I Speak to Mister Cholmondley

Gobsmacked was the only word that fit. John Parry taught it to me in Bristol and I was so struck by its absolute rightness that I use it more often than I should, bearing in mind that nobody else living in this world has ever heard it.

That was what I felt, as I stood outside James and James that Monday afternoon. Just totally gobsmacked.

You'll have gathered, I expect, that Master James knew his business. Not only the making and repairing of clocks and instruments, but also the running of the shop. You'll remember what I said about how the shop first impressed itself upon me, all those years ago when I was just a boy; how everything there was polished and sparkling and clean. That was certainly not the case now. Just looking at the outside of the premises was enough to put you off going inside, especially if you were thinking of spending over a hundred pounds on a fine quality clock. For a start, the windows were smeared with dirt – I could see a spider's web in one corner. By the look of the dust and mud plastered on the door and windowsills nobody had bothered to wash down the outside paintwork for weeks. I was appalled – that had been my job when I was an apprentice and I'd always done it properly, even though it was a nasty, mucky business. Even worse, there was a bag of rubbish standing just inside the doorway. Any customer who wished to enter the shop would have to push past it, risking soiling his clothes. I didn't know what was inside the bag and I didn't want to find out, either.

'Carrie's better off out of this,' Viola said. 'Come on Peter, let's go in.'

Reluctantly I pushed at the handle of the door and it opened with a creak of badly oiled hinges. The inside of the shop was, if that were possible, even worse than the outside. I stopped and stood in the middle of the floor, looking around me, my mouth hanging open in disbelief.

Everywhere there was neglect and decay. The display cabinets were dull with accumulated grime. Two of them were damaged; their panes had cracked and splintered and one seemed to have no glass in it at all. An eighteenth-century long case clock by the door – it had always been there – stood silent and motionless. Nobody had raised its weights for months, I expected. The maroon carpet was matted with trodden-in filth and more cobwebs festooned the corners of the ceiling. I don't suppose that I've had my heart broken any more than anyone else of my age, but I could feel it breaking all over again as I regarded the shabby interior of the shop, with its musty smell and clouded yellow light, and compared it with the beauty and order which had been the rule in the days when I had worked there.

Nobody cared about the place any more; that was clear to me. I stepped up to the counter – the till had stuck and was indicating a sale of 3/11d – and pressed on the bell-push. Nothing happened, perhaps the cord had broken, so I shouted 'Hello! Anybody in?'

There was no reply. Nothing. No sound. Oh heavens… There was no sound at all, anywhere. No gongs, no chimes, no bells. No ticking. No ticking. This was the best clockmaker's in Oxford and there was not a single movement running in the whole place, so far as I could hear. Even the irregular rhythm of an off-beat movement (which is anathema to a clockmaker) would have been better than that dreadful dead silence. I don't think I know how to tell you how badly it affected Viola and me.

I called out again. 'Hello? Shop?' Still no response, so I ducked under the counter as I had all those years before when I was a boy and opened the door behind it. The passage was bare and dusty. I could see no light behind the glass partition that lit the workshop beyond, so I did not go in there. Truth be told, I didn't think that I could stand to see the place in the state that I knew it would be in. Not yet, anyway.

Was there anybody in the house? The kitchen was quiet but, putting my hand over the stove, I detected some residual heat rising from it. It had been lit, then, some time in the last day or two, so the place could not be completely deserted yet. I climbed the stairs to the first floor, where Master's office and the family's sitting and dining rooms were. The office was empty too, just as I expected. So was the dining room, whose dusty table and tarnished silverware told a story with which I was becoming all too familiar. That left the sitting room. I opened the door slowly. This was a room to which I had been admitted only rarely when I was an apprentice, and I retained some awe of it still.

I didn't see the man to start with. He was slouched in one of the Parker-Knoll armchairs of which Mistress was so proud (she never let me use them), facing the dead fireplace. What caught my attention first was the sight of the lamps glowing orange on top of Master's wireless set and the tiny sound of a distant voice, speaking from London, or Hilversum, or Adelaide. I dropped my bag, strode across the Persian-carpeted floor and wrenched the headphone lead from its socket on the front of the set. Elias Cholmondley opened his eyes.

'Eh? What?'

I could scarcely speak, I was so angry. 'What are you doing here? That's Master's wireless! Who said you could use it? Why aren't you minding the shop?'

Elias Cholmondley took the headset off with defiant slowness. 'Well, look!' He was talking to his daemon.' It's Peter Joyce.' He yawned. 'Peter Bloody Joyce. What's brought you back from the dead, Peter Joyce?'

Viola was counting up to ten on my behalf. I took a deep breath. 'Get out of that chair now!'

Elias Cholmondley pretended to consider whether to obey my command. With a languid air he looked around the room and then slowly stood up. 'Dam' programme was getting boring, anyway. Might as well do something else.' I noticed that there was a yellow-jacketed book on a table by the side of the chair. I bent down and picked it up. One glance was enough to tell me what sort of book it was. Elias Cholmondley affected not to notice.

'You going to make us a cup of chai, then, boy?' he said. I so very nearly flared up and struck him then. Oh Viola, where would I be without you?

'No, Mister Cholmondley. You are going to make us a cup of tea. And you can use this,' I indicated the novel he had been reading, 'to light the stove with.'

Master James was in hospital, in the Radcliffe Infirmary. The outlook was not good. Mistress was visiting him that afternoon and would be back later. Their daughter Emily was staying with her Aunt Maureen in Northampton until… until she had to leave. Each piece of bad news was delivered with something approaching relish by Elias Cholmondley as we sat in the kitchen sipping the tea he had reluctantly made. I was beginning to get over the shock of discovering the state to which the James' circumstances had deteriorated and was thinking about what needed to be done to keep things ticking over until Master could take charge of it again.

I could not allow myself to believe that Master would not return to the shop. My throat seemed to swell up inside and choke me when I thought of it.

'Right,' I said, putting down my teacup and standing up with a scrape of chair-legs on the floor. 'Cholmondley, shut the shop, get a duster and start cleaning the display cabinets. Work your way down from the upper shelves, then get some Glitto from the cupboard under the counter and polish up the glass. I'll start on the paintwork outside.'

Elias stared at me. 'What?'

'You and I are going to get this place sorted out, starting with the shop. There's a lot of cleaning up needs doing.'

'Oh yes? And just who are you to be telling me what to do, boy? Who died and left you in charge?'

I did hit him then; a savage right-handed blow to the point of the jaw. He was knocked off his chair with the force of it, and rolled over on the floor, clutching at his mouth. Red blood seeped between his fingers, to my intense satisfaction. He staggered to his feet.

'You little toe-rag. I'm going to see to you, see if I don't!' He swung ineffectually at me with his left arm. I dodged away easily.

'Oh yes?' Elias spat blood. 'Scared, are we?' He advanced towards me across the kitchen floor. There were kitchen knives resting on the sideboard to his left.

'Peter, no!'

'Don't worry, Viola,' I said. 'He can't hurt us.'

'Can't I?' Elias snatched up a ten-inch long carving knife. 'Can't I just, boy?'

The situation was getting out of hand. I either had to grab a weapon and fight, or run away. Both choices would lead down fatal paths. Our enmity was too old for either of us to back down now. Hell! Why had I been so stupid as to strike the odious little rat? I backed up to the wall, Elias slowly approaching me, holding the carving-knife, point uppermost, in his right hand. He slashed suddenly at the air in front of my face. I could not help flinching, and the back of my head knocked against the wall behind it, stunning me, so that my eyes briefly lost their focus.

Elias Cholmondley grinned – a monkey-grin such as I had seen in my very worst nightmares of him. He slashed at the air again, closer this time, then again, and at last I snapped out of the shocked trance I was in, and countered him, forcing his arm down and knocking his hand hard against the vegetable rack. The knife fell, and clattered to the stone floor of the kitchen. We stood, faces six inches apart, breathing heavily, each considering what he should do next. One of us, I knew would try to pick up the knife; and that would lead to murder. The only question was: who would be the murderer, and who the victim? Elias moved suddenly – quick as a snake – and I blocked him once more.

'Go on. Take it and kill me – if you can, boy.' Elias' breath was full in my nostrils. He had been drinking Master's sherry, I could tell.

It was a stand-off. If one of us ducked down for the knife, the other could easily push him to the ground. Who would move first, Elias Cholmondley or me? We had to do something – the situation was intolerable. The seconds ticked silently by. What would we decide?

The decision was taken out of our hands for the time being. The passageway door opened with a bang and a figure appeared in silhouette, centred in the frame.

'What is going on in here? Mister Cholmondley, Mister Joyce, will you explain yourselves, please?'

I had never been so glad to see Mistress James in all my life.