Purple Celtic knot clover on skin

The rain has been coming sideways down the market since Tuesday, and the tarpaulin over my stall has finally given up on the left-hand corner. I am writing this on the back of a receipt book with the cover flapping, so forgive the smudges. Ruth from the haberdashery came over with a bucket and a face like a wet Sunday, and we have spent the morning moving bolts of ribbon out of the drip.

In the bottom of a tin of old buttons, the one Dad left me with the wooden handle, I found a brooch I do not remember buying. It is four hearts joined at the points, each one filled with a purple like the inside of a plum, outlined in a cream metal that has gone soft at the edges. The middle is a knot, woven over and under itself so many times that I tried for a full minute to find where it started and gave up. Little loops curl out from the knot into every petal, like the ends of a ribbon someone forgot to tie. Ruth says it is a clover for luck, and I said that is what people say about anything they cannot sell.

I took it up to Mr Ferris at the jewellers on Cable Street, who has known the stall for forty years. He turned it over under his lamp, pressed his thumb on the pin, and said the maker used to work the knots by hand before he went to Dublin and never came back. He would not take a penny for it. He said luck is only a loan, and the rain will tell you when it is due back.

So I have pinned it to the awning rope, right above the register, where the water runs off the hearts and drips through the knot and out the other side. It is the only thing on the stall that stays dry.

Love, Clare