The Toast Maker – Episode 16: The Blue Door

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Last time, Iris and Rose found their way to The King's Head — real fires, chips sent over unprompted — and somewhere in the warmth between them, past the jokes and the careful circling, they got honestly close. Rose said it plainly: I didn't have a friend. Iris carried that home through December dark, back to Tom and the sofa and Moss claiming his wedge of cushion. Tom, quiet and easy beside her, mentioned that the roof would be done by Friday.

Tonight is Friday.

Dave's crew arrives at seven, same as every morning for the past three weeks. The ridge tiles go on. Kevin — three weeks of creative tape-measure work behind him — picks up his measure and gets thirty-eight centimetres three times running, which Dave receives with theatrical disbelief. And Dave, who has roofed for twenty-eight years and is not a man given to sentiment, climbs down for the last time, extends his hand, and says something Tom will carry for a long time.