Tamsin glanced back at her son’s bedroom window before slithering down the overgrown grassy slope to the kiln shed, thus avoiding the thirteen steps. Nine years ago when Robin had been building them she had asked him to make one more. At the time she had been standing on the top path patting and contemplating her pregnancy while Robin prepared the foundation for the thirteenth step.
“But we don’t need another one, Tams.”
“It’s not about need.”
Before Robin could retaliate with some quip of his own, as Tamsin knew he would, she’d swept down the twelve cobbled steps and planted a kiss on her husband’s lips while he hastily raised and held a cement-ladened trowel away from her face.

Today the sound of a tractor wafted from a far field across the valley. It was early. Their beautiful son was still asleep and with luck might not stir for another hour or so, giving Tamsin time to check the kiln’s contents and get back before he woke and panicked.

Tamsin needed time to herself before Michael’s day began. It was a breathing space in which she could root the day ahead.
After last night’s rain, wisps of steam rose from the wet grass. She lingered for a moment outside the door of the kiln shed, scanning the green, undulating countryside which sheltered her home.

At the top of the slope, to the right of the cottage, a recently converted granary, one up, one down, was also still asleep, blinds closed. Tamsin smiled as she thought of John, her tenant, getting ready for the day behind those closed blinds. Her tenant? Hers and Robin’s to be legally accurate, even though Robin now no longer shared the family home with her and nine year old Michael.

She entered the shed with apprehension. Inside she was enveloped by the kiln-toasted air. Eagerly, fearfully, she removed the bung from the kiln door. How had the jug fared this time?

Last month the first jug had been blown to smithereens by a random bubble of air left in its base. It was a special piece, a harvest slipware jug, a centre piece for her forthcoming exhibition. An exhibition to test the market, bring in commissions and set her on the road to independence. So for this second attempt she’d kneaded and slammed down the clay with even more determination than usual, to get rid of any wanton air bubbles.

She stooped to peer through the hole and there it was. Hot, pink, incandescent. Apparently complete. The proud specimen of a harvest jug. She placed the bung on the stone shelf where it glowed like a fat cigar. The temperature in the kiln would now begin to fall. With a mixture of relief and anxiety Tamsin stepped back outside and into grass that was still glistening with rain. Of course she would not know for sure if the jug was safe until later, when it would be cool enough to open the kiln door.