A/N: Well, not much interest being generated by this story so if it doesn't pick up I might discontinue and delete. It's also a complete departure from my usual writing style, my last few stories have been humour! :D
Thanks to dustnik for your encouraging review.
***Chapter Two***
He was surprised to realise he'd reached the old clockmakers already. Fittingly on such a ghost-like day, the crumbling building was empty and neglected; its signage barely recognisable now, for the shop had been reincarnated thrice, as a candle-makers, pawn shop and tailor's, since William Nathaniel Barrow relocated the business to London. But the familiar large clock bearing the name Barrow and Sons still hung outside, creaking a little in the wind, forgotten and unmourned. Although the year was unrecorded and whether by early morning or early evening was similarly unknown, Time had died quietly at a quarter past six, its hands fixed forever where last its heart beat with life and hope.
And as Thomas gazed upwards, to the long sash windows at either side of the weather-worn brown clock, all time stood still, and a young boy of twelve has yet to grow.
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In winter, ice forms on the glass inside, and in summer the house is so hot they can and do ripen green tomatoes from their tomato plants on the upstairs window-sills. Today, when the sun is at its fiercest, the contrary sashes of both long windows in the large top front room have jammed and stubbornly refuse to open at all, neither up nor down, and the heat is stifling without so much as a whisper of air.
The skylight in Kate's attic bedroom will open halfway, if it's so inclined, and the windows in both Dada's and Ben's bedrooms open with no trouble at all, but their bedrooms look out on to the alleyway, and the smells from the middens and out-houses in the terraced back yards is putrid, for the coldest of winters stayed long enough to make its acquaintance with late spring before the hottest of summers arrived in a blaze of royal glory.
He's flung all the upstairs doors wide open, and the windows too, at least those that have a mind to open, and normally the large upstairs front room that serves as the Barrow family's kitchen and living quarters, since the shop greedily claims ownership of everything downstairs, draws some coolness from below, but today only the heat rises.
Sweating from his exertions, for he's lately brought up both a barrel of water, and a tub of potatoes for peeling, Thomas stops to catch his breath and idly pick out people he knows in the bustling street.
There's Harry Stancliffe with his horse and trap, the white-haired coal merchant geeing Duke along, although Thomas can't imagine why anyone would be in a hurry to light a fire on a day such as this, and Eric Soames unloading wooden crates at Jackson's grocers over the way, and Ethel Fairfield, pushing a perambulator with two small children in tow and a swollen belly again; Mrs Shepherd's boy Davy is running to the Postal Office with a brown paper parcel tucked under his arm, and Nellie Adamson, who last week called into his father's shop to purchase a new mantel clock for her employer, that ancient, wrinkled witch Miss Fox who she's pushing along in her bath-chair for her to scowl at the world and yell insults at anyone, is just…
But there's Paul! Coming out of Deakins' tobacconists with a bag of sweets and stopping in the doorway to lift his cap and fan his face. Thomas sinks to his knees to rest his arms on the window-sill and towers his fists to rest his chin.
There is a magic about him. His eyes are a merry blue and his two front teeth are crooked; Thomas knows this because he loves when Paul smiles at him. And he does. Often. He says Thomas makes him laugh with his funny stories and Thomas feels good when he makes Paul laugh. No other boy is half as much fun. Nor so beautiful. His silken fair hair is almost golden and the sun has tanned his skin nut brown. He's slim, but not skinny, and he always dresses neatly, never a button carelessly left undone or a smudge of dirt on his shirt collar. Like Thomas, and unlike many children their age, he's never barefoot, but Thomas's boots are scuffed and second-hand while Paul's shoes look brand new. They probably are.
Phyllis Baxter, Kate's friend since she started work at Jackson's, says Mr Latham left a tidy sum to his widow in his will. Although she's new to the area, Miss Baxter is pretty much in the know about what's going on in the town because she's kind and patient so people tend to tell her things. She's twenty-two, old for a shop girl, and her main work is dress-making, but she's getting married next year so saving every penny she can for her bottom drawer.
She makes everything better somehow. Bill Barrow smiles whenever he sees her and Ben is almost tolerable when Miss Baxter is about, though usually he's busy being a dirty little sneak, always running to tell tales to The Monster about him. He's nearly nine now, and Thomas had always wanted a little brother to spoil, but Ben despises him because he's different and is taking on airs and graces because their father says he, and not his eldest son, will inherit the family business. He confided in Miss Baxter he'll still buy Kate her very own cottage when he's a rich man, but he'd buy nothing for Ben, not even if he had a whole five pounds, and she saysBen might well be nicer when he grows up, he should just wait and see.
But Miss Baxter sees the best in everyone. Even Thomas. She knows his secret and keeps it; she's known ever since she brought the rag-rug she'd made to show Kate, and, like his sister, never breathed a word to anyone about how they caught him and Paul taking turns to wear the rainbow-coloured rug around their shoulders, playing at being escorted to the theatre by their sweetheart. She knows how he and Paul exchange notes and gifts and little tokens of their friendship, and says well, she's heard of such things before, and there's room for everyone in this world.
But she was wrong. It turned out there wasn't room for everyone.
