Getting Organised. Carolyn Caterer
hardly protest at the destruction of his carefully crafted pottery, but to see something that he had so lovingly made thrown onto the ground and destroyed in a second did rather irk him. Some people had no appreciation of the craft of throwing a pot and how you put your heart and soul into making it the best you could.
That was why Adam’s outhouse had so many seconds; he couldn’t bear to sell something with even the slightest imperfection at the full price as he felt he was cheating his customers and so it was always easy to find something in the seconds area if you couldn’t afford his full-priced range. Adam had established such a good reputation; he had been featured in a number of top class magazines that his weekend clientele had often driven down from London to look around and, as a consequence, he was able to charge very high prices for his work. He didn’t need to keep churning things out and exhaust himself in the process. The laws of supply and demand worked very well for him and he could easily charge hundreds of pounds for some of his pieces. In fact one of his friends once put an item up for auction on e-bay to prove just how much he was under-pricing his goods, when he first came to prominence, and Adam watched in disbelief and amazement as the vase went for five times the price it was in the pottery. Whilst Adam wasn’t greedy he was a pretty good businessman and had spent the next day re-pricing his entire catalogue. The following weekend he waited to see how this would affect business and was pleasantly surprised to find that it made absolutely no difference to his sales whatsoever.
With business booming Adam had been able to employ someone to look after the shop from Thursdays through to Sundays leaving him free to work on his potter’s wheel and have people look in occasionally. Not that Adam ever noticed anyone peeking through the window as he found the whole process of pottery making completely absorbing and the time just flew by. He knew that Sophie wasn’t the friendliest of people to have looking after the shop, but she didn’t mind the fact that she had to stay in the shop most of the day and there was nothing else to do in the village; no post office to visit or buy sweets or ice creams in, (that had been closed a number of years ago as part of a downsizing project) just a small pub which was mainly frequented by locals in the winter and tourists in the summer.
Adam poured himself a mug of coffee and then, because he couldn’t resist, looked back across the car park to where he could see the woman he had just encountered getting into her car. He was totally intrigued by her as she wasn’t dressed in the style of his usual clientele. In fact he had to admit he found it pleasantly surprising that she seemed to be so unaware of her rather mud-stained top and, underneath it all he felt there lurked a rather attractive body. She certainly had a nice bottom from his observation of her as he walked into the outbuilding where she was looking at his seconds display. She had been so absorbed she hadn’t noticed him and when she did a rather comical episode had ensued. He had wanted to go and help her up, but he sensed her embarrassment and felt it was perhaps better to make himself scarce whilst she recovered her dignity.
However the image of her wouldn’t leave him and he hoped she would be back soon as he wanted to find out more about her.
He wandered into the main shop and asked Sophie how the last customer had paid, thinking that if she had used a card at least he might discover her surname at least, but Sophie replied that the woman with no dress sense had paid in cash and not been in the mood to pass the time with pleasantries. Sophie had evidently not been very impressed with her demeanour or her lack of conversation, but Adam could understand why, given the circumstances, she had wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible. Sophie however had detected Adam’s interest in this particular customer and was determined to find out more.
‘So you fancy her then?’ Sophie had always been direct but Adam wished on this occasion she had perhaps kept her interest in his love life to herself.
‘She just seemed a rather down to earth person and I was intrigued.’ Adam’s measured reply was an attempt to put Sophie off the scent.
‘Hmm, down to earth was the right description seeing as she was covered in dirt from head to toe.’ Sophie’s tone made it quite clear that she regarded the mystery woman with suspicion and contempt, a fact that ensured Adam liked her even more.
‘Sophie have you ever heard of the term ‘Never judge a book by its cover.’?’ Adam asked somewhat mischievously.
Sophie glared at him and let out a long sigh.
‘Yes of course I have, but maybe you have never heard of the concept of ‘first impressions’?’ She snapped back, giving as good as she got.
Adam grinned and decided not to tease her any longer. Besides, he had a busy weekend coming up, with an order for a top garden designer who wanted to feature some of his work in his garden at the Chelsea Flower Show, and was determined to get ahead of the game with the less perishable items that were going to be displayed. Although an artist first, Adam knew that this kind of exposure would lead to some significant orders and probably some interest from a number of top home and garden magazines, so he certainly wasn’t going to turn down the opportunity for free publicity.
Putting all thoughts of the mystery woman (or ‘MW’ as he now called her) aside, he walked back into his workroom and immersed himself in his latest creations. Time flew by and, before he knew it, Sophie was putting her head around the corner to tell him that it was four o’clock and she was off home if that was ok with him. Adam nodded without looking up from his wheel and heard Sophie turn away and get in her car. Adam took the large vase from the wheel and stacked it next to the other objects he had made that day. By tomorrow he would have enough to fire in the kiln and then he could start working on the colours and designs that would adorn them as per the specification from the garden designer. Fortunately as they were old friends from University, Jeremy had given Adam a rough outline of what he was aiming to achieve and then told Adam to get on with it and come up with something dramatic and eye catching, after all this was Chelsea and he needed to stand out from the rest of the gardens that would be on display and vying for attention. Adam felt really excited to be able to let his imagination go into overdrive rather than having to restrain it for the conservative tastes of the majority of his clientele. He appreciated that many people who liked his work wanted him to keep producing stuff in a similar vein and didn’t like anything new. The business sense of sticking to what made him a decent living couldn’t be denied, but he was always pleased and relieved to be let out of his usual style, on the odd occasion, and try something different.
Looking at the shape of the vase he could only wonder at how it seemed to almost reflect the outline of the body of the mystery woman, or was that just wishful thinking on his part? Adam knew he wanted to find out more but how was he going to do that when he had no idea who she was or where she lived? It couldn’t have been that far away or surely she would have changed before coming out? This thought cheered him up immensely and he was determined to keep and eye out for her car as he drove around. He wished he had taken a note of her car registration number and cursed the fact that she was driving around in the ubiquitous silver which made all cars look identical and most of all would prove much more difficult for him to notice as he drove around. But one thing he was very sure of was that he looked forward to seeing her again and finding out much more about her.
Chapter 6
Mabel observed Abi as she got out of her car and unloaded her goods. Mabel had to admit she admired her taste. She was pleased that she had mentioned the local pottery to her the other day as it was so nice to get something different from the mass produced garden wares that were to be found in the majority of gardens owned by the local population. She wondered if Abi had come across the potter himself (Mabel had always jokingly referred to him as ‘Harry’ before she found out his real name and after that continued to do so as it always caused her amusement and confused everyone else around her). Luckily Adam seemed to find it as funny as she did and never complained about her schoolgirl humour.
Thinking about it she could imagine that Abi and Adam would make a pretty nice couple, but she didn’t want to push things at this stage. From all Abi had told her she was taking time to enjoy her freedom after what had seemed like a pretty awful marriage. Mabel could sense Abi’s boredom in her role as wife and with no children to occupy her and no job either, Abi had become increasingly frustrated with her