‘You’re the expert,’ he whispered. ‘No one else has done anything like this before.’
‘It’s a long time ago.’
‘You won’t have forgotten what to do,’ he said. ‘That learning process will still be there inside. You just have to let it out. I’m sure you could make something more complicated, but a bowl will give you confidence.’
He leaned back, but kept his hand connected to hers.
‘We take bowls for granted,’ he said to them all, ‘but they are full of symbolism. They represent the Divine Feminine, creative fulfilment, abundance and nourishment. Bowls are used for sharing food, but also for sustaining ourselves. They have been used in rituals and celebrations for thousands of years. A circular bowl can remind us of unity and wholeness, of giving to ourselves and to others, and it doesn’t have to be perfect.’
An imperfect bowl. She could do that. She’d never been a fan of perfection. Gavin had been the one chasing that and she’d got caught up in his quest. She’d tried to make herself perfect for him, bought new make-up, new clothes which were completely impractical and not really her, some ridiculously expensive shoes, and spent a fortune which she couldn’t afford on her hair trying to obliterate those coppery strands that he didn’t like. And look where all of that had got her. Her bowl could even have a wavy rim. She liked waves and ripples and quirky things. It could be perfectly imperfect. It could be a symbol of the new her.
‘Remember to breathe,’ he said softly.
She was acutely aware that his hand was still on hers, holding it gently, but firmly against the clay.
‘Remember to connect with your breath, everyone,’ he said to the others. ‘Making pots is about many things: patience, trust, strength, posture and breath. Everything is connected. We’re all connected, to each other and to the clay. It’s our oldest handicraft. It’s in our DNA.’
For a moment his eyes met hers and illogically she felt pure terror.
‘Ready?’ he asked.
She nodded. Anything to get him to remove skin to skin contact, to stop him being so kind. It was more than she could bear.
‘Off you go then,’ he said, moving away and turning back to Carrie whose beginnings of a bowl had collapsed, resulting in part laughter, part frustrated expletives.
Jules dipped her hand in the bowl of water, pressed her foot to the treadle and the wheel began to turn. After a few false starts and some staring out of the window, she began to feel remnants of memory returning; memory which wasn’t just in her head, but in her entire body. Maybe if she just let her body take the lead, she thought. The wheel was immersive. Jules couldn’t think about anything except the water, the clay, her feet, her hands, the form in front of her which grew and shrank and collapsed and grew again, keeping her totally in the moment. And suddenly she realised that this was good, that it made her forget for a while, that it was just what she needed.
At lunchtime they were directed to a long pine table outside under the trees. John pulled out a chair for her. Gavin used to do that. Always a gentleman on the surface. Lance fetched a cushion for Daphne, whose back was aching, and Carrie cut slices from a crusty loaf while Iris poured them all a tall glass of summer fruit cordial, making sure everyone had a piece of strawberry, a raspberry and a sprig of mint. They were nice, these people, she thought as she listened to them chatter about their morning’s attempts and the feast of food laid out in front of them; a delicious selection of salads, cold fish and meats arranged on vintage crockery. Kind people. If they knew how stupid she had been, how ashamed she was of her gullibility, they would wrap her in understanding. Besides, who knew what they themselves had been through, what mistakes they had made, failures they’d had to overcome?
John, she had gleaned, was trying to find a new purpose in retirement and Iris had been given the day as a gift by hergrandmother, but Jules sensed that it wasn’t a birthday gift, it was for some other reason. Beneath the serene features there was a battle going on. She used to be good at sensing things. You had to be as a midwife.
Daphne was talking about her children and grandchildren, her husband of over fifty years and Jules wondered if she was putting a gloss on her life or maybe she was one of those people who deliberately made everything and everyone sound adorable not to impress others, but to reassure herself. Jules wasn’t convinced she was giving much of her real self away. Lance, on the other hand, seemed refreshingly uncomplicated. As she listened to the chatter around the table, ankles tightly crossed beneath the chair, she picked at a piece of mushroom and thyme quiche and gradually began to relax. Food always tasted so much better in the open air, she thought; the tomatoes were perfectly ripe, the quinoa salad tangy with mint and lemon, the salmon melt in the mouth soft, the bread pillowy on the inside with a satisfyingly chewy contrasting crust. For the first time in a couple of weeks she actually felt hungry.
‘After Sarah died I could have gone back to London, returned to my job in finance and got a nanny for the children,’ Lance was saying, ‘which was what my parents thought was for the best.’
He paused and glanced across the lawn towards the studio.
‘But this place had a hold on me and being a potter is in my veins. I think you said you’re a midwife, Jules?’
‘Oh! Yes!’
She was aware that she sounded like a startled bird. Did she tell him that? She didn’t remember. He was looking at her directly across the table.
‘That’s meant to be a calling, isn’t it?’
‘Um, I suppose so.’
That probably wasn’t what he wanted, she thought. He probably wanted her to sound more definite, more glowing. Everyone was looking at her, waiting for her to say more.
‘I never really wanted to do anything else,’ she added, her voice quavering beneath the attention.
She really, really couldn’t do this, sit here for the rest of the day with a group of strangers. It was too much. She had to say something, but Carrie didn’t appear to notice her distress and Lance was still talking.
‘I felt like that about potting,’ he said, ‘ever since I first squidged some clay into a Christmas angel at primary school. But pottery isn’t really seen as a ‘proper’ job, at least not in my family, so I went down the conventional route until I couldn’t do that any longer without suffering long term damage to my mental and physical health. Which is how I came to be here and why I decided, after we lost Sarah, that there were more important things than money. As long as I could earn enough to support myself and my family, to run this place, to give something back, pass on my passion, then I would be happy.’
A passion for pots, she thought. That sounded safe. That’s what she needed to do, find a passion for something which would be all consuming. Something she would be able to turn to if she was ever tempted to get into a romantic relationship ever again.
Halfway through the afternoon Erin and Tasha arrived in the studio with a tray of cakes and mugs of tea.
