For Maya & Daniel

A colour that was always hers, and a stone that was his.

You came to me on the twentieth of August, and Maya had already chosen the centre. She was born in February. The purple of her amethyst has felt like hers for as long as she can remember, and she wanted it at the centre. Cut as a pear, with a softer, more flowing outline than the rings she kept being shown.

Daniel was born in April, and his stone is the diamond. That gave us the band: small natural diamonds, so that a part of him sits beside her every day.

Then Maya said the thing that set the brief. She did not want a straight band. Not because it was ordinary, though it was. A marriage has easy stretches and difficult turns, she said, and she wanted the rings to admit both and still fit together. The band should follow the engagement ring closely, as though it were moving alongside it.

Two plain requests closed the conversation. Prongs had caught on her clothes and her hair before, so the stone should sit in something smooth. And no names, no engraving. The meaning would be there for the two of you, whether anyone else knew the story or not.

What we agreed, in your names. The brief is set.

The first S. The band keeps to one side.

The first drawing stands the pear upright, pointing along the finger, on a shank that sweeps in from one side and out the other. The band is a single fine wire that rises to meet it, with the diamonds in round bezels gathered along one shoulder.

It follows, but from one side. On the hand, Daniel’s diamonds run up the finger in a single column beside the pear, like someone walking a step behind. Maya asked for two rings moving together. This one had one leading and one keeping up.

— Design 1 · turning —

— Design 1 · the set, together —

— Design 1 · the two rings, apart —

— Design 1 · the diamonds along one shoulder —

More curve. The band wraps the pear in three wires.

If the first drawing walked behind, the second walked around. The band became three fine wires that part and rejoin, with the diamonds held between them, and the whole of it wraps the pear in a full S. I drew it in a warmer gold, to see the purple against it.

It answered the brief too loudly. Every turn is drawn twice, then three times, and the eye has nowhere to rest. Three wires are also three more edges for a sleeve or a strand of hair to find, which is the one thing Maya asked me to avoid. She wanted the curves to mean something. Here there were so many that none of them could.

— Design 2 · turning —

— Design 2 · the set, together —

— Design 2 · the two rings, apart —

— Design 2 · three wires around the pear —

The pear turned on its side. The band rose over it.

Two changes, both small. The pear was turned east to west, so it lies across the finger and reads as a drop in motion rather than a point. The shank comes in from one side, runs beneath the stone, and leaves on the other. One S, and no more.

The band went back to a single fine wire. Daniel’s diamonds sit along it, each in its own round bezel, joined by short bars of gold. It rises in an arc over the pear and comes down on either side, close enough to follow every curve of the engagement ring, never touching the stone. Worn together, the band seems to float around the pear. Where the ring dips, the band dips. Where it turns, the band turns with it.

— Design 3 · turning —

— Design 3 · the set, together —

— Design 3 · the two rings, apart —

— Design 3 · from above —

Three drawings sent. The third, chosen as drawn.

I sent you all three drawings on the tenth. Maya answered on the twelfth, and she answered with the third.

The first, she wrote, kept Daniel a step behind. The second was so busy turning that it never arrived anywhere. The third looked like the two of you walking somewhere together, close enough to touch, each keeping your own line.

She asked for nothing to change. That is rare, and I do not take it lightly. It means the brief was heard on the first day.

Where two rivers meet, and carry on as one.

The finished design, and its name. Sangam is the Hindi word for a confluence: the place where two rivers meet. The water does not stop there. It narrows and widens, bends and straightens, and carries both rivers forward in a single course. That is what Maya described on the first day, before there was a drawing.

A pear-shaped amethyst, set east to west in a smooth bezel of 14K yellow gold, on a shank that runs in one gentle S. Beside it, a band of natural diamonds in round bezels, linked by gold, curving over and around the pear. No prongs. No lettering. Nothing to catch. Worn apart, each ring is complete. Worn together, they read as one line.

— Sangam · the band over the pear —

The drawing goes into gold.

A bezel is a thin wall of gold folded over the edge of a stone. On a pear it has to follow the round end and hold the tip cleanly, without crowding the colour. I set it low, so the stone sits close to the finger and nothing stands proud of the metal.

The band was the slower work. Each diamond has its own small bezel, and each bezel is joined to the next by a short bar of gold, then shaped so the whole row sits just above the engagement ring without resting on the stone. The two rings are fitted against each other, adjusted, and fitted again until they move as one. Every surface is polished by hand.

Below is the set as it came off the bench.

— The pear, held low in its bezel —

— Daniel’s diamonds, each in its own setting —

— The band, following the curve —

— Sangam, worn together —

Four elements, struck inside the engagement ring, where the wearer alone will read them.

You asked for no names and no engraving, and there are none. These four are the house hallmark, struck small at six o’clock on the inside of the shank, where the world will not see them.

The last test before a piece leaves this house.

A pear set on its side, with a band curving over it, is easy to admire on a stand. It has to be lived with. It must sit flat on the finger, turn without catching, and let the band slide into place without a sound. Sleeves, hair, a hand pushed into a coat pocket. Nothing caught.

— Sangam, worn —

— Through the day —

— Through the hair, smooth on every edge —

— February and April, together —