The costume register

Source: an original fiction extract.

At nine on Saturday morning, Nia unlocked the costume store behind the theatre. She had come to count the coats before the new production began rehearsals. The store manager, Felix, had left a green notebook on the cutting table, with a message asking her to record any missing buttons. Nia put her backpack beneath the table and opened the first wardrobe. There were twelve coats on the rail. One was wrapped in a sheet, and another had a paper crown sticking out of its pocket. From somewhere beyond the wall came the measured thump of dancers warming up.

The first eleven coats were easy. She counted sleeves and buttons, writing each number carefully in the green book. The twelfth was the one beneath the sheet. When she uncovered it, a smell of dust and lavender escaped. It was small, made from blue cloth that had faded almost white at the shoulders. Inside the collar someone had stitched a name in red thread. Nia read it twice. It was her mother's name, including the surname she had stopped using years before Nia was born.

Her mother had told her about working at the theatre. She described carrying boxes, fetching tea and once spending an entire afternoon untangling a curtain cord. She had never mentioned wearing a blue coat. Nia turned it over, looking for something grand enough to explain the omission: gold braid, a secret pocket, a label with the title of a famous play. There was only a patch at one elbow and a row of ordinary brown buttons. In the notebook she wrote the number six, then crossed it out. There were seven.

Felix returned carrying a bag of bread rolls. He recognised the coat immediately. 'The messenger,' he said. 'Your mother had one line. She practised it everywhere. On the stairs, by the kettle, while I was trying to add up receipts.' He smiled as he lifted the torn lining. Nia asked whether her mother had been good. Felix considered this with more seriousness than she expected. 'She arrived on time. She knew when to open the door. People noticed when she wasn't there.' He laid the coat carefully across the table.

At home that evening, Nia asked about the messenger. Her mother laughed and began the line at once, in a voice much louder than the kitchen required. Then she told Nia about the waiting: ten minutes behind a door, listening for the right sentence, terrified that she would miss it. Nia had imagined a forgotten triumph. What she was offered was a small remembered fear, still precise after all those years. The next Saturday she returned the coat to its hanger with the buttons facing out, and wrote a note about the torn lining in Felix's book.

Read the first paragraph, from “At nine” to “warming up”. Choose one answer for each question. Write the correct letter for each part.