Page 28 of Right Place, Right Time
‘Just as well.’ Adam stands back to look at the clock. ‘I wouldn’t have wanted to take it back out to the van again. It looks as if it were made to go in there, doesn’t it?’
‘It’s a good fit. Sorry for the bickering before,’ I say. ‘When we were moving the clock just now.’
‘You call that bickering?’ Adam grins. ‘I call it banter. Forget it.’
I nod and turn my attention back to the clock again. ‘I just need to get this working now and then I might be able to sell it on to the right buyer.’
‘You know how to mend clocks?’ Adam asks, looking impressed. ‘That’s quite a skill.’
‘No, sadly not, but I know someone who can. I usually take any clocks or watches to him, but I’m hoping he might come to me since this is so big. It’s a beautiful example for its time and the engraving on the front is magnificent.’
I crouch down and run my hand over the carved wooden tree on the door at the clock’s base.
‘Is that unusual?’ Adam asks. ‘To have a tree like that carved on the door? It’s quite a simple design, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t know that much about clocks, to be honest. I’ll have to ask Freddy when I see him. I’m sure he’ll be able to tell me.’
‘Freddy?’
‘He’s my clock expert. I do hope he can fix it; it’s such an unusual piece. It’s big, but it’s not weighty. I think because it’s made from a light oak and not a heavy mahogany. Colour makes such a difference to the saleability of wooden furniture, and light wood is definitely in right now.’
Adam yawns.
‘Am I boring you?’ I ask, raising my eyebrows. But I smile. I know just how he feels – exhausted.
‘Sorry, no, not at all. It’s just been a very long day.’
‘Yeah, I know. Shall I drop you back at the house now?’
‘Do you fancy something to eat first?’ Adam asks. ‘I’m starving.’
‘To be honest, I’d rather get a shower first and then some food.’
‘Great, let’s do that, then?’
‘Erm … what?’ I ask, confused.
‘A shower first, and then food?’ he says. ‘I brought a change of outfit – that’s what I have in my bag. That’s if you don’t mind?’
‘Don’t mind what?’ My exhausted brain simply isn’t following this.
‘If I take a shower at yours before we go for some food? I mean, I don’t have to if it makes you uncomfortable?’
‘Oh …’Oh, no, how do I get out of this?Entertaining Adam is the last thing I want to do right now. I just want to go back to my little house and be on my own with a cup of tea and some buttered toast before I collapse into my bed.
But I just haven’t got the energy right now to argue with him and he has been so helpful to me tonight. ‘All right. You can shower at mine and we’ll get something to eat – takeaway, though. I’m not going out to eat tonight. Plus you’ll have to find your own way back to your grandfather’s house later. I’m not driving you back to Grantchester once I’m all settled for the evening. How does that sound?’
‘It’s a deal.’ Adam extends his hand to me and reluctantly I shake it. ‘Now lead the way, my good friend! I’m intrigued to see Chez Sinclair in all its glory!’
8
‘Wow, do you live down here?’ Adam asks, looking at the row of higgledy-piggledy whitewashed houses that make up one side of the narrow lane where my home is. On the other side, black railings separate the houses from the church of Little St Mary’s and a churchyard full of trees and gravestones. On this March evening, the row of buildings is lit only by the old-fashioned wrought-iron lamps that hang outside each house.
‘I do.’
‘You really are living in a fairy tale, aren’t you? What with Clockmaker Court and now this fab little house.’
We’ve stopped outside one of the terraced houses. ‘Hardly,’ I say, pulling my keys from my bag and unlocking my navy-blue front door. ‘But I’m lucky to have a house like this in the centre of Cambridge.’
