suggest you couldn't manage,” she said.

“I know. I just feel as though every question is another thing I might get wrong.”

“That sounds exhausting.”

“It is.”

She dried the mug. “I might need you to tell me when a question feels like that. I can't always guess.”

I nodded.

“And you might need to accept that asking where the folder is isn't a vote against your future.”

“I found it.”

“Good.”

“Under clothes.”

She pressed her lips together. I pointed at her.

“Don't enjoy it.”

“Too late.”

On my last afternoon in the shop before leaving, Dad let me handle a repair from start to finish. It was a straightforward job, a worn cable and adjustment, but a year earlier I would have asked him to check every stage before I moved on.

He stayed nearby, working on another bicycle. When I finished, he inspected it properly, not ceremonially, and asked why I'd chosen the adjustment I had.

I explained. He tested it again and nodded.

“Good.”

I cleaned the tools and put them away. The sequence was so familiar that my hands knew where to go before I looked. At college I would spend weeks not knowing which cupboard held anything. I wanted that. I was also tired in advance.

Dad closed the shop early. We sat on the back step with tea, surrounded by things that still needed doing. A tyre hung from a hook above us. Somebody's bicycle waited for a part that hadn't arrived.

“You can come home without it meaning you've failed,” he said.

“I know.”

“And you can stay there for a weekend without us thinking you've forgotten us.”

I looked at him.

“Your mother and I have been practising,” he said.

“What?”

“Not making our feelings your packing list.”

I leaned against his shoulder. He smelled of soap and the workshop.

“I'll miss this.”

“It'll still need sweeping when you visit.”

That evening, Luca came round with a small box. Inside was the plastic tiara from the sound desk.

“Artistic director,” he said. “For emergencies.”

“You stole a prop?”

“I asked. It was abandoned and the owner preferred not to establish custody.”

I put it on. It was too small and pinched behind my ears. Luca took a photograph only after I nodded, then sent it to Asha with the caption your institution's standards are about to improve.

We talked about his plans. He had a new technical project at the arts centre and a training weekend later in the autumn. I asked him to send the recording when it was done. He said he would, then warned me not to become somebody who only called when she needed reassurance about a girlfriend.

“I won't.”

“You might occasionally. That's allowed. Just remember I also have a life.”

“I know.”

He smiled. “Good. Now tell me where the tea is. Your family keeps moving the mugs.”

After he left, I went through the photograph folder one last time. I packed the private cinema picture, the group shot from Nell's garden and a photograph of Mum and Dad outside the shop on the day they repainted the sign. Dad had paint on his face. Mum was laughing at him. Neither of them had noticed the camera until afterwards.

The new guide went into the same bag.

I left the old map in its folder on the shelf. Not because I no longer cared about it. Because some things could stay at home without being abandoned.