Outlined diamond stencil

The lock at Stanhope Cut has swallowed another week of my wages, so forgive the paper. I'm writing from the back cabin of the Mabel Rose with the stove ticking and the cut stencil pinned to the tiller board where the damp can't reach it. Mr Okonedo at the pawnshop on Ferry Road wanted a diamond for his window, the old sort with bold lines and no nonsense. I cut the first from waxed card and cut it again when it tore at the lower point.

The trouble with a diamond and no shading is that nobody can tell what it's worth from the outline. He stood over me while I worked and kept saying the stone should look expensive. I kept telling him a line is a line, you either draw it true or you don't. Four straight facets, one point pressed down like a nail. I checked every angle twice with the bevel and a length of string, and the lines came out thick and even, black as tar.

Yesterday a woman came in with a ring wrapped in a handkerchief and left with less money than she hoped for. Mr Okonedo put the ring in the drawer and the window stayed as it was, my diamond taped up behind the glass, catching the street lamps. He says it sells more than any real stone could, because folk walk past and believe in it.

Last night I held the spare sheet up to the stove lamp. The light came through the white paper and the middle of the shape went soft and empty, nothing in it but glow. Only the black lines held, and I thought that's all a diamond ever really is, the part you can draw and the rest is somebody else's luck.

Write soon, and tell Dad the stove's still smoking.

Your brother, Tom