10. Chapter 10
10
T om pressed the doorbell and rapped the knocker. This had been a mistake, coming here unannounced. He had thought that dropping by with some fresh pastries on a Saturday morning like they do in the movies might be nice.
He and Katie hadn’t seen each other since the previous weekend at the ruby wedding party. They’d laughed all the way home, and he’d walked Katie to her door while the cab waited, urging her to keep the suit jacket—he’d pick it up another time.
They’d messaged a couple of times since then, and he knew that Ryan had come to collect his things and had tried to make a scene. Then, the last few days had gone quiet. With the spa trip the next weekend, he thought it was a nice idea to drop by and see how she was. A coffee, a pastry, a way to make things about this pact more normal.
But there was no answer, so now he had to eat two croissants and two sugared cinnamon buns all by himself. He breathed in—he’d better fit in another session at the gym, if that was the case.
He was turning to go when he heard a noise. Stepping back from the front door, he peered round the side of the house. Faint music and whirring machine noises were coming from the garage. He stepped closer and listened. When the noise died down, he called out, ‘Katie? Is that you?’
‘What?’ came a muffled voice. ‘Who’s that?’ There was a bang and a crash. Katie shouted, ‘Fuck!’ then the old garage door slowly cranked up.
Katie stood there. Arms above her head, pushing up the garage door, which creaked as it jerked and juddered open. She wore faded pink dungarees covered in paint and plaster and a white t-shirt with a big blob of what looked like blue dye. Her hair was piled messily on top of her head.
She squinted out into the bright sunlight. Her face lit up when she saw him. ‘Tom!’
Something joyful flared inside him when he saw that she was happy to see him, and he relaxed.
‘Hi,’ he said. ‘Sorry to disturb. I um, I just thought….’
He could see what looked like a studio behind her in the gloom of the garage, lit with a rather grubby and dim overhead light, and he trailed off.
Katie stepped forward into the sun, brushing her hands. ‘What’s in the bag?’
‘Oh. Pastries.’ Tom felt silly again. From the look of the garage behind her, she was clearly in the middle of something. No time for hanging about drinking coffee and eating cakes masquerading as breakfast foods.
‘Oh.’ Her eyes widened. ‘Are they for us, or are you going somewhere?’
He liked the way she said ‘us.’ She had a chalky smear on one cheek.
‘Oh well, they were for us if you fancied a coffee and a pastry… but if you’re busy.’ He glanced over her shoulder at the garage. ‘It’s no problem, I can—’
Katie grabbed his arm with a hand covered in plaster and paint and dragged him towards the house. ‘I’m gaassping for a coffee, and a pastry sounds amazing. You,’ she grinned up at him, ‘have excellent timing.’
He followed her through the garage and the adjoining door into the kitchen and, in the proper light, could see her more clearly. Her auburn hair was held in place with at least two pencils, her face was free of makeup. The shadows he had seen under her eyes when they had first met had faded into pale blue smudges. She looked younger, wilder.
Katie wiped her grubby hands on her even grubbier dungarees and reached into a cupboard to retrieve two small plates.
Tom perched on a stool on one side of the kitchen island and opened the pastry bags.
‘So, is that your painting studio or something?’ he asked as Katie opened the bags and peered in.
‘It’s my pottery studio,’ Katie said, a broad smile on her face as her forefinger and thumb went into the bag and pulled out a croissant. ‘It’s my favourite place to be. And, now that Ryan is gone, I can do it as much as I want.’
Tom remembered then the pottery pictures from her Instagram feed from the time he had first looked her up. He frowned as he pushed one of the steaming coffee cups over the counter towards her. ‘He didn’t let you do it?’
‘Nothing like that.’ She laughed. ‘I’m no shrinking violet. But he moaned so much about the mess and the noise from my old pottery wheel—which you can barely hear in the house—that I…’ She sighed as she pulled pieces off the croissant. ‘I think I did cut back on it. I only really did it when he wasn’t here, just so I didn’t have to deal with him sulking about the house and banging doors.’
Tom raised his eyebrows as he sipped at his coffee.
‘Sounds very mature,’ he said.
Katie, who was leaning back against the sink, blew on her coffee, then took a delicate slurp. ‘He called it my very expensive hobby. I think he wanted me to take up something less messy and more discreet. Like his hobby of shagging people behind my back.’
Tom snorted, and some coffee nearly came out of his nose.
Katie laughed too, her cheeks flushing. The colour highlighted the scattered freckles across her nose and cheekbones.
‘Ahh, we have to laugh, don’t we?’ she said, shaking her head. ‘So what brought you here today?’
Tom shrugged. ‘I just thought I would check in, see how you’re doing after that quiet and uneventful party we went to last weekend.’
Katie laughed and pushed the last piece of her croissant into her mouth. Through a mouthful of flaky pastry she mumbled, ‘I have your jacket here.’ She pointed across the kitchen towards a small dining table. His jacket hung neatly on the back of a chair, ‘Thank you again for lending it to me.’
Smiling, Tom glanced at the jacket then back to Katie. ‘And I wanted to check the plans for the spa weekend. If you’re still up for that?’
‘Oh, absolutely!’ Katie said, banging her cup down so hard some coffee slopped onto the counter. ‘The least they can do is let us have a relaxing weekend at their expense.’
Tom nodded, smiling. ‘Melissa remembered about it and has messaged a couple of times to try to get the details, but I told her it was a gift so she could forget it.’
Katie grinned, temporarily silenced by a large mouthful of a cinnamon bun. There was a dusting of sugar on her top lip.
‘So.’ Tom nodded towards the open door to the garage. ‘This pottery of yours, what do you make? And what do you do with it all?’
‘Well,’ Katie licked the sugar off her lips. Tom couldn’t take his eyes off her mouth. ‘I make all sorts of things,’ she said, stepping forwards and facing him across the kitchen island. ‘That sugar bowl,’ she pointed to a fluted-edged sunshine yellow glazed bowl, ‘I made that. And this matching jug,’ she said, pushing a small yellow pot-bellied jug towards him.
‘And this,’ she said softly, a finger landing on a large open bowl in a deep blue glaze with golden zig-zags all over one side of it. A couple of oranges lay in the bottom. Her face was soft now, her eyes bright.
Tom nodded, impressed. ‘This is really nice,’ he said, tapping the huge fruit bowl. ‘I like this gold pattern.’
Katie smiled and tipped her head to one side. ‘That’s not a pattern. Not exactly. That’s kintsugi.’
She looked at him, suddenly seeming slightly unsure.
‘Go on,’ Tom urged.
‘Well,’ her eyes flicked between him and the blue bowl. ‘Kintsugi is a way—an art, really—of repairing broken pottery beautifully. Once the piece is repaired, instead of trying to make it look like new and masking all the cracks and joins, the repair lines are painted with gold. The object’s history and brokenness are seen as an important part of it. Despite being broken, it is beautiful again. In a whole new way.’
She cleared her throat.
‘That dish was one of the earliest pieces I made. I was so proud of it, it was so hard to make when I was only learning. I had this idea of how I wanted it to look, but it’s so hard to bring the vision in your head,’ she tapped her temple lightly, ‘to life. But with this piece, I did—it was exactly like the image in my mind. Then, one day, when I was living in our old flat, I knocked it off the table. I was so upset. I could make something like this now much more easily—but this particular dish meant a lot because it was the first big piece I made on my own. I couldn’t bear to throw the pieces away, but I couldn’t see how it could be repaired, so I just kept them in a box. I assumed that one day, I’d finally feel okay about throwing them out. It wasn’t until some time later, when I lived here, that I found out about kintsugi and realised I could repair what was broken,’ she brushed the bowl with a fingertip, ‘and make it beautiful again.’
Her head was bowed, tendrils of loose hair falling across her face.
‘Anyway,’ she said a little too loudly and turned towards the sink, dropping in some of the cups stacked at the side. ‘That’s kintsugi. Silly, I know.’
‘Not silly at all,’ Tom said, to the back of her head. ‘I think it’s a lovely way to show that something is different after it’s been damaged, but no less beautiful.’
‘Hum-mm,’ came a slightly strangled sound from the direction of the sink.
‘Katie?’
Her shoulders were shaking, and he slipped off his stool and moved to where she stood at the sink. Taking her by the shoulders, he turned her gently towards him. She kept her head bowed.
‘What if I can’t kintsugi myself?’ she said in a tearful voice. ‘What if I am simply broken, and I can’t get myself back together at all?’
She leaned her forehead on his chest, and Tom pulled her into him, her head tucked under his chin. He rested his cheek on her hair, and she looped her arms about his waist. Tom held her close, one hand gently stroking her hair. The odd thing about it was that it didn’t feel odd. It felt completely natural to stand there, holding Katie.
They stood like this for a moment, taking solace in the embrace. Katie’s breathing steadied, and she took a breath then stepped back, wiping at her eyes.
‘I don’t miss him,’ she said quietly. Her hands were clenched as she leaned on the worktop. ‘Not like that. I would happily never hear his name again. But I feel….’ She looked around the kitchen as if searching for words. She let out a deep sigh. ‘Like I don’t know myself or my life at the moment.’ She flexed her hands open and looked down at her splayed fingers. ‘My life was still all twisted up with him, and I have all this…. this… all this space and time that I sort of don’t know what to do with.’
She looked up at him, something in her eyes begging understanding.
‘I know what you mean,’ Tom said, reaching out a hand to cup her shoulder, his thumb stroking through her thin t-shirt. ‘There are big gaps. But at least you can do your pottery now he’s not here to complain.’
‘Yes, I am doing my pottery, but…’ She looked at him, her big hazel eyes wide and tearful. ‘I just feel like…I have to reimagine my whole life. That’s all.’ Her voice was small.
Tom knew exactly what she meant. He wanted to pull her close again, but she continued.
‘I didn’t realise,’ she said, ‘that even though I wouldn’t want that cheating fuckwit back for one second, I would still feel…sad. Because the life I thought I was going to have is…gone.’
Tom couldn’t take it anymore. He slid his hand down her arm and laced her fingers with his.
‘We both have some reimagining to do,’ he said, running his thumb over the back of her hand. ‘But maybe what is coming can be so much better than what we’ve lost.’
She smiled and nodded, and he felt a gentle squeeze on his fingers.
‘It’s a sunny day,’ he said. ‘You’ve got pastries, good coffee, my company,’ she shot him a broad smile at this, ‘and I want to know more about this pottery of yours.’
Something flashed across her face, her eyes lit up, and he saw her lips part slightly. Then, in a second, it was gone. Her expression went flat, and the spark in her eyes dimmed.
‘Oh no, it’s okay.’ She shrugged, drawing her hand back. ‘You don’t have to.’
Tom wrinkled his brow. ‘I don’t have to what?’
‘You know,’ she swept some crumbs off the counter into the palm of her hand and tipped them into the sink. ‘Be polite and ask about my pottery.’
She gave a short, spikey laugh he hadn’t heard before.
‘Katie.’
She was clearing the plates now, avoiding his gaze.
‘Katie?’
‘Mmmm.’
‘Look at me.’
She sighed and looked at him, one hand on her hip, her face unreadable.
‘I’m not being polite,’ he said. She pursed her lips. ‘And I’m not making small talk. I think this,’ he tapped the blue kintsugi dish, ‘and this,’ he reached for the yellow sugar bowl, ‘are beautiful. And this clearly matters to you. I am genuinely interested in knowing more.’
Her face still looked closed, but her eyes ranged back and forth between his. ‘You don’t have to…’ she started, then stopped herself.
She hesitated, tiny flickers of doubt playing about her eyes. She pinched her lips together. Something turned over inside him to think that someone had made her feel that she had to hold back from talking about what was important to her. For taking up some time and some space.
‘Well, if you’re really sure you don’t need to be anywhere.’ She took a step, a little more confident now. ‘I could show you the studio. Show you some other things I have been working on.’
Tom stood back to clear the path towards the garage before she could doubt his sincerity or change her mind.
‘I would love that,’ he said. ‘Lead the way.’
Katie walked ahead as she led the way back to the door that connected to the garage. Tom caught the soft floral fragrance of her shampoo as she passed him. Soft delicate tendrils curled around the back of her neck.
They stepped down into the dim light of the garage. Katie glanced back at him hesitantly, as if waiting for him to show signs of disinterest or remember somewhere he had to be.
‘Well,’ she began as she turned to face a stack of shelves, stacked full with beautiful plates, bowls, platters, mugs, jugs, and more.
‘Wow!’
He stepped back to take in the shelves full of stunning pottery, all colours of glazes glinting in the dim light. Rich blues sat alongside buttery yellows and deep, earthy reds. A large duck-egg blue pot-bellied jug with a speckled glaze gleamed next to a matching platter, and a huge dish in shades of blood-red, tomato, and scarlet with a shimmering gold around the rim.
‘You made all this?’
Katie’s face was glowing as she nodded.
‘So, where do you sell it?’
‘Well,’ she said and shrugged. ‘Family and friends buy some of it, sometimes I do a car boot sale…’
Tom was taken aback. ‘A car boot sale?’
He looked at the stunning array of items. These should not be sold at a car boot sale. They belonged in boutique stores and at high-end artisan fairs.
‘And my mum usually buys a few things for her friends for birthdays and Christmas,’ Katie was saying. ‘I tried to do some of the online shopping stores and things.’ She puffed out her cheeks, letting out a breath. ‘But Ryan used to moan if I spent evenings and weekends fulfilling orders. He said he wasn’t sure what the point was, not like it was ever going to be my actual job, so it was just a waste of time. I got tired of debating with him about it.’
Tom stared at her. His experience of Katie so far had been of a feisty, confident woman. Now, as she stood in front of a wall of the stunning pieces she had made, she looked small and unsure.
‘And my parents said I shouldn’t put too much time or money into it. Can’t make a living out of art.’
She straightened a tiny russet vase that had tipped into a matching bowl.
Tom was lost for words. He looked around the little studio, bursting with creativity, hand-drawn designs pinned to the walls, colour swatches, daubs of paint, and glaze. Then his eyes slid back to Katie, red hair bright in the dim space. He looked at the small, pale hands that had conjured all this beauty into existence. His mouth felt dry all of a sudden. He wanted to do something, anything, to show her that he supported this work of hers.
‘You know,’ he cleared his throat. ‘I could change that bulb for you. If you want. If you’ve got one. If it would help if it was brighter in here.’
He waited, thinking she might bite his head off, tell him she was perfectly capable of changing bulbs if she wanted that done.
But she didn’t. She peered up at the old exposed bulb dangling from the cable above her head.
‘Oh yes,’ she said, a laugh in her voice. ‘I’ve got so used to working with it like this I forget how bad it is. That would be great actually. Thank you.’