summitâ when he returned from his summer holiday in Puglia. The washing and cooking and shopping didnât fill much of the day. It was the house, and her plans for the house, that consumed her.
Miaâs obsession with houses had bloomed when she started secondary, coincident with realising that she couldnât bring any of her new friends back to the humiliating Barratt box she and Mum had ended up in after her parents split. The teenage Mia had read Wallpaper* the way other girls read Heat . She had even had a declared period of wanting to be an architect before she discovered how much maths was involved, and her closest sixth-form friendship, with a girl called Jessica Norton, had been founded on discovering that she lived in a staggering Georgian terrace her parents had had gutted at the back and transformed by a brutalist extension featured in several interiors magazines. Jessica herself had been elusively silent, masking dullness, but that suited Mia, who herself preferred quiet. She had happy memories of the mute afternoons the two of them spent together, sprawled on the Italian modular sofa pretending to do homework, feet warmed on the underfloor heating, skin flattered by concealed lighting. At any moment she had felt they were worthy of an advertorial magazine spread.
Although Patrickâs house was the squalid opposite of Jessicaâs, from the first time Mia saw it, fully expecting to meet Sara, she had been stirred by the potential amid the ruin. There was just so much of it, all original features: it was one big Before, waiting for her to turn it into a stripped-down, reglazed After. In the summer weeks, instead of analysing the examples she had chosen of theprimitive mediaâs appropriations of the Falklands War, she had been clearing and rearranging, carrying out the smallest portion of the renovations and improvements she was undertaking in her head. Now though, she had to admit to herself that her time was running out. Term was about to start and she would be homeless in ten days. Sheâd done nothing about finding another flat, not so much as checked out a property website: from so far away, it was frankly quite hard even to believe in Newcastle. Staring at the block of dissertation text on her laptop screen, Mia deplored her increasingly unignorable provisionality. She had thought that she was following a plan. Always have a plan, babe. Plan A, and plan B. Thanks, Dad.
Tipping onion skins into the kitchen binâshe was making shepherdâs pie, since the stir-fry she had produced the previous night had ânearly taken the roof of my fucking mouth off,â according to Patrickâthe youthful fragments of him and Sara enticed her. She retrieved the brittle magazine page. Sara was visible only as a section of waving gold-brown hair and a slender hand brushing Patrickâs denim-shirted shoulder. He occupied most of the shot, his own hair black, as it still was only in the photos around the house. His expression though, was untouched by time. Uncompromising .
The pinging of her email startled Mia away from the bin. Expecting the quote promised by Atkinson Home Décor, she leaned over to her open laptop, resting on the stack of discardable recipe books, to retrieve the new mail. Sure enough, and pleasingly, the quote Atkinsonâs had come in with was the lowest of the three she had sought. Jotting it down, Mia scrolled past several junk messages that were part of the most recent haul and halted at the last message. It was from Jonathon, using his sober university email address.
Subject: Dissertation
Hi Mia,
Hope youâve had a good summer. Can you confirm a tutorial meeting to discuss the progress of your dissertation on Monday October 8 th at 9.30 in my office? As you may know, the restructuring of the undergraduate degree course has meant my workload has increased dramatically over the last academic year in terms of the modules Iâm both teaching and
Miaâs obsession with houses had bloomed when she started secondary, coincident with realising that she couldnât bring any of her new friends back to the humiliating Barratt box she and Mum had ended up in after her parents split. The teenage Mia had read Wallpaper* the way other girls read Heat . She had even had a declared period of wanting to be an architect before she discovered how much maths was involved, and her closest sixth-form friendship, with a girl called Jessica Norton, had been founded on discovering that she lived in a staggering Georgian terrace her parents had had gutted at the back and transformed by a brutalist extension featured in several interiors magazines. Jessica herself had been elusively silent, masking dullness, but that suited Mia, who herself preferred quiet. She had happy memories of the mute afternoons the two of them spent together, sprawled on the Italian modular sofa pretending to do homework, feet warmed on the underfloor heating, skin flattered by concealed lighting. At any moment she had felt they were worthy of an advertorial magazine spread.
Although Patrickâs house was the squalid opposite of Jessicaâs, from the first time Mia saw it, fully expecting to meet Sara, she had been stirred by the potential amid the ruin. There was just so much of it, all original features: it was one big Before, waiting for her to turn it into a stripped-down, reglazed After. In the summer weeks, instead of analysing the examples she had chosen of theprimitive mediaâs appropriations of the Falklands War, she had been clearing and rearranging, carrying out the smallest portion of the renovations and improvements she was undertaking in her head. Now though, she had to admit to herself that her time was running out. Term was about to start and she would be homeless in ten days. Sheâd done nothing about finding another flat, not so much as checked out a property website: from so far away, it was frankly quite hard even to believe in Newcastle. Staring at the block of dissertation text on her laptop screen, Mia deplored her increasingly unignorable provisionality. She had thought that she was following a plan. Always have a plan, babe. Plan A, and plan B. Thanks, Dad.
Tipping onion skins into the kitchen binâshe was making shepherdâs pie, since the stir-fry she had produced the previous night had ânearly taken the roof of my fucking mouth off,â according to Patrickâthe youthful fragments of him and Sara enticed her. She retrieved the brittle magazine page. Sara was visible only as a section of waving gold-brown hair and a slender hand brushing Patrickâs denim-shirted shoulder. He occupied most of the shot, his own hair black, as it still was only in the photos around the house. His expression though, was untouched by time. Uncompromising .
The pinging of her email startled Mia away from the bin. Expecting the quote promised by Atkinson Home Décor, she leaned over to her open laptop, resting on the stack of discardable recipe books, to retrieve the new mail. Sure enough, and pleasingly, the quote Atkinsonâs had come in with was the lowest of the three she had sought. Jotting it down, Mia scrolled past several junk messages that were part of the most recent haul and halted at the last message. It was from Jonathon, using his sober university email address.
Subject: Dissertation
Hi Mia,
Hope youâve had a good summer. Can you confirm a tutorial meeting to discuss the progress of your dissertation on Monday October 8 th at 9.30 in my office? As you may know, the restructuring of the undergraduate degree course has meant my workload has increased dramatically over the last academic year in terms of the modules Iâm both teaching and
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