The Stonemason's Yard – Part 2: Keystone

The wall was finished on the last evening of summer.

It ran thirty metres along the cliff edge, grey and strong, the granite fitted so tightly that a knife blade couldn't have found a gap. Lichen had already begun to colonise the top. The sea glittered below in the gold light. A buzzard hung on the wind.

Tamsin stood back with her arms folded. She had stopped using the tablet weeks ago. She was brown, scratched, strong. "It's beautiful," she said.

"It's a wall."

"It's a good wall."

"There's one stone left." Rhiannon held out a flat piece of granite, pale and heavy. "The cap. We lay it together."

They knelt at the end of the wall, lifted the stone between them and set it down. It dropped into place with a deep, quiet note, like a bell. The wall was whole.

For a moment, neither moved. The wind blew. The sun lay on the water in a molten road.

"Can I ask you something?" said Rhiannon, her voice rough.

"Yes."

"Are you going back to the office?"

"Next week."

"Will you come back at weekends?"

"Every one," said Tamsin. "May I kiss you?"

Rhiannon's face broke into a vast, shy smile. "Yes. And if you say stop, you must help me build the next wall."

"I'd build all of them."

Tamsin kissed her, salt-warm and sure, a dusty hand rising to Rhiannon's cheek. Rhiannon kissed her back, slow and deliberate, her big hands cupping Tamsin's face with surprising delicacy. The granite warmed their knees. The waves boomed softly below.

When they parted, both of them were smiling.

"Green?" asked Rhiannon.

"Green," said Tamsin. "Very green."

The wall still stands on the cliff. On the cap stone, cut small and neat by a chisel, are two initials. Lichen is slowly growing over them.

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