Two Turtle Doves by Alex Monroe

Author:Alex Monroe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2014-01-28T05:00:00+00:00

Popping the first one open I can see how it was made. Firstly there’s the stem. Its circle of sepals once enclosed the blossom and now they hold on to the fruit. The fruit itself has two layers of skin, and a kind of frame, to which the little peas are attached. The outer form is created as the peas within gradually swell. The only way I can reproduce that is by doing exactly the same, but in miniature.

I cut six tiny discs from a sheet of silver. They vary in size, but all are between 2mm and 3mm – almost too small to hold. These will be my peas, and I need to find a way to file them into spheres. On my last trip to Japan I bought a pair of pliers so fine I wasn’t sure what I would use them for. Here’s my chance to try them out. Optivisors on, I pinch the largest disc in the pliers and start to file. Ten minutes later, six peas in a row sit in front of me.

The frame has to be a hair’s width thin. After drawing and redrawing I settle on a shape, reduce it down to about 25mm and transfer the drawing onto a sheet of wafer-thin silver. Cutting it out is a precarious business. The silver is so fine it can’t support its own weight, far less tolerate any slipping or snagging with the piercing saw: if its shape is distorted in the slightest, the piece will be ruined. I find myself holding my breath. Along the inside curve of the frame I leave six little teeth. I’ll be soldering the peas to these. And then I cut out the skins a second time, again in a sheet thinner than tracing paper. Lastly the calyx. This I cut in two halves without the stalk attached. I will solder on a short section of wire later.

I gently lie out the pea-pod-shaped frame on a charcoal block and arrange the miniature peas inside, from small to large to small again. It looks odd when I’ve soldered each one into place, like an X-ray of a pea-pod. Next I make a sandwich, layering the two flat skins on either side of my skeleton and tacking them into place with the tiniest speck of solder. I’m hoping that if I squish the two skins together in a rolling mill, they will gently take the shape of the peas inside, giving the lovely undulating fat-belly curves of the pea. Texture is important too. I want to reproduce the soft bloom you just can’t help wanting to touch. I sandwich layers of rough cartridge paper on either side of my pea-pod and bind the whole thing up in masking tape. Now for the squishing.

My rolling mills work something like a mangle. Turn a long crank and the two steel rollers turn. The height of the rollers can be adjusted by turning a screw on the top. I adjust it to what

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