Chapter 8
EIGHT
Jules was pacing up and down in the kitchen when Carrie arrived.
‘You’re not dressed.’
‘I really don’t think this is a good idea. You go. I’ll pay you back for my place.’
Carrie led her to the table and sat her down.
‘I’m not going without you.’
Jules put her head in her hands.
‘I know it’s stupid, but I just can’t do it.’
‘There are only five in the class,’ Carrie said. ‘Three other people and us. It’s a beginner’s class and none of us have any experience at all, except for you.’
‘Not for a long time. Anyway, how do you know this?’
‘Because I knew you felt anxious about it, so I rang Lance and asked him.’
Jules groaned.
‘Oh my God! Did you tell him that?’
‘No, of course not. He probably thought that it was me who was worried. He sounded as if he was used to people getting cold feet at the last minute. He said most people feel a bit intimidated because we all want to be good at something instantly. We don’t want to fail.’
‘I want to be good at relationships, but I fail all the time.’
‘That’s actually not true. Usually, you’re the one to end them. This time your pride is hurt as well as everything else.’
‘That’s a bit harsh.’
‘Sometimes,’ Carrie said, ‘you have to be cruel to be kind.’
She took Jules firmly by the elbow.
‘Come on, let’s get you dressed and go and play with some clay.’
Jules’ legs were shaking as she walked under the archway to the pottery. They were late and were going to have to walk into a room full of other people who would turn and stare. Even worse, Lance was standing and waiting for them outside the tearoom.
‘Carrie,’ he said, throwing her a smile which lit up his whole face, and then leaned forwards to embrace her warmly. ‘And Jules.’ He glanced more warily at her, she thought. As if she might bite. ‘Lovely to have you here.’
Give him his due, Jules thought, he sounded as if he really meant it in spite of her frozen expression and rooted-to-the-spot pose.
‘Sorry we’re a bit late,’ Carrie said, turning and linking her arm through Jules’s as if sensing her desire to run away.
‘You’re fine,’ Lance replied, holding the tearoom door open for them. ‘A bit less time for victuals, that’s all. Come and meet the others.’
Jules’s heartbeat ramped up several notches as her jaw clenched and an iron band felt as if it was compressing her sternum.
‘I’ve been wanting to have a go at this ever since I moved here,’ Carrie said, weaving amongst wooden tables and chairs and still miraculously managing to keep hold of Jules as if she was a small, recalcitrant child.
The tearoom was already half full and despite the roof being open to the rafters the noise seemed concentrated at ground level.
It felt like an assault, the chatter, the chairs scraping, the hiss of the coffee machine, cups clattering.
She wanted to put her hands over her ears.
A week at home with the windows closed had hermetically sealed her from real life and she wasn’t ready to go back to it just yet. A sweetness hung in the air from the cakes and pastries. She felt sick.
She’d not had a panic attack since her teens, but she recognised the early warning signs as if it was yesterday.
‘Carrie…’
But Carrie wasn’t listening and now Lance was introducing them to three people whose attention was fully directed towards her.
Her eyes darted around the room for the safety of the toilets, but she couldn’t see them.
They must be behind her like Lance, who had moved around and was now blocking her escape.
Her breath felt as if it was coming in short gasps, but no one seemed to notice her distress.
She didn’t hear anyone’s names, barely registered their faces.
Little black dots danced in front of her eyes.
She swayed and then someone was saying something and leading her, half supporting her towards a door in the corner.
Sunlight shone through the open margin, and she focused on that gleam as if her life depended upon it.
She was pressed down on to a wooden chair near an open window.
‘Breathe,’ someone said, ‘into your back and the sides of your ribs. Breathe into your shoulders.’
She heard the rush of water as a tap was turned on.
‘Drink this,’ Lance said, pulling up a chair beside her and holding a glass to her lips.
Jules took a sip.
The water was cold and delicious, as if it had come straight from a mountain stream. She took the glass between her clammy palms and let the coolness calm her skin.
‘Better?’ he asked.
She nodded and he got up to open the window a little more.
‘Sorry,’ she murmured. ‘Not usually like this.’
‘No need to apologise.’
He was making a pretence of arranging things on a workbench, but she knew he was studying her from a safe distance.
‘I’d better rejoin the others,’ he said.
She put the glass on the windowsill and summoned up the strength to stand.
‘Why don’t you stay here for a bit longer?
’ he said. ‘We’ll be through in ten minutes or so.
If you need more fresh air, that door goes into our house.
There’s a little hall which leads into the private garden you can see from this window.
You’re welcome to sit in it although you’ll probably be accosted by the cat. ’
‘I like cats,’ she whispered.
‘Or,’ he said, ‘that other door over there leads back out to the front, the tearoom garden where you were yesterday.’
And the exit, she thought. He’s offering me a way out.
‘You’re sure you’re okay if I go back through? I can send Carrie if you like.’
She shook her head.
‘No. I’m fine. Really.’
Now, Jules. Make your escape now, she said to herself when Lance had headed back to the tearoom.
She placed her palms on her thighs as if to calm her jittery legs. A cat wound its way through the window behind her, brushed some red petals from a trailing geranium in a terracotta pot and jumped down to come and rub at her legs.
‘Hello, you,’ she said, stooping momentarily to run her fingers along its back.
For the first time she looked around her surroundings.
The studio was light and bright with four large windows along one wall overlooking a cottage garden containing a small pond with a delicate fountain in the middle.
Around the room the shelves jostled with expertly thrown and decorated pots, together with a fascinating selection of books on art, photography, sculpture and philosophy.
There was an old washstand holding vintage jars full of brushes and pencils plus a neat pile of paper.
Plants crowded on the windowsills, ferns, tradescantia and a plethora of geraniums, some upright and others trailing, their red, pink and orange flowers glowing like medieval illuminations against the brilliant white walls.
And in the air the scent of clay and paint and creativity.
She sat down again to soak it all in and immediately the cat jumped on to her lap.
‘Well,’ she said, scratching the cat behind its ears, ‘this isn’t a bad place to live, is it? Lucky you.’
And as if she had understood every world her feline companion began to purr with pleasure.
‘You’re still here,’ Lance said, looking slightly surprised. ‘Pinned to the spot by Morwenna.’
‘Oh no, I wasn’t thinking, really…’
Her voice tapered away as Carrie and the three other people she vaguely remembered sitting around the table in the café filed into the room.
‘Are you okay?’ Carrie said, rushing over to her. ‘I bought you cake and a warm drink.’
‘Fine. I just went a bit dizzy, that’s all.’
‘Happens to me all the time,’ said a tall slim lady with a sympathetic coral-lipsticked smile and long grey hair tied back in a loose ponytail with a velvet ribbon.
She could have been anywhere between late fifties and mid-seventies and looked artfully elegant in her loose putty-coloured dungarees and what looked like a Liberty print shirt in oranges and yellows.
‘Always carry some rescue remedy in my bag if you need it,’ she said softly to Jules, her multi-stranded drop pearl earrings swinging gently as she leaned to touch her briefly on the shoulder. ‘I’m Daphne, by the way.’
‘Thank you, Daphne. That’s very kind.’
‘And I’m John,’ said a man in his fifties, with an immaculately trimmed beard and wearing a statement leather waistcoat. ‘Good to meet you, Jules.’
He sent her a small wave and she raised her hand in return.
‘And last, but not least, this is Iris,’ Lance said, introducing a woman of about her age with an asymmetric haircut and intense eyes.
‘I do hope you’re all right,’ she said. ‘I used to get dizzy when I was pregnant. It’s a horrible feeling.’
‘Oh, I’m not pregnant,’ she protested as a feeling of utter shock threaded through her.
She sat stock still, trying to work out her dates.
‘Just too much rushing around, I expect,’ Carrie added, but Jules looked up to see the question in her eyes.
‘This is going to be a very relaxed day,’ Lance said.
‘Rushing around is not permitted in this place. In fact, all you have to do to begin with is to watch. I’ll give you a short demonstration for a simple bowl and then you can have a go yourselves.
I hope today begins a lifelong love affair with pots, but at the very least I hope it makes you happy.
Pull up a chair and let’s make some magic. ’
Jules lifted Morwenna on to the floor and picked up the hot chocolate which Carrie had brought her.