The Whole Cloth

The garden smelt of wet leaves. Ilyas held the door while Eva took the clean protective sheet outside. Under the outdoor light, the path looked slippery, but that was just the dark colour of the paving. Ilyas rubbed his shoe over it and swept away a stray leaf.

Mila stayed by the table. Grandma checked the last green loop, nudging it aside with the needle before letting it settle back. Then she followed the sewing-room line all the way round to its beginning.

‘Those two are still closed,’ she said.

The yellow line had its little gap. Its free end lay loose along the edge. Aron took the blue threads from the other table and put them in the cardboard template. Not a scrap of blue remained on the worktable.

Mila tried to put the drawing in her pocket, but the sheet was too big. She laid it beside the template. The needle went into the red pincushion, which Grandma put in the cupboard beside her sewing box.

‘We'll fetch that in a minute,’ she said. ‘The cloth first.’

Eva came in to say everything was ready. She and Grandma lifted the broad cloth together. They let its edges hang gently down, keeping the opened section on top. The bundle was bigger than Mila's duvet at home. She went ahead of them and held a chair out of the way. Aron secured the garden door so it couldn't swing back.

By the time they were outside, the outdoor light was off again. Ilyas had switched it off once everyone was over the threshold. The protective sheet made a dark grey rectangle on the path. Above it, the large cloth shone in Eva's and Grandma's hands.

Mila could see at once how tiny Grandma's balcony would have been. Here, each adult had room to walk along a different side. They lowered the cloth with the silver facing up. Grandma lifted the last corner and smoothed it flat.

Aron checked his phone. ‘Thirteen minutes to twelve.’

‘We'll stay till it's finished, then,’ Ilyas said.

He sat on the low bench by the wall. Eva stayed beside the door and zipped up her coat. Grandma pulled her scarf higher. Mila had left her own coat inside.

‘I'll get it,’ she said.

She went back through the empty hall. The wooden frame stood against the wall, and she had to go round it to reach her coat. One of its feet stuck out; she stepped carefully past. On the low stage, the blue tulle hung in a crooked curve. Nobody needed to stand in the frame now. Nobody was holding up an edge.

Mila put on her coat. A hard mandarin pip lay in the pocket. It must have been there since another afternoon. She left it on a saucer by the tap and went back outside.

A thin cloud had drifted across the moon. She could still see a pale ring, with dark branches below it above the garden wall. Their cloth lay on the paving. The light was draining slowly from its open edges towards the middle.

‘Do you think the conservatory will still work?’ Aron asked Grandma.

‘Its line stayed whole.’

‘I mean when we use it another time.’

‘Yes. The sewing room too.’

Aron nodded and sat at the far end of the bench. His shoes were side by side, toes turned slightly in. Mila stayed standing. She couldn't tell from the cloth where the old kitchen table had stood. There were only stitches, silver bands and a narrow loose length of yellow.

Grandma brushed a strand of hair out of her face.

‘That stool,’ Mila said. ‘You gave it away.’

For a moment Grandma looked puzzled. Then she understood. ‘Yes. To your aunt.’

‘Has she still got it?’

‘You'll have to ask her. I've forgotten where she put it.’

Mila tried to imagine the stool in another room. In the preserved kitchen, it always stood beside the table. She hadn't paid it much attention. Mostly she'd just pushed it aside.

A little breeze brushed Grandma's scarf against her coat. The light on the cloth was thinning. Ordinary grey showed through the silver. Mila bent forward, her hands in her pockets. The small patch hidden earlier inside the Z-shaped fold grew as dull as the rest.

There was nothing left to lift or unfold.

‘We can still do the ordinary show tomorrow, by the way,’ Ilyas said. ‘The lamp's working again.’

‘And the painted window's still there,’ Aron said.

Mila looked at him. ‘Have you still got your rain tin?’

‘Yes. Bottom shelf.’

‘We could use that tomorrow.’

Aron rubbed his shoe along a join in the paving. ‘I was going to.’

Ilyas stood up. The cloth lay still, completely grey now. Grandma walked round the protective sheet, checking all four edges. She asked Eva to lift the corner nearest the door. There was no light underneath that either.

‘Finished,’ she said.

Mila looked at the yellow line. She'd known what would happen. Even so, she waited for something to show her the kitchen was gone. The cloth simply lay there. The table and the old stool had drained away with the borrowed light, for good.

Above the wall, the moon came out from behind the cloud.

Aron's phone buzzed. His dad was at the front of the building. Aron pulled his sleeves over his hands and said he'd like to come back the next afternoon. He looked at Ilyas as he said it, not Mila.

‘Two o'clock,’ Ilyas said. ‘The programme first. Then rehearsal.’

Grandma and Eva took the empty cloth inside. This time Mila helped carry the protective sheet. The corner beside her hand almost trailed over the paving. She gripped it higher.

Inside, Ilyas sent them to collect their coats and the sewing box while he put the cloth away safely. The cardboard template and drawing went into Mila's bag. At a quarter past twelve, she, Eva and Grandma set off for home. Mila tried counting the lampposts. Halfway there, she thought she'd missed one. She let it go.