The Short Pin

The upper hinge pin wouldn’t come out at first. Ada held her hand beneath it, and Mara felt the door grow a little heavier.

‘Not towards you,’ Ada said. ‘Keep it there.’

‘I’m not moving.’

‘You’re pulling with your thumb.’

Mara moved her thumb to the edge of the glass. The pin slipped free into Ada’s palm. With the lower one, she only had to wait a moment. Then Mara was holding the whole door, a thin wooden frame whose glass seemed far less secure from this angle than it had in the case.

Ada spread an old tea towel on the counter. An A embroidered in one corner had half faded away. Mara laid the door on it and held the two pins while her mother folded the cloth round the frame.

‘This one’s shorter.’

‘Top,’ Ada said. ‘Otherwise it catches that edge.’

Mara took a used envelope from the pile beside the phone and wrote short one at top on the back. She put the pins inside and folded the open end over twice.

‘If you ever want to get it running again,’ Ada began.

‘I don’t.’

Her mother tucked in a corner of the tea towel. She ran a finger along the glass beneath the cloth.

‘You could see where it might go first.’

‘I’ve never liked it.’

It came out more sharply than Mara intended. Not aimed at Ada, but here in the shop nobody could hear who a remark wasn’t meant for. A clock behind her struck the quarter-hour, too loudly for the small room.

‘It seemed a good idea at the market,’ she said. ‘Eighty euros for something other people wanted three hundred for. I kept saying that.’

‘You were determined to have it.’

‘Yes.’

Ada put the wrapped door on the counter. ‘I’ve kept it all this time.’

‘I know.’

Mara looked into the empty case. A long strip of dirt ran behind the edge where the door had been. She couldn’t remember whether it had been there at the market. Daan had called the thing a backpack for a clock. Afterwards he had helped her carry it to the car. That had happened too, alongside the things she remembered more often.

She picked up her mug and found it empty. At the sink she took two glasses from the cupboard and filled them with water. Ada kept hold of the tea towel until Mara set the glasses down.

‘I’ll take it to the charity shop. The movement as well. They can decide what to do with it.’

Her mother nodded. All the same, she took a soft cloth from a drawer and wiped the top of the case. Mara could have done that herself. She pulled the box from beneath the chair and checked the bottom for holes.

Inside were smaller containers, a dial wrapped in paper and the movement. She couldn’t name the parts. A card with her own name on it stuck up between the containers. Ada had written it in pencil, pressing a deep line into the card.

‘Is this really everything?’

‘Yes.’

Mara put the envelope of pins on top and folded the shopping bag round the box. Then she went to fetch the car.

The loading space in the side street was free now. She drove up to the shop and put on her hazard lights. Folding the back seats took longer than removing the glass door. One headrest caught behind a front seat. Mara pushed the seat forward and a corner of the air freshener brushed her cheek. Ada watched from the shop, holding the empty case.

‘I’m coming.’

‘I didn’t say anything.’

Together they slid the wood into the car. The case only fitted diagonally across the folded seats, its bottom against a blanket they had found folded in the boot. Ada wanted to put the box of clock parts beside it. Mara pointed to the floor behind the front seat.

‘It won’t slide about there.’

Ada put it down. Mara laid the wrapped glass door flat on the passenger seat. She studied the bundle and eased the seat belt across it without pulling it tight against the glass.

A woman with a shopping trolley waited to pass the open rear door. Ada stepped back towards the shopfront. The woman asked whether the shop really was closed.

‘Today, yes.’

‘On a Wednesday?’

‘From now on.’

The woman nodded towards the half-empty corner of the window and walked away. Mara watched her mother’s face for a reaction, but Ada was pulling the hem of her apron clear of the tailgate so Mara could shut it.

The customer’s chair was empty. A round impression remained in the upholstery. Mara sat down to retie her shoe. There was nothing she had to squeeze past now.

Ada carried the stepladder outside. She laid the sign back on the counter and began searching her inside pocket for the screw.

‘You haven’t finished your sign.’

‘I can put a note up for now.’

‘Have you got a thinner brush?’

Ada opened a drawer. Beneath a tape measure lay a small brush with dried blue paint on its handle. Mara bent the bristles with her thumb and let a drop of water run over them. She pencilled in the letters first. There wasn’t much room between the border and the other days. Just GESLOTEN: closed.

She was working on the O when the doorbell rang. A man came in with a wall clock under his arm. A loose piece of paper held its pendulum in place. He still wore his cycle helmet, its rim pressing two red lines into his forehead.

‘Could you have a listen?’ he asked, already putting the clock on the counter. ‘There’s an extra little tick.’

Ada looked at the sign. Mara held her brush still.

‘I’ll be here tomorrow.’

‘It’s only a little tick. It’s working perfectly otherwise.’

‘From nine.’

The man looked at Mara. Perhaps he knew her from some Saturday in the shop, though she couldn’t remember which. She looked back at the unfinished letter. A drop of paint hung from the brush tip.

After a moment he picked up his clock. ‘I’ll ring, then.’

Ada said that was fine. Once the door had shut behind him, she put the two mugs beside the coffee machine. Mara filled in the O. The word didn’t run straight across the paper. The N sat higher at the right-hand end. She put a small stroke beneath it to see whether she could bring it down, then decided to leave it.

At five to twelve, the driving-school car stopped a few doors away. Ada noticed it first. She took off her apron and hung it on the hook beside the workbench. A dark smear marked her blouse near the pocket.

Mara almost reached out.

‘Is it paint?’ Ada asked.

‘No. Oil, I think.’

‘It’ll do, then.’

She took her bag from the drawer and picked up her own key. Mara was still holding the sign.

‘I’ll put this up.’

‘Top screw’s in my apron.’

Ada didn’t look at the laptop on the counter. Mara closed it and put it in her bag. Leaving the shop door open behind her, Ada walked towards the car. The man at the wheel got out, said something Mara couldn’t hear and held the door for her.

Ada sat down. She adjusted the seat, then the mirror. It took longer than Mara expected. A van stopped behind the learner car. Its driver tapped two fingers against his steering wheel. Ada looked over her shoulder again.

Only when they had driven away did Mara hang the sign on its screws. She supported the lower edge without touching the wet letters. From across the street, it would probably look straight. She brought the stepladder inside, pulled the shop door shut and checked the handle.

Her mother hadn’t given her a key.

At the charity shop, she drove past the wrong entrance first. A sign by the big sliding doors gave the hours for donations and pointed round the side. She went round again and parked behind a man lifting two dining chairs from a trailer.

A member of staff in a green waistcoat came over to the car. He looked at the case and asked whether it worked.

‘No. The movement’s separate. Everything’s there.’

‘We don’t sell broken electrical goods.’

‘It isn’t electric.’

He bent closer to the empty opening. ‘That helps.’

He fetched a flat trolley and a second member of staff. Mara carried the wrapped glass herself. She pointed out the box of clock parts and explained about the pins in the envelope. The first man opened the box. He saw the card with her name and turned it over.

‘Can we sell it for parts?’

‘Yes.’

‘Or just the case. Some people only want the case.’

‘That’s fine.’

He took the glass door from her and laid it on an old blanket on the trolley. He put the box beside it. For a moment, as he folded the envelope shut, Mara saw the two unequal pins against the light.

‘Thank you,’ he said.

She stood there a little longer, thinking she must need to sign something. He was already pushing the trolley inside. Behind her, the man put down his second chair.

Mara went back to the car. She shook out the blanket from the boot and folded it again.

It was a quarter to one. She had the car until two, plenty of time to return it to its usual space and walk to the office. On the way, she bought a sandwich. The woman behind the counter asked whether she wanted it heated. Mara said yes and watched the cheese soften between the two halves of bread. All morning she had been going somewhere without knowing when she would be able to leave.

Back in the car park, she took the final photographs. The rear seats had to go back up. One of the belts was trapped underneath, and she had to fold the seat down again to free it. She only put her phone away once the app confirmed that the booking had ended.

The door at Bureau Veld was ajar. She could hear Lotte on the phone, speaking in her formal voice. In the kitchen, an entire cutlery drawer had been put on the floor. Nora was hunting for a clean spoon.

‘All sorted?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Good. Hester can only do half two on Friday. Did you see?’

Mara nodded, though she had only remembered the first time suggested in the message. She put her sandwich on her desk and opened her laptop.

Beside the screen lay a printout for Op straat, the exhibition’s working title. In a black-and-white photograph, a man carried a beam over his shoulder. A girl followed him with a pram that looked too big for her. The caption named the man but said nothing about the girl. Mara had marked it with a yellow question mark.

Lotte came to stand beside her. ‘That caption list. Which one can I use?’

‘I’ll send it now.’

‘Yesterday you said the one with the street names.’

‘That’s the one.’

‘It’s got the same addresses in twice.’

Mara opened the folder. Monday, Tuesday, Tuesday_new. The archive hadn’t changed the file names, only a sequence number in the corner. She had to go back to the email to find out which attachment had arrived last.

Lotte waited. Mara opened the paper wrapper round her sandwich and forgot to eat.

‘I’ll give it a version number before three,’ she said. ‘Then nobody will have to guess.’

‘I need to know whether I can carry on now.’

The photograph of the man with the beam was still open on the screen. Mara found the yellow question mark again and put her fingers on the keyboard.