Matching om symbols on two feet

The rain has been coming sideways down Kingsgate since Tuesday, and the incense man on the corner has given up trying to keep his sticks dry. I have taken his pitch for the week. He pays me in cardamom tea and grumbling, which is more than my landlord gets.

I found your tin of sign-writing brushes under the counter of the old haberdashery, the one you swore you would never leave behind. I used the sable one to paint the board for the stall, and then, because the sandalwood crates looked bare, I painted two small oms on the lids. One faces left and one faces right, so when the boxes are stacked they look like a pair of hands held together. Mrs Okafor from the fish stall said they were lucky. She bought three boxes out of pity, I think.

Your last postcard said you had found a teacher in Rishikesh who makes the true ink from soot and rice gum, and that it takes better when you do not rush the curl of the upper stroke. I tried it on the back of a receipt. The upper curl came out like a wave turning back toward the sea, and I laughed out loud in the empty market.

I have kept the brush wet all week, as you asked. Some mornings the rain stops for an hour and the whole street smells of smoke and oranges. When it does, I stand between the two crates and wait for you to come up the hill with your hood down, saying nothing clever about my lettering.

Yours, in the wet, Nell