Chapter 2Same Size

The handprint was still tacky on the fresh paint, four fingers and a thumb, Sam's size. "These came this morning," he said, nodding at three flat boxes stacked by the door. "Shelving. I thought the poetry could go on the left." "I haven't decided where the poetry goes." Helen walked round the paint tray. "Or whether it comes in here at all. There was meant to be a conversation first." Sam slit the tape on the top box. "This is the conversation. Pass me that." She passed him nothing. "And the machine?" "Friday. It needs a socket by the window." "Then it needs my wall." She pointed at the brick, where a rectangle the height of a door had been drawn in pencil. "You've already measured it." "It's chalk." "Nothing, then." Helen crouched and pulled the first box open. The parts were wrapped in grey plastic, new and clean and smelling of nothing. Through the wall her boiler coughed twice and settled. Nothing in number four smelled of anything yet. "There's damp under that plaster," she said. "It'll come off in sheets." "We'll fix it." "You'll fix it." She stood, took the knife out of his hand, and opened the second box herself, one neat line along the seam. "I'll do the shelves. And my name goes on the window, under yours. Same size." Sam looked at the glass, then back at her. "Same size," he said.