One Clock Fewer

Saskia was ten minutes early. Ada saw her through the window as she finished writing on the job card. The woman carried a rectangular shopping bag: too big for the clock judging by the opening, too small once you allowed for something to protect it.

Ada put down her pen and went to the door. Saskia's hand was already on the handle.

‘I was nearby,’ she said. ‘I can wait.’

‘It's ready. Come in.’

She took the mantel clock from the low cupboard behind the counter. The wood darkened where the curved top met the straight base. Beneath the glass over the dial was a small change in colour Ada could never have evened out without working on the finish. That wasn't what they'd agreed. She set the clock on the counter and fetched the card.

Saskia leaned forward, earrings swinging past her collar.

‘It's going again.’

‘It's been running well here. I've kept a record.’

Ada laid the monitoring card beside it. She went through the work covered by the agreed service, including checking the striking mechanism. Her pen followed the lines without pushing the card at Saskia, who read slowly. A finger moved to the heading where the additional restoration work had appeared.

‘So that hasn't been done.’

‘No. We took that off together.’

‘Yes, I know.’ Saskia looked up. ‘I only wanted to check whether this was the paperwork for the first price.’

Ada realised she'd lifted her chin. She lowered the pen.

‘No. This is what we finally agreed. I've still got the old quote here, with the lines through it.’

‘That's all right, then.’

Saskia turned the clock slightly towards the light. Ada's hand went automatically to its base. The woman had a firm hold and put it down without scraping it.

‘That scratch,’ she said. ‘Was it there before?’

A pale, fine line ran diagonally along the curve of the wood on the right-hand side. Ada knew it. Or thought she did. She'd spent so long with the movement out of its case that her memory of the outside was less reliable than she'd have liked.

‘I haven't done any work on the wood,’ she said.

‘No. But it's been here.’

The words lay between them on the counter. Saskia let go of the clock and folded her hands round the bag's handle. Ada looked at the mark again. She couldn't turn looking into evidence.

‘Let me check the photographs.’

She'd taken a few on her phone when the clock came in. Not because they were good photographs, but because a loose strip at the bottom of the case was something she didn't want to find herself wondering about later. The first showed the front. In the second, her thumb covered half the lens. She swiped past it. The third caught the side, small and crooked in the frame.

Saskia came round beside her. Ada spread two fingers to enlarge the image. The wood grew grainy. Beneath the lamp's reflection was a pale line, darker at one end.

‘That looks like it,’ Saskia said.

‘I think so too. It's the same shape. But the picture isn't sharp.’

She held the phone beside the clock. The woman looked from photograph to wood.

‘Dad kept it on a cupboard with a vase next to it. The vase used to get pushed past like this.’ She made a little movement with her hand. ‘I couldn't remember which side.’

Ada nodded. She'd been about to say that you could hardly touch the case there without noticing. Instead, she offered to send the photograph.

‘Please. Then I won't have to ask him again. We'd get forty-five minutes about that vase.’

Ada smiled. So did Saskia, still looking at the scratch. She tapped her bag with a fingernail.

‘I don't need it taking out. If it was already there.’

‘I understand.’

Ada sent the photograph. It took a moment to find the contact; she'd saved people by first name and had two Saskias. The other worked at the bookshop. She asked her customer to check the final digits against the number on the job card, then put the phone away.

At the till, Ada looked at the two hundred and sixty euros she'd written on their final agreement. She had to find the figure again, although she'd checked it yesterday. The first quote was at the back. Three hundred and fifty-five, including the woodwork she hadn't done, still in her neat handwriting.

Saskia tapped her card against the terminal. It beeped. Ada slipped the receipt into an envelope and asked where the clock would go at home.

‘On the sideboard. Possibly somewhere else. My husband thinks there's too much going on with it beside the television.’

‘Put it where you mean to keep it. Let me know how it runs there.’

They discussed a brief check in two weeks. Saskia got out her diary. The suggested Thursday was no good; Friday would work. Ada put down Friday afternoon. No new service, just the agreed follow-up if its running at home gave them reason to look again. She repeated that last part, noticing her own pen had already reached the next line.

‘I'll ring first,’ Saskia said. ‘If it's going properly, there's no point bringing it out in the rain.’

‘No.’

The bag was indeed too narrow once they added protection. Saskia tried tilting the clock. Ada asked her to wait and brought a sturdy box from the back room. Not tall enough to close, but wide enough. They wrapped the case in a clean old towel. Its separate parts were labelled and individually protected. Ada checked them with her.

‘I can get it to the car,’ Saskia said.

Ada held the door. The car was two spaces along. Saskia put the box on the empty passenger seat, then moved it into the footwell. She didn't come back for help. Through the window, Ada watched her lean across to check the box before getting in.

The space on the cupboard behind the counter was dusty. Ada wiped it with a cloth, leaving a narrow pale patch. She didn't put another clock there. First, the card went into the folder for collected work.

As she entered the date, she noticed a small stain beside Saskia's name. Probably coffee. It hid nothing. She didn't write out a clean card.

Before lunch she had three things to do: record the latest check on a small wall clock, ring the owner of the battery clock, and send the two permissions on to Jeroen. Those last arrangements were for next week. They still needed written confirmation; until then the clocks stayed with her. She wasn't going to take them over simply because she happened to be heading that way.

The kitchen clock's owner answered at her second attempt.

‘You're collecting your clock today,’ Ada said. ‘I wondered roughly what time. Then I can have it ready.’

‘Would half past four do?’

‘That's fine.’

‘The new one's up already,’ the man said. ‘I still want this one back, though. Might use it as a coat rack.’

‘I wouldn't.’

‘I didn't really mean it.’

Ada heard herself laugh, a moment after him. She wrote half past four on the card. A modern quartz clock with a yellowish-white rim where flowers had once been. Now there were only a few dark leaves near the six. Having a battery hadn't made it an ancient timepiece. Yet it had occupied almost as much room in her mind as the club's large wooden clock.

She ate her sandwich in the back room. On the radio, two people talked over each other about a film neither of them liked. She'd only caught one name. When the shop phone rang, she put her plate down and answered. By the time she came back, a song she knew was playing.

The afternoon didn't proceed in a straight line. Someone wanted a key they didn't sell. A man asked whether a clock he'd seen in a photograph came in red. Between visitors, an owner confirmed the quote Ada had sent after counting the work in hand. She agreed to the work and the price; collection could stay on the date next week. Ada noted the confirmation before moving the clock to the shelf for agreed repairs. A parcel for the shop next door ended up with her. She took it, wrote the name on it and left it by the door. At three, her neighbour fetched it.

Between these visits, Ada worked on the small wall clock. Its pendulum had been swinging for a while, but she hadn't watched it run in the testing position long enough to call it ready. She noted what she'd seen and put it back. She was tempted to ring the owner already. A space had just opened up. A clock collected meant money coming in. She moved the card to tomorrow's row and left the telephone alone.

At a quarter past four, she drew the folder listing the clocks in hand towards her. At first it had felt like a tally of everything mounting up over her head. Now she could date some lines without adding another promise. Her finger followed them. Saskia's mantel clock had gone earlier that day. The small jobs from the past fortnight were in the collected folder. Not everything had left: the sports club's large round clock still hung on the testing wall. It didn't strike. For something so big, it contributed surprisingly little to the noise.

When she turned the list over, there were bills. She'd paid for Jeroen's investigation; the hundred and eighty euros was down as a cost. Paul Hoving's ninety had gone back to him. She still sometimes had to point out the distinction to herself when a refund on her bank statement looked bigger than the mistake she'd actually made.

The kitchen clock's owner arrived on time. He had no bag, only a folding umbrella, which he stood against the wall outside. Ada put the clock and its card on the counter.

‘That's the one.’

‘Good,’ he said. ‘Otherwise I wouldn't know what I'd come for.’

He turned it over. Ada didn't point out the inside again. He only wanted to check the metal hanging loop was still secure.

‘That screw was loose before,’ he said. ‘That's why it always hung crooked.’

Ada looked. The loop was firm. The man tucked the clock under his arm.

‘I'll practise with it without the coat rack for now.’

At the door he turned. ‘If I ever have anything else, can I still ring?’

‘You can ring. We'll see what's possible.’

‘Right.’

After he'd gone, the umbrella was still leaning against the wall. Ada spotted it when the man had already crossed the road. She raised an arm and called. Two people turned. He came back, shook his head and picked it up.

‘I suppose that had stopped working too.’

Ada laughed. It came easily, without having to find a polite way to end it.

Inside, she laid the second card beside the first. Two things off the list. One repaired, one not. On the workbench, tomorrow's small wall clock stood a little too close to the lamp at one corner. She moved the lamp, picked up her tweezers and sat down.

Her heel knocked the sports bag under the table. Yesterday's shoes were still in it. She hadn't even unpacked them. After a moment, she moved the bag beside the coat stand and settled her feet again. On the wall the large clock kept time, much more quietly than the radio.