The kiln shelf

The pottery class met on Thursday evenings in a room behind the library. Jo had joined because she wanted to make a bowl without anybody assessing it. During the day she worked in an office where every task acquired a score. Here, she was pleased when the clay leaned away from her hands and refused to become symmetrical. After six weeks she had made something broad and shallow, with one rim slightly higher than the other. She painted it green and left it on the shelf for firing. The tutor said it would be ready the following week.

When Jo arrived, the finished pots stood on a long table. She recognised her bowl by its uneven rim. A pale crack ran across the middle, dividing the green surface into two almost separate islands. She touched it with one finger. The tutor, Helen, came over and said that the bowl had cracked while cooling. Sometimes clay did that, especially where the base was thick. Jo nodded as though she had expected this explanation. Around her, the others were wrapping cups and plates in newspaper. Someone asked for another sheet of bubble wrap.

‘We could hide it with a plant,’ said a man beside her. He was trying to be kind, but Jo felt unexpectedly angry. She had wanted a bowl, not somewhere to conceal a fault. Helen did not tell her that the crack was beautiful or that she would learn from it. She turned the bowl slowly and said, ‘I'm disappointed too.’ Jo looked up. It was the first comment that matched the size of what she was feeling. She had been preparing to pretend that it did not matter.

They sat at the end of the table while the others packed away. Helen explained that the two sides might separate and that she would not trust it to hold food. There were possible repairs, but none would make it exactly what Jo had planned. She brought out a fresh piece of clay and put it between them without opening the wrapper. Jo rested her hand on the failed bowl. For a while neither spoke. Then Jo asked whether they could look at its base, to see where it had become too thick. Helen fetched a ruler.

Jo carried the bowl home in a box. She did not put a plant in it. On Saturday, she placed it on the kitchen table beside the drawing she had made before the first class. The two were very different. She measured the base as Helen had shown her, then wrote a note beneath the drawing. At the next lesson she asked for the unopened clay. Her new bowl began narrower. She was not certain that it would survive the firing either, but she left enough space beside it for her hands to work.

Focus on the final three paragraphs, from ‘We could hide it’ to the end.

A reader said: ‘Helen helps Jo by taking the disappointment seriously and being honest about what can and cannot be fixed.’

To what extent do you agree and/or disagree? Evaluate how the writer presents Helen’s support and Jo’s response, using evidence and analysis of the writer’s methods.