Chapter Five

Finn arrived on a Tuesday afternoon as though he’d been invited to open an opera season rather than inspect a half-finished pottery studio in Abbotsford.

He drifted through the roller door trailing scarf, opinions and delayed tram energy. Before he’d fully entered the room, he had already texted three times: once to say he was running late, once to complain about the psychic atmosphere of public transport, and once to announce he was “preparing energetically for the space.”

He carried nothing except a battered leather satchel.

“Darling,” he said, surveying the warehouse with theatrical concern, “where are the wheels?”

I pointed toward the corner where William had parked them beside a stack of timber and a chair missing one leg.

Finn crossed the room, ran a finger dramatically along one wheel rim and sighed.

“Neglected,” he said. “But salvageable.”

That was my introduction to Finn.

He had been recommended by someone William knew from his night walks, which already made me nervous. But the children’s classes had collapsed, the meditation evenings had become accidental social gatherings, and the Cornwall jumpers were still sitting in a box by the door like an expensive moral lesson.

I needed an actual pottery teacher.

Finn, at the very least, looked convincing.

He wore slim black jeans, dramatic scarves and the expression of a man permanently disappointed by fluorescent lighting. More importantly, he actually knew how to throw on the wheel.

I did not.

He reorganised the studio immediately.

“Students need to land on the wheel,” he explained, repositioning stools with the seriousness of stage direction.

He demonstrated by inhaling deeply, lowering himself into position and placing his hands reverently on the clay.

“See?” he said. “It’s not just pottery. It’s theatre.”

By Thursday evening, six students had signed up. Friends of William’s, a neighbour’s niece, someone who had overheard us talking near the coffee machine. I attempted an introduction, but Finn gently interrupted.

“No, no,” he said. “We begin with breath.”

He closed his eyes. The students copied him obediently.

“Now,” he said softly, “we touch clay.”

And somehow, absurdly, it worked.

He taught with complete seriousness. Wedging became ritual. Centring became emotional alignment. Every bowl sounded like a personal transformation waiting to happen.

“The clay rises,” he announced during one demonstration. “It wants to be seen.”

One woman leaned toward me and whispered, “Is this a cult?”

“Not yet,” I said.

I spent most of the evening standing near the sink with a mop, watching.

Part of me was relieved. Another part felt quietly humiliated. This was my studio, but Finn knew things I didn’t: terminology, technique, the invisible choreography of running a wheel class without disaster. I had opened a pottery studio before properly learning pottery.

Still, people were making bowls.

Small, crooked bowls, but bowls nonetheless.

The wheels spun. The room filled with laughter. Clay covered the tables and students left holding damp little vessels with surprising tenderness.

Halfway through class, William wandered in carrying a half-repaired stool he’d rescued from the street.

“For the café side,” he announced.

There was no café side yet.

Finn ignored him completely.

At the end of the night, Finn delivered a closing speech about trusting your vessel and insisted everyone bow to their pots before leaving. To my horror, they did.

Then something even more alarming happened.

Several students booked another class.

After they left, I stood alone among the slurry, damp towels and misshapen bowls, replaying the evening in my head.

The class had worked.

Not perfectly. Not elegantly. But genuinely.

For the first time, the studio no longer felt like an experiment I was financing in secret. It felt precariously close to becoming an actual pottery studio.

The following week, Finn returned with the same operatic seriousness.

“Darling,” he announced upon arrival, “the clay and I have spoken. Tonight we coil.”

I leaned on the mop and let him perform.

Because now there were students.

And students, it turned out, might eventually pay the rent.