‘Go on,’ he says quietly.
‘This is where I was supposed to be with Mat. This was his dream too.’ She falls silent, biting her bottom lip hard, keeping her focus on the bright orange flames on a mossy oak log.
‘I think you’re incredibly brave,’ Dylan tells her. When she smiles and shakes her head he adds, ‘to move here at all. Uncle Illtyd told me, about your husband. How he died.’ A thought strikes him and he smacks his own forehead with his hand. ‘God, I am so stupid! The Landrover … is that why you were so reluctant? He, Mat, my uncle said it was a car accident. Tilda I’m so sorry, I’m such a fool.’
‘No, you’re not. Honestly, I have to be able to get into a car. It’s ridiculous otherwise…’
‘And it’s why you don’t drive? Why you don’t have a car?’
She nods. ‘Pathetic, I know.’
‘You are certainly not that! Like I said, I think you’re really brave, to come and live here on your own. After … after what you went through. It must be tough. You must miss him.’
Tilda does not trust herself to reply without crying.
As if sensing that her grief might overwhelm her, Dylan gets to his feet. ‘Come along,’ he says, ‘we’ve got too much to do to sit around here.’ He takes Tilda’s mug gently from her.
‘We have?’
‘Yup.’ He heads for the door. ‘We’ve got a kiln to build.’
Having unloaded the bricks from the Landrover, they set about choosing a level space in the garden. Tilda measures out a small square and they dig out the turf and topsoil. The ground is frosty, but not deeply frozen, so that the task is slow but not impossible. They compact the mud that will form the base of the kiln using a concrete slab to form the bottom of the hearth and give them a stable foundation on which to build. Tilda checks the dimensions and quantities in her new books and then mixes sufficient mortar to bind the bricks. They then tackle the challenging job of constructing the main shape over the fire pit. Throughout the rest of the day Tilda finds comfort in the purpose and effort of hard work. Hard work, which will mean she can at last fire her precious pots. She is pleased to discover she remembers more than she could have hoped for of how to construct the kiln. She had worried that some vital part of the process would elude her, even with the new books for reference. After all, building such a thing at art school was a very different proposition to tackling the job without any expert help. Dylan does what he can, and his support is a boon, both practically and psychologically, but it is down to Tilda to know what to do. To make sure the thing has no crucial flaws that could wreck weeks of work and render her pots misshapen, malformed disasters. The more she labors on—positioning the firebricks here, making the angle of the wall just so, slanting the arch of the roof this way—the more her confidence grows, and with it an inner certainty that this is right. This is what she should be doing, what she needs to do. With each passing hour the memory of the frightening apparition fades a little, receding into memory, walled up behind a protective layer of purpose, while her attention is directed at what she is doing. The end result, after much cursing and false starts, resembles a somewhat angular beehive. They have left two airholes, one at the front, one at the back, which can be filled in once the kiln is loaded. Tilda takes further measurements to ensure that the planks they put in for shelves will leave enough space to house her large pots.
Working steadily, snacking in preference to taking a lunch break, it takes the two of them several hours to complete the kiln, and they know they are racing the fading light. It is nearly four o’clock by the time they have finished and stand back to admire their handiwork.
‘I’ll come back tomorrow,’ Dylan tells her. ‘Got to be here to see the inaugural firing up of the little beast. Make sure she’ll get up to temperature.’
‘It’s not very beautiful,’ Tilda admits, ‘but I think it will do.’ She turns to Dylan and smiles, a spontaneous, sincere response to what they have achieved. ‘Thanks for helping.’
‘Worth it to see you looking happier,’ he tells her.
Embarrassed now, Tilda says, ‘I’m sorry about … earlier. I was a mess.’
‘No, you weren’t.’
‘I’d offer you supper, but, well, there’s nothing much worth eating here. You’d get a better meal at your uncle’s house.’
‘I bet you’ve got something in that kitchen of yours. Besides, I like a challenge. Years of mustering up grub in far-flung parts of the world stand a person in good stead, you know.’