The Saturday Appointment

The quote lay in a clear wallet. Ada had slipped the copy behind it so she wouldn’t give away her own notes by mistake. Two hundred and sixty for servicing, ninety-five for the wood. On the back she had added what needed checking in the running and striking mechanisms. That explanation wouldn’t fit on the front.

She opened at nine, as she always did on Saturdays. A few days earlier, she had wiped the sign with its new Wednesday hours; rain left grit on it. Mara’s lettering hadn’t run. Only at close quarters could you see the thin pencil line beneath it.

The street was still quiet. Across at the bakery, an awning was being wound out. Halfway, it stuck. The woman working the handle looked up and tried turning it the other way again. Ada lingered on the pavement, cloth in hand.

‘If you wind it right back in first,’ she said.

‘I have.’

Ada raised a hand and went inside. There was still an empty box to clear from the counter. Saskia at half nine, Vermeer at ten. Two conversations, the first only about a quote. Afterwards she could stay open until one without immediately beginning any new work.

She moved Friday’s small wall clock to another hook. It had been ready since Friday of the previous week. Its owner had meant to collect it yesterday, had been busy and would now come after the weekend. The week before, Ada had had to explain the delay; now it could sit here for days. She put the job sheet in the collection cupboard. The clock stayed on the wall where she could hear it.

Saskia arrived at nine twenty-nine. Her coat was open; she pulled it closed in the draught from the door.

‘I’m a little early.’

Ada slid the wallet forward. ‘Do sit down.’

Saskia looked at the customer’s chair, slipped her bag off her shoulder and sat. Her glasses were already in her hand as she opened the wallet. Their arms caught briefly on the plastic.

Ada waited for her to reach the price. It wasn’t the face people made when they couldn’t afford anything. It was someone trying to find her own question in the answer.

‘This is for the scratch?’ Saskia asked, pointing to the second line.

‘The woodwork. Touching up the colour, treating the outside. That corner won’t show so much.’

‘And the clock itself?’

‘First line. Servicing the movement, getting it running and striking properly. Then I need to test how it holds up.’

Saskia turned the sheet. Ada could see her pencil notes through the paper. Her customer didn’t read them, but put the page face up again.

‘I really only want the first part.’

Ada nodded. ‘That’s fine.’

‘My father’s always had it like that. Not that it has to stay damaged. It just doesn’t matter much to me.’

She spoke carefully, as though her preference for a scratch might offend Ada. Ada rested a finger on the blank part of the sheet.

‘You needn’t have it done.’

‘You said it caught the eye.’

‘In that light.’

Saskia glanced at the work lamp. Ada felt herself making this harder than it needed to be. She could have left out the woodwork when she wrote the quote. Then her customer wouldn’t have had to decide about it.

‘I’ll make a new one for the movement alone,’ she said.

‘I do want the hands working properly. And it mustn’t strike three when it’s two o’clock.’

‘That’s included in the first part.’

On a clean sheet she wrote two hundred and sixty, followed by what they had agreed. Saskia kept her glasses on. In the lenses, Ada could see the reversed figures of her own handwriting.

The bell rang. A woman put her head round the door and asked whether they sold batteries. Ada pointed to the tray, listed the sizes and asked what it was for. A key with a button cell, it turned out, but the woman didn’t know the number. She would fetch the key from home. The door shut again.

Ada turned back. Saskia still held the first sheet.

‘If I leave the scratch, could the wood get worse?’

‘Not from that scratch alone. I haven’t seen anything loose coming away there.’

‘We’ll leave it, then.’

Beneath the other details, Ada wrote no case restoration. She had almost shortened it to movement only, but wanted it to mean the same thing to both of them later. She slid the sheet across.

Saskia read the timing too. Ada had provisionally written: notification after servicing and testing. That gave her customer no day on which to keep an afternoon free.

‘Roughly how long?’

Ada fetched her diary. It was nearing the end of September. On the pages ahead, she had four things in pencil and two in pen. Hoving had a price and a latest week. The sports club needed a firm delivery arrangement in early December. Saskia had said she wasn’t in a hurry. That didn’t mean unlimited time.

‘I’m aiming to ring you to collect it in November.’

‘Early November or late?’

Ada pointed to a Thursday further into the run of pages. Mid-November. Two other collections were pencilled into that week, on different days.

‘This week. If it’s ready sooner, I’ll ring sooner.’

Saskia read the date and checked her phone. She looked neither pleased nor dissatisfied.

‘All right. Thursday works. It needn’t be nine on the dot.’

‘No need for that.’

Ada entered the arrangement on both copies. As Saskia signed, Ada glanced towards the window. A man was coming along the opposite pavement with a clock under his arm. She saw the white paper round the pendulum before she recognised him.

Vermeer came in at ten. The wall clock said two minutes past, but Ada hadn’t adjusted it yet. She checked her own phone. He was exactly on time.

‘Good morning,’ he said.

‘Morning. I’ll be with you shortly.’

He nodded and stayed by the door because the chair was taken. He held his clock in both hands. Saskia moved her bag from her side onto her lap. There was no second chair for waiting customers; Ada had her own stool at the workbench.

‘I could fetch the stool—’ she began.

‘No, it’s all right,’ Vermeer said. ‘I’ll wait.’

Ada returned to the quote. They only needed a copy now. The machine worked straight away. She set the copy beside her customer and picked up the file for Saskia’s clock.

‘Is your telephone number still correct?’

‘Same one.’

‘That’s everything, then.’

Saskia put her glasses into their case and the wallet into her bag. She stood and looked past Ada towards the bench.

‘Could I just see it?’

Ada could have said they ought to choose a quieter moment another day. She thought of Saskia finding the photograph of the old service slip on her phone. Seeing her own clock wasn’t much to ask.

‘It’s back there.’

She went to the back and lifted the case onto the separate side surface. Not onto open movements, not between two clocks with loose tags. Saskia stood where there was just enough room left for customers.

‘My father’s got another one,’ she said. ‘Bigger. Always in the window. You can hear it from outside.’

Ada asked whether it still ran well. Behind them, Vermeer rested his clock on the very edge of the counter, keeping one hand underneath. Ada saw it reflected in the case’s glass but didn’t turn.

Saskia said her father’s large clock ran perfectly and he wouldn’t let anyone else touch it. He had given her this one after building work left no room for it. Now he kept asking whether she had wound it. She had wound it so often she wasn’t sure whether she was hearing something that wasn’t there.

‘I’ll ring if anything changes,’ Ada said.

‘If it costs more too?’

‘Then we decide again before I go ahead.’

Saskia brushed her hand along her coat instead of over the wood. Ada noticed her keeping her fingers away. She had left the clock here, yet she seemed unsure whether she was allowed to touch it.

‘Would you like to hold it?’ Ada asked.

Saskia took it, studied the front and turned it round. Ada pointed out the small existing dent so they were clear about that too. They had noted it on Tuesday. The scratch on the corner was in the same place.

Vermeer cleared his throat. Ada looked up. He was holding his clock clear of the counter again.

‘My appointment was at ten,’ he said.

‘I know. We’re finishing.’

Saskia put down her clock and checked her phone. ‘I ought to go too.’

Getting the quote back into the right compartment of her bag took a moment. The handles caught on the zip. Ada didn’t help hold the bag. She watched Vermeer’s fingers beneath the wooden case, the red marks on his knuckles where its weight rested.

‘You can put it down there,’ she said.

‘I just did.’

He spoke quietly. Saskia wished them a good day and went out. Ada waited for her to clear the narrow space by the door, then laid clean paper in front of Vermeer.

It was nearly a quarter past ten.

‘You wanted me to listen,’ she said.

‘Three weeks ago too.’

Ada looked at him. Her answer about Wednesdays had been ready. She had directed him to Thursday, and afterwards they had agreed on this Saturday. Today he hadn’t come outside her hours.

‘You’ve had to wait.’

‘Yes.’

He didn’t put down the clock. Ada heard a small tap inside the wooden case as the pendulum caught the paper. She was about to ask whether he had taken the key out of the little door for the journey, then saw it in his breast pocket.

‘If you leave it here, I can examine it properly. First I’d like to hear what you mean by the extra tick.’

‘I came at ten so you could do that.’

‘I understand.’

‘I don’t want to leave it, then have to ring again to find out when I’m allowed to come.’

There was no job sheet for him. Ada had only his name in her diary. She hadn’t taken on any work or quoted a price. She thought of the other clocks she had needed longer to examine before she could say anything. She couldn’t pretend a ten o’clock appointment made her hands work faster.

‘All I can offer, then, is to listen with you now.’

Vermeer looked at the paper. He still held the clock.

‘Never mind. I know another shop.’

He went towards the door. Ada took one step after him and stopped. She could still say she wouldn’t charge him for the time he’d spent waiting. So obvious it would sound insulting.

The bell rang as he pushed the door open. Across the road, Saskia was unlocking her bicycle. She glanced up, saw Vermeer with his clock and bent over the lock again.

Ada removed the clean paper from the counter. The appointment was still in the diary. Instead of crossing it out, she wrote beside it: left; clock not taken in.

Towards eleven, the woman returned with the car key. Ada had the right button cell. She showed her the number and told her the price. The woman kept waiting for something else to happen until Ada realised she expected her to open the key as well. She didn’t do that here. She explained where to find the locksmith and took the battery back when the woman didn’t want to buy it on its own.

Ada returned it to the tray. It still felt like a second customer carrying something away to another shop.

She put Saskia’s old quote beneath the new one, not on top. Only two hundred and sixty remained on the job sheet. She erased the pencil mark beside the woodwork and made the agreed note about the scratch clearer.

At twelve, she managed a quarter of an hour with the small wall clock that hadn’t been collected yesterday. Nothing else needed changing. She compared its hands with the time she had noted and listened to the strike as it passed the hour. Its owner hadn’t been in a hurry to collect it, but would still expect it to work.

Ada stood with her shoulder towards the door, aware that somebody could come in at any moment. It took an effort not to turn at every shadow.

At ten to one, she began clearing the counter. Her sports bag was still under the coat rack at home, ready for Wednesday. She hadn’t asked Leonie whether she was coming; she would find out next week. Hoving’s clock parts lay on the bench. The ordered part had fitted. There had been too little time since to see what difference it made.

She put the dust cover over them. She moved the small wall clock’s Friday slip to Monday and left the rest in order.

Before shutting the door, Ada looked at the floor beside the customer’s chair. A thin scrap of white paper lay there. She bent to pick it up and saw it wasn’t from Vermeer’s clock but the torn edge of one of her own slips. She threw it away.

Outside, the bakery awning was fully extended now. The woman put a crate of empty bottles beneath its edge. Ada turned her key, slipped it into her coat pocket and walked home.