Foldout

At 08:05 I was on the landing with the hoover, because the Leaf's bottom channel collects dust the way a pocket collects receipts, and because a hoover is a useful thing to be holding when you would rather not start a conversation.

The front room is a front room. The listing calls it an apartment. The listing also says the room "adapts to you," a sentence I wrote at eleven at night after rejecting "clever wall" three times. It offered two separately bookable zones. I had photographed each in its most generous configuration, moving the same Leaf between shots.

Three approved stops. Flat to the far wall, which opens the floor wide. Out to the middle, which screens the alcove. Shut into the alcove, which makes a dark box of the bed. A full change takes ninety seconds: thumb on the strip, walk the fold with your hand, and the sheet does the rest. A noise like a pallet truck dragged over gravel. A stiffness that comes up through the palm. Then the warmth, always there after a change, and Hale's panel at the end of the wall.

The last guest had left it at the middle stop. So when Nadia arrived at twenty past eight, in yesterday's scrubs, with a sleep mask pushed up on her forehead like a headband, the alcove was dim: a grey thread of window light along the seam where the sheet didn't quite meet the frame.

She had read the listing at four in the morning. I could tell by how close she held her phone.

"You're Bex. It says the room adapts."

"It does." I took her through the stops, pointing at the wall like a bad tour guide. Wide, screen, dark box. My thumb found the strip.

"I'm on nights," she said. "I need dark and quiet by nine. Not nine-ish."

I put my hand along the seam. The light was the sort of thing you'd say didn't count. Nadia had the face of someone for whom it counted.

"I'll have it dark by nine," I said.

Theo arrived at 08:40 with a cello in a hard case, a folding stand under one arm, and a ring light in a carrier bag. He set the case down upright, the way you do with something that cost more than your car, and looked at the dim alcove, then at the room, and did the swift face-rearrangement polite people do when the room is not the room they booked.

"Audition video at eleven," he said. "Solo. I need it open and bright, if that's doable."

One Leaf, two people. I did the arithmetic on my fingers and chose Nadia's darkness first, because her sleep was the thing that could actually go wrong.

Thumb on the strip. Walk the fold. The pallet truck, the stiffening, the heat coming off the sheet in a wave that made the back of my neck prickle. The seam closed. The alcove went properly dark; I checked along the edge with my palm and found no light at all.

Nadia looked in, nodded once, pulled the mask down over her eyes, and lay down.

The panel went amber. Hale said, in the voice of a form with a box for everything, "Cooling period: two hours fifty minutes. No further full change until the panel returns to white."

I looked at the clock. Twenty to nine. Then at the room, which was a strip.

I got the tape from the kitchen drawer, because measuring is what I do instead of thinking. Two point one metres from the Leaf's rail to the window wall. Theo had already moved the chair and the little table to the side and was unzipping the ring light, which he stood on the table like a small moon. The tape curled back on itself, and I let it.

"That's fine," he said.

"It's two point one."

"That's plenty. I'll angle the light."

A minute later, dragging the stand into the corner, he said it again. "Honestly, it's fine."

Two hours fifty minutes from twenty to nine was half past eleven. I did the sum twice, hoping for a different answer, then put my hand flat on the warm control strip and promised him the room by eleven.

I lasted until ten fifty. Two hours and ten minutes of good behaviour, and then I put my hand back on the control strip. The panel was still amber. Theo had set his ring light at the window. His strip of floor was two point one metres. He said, "It's fine."

"I promised you the room by eleven," I said.

"I'd rather have the room without a fire."

The strip was warm under my palm, then hot. I held it. The Leaf gave a low complaint, like a filing cabinet dragged over grit. The panel pulsed amber. Hale said, "Full change during cooling period is not advised."

I pressed harder.

The sheet came out of the alcove. It stopped halfway, a diagonal across the room, one corner high, the other scraping the floor. It had kept going after I took my hand away, which was the worst part. It crossed the window. The light went from white to a hard grey band. The blind cord vanished into the fold and pulled tight, and the whole thing stopped with a crack I felt in my teeth.

Nadia stood in the doorway. Her mask was pushed up on her forehead and one cheek was creased. She had managed about two hours of sleep.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm so sorry."

She looked at the sheet. "It's jammed."

"Yes."

"Can it be moved?"

Hale said, "Manual release. Two persons required. Seat and lock both support rails. Release stiffness. Crank until lock."

Nadia did not look at the window or the cello. "Where's the box room?"

I took her bag. The interior box room off the kitchen was mine. It had no window, a bed that fit me, and a door that closed. I put her bag on the chair and pulled the duvet straight. "It's yours," I said. "For the rest of the stay. I'll refund the night."

She looked at the bed, then at me. "It's quiet."

"Yes."

"Thank you." She shut the door. I stood there until the bed gave under her.

We got the rails from the floor recess. With the sheet still rigid, Theo steadied the high corner while I slid one rail beneath, then the other, and locked both in place. I switched the stiffness off. The sheet groaned and settled onto the supports. Theo took the released edge in both hands and set his feet. I fitted the crank to the spindle. Hale said, "Steady. Crank to lock."

The handle turned hard, then easy, then hard again. Sweat ran down my back. Theo's shirt was dark at the collar. His cello stand lay on its side by the bookcase. The crank clicked. The sheet went flat and locked. The window came back in one piece. The blind cord hung free. The box-room door stayed shut.

Theo let go and wiped his hands on his trousers. "I'll get the stand," he said, and picked it up.

At seven Nadia came out of the box room. She had slept from just after eleven to seven. Her face had its ordinary edges back. She put bread in the toaster. Theo opened the window over the bin court and set his phone on the sill. The evening light lay across the floor in a long yellow stripe.

I sat at the kitchen table. It is bolted down; you could land a helicopter on it. I opened the listing. "An apartment that adapts to you," I read. My ears went hot.

I opened the app and refunded Nadia's night. The screen gave its little green tick. "The box room is yours for the rest of the stay," I said. "The listing promised a room that adapts. It doesn't. Not to two people at once. I'm on the sofa."

Nadia looked up from the toaster. "For the rest of the stay?"

"Yes."

She nodded once, as if I'd read out a train time. "All right."

Theo turned from the window. "I've moved my audition to seven."

"You don't have to."

"I do. The window light is better in the morning. That's all it was. It wasn't the piece." He shrugged. "I wanted to look like I got up early."

I went into the box room, put the spare quilt on the bed, and carried my duvet and pillow to the sofa. The sofa is shorter than I am. I am not tall.

Then I rewrote the listing. I deleted "an apartment that adapts to you" and typed: "One sheet. Three approved configurations. One cooling period. A host with a sofa." I put "cosy" after "sofa," then deleted it.

Behind me Theo's cello began, low and steady. Nadia ate toast at the fixed table, shoes by her chair for the shift. I took the hand-crank off the spindle, carried it to the front door, and hung it on the empty hook. It swung once and settled. I left it there.