quite undeniably.
‘You’re in the wholesale business of sorts too,’ protested William gently, ‘with your chunky mugs and squat teapots and home-made Cornish sludge.’
‘Ah,’ said Mac, tapping his pipe and absent-mindedly putting it back between his teeth, ‘but I do not have your skill. You’re the master craftsman. I just churn out – stuff. We both work with clay, but we’re worlds apart in terms of quality, of vocation.’
‘You know clay better than anyone,’ said William fixedly.
Mac chuckled and sucked on the pipe. ‘Hell, I’ve even started putting the odd piskie here and there – peeping behind a mug handle; lounging on a plate rim; peering up from the depths of a jug!’
‘Pixie,’ said William.
‘Piskie,’ agreed Mac, retrieving a mug with a small figurine clambering over the rim, for proof. ‘See! Positively Walt Disney!’ he basked.
‘But you’re the one who inspired me! Who still does,’ William protested. ‘You showed me just what clay is. What it can do. What it can be. That it is organic, alive. As precious a commodity as diamonds. You are the sole reason that I am where I am and that I work with clay at all. That I love the stuff and that it is my very life-force.’
‘Dear boy! You flatter! What I am trying to say is, I know where I’m at – surely that must be the goal of every artist? My limitations as a potter are also my achievements,’ said Mac, giving the clay elf a ping with his thumb and forefinger. ‘I feel neither restricted nor frustrated for I am content to make what I make, glaze as I do,’ he declared, suddenly on his feet, twirling the fire-iron as if he were Gene Kelly. William held the mug and looked at the figurine; the ensemble was unashamedly kitsch and yet a second look revealed remarkable, secret little details that quite took him aback.
‘And I know what I want to do.’ He raised his face to Mac and looked most forlorn. ‘But how can I when another depends on me?’
Mac pursed his lips and leant against the fire-iron, rocking on his heels.
‘That Saxby woman has more than one young potter churning out pot-boilers to keep her warm. Toasting more like – she must be making a mint out of you.’ He enjoyed his ‘pot-boilers’ pun but could see it was quite lost on William.
‘But Mac, if I don’t – for her … Then I can’t – with her.’
Mac cocked his head and regarded William until the penny dropped.
‘And how great a loss is that?’
‘She’s taught me, er, everything I know in that department. I just feel I ought, you know, to stick around? She’s having a hard time – convinced that her youth and looks are passing her by.’
‘Aren’t they just!’ chuckled Mac just within earshot. ‘You mean she’s giving you a hard time. Well,’ he said, ‘I’ve taught you everything you need to know about clay and I would hope to goodness that you don’t carry soppy guilt around about that! Though,’ he furthered, tracing a semicircle across the flagstone floor in his slippered feet, ‘a visit a little more now than then would be nice.’
‘I was thinking that myself, as I walked here. Made a Not-So-New-Year’s resolution of sorts,’ William admitted apologetically.
‘Dear boy, I’m jesting! Can’t you tell? Every day as I sit at my wheel I know exactly where you are, that we both have slurry on our hands and an image of the finished piece in our heads!’
‘Morwenna –’ started William tangentially. And closed the sentence at just the one word. His discomfort was tangible and though Mac was tempted to jest further to lighten the load, he knew that William required more. It was the advice of a father that William sought. Or father figure. One, indeed, who knew.
‘There’s the rub!’ Mac thought to himself but said out loud, unwittingly.
‘Pardon?’ said William, who was miles away – he had spied a bowl he had made some years before. Glazed in Lusty Red.
The humming girl’s freckles.
Mac was speaking.
‘I’m not one really to advise on the love element in life, never having had a wife, having only ever had women and never really loved any of them,’ Mac trailed off with a lascivious twink in his eye. ‘But, I do know what people in love look like, how they behave. I saw it in your father, many many years ago.’
‘With Mother?’ said William with certain incredulity.
‘No, no. Before your mother.’ Mac swept the subject away quickly. ‘Anyway, I’ve seen how a love-struck man looks and behaves. You, William, I am sorry to say, are not one of them. Therefore I prescribe an analysis of the common cliché.’ Mac was stalking the room with his fire-iron, pointing it here and there, doffing his head and playing with an eyebrow. William thought he resembled a slightly mad professor giving a lecture. Ever the attentive student, he waited. With a tilt of the head to gaze momentarily at the ceiling and yet not at the ceiling at all, Mac continued.
‘The common cliché, my boy. That’s what we need to consider here. After all, clichés only evolve if their sentiment is tried, tested and true. Cruel to be kind.’ He let the phrase hang in the air a moment. ‘Finish the contract – the Welsh bistro can be the last. Give her forty per cent if it makes you feel easier. And then give that Saxby woman the heave-ho. There’s no contract there to be finished but there is a psychological tie that is fast becoming a knot. It’ll soon strangle you entirely. The deed itself may well be seen as cruel, but you can execute it kindly.’
William accepted the advice and felt a certain resolve flow through his body. He gathered his coat with an effusive show of gratitude and genuine affection. A date was set for a morning’s throwing the next week.
‘If she protests, or if she whines, sling the old If-you-love-someone-set-them-free at her. Usually works.’ Mac laid a hand on William’s shoulder-blade and gave a friendly shove. As they hovered by the door prolonging their parting, William could see that he had something else to say. When it had reached the tip of Mac’s tongue, William knew instantly what it was. And it was that instant that Mac knew he had been rumbled. And yet, though he could have made rapid excuses about the encroaching darkness, William remained. So Mac cleared his throat.
‘And Dad?’
‘Dad’s gone, Mac.’
‘You make it sound like he’s quite dead!’
‘Well, isn’t he?’
‘No, he is not. And, though I’d forgotten that Crick-howl is in south-west Wales, I do know that your father is. And you know that too.’
EIGHT
It was not just the look of Carl that had dropped Chloë’s jaw and cranked long dormant cogs of concupiscence back into motion; more it was his manner, his voice especially. It was his twangy ‘Yo Chlo!’ that had hit her G-spot first, for he was still hidden in shadow when her ears were solicited. On closer inspection, a tall, lithe figure, blond of hair and blue of eye, was revealed. A generous smile presented a perfect set of ski-white teeth surrounded by lips like crimson velvet cushions. The smile was just slightly, but ever so alluringly, skew-whiff; causing a slight closing of the left eye, a deep dimple to the left cheek. There was a dimple in the right cheek too, but shallower. Chloë had an unbridled urge there and then to dab at the dimples with her tongue tip. It quite alarmed her but Carl’s outstretched hand brought her back to her senses which were, admittedly and rather awkwardly, on fire. She grabbed at his hand and shook it heartily, noting that it was warm, dry and smooth and that his wrists were gorgeous. She really ought not to look.
I don’t even know where to look. Or how.
‘I’m Chloë,’