Kit: The Road Out

The car was full before my last bag went in.

Dad looked at the space, looked at the bag and announced that geometry was a matter of confidence. Mum moved a box, turned the bag sideways and solved the problem without consulting confidence at all.

Nell arrived while we were checking the house. She wore the denim jacket and carried two coffees, neither of which I could drink in a moving car without risking most of my future belongings.

“For before,” she said.

I took one. Her hands were cold.

Mum and Dad found reasons to go inside. The reasons were not convincing, but we appreciated the effort.

We stood on the pavement outside the shop. The shutter was down because it was Sunday. The sign above us had a patch where Dad had repainted a letter slightly darker than the rest. I had looked at it every day for years and only now wondered whether I would remember the exact colour.

“You've got everything?” Nell asked.

“No. Probably.”

“Good. Very prepared.”

She smiled, and the smile trembled at the edges.

I put my coffee on the wall and took her in my arms. She held me tightly, her face against my shoulder. There were no useful words for the way I wanted to leave and stay at once. I didn't try to make one desire cancel the other for her benefit.

“I'll call when we're there,” I said.

“After you've got in. Don't call from a car park because you think I'm waiting with a stopwatch.”

“Are you?”

“Not visibly.”

I laughed against her hair.

We kissed once, then again because the first one had been mostly smiling and sadness. Mum came out carrying the document folder. Dad locked the door and checked it twice.

Nell stepped back.

“Go and make strange sounds,” she said.

“I will.”

“Very strange.”

“I promise.”

I got into the car before I could make leaving into a series of false departures. Through the window, I watched Nell put her hands in her jacket pockets. She raised one when we pulled away. I kept looking until the shop disappeared behind the corner.

For the first part of the journey, I was quiet. Mum didn't fill it. Dad drove. The road moved us through places that were familiar, then less familiar, then simply places I would have to learn in a different direction next time.

At a service station, we ate sandwiches from home beside people buying expensive versions of the same thing. Dad spilled tea on the edge of the map Mum had printed. She told him the phone had the route as well, enjoying the reversal so much that he had to smile.

By the time we reached Manchester, I was talking again.

The accommodation office was busy. Families queued with bags and boxes. Someone had brought a full-length mirror without working out how to carry it upstairs. A boy in a university sweatshirt was trying to persuade a lift to hold the door by looking annoyed at it.

We checked in, collected what I needed and found the room.

The brick wall was still there.

The bed looked smaller with my bag on it. The desk looked better once I put the lamp in place. Mum helped me fit the sheet. Dad checked the window latch, then stopped himself from testing every fixture in the room.

In the kitchen, we met Bex, who was starting a costume course and had already labelled her milk with her name, the date and a small drawing of a threatening cat.

“Not unfriendly,” she said. “Just experienced.”

I liked her immediately.

Asha arrived later with a stack of storage boxes and a parent who was carrying all the awkward pieces. She was in the same building, one floor below. Seeing someone I knew made the corridor feel less like a hotel.

We agreed to meet after we'd unpacked. Not an elaborate social promise. Just tea in the kitchen, then a walk to find the nearest shop.

When Mum and Dad were ready to leave, the room was almost tidy. That made it worse. There was no task left to postpone the goodbye.

Mum hugged me first. She held on long enough that I felt her take a breath against my hair.

“Ring when you need to,” she said. “And when you don't.”

“I will.”

Dad hugged me with one hand still holding the car keys. They pressed cold against my back.

“Remember the folder,” he said, then laughed at himself. “Wrong last words.”

“They're not last words.”

“No. Good point.”

I walked them to the entrance. I watched the car leave. Then I went upstairs alone.

For five minutes, the room felt impossibly quiet.

I put the photograph of Nell by the lamp. I put the guide on the shelf. I opened the notebook she'd given me and found the page with the rain chain.

On the next page, I wrote: The room is smaller than expected. The wall is exactly as advertised. There are people in the kitchen. I'm going to meet them.

Then I called her.