Geometric lion head drawing

The lion came back from the cutting room on Tuesday, folded in four and stained at one corner with someone's tea. Mr Pardoe wants the mane redone. He says the strands run on too long and the hatching in the jaw looks like a man who has been crying into his cravat. I told him a lion is allowed to look like that. I have spent three weeks counting triangles so small a needle could not find them, and I am not about to let him tidy the roar.

I drew it at the kitchen table after you left, with the Indian ink you bought me in Hull. Every mark is hours. The swirls curl round the ears like the lip of a wave on the slipway, and the little repeated marks down the cheek are the ones you used to make on the back of my hand when you were small, so you could tell me the rain had started. I did not mean to put you in it. I suppose I did.

Last night I took the drawing down to the warehouse floor, where the looms were still ticking over for the night shift. Mr Pardoe was there, eating a pie out of its paper. He held the sheet up to the bulb, turned it slowly, and said, that's a beast that means it. Then he asked me to make the mane bigger, not smaller.

So I will. Tell me when you are next in port, and I will show you the pattern before it goes off to the Leavers.

Your loving mum, Edie