The Wall

From by where the post office used to be long ago, was more like it. An empty shop with an old red weather-beaten sign, where a few men with not much to do would stand and chat.

"Not those two."

"The very ones. How did you guess?"

"Who else. And what pray was the reward?"

Knowing it was not money.

"Food."

"What do you mean food?"

She was thinking already, you don't mean that you didn't ask me first.

"You know, your food."

He looked shyly at her, a bit guilty, only a bit, then lowered his eyes and blew on the tea, making waves. His nails were chipped and grimy and his knuckles ingrained with centuries of studio dirt, she called it when she made him scrub them in the sink out back before coming in for his dinner.

"And what if I don't, mister."

She decided to threaten him a bit, not a bad idea, she thought, he deserved it. Make him swing a bit.

"Best Indian in town, you know."

"For you, yes. What else is there, anyway."

"You did make food for that meeting at the school."

"Where you didn't belong."

"I felt that I had to be there."

"Only because you were haunting me, idiot."

"Mad in love, idiot."

"Who thinks his woman will cook on demand for the entire village of Garth."

"It's only take-away."

"Take-away."

"Just a bit of food. You know they don't get home cooking and so when I said that, of course, they jumped at it. In the cause of art. And if you don't want to, I could make something."

"Oh yes, I am sure. Such as birch potatoes or oak brussels sprouts. Tasty. So how did you get the thing down with the help of such wondrous companions?"

Now it came back. The stump had been lying on its side in the little bamboo-fringed yard in front of the studio doors one day when Morgan came back from the university and rode right into it with the front wheel of her bike - a hefty chunk of wood covered in crumpled brown bark peeling off in places, about four feet long and three high.

The next time she came out it was gone and she forgot all about it until he said he was doing a special one and even then she hadn't thought to ask where the wood had come from.

"Would you believe four bicycles bolted together?"

"No."

"You are right not to."

She jabbed him with the bent fork. The soft metal made a pink dent in the tender pale flesh inside his elbow and he watched it disappear before he spoke.

"Rolled it."

"All that way? It must be two miles."

"Took us all day. Like the druids and Stonehenge. Sort of. Just as important, though."

"And a few to keep you going."

"Not until we finished. I wouldn't let them."

"Very disciplined of you, isn't it. I don't suppose you joined them when it came time."

"Without self-discipline how will the soul grow?"

"Platitude. Have you been going to temple again?"

"Not guilty. Platitudes must be in the air, I suppose."

"Take-away."

"Take-away ideas, yes."

"No, take-away food."

"Will you then? I can find them something else for a reward."

"I'll think about it."

"I love you."

"As long as I cook?"

"Of course."

"So when's it going to be finished?

"It is finished."

"What do you mean."

"It is finished."

"You said it wasn't."

"I wanted a cup of tea and some cake."