“Sure.” I shrug, no clearer on what I’m agreeing to look at.
* * *
* * *
Ilídio and I follow the path up and across the road, coming to a large one-story barn on the opposite side. He opens the worn wooden door and shows me inside. As I peer into the gloom, my eyes growing accustomed to the dark, I see a room overflowing with woodwork equipment, machinery, and workbenches. There are tree trunks sliced into long planks hanging on every wall, lending the space the feel of a deconstructed forest.
“Wow,” I say. Gerry was right. I wouldn’t want to have missed seeing this.
“This used to be Gerry’s workshop,” Ilídio says. “He built the barn himself, took me on as an apprentice eleven years ago. Now I have an apprentice of my own.”
“And this is all wood you’re going to use to make furniture?” I ask, pointing at the huge slices of tree trunk along every wall.
“Eventually. They can take decades to dry out. Gerry makes things the old-fashioned way, timeless pieces, built to last for generations. Not many people do it like this now—it’s too expensive, too time-consuming,” Ilídio explains. “Easier to make it cheap, even if it doesn’t last.”
I walk around the room, admiring the craftsmanship of a bench that sits at the far end. Narrow cylinders of wood bend and curve in the most intriguing way, as though the bench might have grown itself.
“Did the wood come like this?” I ask, stroking the curved panels.
“No.” Ilídio shakes his head. “You have to steam-bend it. It’s a skilled job to bend wood this thick—Gerry designed his own steamer to do it.”
I notice at the far end of the workshop a bench with a soldering iron, just like the one Mum used to use for jewelry making.
“Does Gerry still come in here?” I ask.
“He does. He still has lots of opinions, ideas for how to solve problems. He knows just from smelling the wood how long it’s been there.” He shakes his head. “It’s such a waste. All that knowledge in his head, that can’t get out through his hands.”
Wandering around the workshop, I find myself reaching out to touch things, feeling the potential of what they might become. Then I’m struck by an idea.
“Ilídio, can I commission you to make something, a present for Ted?”
“Of course, what is it you want?”
“Do you have any paper? I’ll need to draw it.”
Ilídio finds some graph paper, and I sketch out my idea.
“Can you make it?” I ask when I’ve finished drawing.
Ilídio taps a pencil on the paper.
“Easy.” Then he looks up at me. “He’ll like this, Laura. I’ll start it now, so you can have it before you leave.”
We agree on a price. I know Ilídio is undercharging me, but he is firm on what he’s willing to accept. I walk around the workshop as he starts picking out pieces of wood for the project. I want to stay and watch him work, but checking my watch, I realize I need to go and get ready for my date with Jasper.
As I walk back across the garden, I glance up to the kitchen window of Sans Ennui, half hoping I might see Ted, but there’s no sign of him. In any case, I need to get dressed, get organized. My chat with Gerry and the tour of the workshop has inspired me. I should stop overthinking things I can’t change, focus instead on the potential of the day ahead.
Back at the cottage, I have a shower, then look fondly down at my suitcase on the floor. I have so many options, clothes that actually fit me. I pick out my slim-fit dark capri pants and the fitted blue blouse with the white scalloped cuff and collar. Then I tie a thin blue silk headscarf around my head as a headband. Glancing in the bathroom mirror, I smile, seeing myself again, rather than a ragamuffin.
Picking up my phone, I make the mistake of checking my email and my buoyant mood bursts like a balloon. There are more than fifty new messages in my in-box, on a Saturday morning. At least half of them look to be from Suki and have subjects like: Feature ideas . . . Teen property developers—how young is too young to start your portfolio? I skim through, looking for any emails addressed specifically to me.
I find several, sent throughout the night and the early hours of the morning.
Laura,
Disappointed in your social media performance today. Unpolished content and off brand messaging.
S
Laura,
Can you find a How Did You Meet? couple who met at a train station? Network Trains want an advertorial. In fact, any train-themed love stories—we could create “Love on the Line” feature?
S
Laura,
We all like your “Then and Now” photos as an angle for the coin story. Keep them coming on social today. Do you have photos of your great-grandparents? Would be good to include images of the original wartime love story.
This is exactly the kind of in-depth, well-researched feature that puts LL above the purely tabloid content. Good work, Laura—confident you can pull something together that has it all; romance, history, and a personal angle.
S
Suki is the queen of this carrot/stick management technique, where she beats you around the head with a large carrot and then compliments you on how good the carrot-shaped bruise looks. I wonder if it is normal to have your anxiety levels so dictated by the mood of your employer. My mind jumps to an image of Ilídio, so calm and at ease on his own in the workshop. What must it be like to be your own master, to not be plagued by a sense of dread every time your phone vibrates?
I have a text from Monica, asking if I’ll come over for coffee “with us” tomorrow at ten. I wonder who she means by “us.” Has she convinced Bad Granny to meet with me, or does the “us” allude to another one of her kitchen appliances? Either way, I reply saying I’d love to come. Monica is one of the few family members I have left, I would like to get to know her better. Besides, even if she doesn’t remember my parents’ story correctly, she did say she had photos I could see.
After replying to Monica, I flick through the photos I took on my phone yesterday, pausing on the one of Ted. His eyes shine out from the screen, as sparkling as the jewels in his beard. He really is surprisingly photogenic, considering how little of his face is visible beneath all that hair. I shake my head, flicking the screen closed. Ted’s sparkly eyes are not relevant to any of this; I need to focus on what’s important.
Looking at all those emails, at how much work I need to do, it feels irresponsible that I’ve agreed to spend the day with Jasper, on a boat of all places—I’m about as sea smart as a camel. I shall just have to make this trip count—take lots of photos of the Écréhous and pick Jasper’s brain for my article on the way. After all, if the universe goes to the trouble of presenting you with your soulmate, you don’t tell the universe that you’re busy and you have to work. That said, I do quickly reply to a few of Suki’s more pressing emails—the hierarchy of authority in my life goes: Suki, the universe, then all other worldly concerns.