Ringleaders

Ringleaders, was the store name. Diamond experts.

I tripped on the carpet getting into the lift and felt out of place and awkward instantly. It was located on the second floor, away from the bustling shopping mall on street level.

In the lift, mirrors formed all four walls, and I looked up at his face to avoid looking at myself otherwise. He had his business face on; square-jawed, clean-shaven, and some muscle tension showing over his taut cheekbones. I felt nervous and girly. Silly.

The doors opened onto a neat blue-carpeted, wood-panelled office. A glass case featuring a small selection of jewellery stood a few metres from the glass door. It was nothing like dark velveted jewellery chain stores we had frequented up until now, stores in which gleaming diamonds seemingly floated in a sea of spotlight from all angles. Two cobalt-blue sofas sat on opposite ends of the large room. No one was at the reception desk.

Struck by a sudden attack of the nerves, I clutched Alex's arm with every intention of leaving, but we must have triggered a door alarm somewhere in the office and a man appeared, thin but with a slight belly, hair definitely greying but perhaps also thinning, in a grey shirt and a purple tie.

I noticed the tie right away. Aubergine, I thought, knowing of only one other man who had worn a purple tie. I had no fond impressions of that ex-boyfriend.

The grey shirt featured loud patterns in a contrasting grey that weren't to my taste, being adverse to boldness. On his left hand, a generous ruby set in a wide intricate band of gold glowered at me. But even as he approached and I was being swept away by a tidal wave of insecurity and anxiety, he seemed happy to see us and not in any way malicious.

'Hi,' Alex started. 'We were just looking for some diamonds..?'

He had opened vaguely and all three of us knew it. The question betrayed our ignorance in the way of diamonds and jewellery.

Warren, which we later discovered was his name, led us towards one of the cabinets. In it were two dozen designs of a variety of rings, some engagement, some not - and others. A set of particularly beautiful diamonds earrings winked at me.

He began to explain, pulling out examples of rings he'd designed as he went. I won't bore you with everything I learnt that day, but we explored solitaire rings versus halo settings versus side accents and three-stones; round brilliant cuts as compared to princess cut, squarer cuts like the emerald or the Asscher, or stranger cuts like the heart or the pear. We discussed the anatomy of a diamond stone; the table, the crown, the girdle and the pavilion, and the different faces of the diamond - the star facets, the upper and lower girdle facets, the pavilion main and the culet, which is the bottom of the diamond. We discussed the elements of ring design: the prongs (four or six), the shoulders, the bridge and the band, or the sitting area.

I learnt that in an ideal cut, the table should be 60% of the girdle, and the pavilion 60% of the depth, to allow for the best light refraction. But hearing Warren talk, I also learnt about his background. His parents were both gemologists, and he himself had taken an apprenticeship in lapidary, making him an expert in both. He spoke highly of the teachers he'd trained under, having been warned not to take an apprenticeship at chain stores. He talked about the dying art of lapidary, and the corruption in the diamond business at every level, from the suppliers, to the laboratory appraisers and diamond valuers, to the authorities who define the international grading systems and their loopholes.

He's quite chatty, I observed, waiting patiently to get a word in edgewise, but amiably so. It was the way his eyes lit up that I recognised. It was the way mine lit up thinking about pharmacy - its practitioners and its patients, the problems and the politics. It was the way my eyes swelled at the subject of drug abuse, the misuse of pharmaceuticals and its cure. It was pride, and passion.

I later said to Alex, a man who loves and takes pride in his work is a man we can trust. He agreed.

Warren sat us down on the sofa, placing five or six jewellery boxes each containing twenty of his designs before us. He watched us quietly, letting us ambivalently pick up this and that. I gravitated towards solitaires, watching him note my choices. Alex chose something more elaborate but I put it down. 'I don't have the personality for that. I'm a rather plain person,' I said apologetically to Warren, who smiled awkwardly. 'Whatever suits you.'

In the end, out of a hundred or more designs, we had five - three of which favoured above the others. We handed them to Warren, who wrote down serial numbers. Then he asked us for a price range and specifications for a diamond, which Alex named. We had rough sizes, colour and clarity of the diamond in mind, but weren't sure about how much it would reasonably cost.

'Leave it to me,' Warren said. He would source some diamonds, and we could call again in a week's time.

'Next lesson,' he said, 'will be about safe diamonds.' I cocked my head at him, not understanding, but he left it cryptic.

It was late by the time we'd finished. The office officially closed at 7pm, but we'd overstayed and it was now 9 o'clock and dark. I felt silly for not noticing the time, given that we'd arrived in the late afternoon while the sun was still up, apologised for keeping him, but he brushed it away.

'Hard honest work takes time,' he'd said. 'Now go and get some dinner.'

Alex and I hadn't eaten since the afternoon and our stomachs were growling. We thanked him, and said goodbye, looking forward to the next lesson.

Alex held the lift door open for me. I tripped again on the peeling carpet.

'What did you think?' he looking at me quizzically, once we were inside. I could tell he was in a good mood; his eyebrows almost dance cockily when he is. I didn't answer and shrugged, feeling that somewhere inside me the knot of worry loosen and dissipate.

The doors of the lift opened, and we both stepped out into the night, content, knowing full well that the ramen bar where we'd planned to have dinner had closed.