What January Costs

The bookkeeper hung his coat over the back of the chair, changed his mind and put it on again because of the draught from the door. Ada moved the electric heater a little closer to him. She left it switched off. Whenever it ran at the same time as the kettle, she began wondering what else was on that circuit.

‘Coffee?’

‘Please.’

‘Freshly made.’

‘You said that last time.’

‘It was true then too.’

He smiled and laid his folder on his lap. He'd allowed an hour for this Monday afternoon. Ada had set out the statements, her record of hours and three sheets with proposed jobs for January. None of those clocks was here yet. Their owners had kept them at home until they knew what they were agreeing to.

A man stood at the counter waiting for a watch battery. Ada had asked him to give her a moment; meanwhile he studied the hands in the display case. Her visitor slipped an envelope beneath the folder and asked where she wanted to start.

‘With what's left,’ Ada said.

He opened the folder. She showed him the column for money available to the business. It had started at four thousand two hundred. September's receipts had fallen ninety euros short of the normal monthly outgoings, October's a hundred. He followed the figures with his finger. The customer tapped his ring against the glass counter.

‘Four thousand and ten,’ the bookkeeper said.

Ada nodded. ‘And the hundred and eighty this month.’

‘The assessment.’

‘Yes.’

She handed him Jeroen's invoice. Not the ninety euros returned to Paul; that was on the other sheet, under money held for customers. The bookkeeper checked the invoice against the statement. He asked whether all November's normal receipts were in. Not yet, Ada said. A few people were collecting clocks this week. She wanted the last payments entered before she closed the month.

‘Then we'll leave this open for now.’

He made a small mark in the margin. Ada had written in a figure herself, then added a question mark. She didn't rub it out. It was clear enough that she didn't know yet.

The watch customer coughed. She excused herself, got up and attended to him. A deep scratch ran across the back of the watch. He pointed it out before she could ask. He knew exactly when he'd done it: between the shed door and his bicycle handlebars. Ada listened, finished the routine job and gave him his receipt. It took twelve minutes.

When she came back, the bookkeeper had laid his pen across the notebook. He hadn't spent the time inventing hours for her.

‘That time,’ Ada said. ‘That's part of it too.’

She showed him the January sheet. Monday: workshop, six hours. Tuesday, Thursday and Friday: two hours before opening. Wednesday: nothing. She'd written nothing without stopping to consider the word free. On those three days, customers would come from eleven, on Saturdays from ten. Saturday would be an hour shorter than now, the other days shortened at both ends.

‘And you'll do repairs during opening hours too?’ he asked.

‘When it's quiet.’

‘Can you book paid work against those hours?’

Ada looked at the counter. The watch was gone. The door was shut again. ‘Not in advance.’

He nodded and drew a line beside the twelve workshop hours. Over an average month, that made about fifty-two. Beneath that, Ada had put thirty-six hours of paid repair work. The rest was for assessments, discussions, orders, paperwork and everything between one job and the next. At first, she'd thought sixteen hours was too generous. Then she'd looked back at the Friday when she hadn't managed to finish a single clock after lunch.

‘These aren't all hours I'll have spare,’ she said. ‘They're hours I won't book anyone into.’

‘Yes.’

He didn't reach for the calculator. She'd already done the sums. He checked where she'd counted the same costs twice and where a figure represented receipts alone. Ada had deducted the same materials from two different totals. He pointed them out. She removed the second deduction. She'd turned the notebook so he could read it; the paper curled up slightly beside the spiral.

‘At thirty-six hours, with this average rate, I get this,’ she said.

Two thousand three hundred and forty. Beneath it was six hundred and ten for parts and the small jobs at the counter. Together, two thousand nine hundred and fifty. She hadn't drawn a box round the total. The next sheet listed the monthly outgoings: shop rent, other fixed costs, materials and outside work, the money she set aside, her drawings. Against that last item she'd now put nine hundred and fifty.

The bookkeeper pointed. ‘That's less.’

‘I know.’

He lowered his pen. She'd been too quick. Ada turned her mug handle towards her.

‘A hundred and fifty less. I've looked at things at home. I can try it.’

‘Including the lessons?’

‘I pay for those privately. They're not in there.’

She tapped the business figures. Then she took the little slip from her bag on which she'd written her own regular income and expenses. He didn't look until she placed it in front of him. Her pension was there, her rent at home and the lessons. She'd allowed something for badminton that seemed negligible beside a large repair, but grew if she kept forgetting to count it. She didn't yet know which racket she wanted to buy. She needn't decide that today.

‘Then the question is how many of those thirty-six hours you can actually sell,’ he said.

Ada picked up the three quotes. The first had been accepted by email that morning. Seven hours at the new rate, fifty-five for parts. Five hundred and ten altogether. She'd confirmed the January appointment. The customer had asked whether he could bring it before Christmas; she'd written back to say no. He would bring the clock on the agreed day in January.

The second quote lay face down. She still had to answer that one. Five hours and parts: four hundred and five. The customer had asked whether she could charge the rate his neighbour had paid two years ago. He'd even offered to ask the neighbour to find the bill.

‘If I change that,’ Ada said, ‘I might as well throw this whole sheet away.’

‘Perhaps. But you have to answer him.’

She picked up the phone. He answered straight away. He sounded as though he was outside, with traffic behind him. Ada gave her name and asked whether it was a good moment.

‘Go ahead.’

She gave him the price for the work she could offer, including the assessment they'd discussed and the parts she'd listed. He asked whether she could leave a few things out.

‘What you're referring to is part of what I need to do to return it in proper working order. I can't make it a smaller job just on paper.’

He went quiet. A horn sounded in the background.

‘Then I'll leave it,’ he said. ‘I think it's too much for that clock.’

Ada looked at the sheet. ‘I understand.’

She didn't know whether it was too much for him; she hadn't seen his bank account. But she could understand not wanting to spend it on the clock. It was his. He said someone had given him an address in another village. Ada almost hoped he'd ask what she thought of it. He didn't.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘Now I know.’

After the call, she didn't cross out the amount. She wrote declined beside it. The five hours remained empty in her schedule.

The third answer arrived as the bookkeeper was putting the first invoices back into his folder. A woman had chosen the assessment alone: one hour at sixty-five euros. Then a phone call before anything else. She wasn't committing to the whole repair yet. Ada read the email twice. Nowhere did it say that the work afterwards was certain to go ahead.

‘Eight hours,’ she said.

The bookkeeper looked up.

‘Out of thirty-six. Eight actually agreed. Five hundred and seventy-five in work and parts. If it all goes ahead as arranged.’

She had a page full of figures and hadn't filled a third of the paid hours. Outside, a woman raised her hand to someone across the road. She didn't come into the shop.

‘I can arrange more in December, of course,’ Ada said.

‘Of course.’

He didn't make it sound reassuring. The bell rang. A customer asked whether she had any straps that weren't leather. Ada pointed to the display and asked him to wait a moment. He nodded, sat in the customer's chair and took out his phone.

She showed the bookkeeper the last sheet. It held the amount needed to cover the listed outgoings: two thousand eight hundred and fifty. A hundred less than her expected receipts. A narrow space between two figures, both of which she still had to achieve.

‘I want to try it until the end of March,’ she said. ‘Then look again. Not when I've already had nothing left for months.’

She'd set six hundred as the most extra she was prepared to risk. Her own money, from the funds still available in the business. The bookkeeper asked what she'd do if it ran out earlier. Ada ran her thumbnail along the paper's edge.

‘Not wait until March.’

It sounded stricter aloud. She wrote it down. First, she wanted to try one Monday the following week, moving the appointments that could already be moved. She'd rung someone about collecting a clock that Monday. Thursday suited the customer. Nothing was on the door yet; she'd put a notice up well beforehand.

The bookkeeper closed his folder. The hour was up, interruptions included. They agreed what he'd need for the next routine check. Ada asked him to look once more at the sum at the bottom of the sheet. She'd written a five that looked like a six.

‘Five,’ he said.

‘I know. I might not tomorrow.’

He wrote a clearer five beside hers. Then he settled his coat and picked up the folder. Ada saw him out and returned to the customer waiting for a strap.

The first plastic strap didn't fit his watch case. The second was too dark. He held the third beside the dial and asked whether there wasn't a colour somewhere between the two. Ada fetched the tray with the other sizes. Behind him, her new sheet of hours lay on the chair, weighted with the calculator to stop it sliding off.

Only at half past five did she have time to put it away. She filed the three answers at the back: accepted, declined, assessment. On the first job card, she wrote the appointment and bring in January. On the second, only the date of the phone call. The third got a box to remind her to ring before proceeding.

She slid the folder into the cupboard, took it out again and retrieved her little personal budget. That belonged in her bag. It almost caught between a parts supplier's envelope and the elastic band she'd meant to put round the folder. Ada smoothed it on her knee.

Before going home, she took a sheet of cream paper from the drawer. In pencil, she wrote the date of the trial Monday at the top, with workshop beneath. At the word closed, her hand paused. It had to be clear that this was one day, and when the normal arrangements would apply again. She turned the sheet over and started again, this time with the date in larger letters.