Importent

“Dear Mummy. When you come home please come upstairs I have something to show you and it is IMPORTENT”.

Oh what a great word! I went upstairs as instructed. I was shown a collection of cracks. Up by the ceiling, running across the two angles, cutting through the coving. Of course I had noticed this before. I had ignored the ever-spreading, ever-widening network of dark fissures. As you do. When they had become too widespread and open to zone out of my vision, I bought a painting and hung it over the worst area. A rather lovely French Colourist piece, as it happens.

“I’m worrying because it looks like the corner of your bedroom is falling off. Then it would be just sky and cold, and all the dirt coming in.” Hmmmm. That is indeed eerily importent.

I looked out the window at the trees, in case I could glimpse out the corner of my eye that Burnham Wood was moving to Dunsinane.

When I sold the brainchild, I bought myself a present. No, not to the value of an Aston Martin – although I would have been entitled. Instead I bought myself a ring. It is the most expensive thing I’ve ever bought for myself that has no practical use and is purely for my own selfish pleasure.

I chose the ring carefully. I wanted something crafted, handmade. I wanted something unique that had taken work and time and care. I wanted something unusual and quirky and unlike any other ring I’d seen. I wanted something I would see every day that would remind me of how hard I'd worked to build the business, and what I'd achieved. And I wanted a bloody massive diamond in it, with a few smaller ones to set it off. Because I'm worth it. Literally.

It's a beautiful ring. But suddenly a section has fallen out of it. Not a stone, or a piece of the working but a whole section, about 2mm at the back opposite the stone. It must have been inserted to resize it at some point. And now it's not a ring any more: the circle is broken.

This feels importent too.