The Silver Cake

A brick workshop near Kew on a clear spring morning, sunlight through a tall sash window, on a wooden bench a small glass roller on a metal shaft drawing a glistening thread down into a cylindrical dark red-brown spinning pot on a slender flanged spindle, the pot cut open at the front, inside it a thick ring of wound thread shining silver, a flat pale ring on its rim, beside it a clear glass bottle with a wide glass stopper holding thick honey-brown liquid, its paper label blank, a hank of ivory-white thread tied with string, a hand in a rolled shirt sleeve holding a thread up to the light.