What Mila Had Fastened

Grandma set her chair at an angle beside the frame. Now she could see the front and a little of the back at the same time. Mila stood between her and the worktable, holding the template against her stomach.

Ilyas checked his watch. ‘Half past eight. We've got time. I'll get another lamp first.’

He went to the cupboard by the side door. Aron slid the rain tin on to the bottom shelf. He made no sound with it.

Grandma pointed to the yellow thread disappearing behind the green border. ‘You said it moved sideways when the cloth slid across. In that case, I'd expect the way back to be here.’

She traced part of the fold with a finger, without touching the tight spot. Mila could see where she was going. That was where the first blue loop had been. Not where Mila had crossed the thread along the template afterwards.

‘We can turn the roller back a little,’ Grandma said. ‘You keep the edge slack. Then all Ilyas has to do is—’

‘Wait.’

It came out so quietly that Grandma kept looking.

Mila put the template on the chair beside her. ‘No. Wait. I did it differently.’

Grandma took her hand away. She hadn't moved anything yet.

Aron didn't look up from the cupboard.

‘What did you do differently?’ Grandma asked.

Mila laid her cardboard flat. The new crease ran right across the kitchen table she'd drawn. She smoothed it. It didn't help much.

‘This is the kitchen. That's the yellow loop. And the green's the conservatory.’

She pointed at the holes. She wanted them to understand at once, but the cardboard only made sense to her. The circles for the rollers were crooked, and beside the sun she'd drawn an arrow pointing the wrong way.

‘Get a pencil,’ Grandma said.

Mila searched her coat pocket. The sheet with her opening fell out. She put it on the table with the crossed-out side down.

‘I took the blue along here.’ She drew its route again, over an old line. ‘Without a big loose curve. Closer.’

‘On the large cloth?’

Mila nodded.

Now Aron turned.

‘Tonight?’

She nodded again.

He didn't come to the table. He stayed by the cupboard, one hand on its door. ‘You said you were only drawing something.’

‘On Wednesday it was only a drawing.’

As soon as she said it, she wanted to take it back. It sounded as though that made anything better.

‘I did it today,’ she said. ‘Before we started. When you were trying the footsteps.’

Aron shut the cupboard door. He didn't pull it hard, but the catch clicked loudly. Ilyas returned with a small reading lamp. He set it on the empty corner of the table before looking at Grandma.

‘We aren't changing anything yet,’ she said. ‘Mila's showing us the connection.’

Mila laid the loose blue thread beside the cardboard. She could show them what she'd done with it, only not in the real cloth. She asked if she could. Grandma moved the ordinary red practice embroidery out of the way and nodded.

Through the first hole in the cardboard, underneath and across. Mila took the blue thread over the drawn conservatory. On the cloth, she hadn't left the end at this point; she'd passed it round the green loops so it came out at the back. She turned the cardboard over and carried on drawing there.

‘It crosses here. You couldn't see it from the front.’

Grandma leant forward a little. ‘And then?’

‘Then it slipped back. That's why I put two extra wraps round it.’

She made the two wraps in the loose thread. This time she didn't pull them tight. Ilyas crouched to see the back of the template too.

‘Those two extra turns were in the cloth?’

‘Round the blue. But the other loops were behind it. The yellow ones. So when it moved, they came with it.’

She looked at Grandma. She wasn't completely sure about that last part. She'd only seen it happen. Grandma looked from the drawing to the actual fold and asked where the free end had gone. Mila pointed out the route without touching the fabric.

‘From here to there. Then back to the front.’

‘Then we don't start where I thought,’ Grandma said.

She moved her chair a little further from the frame. Mila lowered the cardboard. The blue thread slipped out of a hole and lay on the table.

Aron was beside the sewing box now. ‘Why didn't you tell me when I asked how the footsteps sounded?’

Mila looked at the pencil point. A bit of blue fluff clung to it.

‘Because I wanted to make it work first.’

‘You didn't have to.’

‘I thought then the three rooms would—’

‘We had a show yesterday, didn't we?’

Mila looked at the red letterbox on the painted window. She'd opened that flap herself. It hadn't gone wrong. She'd enjoyed it too.

‘I know,’ she said.

Aron picked up the template, looked at the two crosses and put it down again. ‘You fastened my conservatory in there too.’

Mila couldn't say it was Grandma's conservatory. She could hear how that would sound.

‘Yes.’

Grandma asked Ilyas to point the reading lamp at the back. Then she asked Mila to hold the pencil line beside the fold, a little way off, so she could follow both together. There was no need to press the cardboard against anything.

Holding her arm still was difficult. Mila wanted to lower it for a moment, but Grandma was still looking.

‘Tell me if you're tired,’ she said. ‘I'll take the paper.’

‘I'm all right.’

‘Just here for a moment, then.’

Together, they followed the first detour. The yellow line didn't only run behind the conservatory; it came forwards again too. Mila could see where a bit of fabric between them had folded backwards. From this angle they couldn't see any further.

‘We need the whole thing on the table,’ Grandma said. ‘Without pulling here. We need to look at the connection with nothing moving.’

Ilyas nodded. ‘I'll ring Eva. If this takes a while, we could do with some extra hands.’

Mila wanted to ask if she had to stop and go home. But on the phone, Ilyas only asked whether Eva could come to the community hall. He told her everyone was safe, that something had got caught in the fabric and they wanted to take their time working out how to free it. Then he handed Grandma the phone.

Aron collected the pencils from the big table. He put them in the cup by the window and moved the ordinary sewing box to another table. Mila reached for the other end.

‘I've got it,’ he said.

She let go. He lifted it with both hands underneath, the way Grandma liked.

After the call, Grandma went back to the front of the frame. ‘Now we know enough to take it out safely. First we clear that table completely.’

The blue threads lay on the cardboard. Mila put her pencil beside them. Neither length was still in the fabric; the coloured loops were holding each other fast. The cloth hung still between the rollers. A narrow edge of light shone inside the fold.

She slid the sheet with her crossed-out opening under the template. This time she didn't keep the drawing to herself. She left it where Grandma could see it.