‘You’ve got nearly three weeks. You won’t have time to make that much but you could make samples and take orders. Hels, you’ve got all that silk at your mum’s house and that handy little loom—’

‘But I’m known for my blankets!’

‘You can change. And you could take a few of your best blankets just to fill up the stall. But as I said, the stalls are tiny anyway.’

‘It’ll take me three weeks to thread the loom!’

‘But, Helena’ – Amy was talking soothingly now as if her friend were a traumatised horse – ‘you’ve got all those beautiful cones of silk yarn that someone trusted you enough to donate to you. They might get eaten by clothes moths if you don’t use them soon.’

‘Do moths eat silk?’

‘Definitely! Anyway, you have to do it or you’ll never be able to pay me back my grand.’

The conversation continued for a while. When Helena put the phone down she noticed there was a mug of tea on the table. ‘You are such a star!’

Jago nodded, acknowledging his starriness. ‘My reward is that you tell me what that was all about. It sounded really exciting from this end.’

Helena sipped her tea. ‘OK, but it’s a bit of a long story. Aren’t you busy?’

‘I’m having a break.’

‘Well, when I was at art college, before I’d discovered weaving really, there was this amazing woman. She was in her fifties and I think I was missing Mum a bit and she took me under her wing. She gave me her loom. People often give weavers looms! Although I wasn’t one then, I think this woman, Julia Coombs, saw that that was where I was headed. And, with the loom, she gave me a whole load of silk yarn. Beautiful colours. I longed to make something with it but someone told me I had to start with wool. Can’t even remember why, now. So I put all the lovely coloured silk into bin liners and took it home and it went in the attic – although Mum put it in plastic boxes. The loom went up there too.’ She gave a rueful laugh. ‘My brother would say it’s one of the reasons I don’t want Mum to move except I don’t think he’d remember about my stuff in the attic.’

‘So what does Amy want you to do?’

Helena went on to explain about Springtime, how it had been a showcase for great artists and masters of their craft and how utterly impossible it would be for her to get enough work done in time even if woodworm hadn’t got to the loom and moths to the cones of silk thread.

‘I guess Amy could probably find someone else to take the spot, get her bag of sand back,’ said Jago.

‘Her what?’ said Helena, distracted for a moment.