Feathered portrait with geometric mandala on back

The customs man at Hollin Bridge took my compass off me this morning and handed it back with the needle still swinging, which he said was the only honest thing about it. I had been drawing circles on the wet flagstones while we waited, the way Uncle Tom taught me: a ring from a single point, then another set on its edge, until the whole thing bloomed into the petalled shape he called the seed of everything. He never explained it. He only said a line tells you where you are going, but a circle tells you where you have been.

The old man in the next queue wore a rain-soaked cap of pale feathers and did not look at my drawing at all. When the officer asked him the purpose of his crossing he answered in one word, and the officer wrote it down without understanding it. Then he took a stub of charcoal from his coat and drew a border of little arrowheads along the edge of the step where his bag rested, and the officer, who had been about to shout, simply stood there watching the triangles march round until the rain washed them out.

They let him through. They let me through too, though my papers were only in order because Tom had signed them in my name twenty years ago, and I have never asked how he managed it.

I am on the late train tomorrow with the compass in my pocket and the needle pointing wherever it likes. Keep the kettle on. I will bring the string.

Love, Nell