Finger script phrase and diamond on hand

Your mother rang to say you have been telling the whole street that the lock-up was a bad investment, and I should not have to hear it from a woman in the chemist's queue. I'll say it once, then I'm putting the kettle on. The lock-up was never for the stock. It was for the tin soldiers and the cracked brass cufflinks your grandfather swore were real diamonds, and they were. Keep your opinions in your coat pocket, the way I kept his receipts.

Last Thursday a woman came in with a carrier bag and a ring on a chain. She wanted eighty pounds. I told her the setting was worth more than the stone, which made her laugh so hard the bell over the door rang twice. She had brought a drawing on the back of a beer mat, a teal and blue diamond done in neat ink, and she kept turning it over on the counter as if the picture might smudge. I am telling you this because she said the thing I should have said years ago: that a stone is only as honest as the person holding it up to the light.

I gave her sixty-five. She bought the drawing back off me for a pound, which I'm told is called sentiment.

Come Sunday. Bring the good tea, not the cheap rubbish. I'll show you the ledger and you can tell me what I've got wrong.

Love, Nan