The Remaining Appointments

The car she'd booked had no ice scraper where Mara expected one. She found it under the driver's seat, between a receipt and an elastic band. The windscreen wasn't frozen, just so wet inside that she had to wipe it with her sleeve to see. She put the scraper in the door pocket. Probably not where it belonged either, but at least it could be found.

She had the car from a quarter to eight until a quarter past nine. Her mother had asked whether she could help return one large clock on Saturday morning, before the shop opened. Its owner lived on the edge of town and couldn't easily take it home by bicycle. Ada would come too. It suited Mara: she had nothing else arranged that morning and the car was near her flat. She'd sent her mother the confirmation without asking about three other errands.

Two bicycles leaned against the shop wall. Ada opened the door when she saw the car. Her coat was on over her apron, the bow showing beneath the green at the back.

‘It's not icy,’ Mara said.

‘I can see.’

‘I wondered, with the fog.’

‘I've already put my shoes on.’

Ada held the door for her. The shop smelt of toast. No clock occupied the customer's chair. The large wall clock stood protected in a sturdy transport box beside the counter, an extra board shielding the glass. Mara could still see its brown lower edge. The movement was complete; parts that needed removing for the journey were labelled and packed with it. Ada only asked her to hold the door.

‘I can take the other end too.’

‘Once it's over the step. The door first.’

Mara held it. Her mother wheeled the box to the entrance on a low trolley. Outside, they lifted it together. The weight sat further back than Mara expected. She changed her grip before they moved.

In the car, the box fitted just behind the front seat. Ada checked its support and the separate packages. It was a short journey; they needn't rush. Mara fastened her seat belt and noticed her mother still held both gloves in one hand.

‘Do we need to collect anything before we come back?’

Ada looked at her.

‘Only ourselves.’

Mara put the key in the ignition. ‘That'll do.’

A white spot marked the fan control. She turned it down when Ada loosened her scarf. It was pleasant not to have to guess whether her mother was cold.

‘How are the lessons going?’ she asked at the first traffic lights.

‘Lots of cyclists this week.’

‘Difficult?’

‘Mainly because more of them kept coming.’

Mara laughed. She had to let a cyclist through who was steering into the middle of the road without signalling. She waited with both hands on the wheel. Beside her, Ada watched the side street, not Mara's feet.

The customer's front door was open. A man in a thin cardigan waited in the hall. An old rug covered the floor; he pointed to a space on a low cupboard.

‘It can go here for a moment.’

They carried the clock inside. The man offered to help, but Ada asked him to keep the rug's corner flat. The hall was warmer than the shop. Mara lowered her end and steadied the box while her mother unpacked it. Its owner studied the dial as though trying to recall something.

‘I thought it was yellower.’

‘It's the same dial,’ Ada said. ‘Different light here.’

‘Yes. I've had that lamp replaced.’

They discussed the place on the wall. The owner had had the existing fixing checked; the clock was going back where it had hung before. Ada unwrapped the separately protected parts and returned them to their places. She asked Mara to move the empty packaging aside. Once everything was complete, she hung the clock on the checked fixing, keeping a hand on either side until it sat properly. The owner stepped back. Ada looked from the side, started it and took her time checking how it ran in place. Then they discussed what he would monitor over the next few days. He listened carefully. Halfway through, now wearing his glasses, he asked the same thing again. Her mother repeated it without the voice she used to explain things to Mara a second time.

Mara stood beside the rug, hands in her coat pockets. They might be another ten minutes. She was tempted to flatten the empty box, but the customer wanted to keep it. He said so before she bent down.

‘In case it has to travel again.’

Ada slid the protective board inside. The price had been agreed and paid; the card needed only the delivery and her checks on site. Her writing was slow, her hand still cold. Mara looked at the key rack beside the front door. Eight keys hung on different rings. From the lowest dangled a miniature wooden clog with its toe broken off.

Outside, the fog had lifted. Their car across the road was fully visible now. Mara had expected her mother to ask the time at once. Ada put on her gloves.

‘I could have kept it another week,’ she said once they were seated.

‘At the shop?’

‘Yes. Watching it. But it ran well. Better for it to be hanging there.’

Mara started the engine. Nothing in that needed looking up. They passed a row of almost bare trees. At the roundabout she missed the second exit and took the third.

‘You can get through this way too,’ Ada said.

‘I know.’

She wasn't sure. At the far end, roadworks blocked a street. A man with a shovel pointed them right. A housing estate and several speed bumps brought them back to the same road. The clock had been delivered; there was nothing behind them to knock against the seat.

Mara didn't have to park at the shop. She dropped Ada off, returned the car to its bay and checked the time. Twenty-nine minutes left. She could end the booking. When she closed the screen, no further trip followed it.

Five minutes later, back at the shop, Ada had her coat off. She put the signed card on a pile and drew the notebook towards her. Mara retrieved her bag from the customer's chair. Her mother's finger rested on a line.

‘That's another one gone.’

The page listed clocks Mara didn't recognise: boxes for dates, a row of initials, words her mother had underlined. It looked nothing like the schedule she'd wanted to make. Some parts were densely filled; others had much more space.

‘Do you want me to look at anything?’ she asked.

Ada didn't move the book away. ‘No. I'm checking the last few appointments.’

Mara sat down. With the chair clear, its back rested against a wall she'd hardly noticed before. A mark above the skirting board was probably from the clock. For six years, she'd had no need to see it.

‘Four of those jobs were due around now,’ Ada said. ‘Three had gone. Now the big one too. Later, before we close, the woman whose clock I'm not taking on is coming. She changed the collection twice.’

‘Does she still pay anything?’

‘What we agreed for looking at it. Not storage. I never agreed that with her.’

Ada drew a light line beneath the date. Mara kept the bag on her lap. She could imagine a rule for that: a time limit, a storage charge. She needn't invent one on the spot for a woman due to arrive later that day.

At nine, Ada opened the door to customers. Soon afterwards, the bell rang. A man came in with a square clock under his arm, wrapped in a fleece. He'd turned the fleece to keep the zip off the wood. Ada looked at the bundle, then his face.

‘I'd like to leave this with you,’ he said. ‘For when you're starting again.’

‘I'm not taking on major repairs at the moment.’

‘No, I saw. That's why I said for later.’

He hadn't set the clock down. Mara could see his fingers beneath the fleece. He gripped it more firmly than seemed necessary.

‘I can't take it for later either,’ Ada said. ‘Otherwise the shop will be full before I can give anyone a date.’

‘I don't need a date. It's only standing about at home.’

Ada looked at her notebook. She didn't look at Mara, as that first customer in September had done. She turned to a clear space and touched her pen to it.

‘You can ring in January. We'll discuss what's wrong with it first.’

‘I'm here now, though.’

Silence. Mara felt the edge of the bag against her wrist. She could suggest a photograph, a provisional entry, the corner where there was room now. Each would be another sort of promise. Her mother put down the pen.

‘I understand. But I'm not taking it today.’

The man looked at the customer's chair. Mara was still sitting there. She couldn't tell whether he wanted her to get up and give him somewhere to rest, or was simply surveying the room. Nothing happened.

‘I'll ring, then,’ he said.

Ada pointed to the cards beside the notice about pausing new work. Her number was printed on them. He took one, slipped it into his breast pocket and left. The bell rang twice as he held the door with his foot.

‘He wanted to leave it here,’ Mara said.

‘I heard.’

‘It sounds reasonable when he says it.’

Ada bent over the book again. ‘It is, for him.’

Coffee stood on the little worktop. Mara asked for a cup. Her mother pointed to the clean ones lined up by the sink. Ada's own mug was half full. For a few minutes they sat without talking, Mara in the customer's chair, Ada at the bench. A patch of sunshine crept slowly up the window display.

Mara asked about the two clocks going to Jeroen. The owners had agreed, Ada said. He'd collected them on Friday. The arrangements were on the cards. Mara nodded. She wanted to ask whether he would ring the owners himself, but her mother had moved on to the club's round clock.

‘That one stays until the Friday we agreed. I've kept time for it.’

‘The really big one?’

‘The rim makes it look bigger. It doesn't even strike.’

Mara looked towards the wall. A strip of window light shone on the wooden ring. The movement was so quiet she had to rule out the other ticking before she could hear it.

Ada stood and picked up the draft notice she meant to discuss with her bookkeeper on Monday. No times yet, only words and some crossed-out sentences. Mara could read workshop. Her mother slid it under the notebook when someone stopped outside the window. She didn't ask Mara to make it neat.

The customer walked on. Ada took the paper out again and added a word. Mara finished her coffee. Still hot; it hadn't sat on the hotplate as it used to. She put the cup in the sink and checked her phone. The completed car booking was in her messages. The bill would follow.

‘Send that to me,’ Ada said. ‘For the car.’

‘When it comes.’

She put on her coat. Her mother had returned to work, holding a small part up to the light. Mara would get some groceries, she thought. No need first to decide whether she was buying for two. At the door she raised her hand. Ada waved back with the hand holding the part.

Outside, sunshine covered the pavement. Mara went to the bakery. The queue reached the bread shelves. Usually, after a glance at the time, she'd have bought something at the supermarket instead. Now she joined it. Ahead of her, a boy held a coin in a warm, damp palm. Three times he asked the assistant the price of a currant bun, as though repetition might bring it down.

Mara bought two. She ate one on the way home without cutting it open and put the other in her bag. Sugar stuck to her thumb. At the next crossing, she waited for the lights to change and looked towards the little street where the car was already waiting for someone else.