when fatima saw her childhood home for sale, she booked a viewing. She mentioned it in passing to Yusuf, seeing him at the students’ union. They were meeting alone more often now; she wasn’t sure what they were. He said it would be fun to see where she grew up, and to hang out again before he flew home for the summer. She thought about inviting the rest of their friend group but didn’t.

 

The estate agent was late. They stood in the front garden, and Fatima peered through the open window of the neighbour’s house, trying to see if the same couple still lived there.

‘There used to be grass,’ Fatima said, kicking at the gravel. ‘Dad was big on nature.’

‘That’s where you get it from,’ Yusuf said.

They’d first met a few weeks after freshers, having signed up for the same green action group – well, a friend had signed her up; Fatima had failed to decide on a single society to join. The group travelled around London with bags of wildflower seeds and planted them illegally. Yarrow, cowslip, heal-all. She and Yusuf had been partnered. After spring, Yusuf asked her if she might like to retrace their route and see what had grown. Most of the plants, if they had taken root, had been cut down or pulled out. But there were a few that survived. She took a photo of some of their cornflowers growing by an old fountain. While they talked, a man took off his shoes, rolled up his trousers and stepped into the fountain, filling an old coffee cup with wishing coins.

 

‘Is it how you remembered?’ Yusuf asked.

‘Pretty much,’ she said. A teenage boy was staring at her from the bus stop across the road. She looked away.

They sat on the front garden wall. Yusuf took out his phone. He always typed with one thumb.

‘This is my house,’ he said, Google Street View open. In front of the house stood a ghostly figure, whose face had been blurred. Yusuf pressed the arrows, taking her around the neighbourhood. ‘This was my school. This is where we played soccer.’

Finally, a car parked up. The estate agent came out, followed by a man and a woman.

‘Eleven o’clock,’ the estate agent said, seeing Fatima and Yusuf. ‘God, I’m so sorry. We’ve double booked. Crossed wires. I can only apologise.’

The two couples looked at each other. The man was Yusuf’s height. The woman was pregnant.

‘That’s okay,’ the woman said. ‘You can go first.’

‘Yes, you go,’ the man said.

‘I don’t mind,’ Fatima said.

‘We could go together?’ Yusuf said.

 

The five of them squeezed into the hallway. There was new laminate flooring. The wallpaper was gone, but the stairs were the same. The banisters hadn’t changed. Now there was a mirror by the door. Inscribed on the wooden frame were the words ‘live every moment’. Fatima was careful not to catch Yusuf’s eye, or they’d start laughing. They needed to look like serious buyers. She looked at the other couple in the reflection. They were holding hands. She was tempted to reach out to Yusuf.

The estate agent led them into the kitchen that had been extended when Fatima was a child. The rent increased when the work was finished, and she and her parents moved out soon after, looking to downsize.

‘It’s actually great you’re both here at once,’ the estate agent said, still flustered. ‘Because this house is perfect for people at different stages. You’ve got great schools, a lovely park a stone’s throw. And then there’s the transport links, great for commuting, nights out, what have you.’

The fridge was silver, not white, and covered with magnets: ‘home is where the wine is’, ‘keep calm and carry on and on and on’. The handles on the cupboards had been replaced; there was a dishwasher now. Here was the windowsill where Dad’s herbs had grown. There, the wall that Mum had thrown spaghetti at after seeing it on TV. Fatima sat in the spot where she used to eat.

The man asked questions. And then Yusuf. He was doing the British accent that always made Fatima laugh. It was disconcertingly accurate. The last time he did it, their friend group had gone Westfield to window shop in the designer stores. He’d had them cracking up in Louis Vuitton and the guard asked them to leave.

‘My least favourite genre of people,’ Yusuf had said, ‘are people with fake authority. Like they get a badge or a uniform and have to act out some power play.’

He was often saying things like that. He had a stance on everything. Fatima, on the other hand, wasn’t sure she could state any single opinion with certainty. Things were always shifting.

 

The estate agent left them to explore. The other couple went upstairs, Fatima and Yusuf out to the garden. The lawn had been paved over. The child-sized handprints in one section of concrete were filled with the morning’s rain. Yusuf found a football and they passed it back and forth. She told him about the summer the extension was built. Paul, the builder in charge, had to bring along his daughter, Maja, because of childcare issues. She only really spoke Polish. Fatima taught her words and games. Maja was the younger sister Fatima had long wanted. She tried to convince her mum to let Maja stay the night. She could have used the empty bottom bunk.

When the garden was dug up to lay the foundations, Fatima’s dad suggested the girls go look for buried treasure. The builders were off for lunch. He carried them down into the pit and they found six gold coins. Fatima knew the coins were from her birthday, but she pretended they were real for Maja.

‘We’ll grow a chocolate tree,’ she said, burying the golden wrappers in the mud after they’d eaten them all.

‘Chocolate,’ Maja said to herself. ‘Chocolate.’

Her mum wouldn’t let them inside because they were muddy. She whisper-shouted at her dad and made them stand on newspaper. Fatima read the words between her feet out loud, trying to impress Maja. ‘Crash, bang, wallop. £50 billion wiped off shares. Mega-bank Lehmann Brothers folds.’

When the work finished, Maja left. She didn’t live nearby, and they never saw each other again.

 

A window opened upstairs. They could hear the couple talking.

‘I can see us happy here.’

‘I think there might be damp.’

 

Back inside, Yusuf asked the estate agent about transport links, resuming his British accent. Fatima went upstairs. The man was in the bathroom. The woman was in Fatima’s old bedroom.

‘What do you think?’ Fatima asked her.

‘It’s nice,’ the woman said. She was looking at a fish tank which stood where Fatima’s bunk bed used to be. ‘I think we’d be interested. Are you interested?’

‘I’m not sure what we want. That’s why we’re looking. To get an idea.’

‘I remember those days,’ the woman said, tapping the glass. ‘You’ll get there soon enough.’

There was a model sunken city in the fish tank. Colourful fish darted aimlessly around the ruins. Different action figures stood half-buried in the sand like ancient statues.

‘They’ve evolved for millions of years,’ the woman said. ‘And here they are.’

The fish swam round and round. Through the open window Fatima heard the backdoor open, the estate agent taking a call.

‘It’s my weekend,’ he said. ‘It’s legally my weekend. She’s coming here.’

He walked around the garden.

‘It’s like you’re planning these sleepovers intentionally. There’s no way there’s this many birthdays.’

He kicked the football.

‘Can you put her on? I want to hear it from her.’

 

Out front, Yusuf and the man inspected the pipes. An alarm was going off next door. Fatima didn’t know what you were supposed to do when you heard someone’s alarm. Calling the emergency services seemed extreme. But there could be a fire. A break-in. She gave the woman and the estate agent a look to convey her uncertainty. They carried on talking about catchment areas.

It could have been anything. A gust of wind through an open window slamming a door. And it wasn’t like she was the only person on the street. If anyone should have done something, it should have been the people that actually lived here.

Then a leg appeared out of the neighbour’s open window, followed by the rest of a body – it was the teenager she’d seen earlier. He was wearing a backpack and two handbags and had a small TV under one arm.

‘Yusuf,’ Fatima called, without thinking.

The teenager saw them and ran.

Yusuf chased after him, and then the man. Fatima followed them, the estate agent and the woman behind. The teenager dropped the TV and the screen cracked. He turned off the road and down the alley that led to the park. The grass was wet, the field empty. The climbing frame was still there, but one of the swings was missing. The teenager ran across the dirt path that connected the two exits. It was the way Fatima used to go to school. The path was muddy, and she was scared of slipping. She almost always wore platforms around Yusuf, not wanting him to see her real height. He was striding ahead now and caught up with the teenager. He grabbed the straps of one of the handbags and then the man, who had also caught up, tackled the boy to the ground.

The man pinned the teenager down and sat on his back. When Fatima caught up with them, Yusuf was telling the man to get up.

‘Phone the police,’ the man said.

The teenager was talking in a language Fatima didn’t recognise.

‘We’ve got the stuff,’ Yusuf said. ‘We can let him go.’

‘I’m holding him until the police get here,’ the man said.

The woman and the estate agent arrived.

‘This day,’ the estate agent said, out of breath. ‘Honestly.’

The four of them argued over what to do. Fatima remained silent.

‘He’s just a kid. It’ll ruin his life,’ the woman said, siding with Yusuf.

‘We let him go, he’ll just rob someone else,’ the man said. The estate agent agreed.

The teenager continued to plead.

‘Shut it,’ the man said, and he slapped the back of his head. The woman was horrified.

‘The hell?’ Yusuf said, grabbing the man. ‘You can’t just.’

Yusuf’s real voice had returned, and Fatima wondered if the others thought he was now putting on a fake accent.

The estate agent turned to Fatima. ‘You’ve got the deciding vote.’

They all looked at her. During her silence, Yusuf pulled the man off the teenager. The man took out his phone and dialled 999. The teenager ran, leaving everything he’d taken behind.

‘Fuck!’ the man said. ‘See!’

The teenager ran to the edge of the park and gracefully cleared the gates.

Inside the backpack was an old laptop, a few chargers, some shampoo and some food. The handbags were largely empty. One had been filled with loose change that had scattered across the grass when the teenager was tackled. The woman and the estate agent carried the bags back to the house, followed by the man who was describing the events on the phone.

Yusuf and Fatima got on their knees to pick up the fallen coins. As she focussed on the grass, she began to notice a group of ants walking in a line. They moved with such purpose.

Fatima and Yusuf returned to the house. With fresh certainty, she reached out and held his hand. His muddy thumb tapped against hers. The broken TV was gone, as was the estate agent’s car. The neighbour’s window was closed. They knocked on the door but there was no answer, so they posted the coins through the letterbox, each one landing on the floorboards below and making its own distinct sound.