Keeping the Wrong Room

‘Then we'll do the green one,’ Mila said.

The words were out before Grandma had even settled back into her chair. Mila pointed to the two circles on her drawing. Only two loops to undo there. The yellow route went on much further.

Aron picked his coat up from the chair.

‘Are you going?’ she asked.

‘I want my phone.’

He took it from the pocket and draped the coat over the chair back. Then he stood there. Mila moved her foot so he could sit down again. He didn't.

‘The conservatory was for my bit,’ he said.

‘We've still got the painted window.’

‘For your kitchen too.’

Mila looked towards the side-room door. She couldn't see the scenery, but she knew where it stood. She'd painted part of the window frame herself, getting her fingers covered in paint from the mixing tray. The ordinary window had turned out well. Only yesterday, she'd chosen a little curtain for it.

‘That's different.’

‘For you.’

At last Aron sat down. He pushed her drawing back to make room for his elbow. The two green circles almost disappeared under his sleeve.

‘I'd worked out how to make it rain when there wasn't any rain,’ he said. ‘And how the fisherman wouldn't understand a thing. I wanted to play that myself. I wasn't just hanging about till you could show your grandma something.’

‘I didn't say you were.’

‘You didn't ask, either.’

Grandma took off her glasses and rubbed the dent on her nose. Mila glanced at her. Perhaps Grandma would say she wanted to keep the kitchen most of all. Then Mila wouldn't have to explain why the table felt more important than everything else.

‘The green line can be opened,’ Grandma said. ‘So can the yellow. The conservatory in this cloth belongs to me just as much as the kitchen does.’

She put her glasses back on and waited.

Ilyas came in with two extra chair cushions. He gave one to Grandma and held up the other. Aron took it and slid it onto his seat.

Mila could see the wooden sewing box in the cupboard. On its front was the pale patch where a label used to be. That box was real. On Monday she and Grandma had carried it down the steep stairs together. Grandma had put it straight into her new work cupboard without hesitating.

‘If the kitchen goes, you'll never be able to go in there again,’ Mila said.

‘I know.’

‘Not even to see the table.’

Grandma looked along the cloth. ‘Sometimes that table was so full I had to cut things out on a chair. You remember that.’

Mila remembered kneeling on another chair to keep out of the way. In the preserved room, the table was always clear. You could put anything on it without having to tidy up first. Even Grandma's glasses weren't lying there.

‘I think it's lovely,’ she said.

‘So do I.’

Grandma took the free edge of the cloth and smoothed it a little. There was no break anywhere in the kitchen line. Not yet.

Eva came to stand beside Mila, a hand on the back of her chair.

‘Aron made a whole scene for that room,’ she said.

Mila rubbed her thumb over an eraser mark on the paper. First she'd used the conservatory to show there was more than a kitchen. Then she'd wanted it fixed between the other rooms. Now she'd decided they could lose it, because its two circles were so small.

She drew the paper out from under Aron's sleeve. He lifted his arm.

‘I want to do the yellow one,’ she said.

Grandma looked at her. ‘Are you sure?’

Mila nodded, but there was still something to ask. She looked at the unbroken stitches.

‘May I open it? It's your kitchen.’

‘Yes,’ Grandma said. ‘Pick up the needle. I'll hold the cloth for you.’

Mila swallowed. Grandma brought her chair closer and adjusted the lamp. Its light fell on the yellow stitches.

‘Those twelve, then,’ Mila said.

Aron moved his sleeve right off the paper. He asked where to put his hands. Grandma pointed to the clear space beside the edge.

‘The free end of the yellow thread will lie there. It needs to stay loose, without catching on anything.’

‘I won't pull it.’

‘Exactly.’

Ilyas cleared the last glass from the worktable. He shifted the chairs so Eva could stand behind Grandma without bumping into her. On the other table were the water and the last sandwiches. The frame could stay where it was.

Grandma asked Mila for the pincushion. She laid two ordinary pins on the drawing to mark the spot. She didn't push them through the silver cloth.

‘I can take over if your fingers get tired,’ she said.

Mila looked at her hands. A little pencil mark crossed her forefinger. Beside her nail was a cut from the cardboard, still there from Wednesday.

‘I want to do the first one.’

‘All right. We'll see how you get on.’

Aron moved his phone from the table to his coat. He looked at the two green circles. ‘I wanted to show off too. With the rain window.’

Mila waited.

‘But I didn't change the thread.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘That was me.’

He nodded without smiling. But he did move the loose demonstration thread out of the way, so it wouldn't get mixed up with the real yellow end.

Grandma pointed to the first kitchen stitch. Under the lamp, Mila could see it clearly. The same ordinary stitch she'd unpicked on the practice cloth on Tuesday. That one hadn't held an old kitchen table behind it.

She moved her chair a little nearer. The blunt darning needle lay on the red pincushion in front of her. She picked it up and waited for Grandma to arrange the cloth.