14.

A Joint That Would Not Bend

Rainhill — AGH 183

B.O.B. had left a space on the table for Felix's tool roll, though not quite enough to unroll it.

“The frame can go on the floor,” Felix said.

“It cannot.”

“The box, then.”

B.O.B. moved the box to the far edge, against the wall. It contained four finished puzzle pieces and a small square that still needed one edge dressed. He had left that one on top, where its imperfect fit would be visible to a person interested in asking about it.

Felix unrolled his tools.

“Five pieces,” B.O.B. said.

“Is that all of them?”

“It will seem more when you try to put them in.”

Felix glanced into the box. “Move your chair out a little.”

The table occupied the best-lit part of B.O.B.'s rented rooms. From his usual place he could reach his tools, the box and the shallow square frame without getting up. He explained this while Felix tried to come round the end of it. Felix stopped where the table nearly met a cupboard.

“You could pull it away from the wall.”

“Then I would have to put the box somewhere else.”

“On the table.”

“It is on the table.”

Felix waited. B.O.B. drew his chair farther out, and the craftsperson came through the space he had made. He had maintained B.O.B.'s wooden body for fifteen years. This table had inconvenienced him for a considerable part of that time, though B.O.B. could not see why he should choose a fitting day to resume the subject.

B.O.B. laid his arm on the folded cloth beside the tools.

“I've got the stock piece,” Felix said. “Or we can have one made closer to the old arrangement. That's more work. I can't do it here today.”

“What is wrong with the stock one?”

“Nothing. It's easier to get, and anyone who knows the pattern can service it. I recommend it. I also remember that you liked the old turn.”

“I did.”

Felix put the two estimates where B.O.B. could see them. The difference was enough to buy things B.O.B. would rather have than an expensive variation on a movement he already possessed.

He looked at the box. In three evenings two acquaintances were coming to try the puzzle. He had been careful to say that it was simple.

“You can finish with the stock piece today?”

“If the fitting suits.”

“Then let's try it.”

For a while Felix worked and B.O.B. watched the strip of table he had cleared. Whenever Felix needed another tool, he had to lay the first one along the cloth instead of beside it. B.O.B. moved the puzzle frame a little farther away.

“Thank you,” Felix said, without looking up.

The ordinary checks went well. B.O.B. brought his arm forward, back, across. The new fitting carried each movement cleanly. When Felix asked him to do something he would normally do at the table, he reached into the box for the small square.

He drew it towards the frame and stopped.

His hand was in the right place. There was room to turn it. Yet the turn that usually brought the piece down flat would not follow the reach. He had to lift, settle the arm differently and begin again. By then he was placing the square from above, as if he had only just discovered where the frame was.

He took the piece out and returned it to the box.

“Again?” Felix asked.

B.O.B. tried more slowly. The same interruption met him halfway.

“There.”

Felix examined the fitting, then asked him for the movements separately. Each worked. With an empty hand, B.O.B. could complete the turn Felix showed him.

“There's nothing catching,” Felix said.

“I know.”

“Can you show me where it feels wrong?”

B.O.B. collected the piece again. As he brought it back, he found himself preparing for the extra lift before he had reached the point that needed it. He stopped.

“It used to come round.”

“It does come round.”

“After.”

Felix looked from the arm to the square. He put down the tool he was holding.

“I haven't understood that yet.”

The next appointment would already be expecting him. B.O.B. knew the time; Felix had said it when he arrived. He had pictured the puzzle finished before Felix left, and perhaps one brief unsuccessful attempt at it from a man who might reasonably expect to be good with fitted things.

“Don't put it down as finished,” he said.

“All right.” Felix took out the job sheet. “I can come back and look at the task properly. Until then, keep within what we've tried. Don't force that turn or take your weight on the arm. No shifting tables.”

He checked the fitting once more and left it secure. B.O.B. paid for the visit. They agreed on the next appointment, and Felix rolled his tools away in the space B.O.B. had finally given them.

The little square remained on the cloth.

“Do you want that back in the box?” Felix asked.

“Leave it here.”

B.O.B. waited until he had gone before trying the piece in the frame. The edge still needed dressing. He had managed to pay for a repair and acquire two unfinished things.

*   *   *

Two days later, B.O.B. had finished the edge and had made a longer tool for moving the piece.

The tool could reach the far side of the frame. Unfortunately, its end also reached whichever piece he was trying to leave alone. He changed the order of assembly. The large square went in first, then the long corner, then the crossbar. He took them all out. The small key was meant to come last, but at present it was the only piece he could reliably get into the frame without moving another one.

One of tomorrow's guests arrived while he was attempting to lay the shorter corner beside it.

“You haven't put it away,” the visitor said.

“It's nearly ready.”

“I thought we weren't supposed to see the answer.”

B.O.B. withdrew the tool. “You haven't.”

The visitor came to the clear end of the table and looked at the five pieces, which occupied more than the available square.

“No,” they said. “I don't think I have.”

B.O.B. asked them to move the box. They brought it close to his chair, where he could lift each piece without the disputed reach. He put the crossbar in it and took it out again. That was much better.

“Could you stand there tomorrow?”

“Here?”

“At that end. If I need a piece moved, you could move it.”

“While I'm trying the puzzle?”

“You wouldn't always be trying it.”

The visitor pulled the other chair out and tested whether it would fit beside the table. It did, once they angled it so that anyone sitting there would have to lean round the box.

“I came to have a go,” they said.

“You can have a go.”

“Sitting down.”

B.O.B. considered putting the box on the chair. He would then need the visitor to fetch it from the chair whenever he wanted anything from it. The longer tool lay across both places.

“It's only five pieces.”

“Then you won't need me standing here all evening.”

They were willing to move the box again before they went. B.O.B. asked them to leave it where it was.

After their departure he put the large pieces aside and worked with the key alone. It was finished now; the edge sat cleanly against the frame. He nudged it into place, lifted the tool away and caught it again with the return. The square slid across the table until it stopped between the far end of the frame and the wall.

He reached automatically. Halfway there, the movement required the turn he had agreed not to force.

He brought his arm back.

From the clear end of the table he could see one edge of the key. To reach it with his other hand, he would have to lean across the frame, taking his weight on the newly fitted arm. He tried the tool instead. It pushed the key nearer the wall.

He left it there, put the tool down and drew a sheet of paper towards him with the other hand.

He wrote that the evening would have to wait until the fitting was settled. He would send another invitation when he knew the day. There was room at the bottom of the sheet to explain what had happened to the joint, the table and the small square, but he stopped after the invitation.

He copied the note and had one delivered to each guest.

Then he put the two spare chairs back. One of them would have fitted quite well if he had moved the table. He left it facing the wrong way.

*   *   *

At the next booked visit, Felix put his closed tool roll on the chair.

“Show me what you were trying to do.”

B.O.B. had prepared an explanation. The old movement had followed a curve, but the curve had not been the same throughout; part of it had belonged to the reach, and part to what happened when the reach was nearly over. He began with that.

Felix listened. Then he moved his own hand through a short arc.

“You want it to turn sooner?”

“Not sooner. It wasn't waiting to turn.”

“Show me.”

B.O.B. pointed to the key at the far edge. Felix went to the end of the table, braced one hand on it and reached over the frame with the other to retrieve the piece.

“You need to bring this back?”

“And place it. One movement.”

Felix put the box and frame back in their usual positions, then stood where he could see both. B.O.B. took the key from the box and drew it towards the frame. At the point where he had to lift and start again, Felix stopped him.

“Leave it there a moment.”

Felix came round the chair and bent to the level of the piece. B.O.B. held it still. The frame's empty space looked irritatingly close.

“Now put it down the way this fitting wants.”

B.O.B. lifted, changed the position of the arm and lowered the key. It went neatly into its place.

“That,” he said, “is what I don't want.”

Felix asked for the movement once more, without the piece. This time he watched the whole return instead of the fitting alone.

“Yes,” he said. “I see the part you're missing.”

B.O.B. reached for the key again, pleased enough to want to repeat the evidence. Felix put a hand beside the frame.

“We've got it. Don't keep doing it.”

He took the key out and placed it where B.O.B. could reach it easily.

“I'd still like to move this table.”

“It has nothing to do with the fitting.”

“I had to lean over your puzzle to pick that up.”

“You managed.”

“Would you like your visitors doing that?”

B.O.B. looked at the chair that was still facing away from the table.

“They can sit at the ends.”

Felix tried one end. His place for the tool roll was his place for his feet. He moved the chair out again.

“We can try it and put it back,” he said. “You don't have to help me pull.”

They cleared the top. B.O.B. gathered the loose pieces from the near side while Felix took the frame and the far box. Felix shifted the unladen table away from the wall, a little at one end and then at the other. The cupboard could still open. There was a narrow passage behind the table, wide enough to approach the box without leaning across the work.

B.O.B. went round that way and stood in the place nobody had been able to stand before.

“The light is different.”

“At your chair?”

He returned to the chair. The light was almost exactly as it had been. He moved the frame a little and asked for the box.

They tried the task again. The box was easier to approach, the pieces easier to set out. The familiar turn still broke in the middle.

“I can make an arrangement for that return,” Felix said. “It'll need a different piece and another fitting. More time than the stock one.”

B.O.B. asked how much. Felix wrote the additional work beneath the first entry and gave him the estimate.

“That's as well as what I've paid.”

“Yes.”

He looked at the figures. He could pay them. He returned the key to the box and brought it back to the frame, making the extra lift before he laid it flat. It fitted cleanly. He could keep the stock piece and send the invitations again; there was nothing left to finish on the puzzle.

He took the key out.

“Can you promise it will feel like the old one?”

“I can make the change we've just looked at. We'll test it with the puzzle before you accept it.”

B.O.B. looked at the frame again. The guest who had called was very likely to begin with the key, having seen him try it. He hoped they would. It was an excellent way of making trouble for oneself later.

“Do it,” he said.

Felix entered the agreed work and the wait. The restriction would continue while he made the piece. B.O.B. asked him to read back the alteration, and listened without adding another comparison.

When Felix had packed his things, he stopped beside the table.

“Back against the wall?”

B.O.B. put the spare chair into the space beside it.

“Leave it for now.”

*   *   *

Five weeks after the first fitting, B.O.B. carried the puzzle into Felix's workshop wrapped in a cloth.

“It isn't a present,” he said.

Felix moved a tray off the bench. “Put it here.”

“I thought I should say.”

“You have.”

B.O.B. unwrapped the frame, took the five pieces out of their box and laid them beside the frame. Felix looked at the long corner.

“May I move these?”

“For the test.”

Felix put the box where he wanted it, returned the pieces to it and left the puzzle unsolved.

The revised piece took time to fit. B.O.B. watched a customer collect a parcel at the front of the workshop, and afterwards watched Felix return to the note of the movement they had agreed to preserve. The ordinary checks were familiar. He performed them without trying to anticipate the one he had brought the puzzle for.

At last Felix drew the box and frame into position.

B.O.B. took the small key out of the box. He brought it back, turned it and set it flat in the frame.

He left his hand there.

“Again,” he said.

Felix waited while he put the key back in the box. The second time, B.O.B. watched where the piece was going. It arrived without the little preparation he had been making for the unwanted lift. He took it out, moved the frame slightly and tried once more.

“Yes,” he said.

Felix wrote on the job sheet.

B.O.B. placed the other pieces in the frame around the key. The old arrangement came together quickly. He took them all out before Felix could study it.

“I saw that,” Felix said.

“You saw part of it.”

“Enough to know you can do it.”

“That was never in doubt.”

Felix brought the bill and the removed stock piece. B.O.B. counted out the additional fee, checked the amount against the estimate and asked for the piece as well.

“I'll wrap it separately.”

“Please do.”

Felix recorded the accepted revision beside the objection from the first visit. He gave B.O.B. the paid account and the wrapped part, then helped him put the puzzle back in its cloth.

“You can bring it back sometime,” he said. “When it isn't a test.”

“You'll have to find the time.”

“So will you.”

On the way home B.O.B. left a new invitation at each guest's door. Two evenings later. The puzzle was ready.

*   *   *

The guest who had moved the box arrived first and walked straight behind the table.

“Oh,” they said.

“You can sit on this side.”

“I might stand here for a minute.”

B.O.B. let them. He had put the wrapped stock piece away and cleared the table completely. The box was on a stool, where nobody would have to lean round it. When the second guest arrived, there was room for all three places without an explanation.

He set out the frame and the five pieces.

“All of them inside the square. One layer. No gaps.”

The first guest picked up the key.

B.O.B. turned the frame towards them.

They put the key in a corner and worked outwards. For a little while it looked promising. The long piece fitted along one side and the crossbar sat neatly against it. Then the large square would not go in. They moved the crossbar, lost the shorter corner's place and started again.

“Would you like—” B.O.B. began.

“Give me a moment.”

He waited while they turned the crossbar back to its first position.

“Now?”

“No.”

He sat back. The second guest took the large square and turned it idly while the first tried to fit four pieces into a shape that had room for three.

B.O.B. enjoyed that part. Every change they made gave the next piece a worse place to go. He had tried the same approach himself, though he did not think they needed to be told that yet.

Eventually the first guest pushed the frame across.

“You try.”

The second guest emptied it and put the large square in one corner. They picked up the long corner, turned it over and laid it against the opposite side.

“That face goes down,” B.O.B. said.

They turned the piece over once more, looked at it, then restored it to the position they had chosen.

“Why?”

“It's the back.”

“It fits.”

“So does the front.”

The guest set the crossbar beneath the square. The first guest leaned forward, abandoned the key's old corner and put it into the space below the crossbar. The shorter corner lay beside the frame.

B.O.B. could see where it would go.

“You can't put that one there,” he said, before he could stop himself.

The second guest turned it and put it there.

All five pieces lay inside the square. There were no gaps.

The first guest laughed. “Why can't it go there?”

B.O.B. drew the frame towards him. He passed his hand over the meeting edges, lifted the key and checked beneath it. Everything lay in one layer. He replaced the key, bringing it round into its small corner in the movement Felix had fitted for him.

The two guests waited.

“That is an answer,” he said.

“Is it the answer?”

He took the puzzle apart and showed them his own arrangement. The long corner faced the other way; the large square occupied the opposite corner. It was a much better-looking answer. He turned the frame to examine it from the guests' side. From there it looked rather like theirs.

“Mine took longer,” he said.

“We could take longer.”

“No. You've done it now.”

He left the frame between them and fetched a sheet of paper. The first guest began trying to reconstruct the second arrangement; the other disputed where the crossbar had been. B.O.B. listened while he drew a new square and divided it.

“Another one?”

“This one will be difficult.”

They both moved to see the drawing. He turned the paper towards himself and put his hand over the next cut.