Limbani.

He made it at thirteen, with a handsaw somebody lent him and a board off a tomato crate. It is the brick mould: the box he tips the mud into so a brick comes out. It came out a finger longer than the usual ones and he has never remade it. What comes out of it are bricks you can spot at a glance; there are walls out there where you can see from the street which course is his. If somebody mentions it, he answers the same thing: a finger longer, yes, I know, it's the one I've got.

For every thousand bricks, that extra finger eats mud that anyone else would have got a brick out of. He has known it from the start and he has never cut it down. He has two others hanging on a nail, never used, and he stays with the one from when he was thirteen. He doesn't lend it either. If somebody suggests he bring it into line with the usual ones, the conversation ends there. The mould is still in the shed, its corners rounded off from all the knocks and its bottom polished with mud from all the years.