The house had been advertised as having two bedrooms, so when they'd looked at everything else Hannah and Shelly went to look at the second bedroom. There was a strange, awkward rhythm to looking at a house with so many other people in attendance, an incorrect order of seeing one bedroom first, then the laundry, then the kitchen, then the back garden, then the bathroom and finally, working back down the corridor, the second bedroom. Hannah was reminded of puzzles her brother had played with as a child, where he'd have to make a picture by moving square tiles around within a frame, with only one square missing to provide room for movement.

There wasn't much room for movement in the second bedroom. Hannah could have guessed that by the number of people lurking outside its doorway, craning their necks to get a look; or from the bemused and disappointed - and sometimes angry - expressions on the faces of the people coming out of the room. When Hannah and Shelly finally got their chance to see the room, they understood.

"It's got a built-in wardrobe" Hannah pointed out truthfully, and with great optimism.

"It does" Shelly agreed, the tone in her voice suggesting that she was beginning to doubt even that self-evident fact.

"You could fit a bed in here."

"Sure, but if you did you wouldn't be able to open the wardrobe."

Hannah looked at the slatted doors of the wardrobe, saw the hinges and understood the mechanism; understood that Shelly was right.

"You could rent it out cheap."

"Nothing about this house is cheap."

Hannah and Shelly stood in the centre of the room - there wasn't anywhere else to stand - and another couple came around the corner of the room's doorway and, almost bumping into Hannah and Shelly upon entering the room, apologised and backed out again.

"It's not going to work, is it?" Hannah asked unnecessarily.