Jamie looked up from his phone. “It just broke,” he said.
A jolt. Somewhere, deep in my memory, an echo of those words.
My father’s voice: It just broke.
My mother’s voice, harrowed and frantic: Things don’t just break.
And, white-faced between them, my sister.
“No,” I said.
“It’s just an old jug. I’ll get you another jug. I’ll get you ten jugs.”
“I don’t want another jug, I want that jug. What did you do?”
Jamie looked amazed. “Christ, Melissa,” he said, “what is this, the inquisition?”
“You just called me Melissa.”
There was a stunned moment of silence. I couldn’t fight anymore. I got into bed and turned off my light. Everything was broken.
17 Harlequin Robyn
It was a Friday morning in December and I had the entire day off, so I met Willa on the steps of the British Museum. We hugged as if we’d not seen each other for years, rather than the few months it had really been. She felt bony thin.
“Cat really doesn’t mind?”
“God, no, she’s delighted. Her mum’s got the twins. She’s completely thrilled to have a bit of time to herself. I promised I’d be back in time to collect Sophie from nursery.”
“How are the kids?” We were walking through the harlequin light of the glass atrium. Her voice was steady and I could only begin to imagine the effort it took to be that brave, asking after Sophie and our boys after her own awful miscarriage. Precious, wild, wonderful, exhausting. And perfect, I thought.
“Good,” I said. I squeezed her hand. “This way.”
I pulled her toward the stairs to the upper galleries and we began working our way through rooms devoted to the sorrow and wonder of all things human: endless things made for the beloved, the dead, the ones left behind.
Finally, we arrived on the top floor and the galleries devoted to pottery and glass: cabinets full of ancient shards of early clay pots and countless finely crafted objects from every century since. It was quiet up there, with only a couple of other visitors, and the halls felt calm and peaceful. I let Willa go at her own pace, not wanting to hurry her, so it was only when we reached the very end of the main gallery that I turned to her and said, “Surprise.”
We were at the entrance to a small temporary exhibition. Willa looked baffled for a moment, then her eyes moved to the overhead banner, and a look of wonder spread over her face.
“You are kidding me,” she said. I grinned.
“An exhibition of work by eminent contemporary studio potter Christopher Bee,” I read. “Eminent. Right here in the British Museum. No shit, Dad.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? Bloody hell, Robyn, that’s amazing.”
I followed her round as she peered into each of the cabinets. “I don’t believe it. This lot is basically just like the stuff we were using to eat from at your house. No, correction, it’s exactly the same as the stuff we were eating from, and now it’s here, behind glass, because it’s so flipping good. I had no idea he was so celebrated.”
“Eminent,” I said, grinning. “Check out this cabinet. Dad made this lot that summer you came to stay. These even have titles.”
I pointed at a tall, slender urn that Dad had named Breathe, crackle-glazed in bone ash and feldspar, the color of sun-dried grass. Willa stood so quietly that I couldn’t help wondering if she was experiencing the same summer storm of memories that I had when I’d first seen it. Lying in the meadow, looking at the sky. Stars and dogs and worked wood and talking. Swifts. The touch of her hand.
The final cabinet contained his kintsugi work. Willa read aloud the little nameplates for each pot: restore, heal, mend.
“Do you remember that day in the studio, and Dad telling us how mending a treasured thing makes it stronger?”
Willa nodded. Her eyes moved to a mounted screen next to the cabinet that showed a time-lapse video of a broken pot being repaired, all the separate pieces gradually growing into a complete vessel. The video had been made using stop motion, so it didn’t show my father’s hands, which gave the odd impression that the pot was making itself. As soon as it was made, the video went into reverse, and all the pieces came apart again one by one until they became a mass of disconnected shards on a plain white surface.
The pieces were broken. They came together. Then they separated.
They came together. And separated.
Together, apart.
For a long time Willa stood looking at the video. When eventually she turned to me, her face was full of reflection.
“I can’t help thinking,” she said, “that there’s something here I should have understood years ago. I—” She stopped. “Robyn, you are honestly the best person I’ve ever known. And I was so, so awful to you—”
I touched her arm. “Let’s get coffee,” I said.
***
“Jamie broke my jug”—Willa gave me a grim look—“and, yes, before you say anything, I’ve got all the pieces.”
“So fix it,” I said, smiling. “How is he?”
“I haven’t seen him yet. He got back from SA a couple of days ago, but work’s been busy so he’s staying at the flat. I’m going there after this. It’s nearly ready to move in to. The bed arrived last week and now we’re just waiting for the curtains and a few other things. But Jamie said he’d make do for a few days. I honestly can’t wait. We really need that place.”
“God, poor Jamie. How has he found living with your parents? It must have been a bit odd, right?”
