Page 106 of Right Place, Right Time
Luca looks confused by my questioning. ‘They’re a mix, really. But put together, I suppose they might look like something a man would wear in the early part of the twentieth century. Not a city gent, but more of a working-class man.’
Of course that’s what he’d choose.
‘Has anyone seen Adam yet this morning?’ I ask hopefully, looking over to his shop.
‘No,’ Orla says. ‘He’s not opened up yet. Why, what’s going on, Eve? You’ve gone awfully pale.’
‘Nothing. Everything is fine. Are you going to call the police about the break-ins?’ I ask Luca and Barney.
Luca shrugs. ‘Can’t really, can we? It wasn’t a break-in – somehow the thief got in without forcing an entry. It was almost like they had keys to open up the shops. They even locked up after they’d left. But the only people who have keys to my shop are you guys.’
‘Same here,’ Barney says. ‘Clean entry. And the only other people who have keys to my shop are also you lot.’
‘I’ll be right back,’ I tell them. ‘I’ll just go and check my shop in case the same has happened to me.’
I dash over to my shop and unlock the door. Then, unusually, I lock the door behind me before I dump the buns and coffee on the countertop. As I suspected, the grandfather clock has been pulled forward away from the wall; so I am able to easily open the door down to the office.
I head quickly down the stairs, knowing exactly what I’m going to find, but still feeling sick at the thought of it.
The light is already on in the office as I reach the bottom. I hurry over to the carved wooden doors and I’m about to pull them open when I notice there’s a white envelope on the desk addressed to me. Next to that is the bundle of keys to all the other shops in Clockmaker Court that I keep hidden in my safe, and, next to those, the brass perpetual calendar we use to make the portal work. It looks like my fears were correct.
‘What have you done?’ I say, picking up the envelope. ‘You … silly idiot!’
Eveis written in Adam’s handwriting on the front of the envelope.
I rip it open and pull out a letter, also in Adam’s handwriting.
Eve,
If you’re reading this, then you know, and I’ve not been able to get back quickly enough without you discovering what I’ve done.
I have of course gone in search of Ben and Dotty for you. I know you’ll be angry, but I couldn’t let you go back to Victorian (sorry, Edwardian!) times alone – which both of us know you would have tried to do, whatever I had to say about it.
You wouldn’t have been safe there on your own, and I simply couldn’t have lived with myself if something had happened to you or if you’d got trapped there like Dotty. So, I’m facing my fears and going through the tunnel myself, and if all goes to plan, I’ll come out the other side in 1904.
I have no intention of staying, so this isn’t a goodbye letter – you can’t get rid of me that easily! I will be back before breakfast, I PROMISE you.
But just in case I don’t see you for a little while, for whatever reason, always know I love you with all my heart, and NOTHING will stop me from returning to Clockmaker Court to be with you.
Adam xx
I stare at the letter, half angry with Adam, half in awe. He’s faced his fears and gone into a possibly dangerous, dark and enclosed space, and he’s done it for me.
‘Oh, Adam. Please be all right,’ I say, looking at the two wooden doors in front of me. ‘Please come back tome.’ With his letter still in my hand, I sit down on one of the office chairs and wait. Hoping desperately to hear the sound of someone coming back down the tunnel. But there’s nothing – just silence.
After a while, I get up and pace around the office for a bit, stopping occasionally when I think I might have heard something. But again, all I can hear is just an awful, empty silence.
Eventually, after I can pace no longer, I sit again, alone with my thoughts, and they are all about Adam.
When we first met, I thought he was the sort of annoying cocksure man I usually went out of my way to avoid. I told myself I only had to put up with him until the house clearance was complete and then we’d never have to see each other again.
But to my utter bewilderment, Adam grew on me and he got under my skin – in a good way – and now, as I continue to stare at the two wooden doors in front of me, I can hardly bear to think that I might never see him again. ‘What if what happened to Dotty happens to you?’ I mumble to myself. ‘What if you’re stuck there and you can’t get back again? I’d never forgive myself.’
I think back on our time together over the last few months. As each day passed and we uncovered more about this room and the mysteries of Clockmaker Court, I gradually began to understand there was much more to Adam than he let on. He, like me, suffered trauma in his life. The sort of terrible, scarring experiences that change you for ever, but ones that you choose not to talk about too often, because most people don’t and can’t understand. And that brought us so much closer.
But it isn’t just that. Adam is kind and funny, and most importantly, he gets me. In fact, I’d go so far as to say heknows me, sometimes better than I know myself – which is incredibly annoying when we are having a difference of opinion, but at the same time incredibly comforting too.
I wondered, after Jake, if I would ever meet anyone I could feel that strongly about again. But in Adam, I have. I have totally fallen in love with him, I want to be with him and I just know he has to come back through those doors so we can spend the rest of our lives together.
