10
We quickly collect up the remnants of our lunch and head back over to the shops to examine the buildings more closely.
Adam immediately begins knocking on the outside of the wall.
‘What are you doing?’ I ask, watching him with interest.
‘I’m knocking on it.’
‘Yes, I can see that. But why?’
‘I dunno, really. It’s what they always do on TV and in films. I think it’s to hear if it’s solid or if it’s hollow.’
‘True, but that’s usually on an inside wall, not an outside one.’
‘Oh, yeah.’ Adam looks a tad embarrassed. ‘You might be right there. Shall we try inside, then?’
We head into Adam’s shop first. After he has moved a few boxes, we begin knocking on the interior wall this time.
‘Still doesn’t sound hollow, does it?’ I say, pressing my ear to the wall.
‘What are you doing?’ a voice asks from the doorway of Adam’s shop. ‘I thought I was hearing ghosts with all the knocking. Either that or the builders were back.’
‘Barney, hi,’ I say, feeling a tad awkward. ‘We were … were …’
Adams fills in for me. ‘Seeing if the walls were hollow. Hi, Barney – we haven’t met yet. I’m Adam.’
Adam goes over to Barney, who is still on the other side of the doorway, and holds out his hand. Barney reaches up and shakes it.
‘I’d come in, but you’ve got a little step,’ Barney says, looking down at Adam’s doorway. ‘Makes it a bit difficult with the wheels.’
‘Oh, God, yes, I hadn’t thought,’ Adam says anxiously, looking from Barney’s wheelchair to the step at the entrance of his shop. ‘I’m sorry, I’ll have to get that sorted.’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ Barney says good-naturedly. ‘I’m used to it with old buildings, they weren’t built for wheelchairs. Back when Clockmaker Court was built, people like me would have been hidden away from society. Either that or put in a freak show somewhere.’
Adam looks quite shocked, but I’m used to Barney’s honesty. When it comes to his disability, he never holds back and he always says it exactly how it is, and I admire him for that.
‘You wish you were that interesting!’ I say, winking at him. ‘Who’s going to pay to see you in a show?’
‘Rudeness!’ Barney says, pretending to look offended. ‘I don’t know, Adam, is she this rude to you?’
‘She is, actually,’ Adam says, suddenly getting it and joining in. ‘I thought it was just me.’
‘You poor men with your delicate egos!’ I sigh dramatically. ‘Sorry, I forgot you needed pandering to twenty-four hours a day!’
Barney grins. ‘So what are you really doing in here?’
‘Did you know there isn’t a number seven Clockmaker Court?’ I ask him. ‘I didn’t until just now. We’re number six and Adam is number eight.’
Adam and I join Barney outside and he looks back at the antiques shop. ‘What, so you reckon number seven is behind that wall?’
‘It could be. Why are we called Clockmaker Court if there’s only eleven buildings? There should be twelve, surely. If seven is missing, it should be right here between our two shops.’
‘Might just be solid behind there,’ Barney says, looking at the brick wall now.
‘It happens. Or it could be housing some old plumbing. When these shops were built, plumbed water wouldn’t have been around.
Maybe they took a building out at some stage to accommodate all the pipes and stuff when it became more common to have plumbed toilets.
Either that or it could have been a privy for the whole court.
There was often only one for a number of buildings like this. ’
‘Privy?’ Adam asks.
‘It’s an early form of toilet,’ I say. ‘An actual privy was just a hole in the ground filled with ash with a wooden bench over it. Then the term has been used as a nickname for an outdoor toilet, before indoor ones became more popular. You really think it might be where all the sewage and stuff went?’ I wrinkle up my nose.
Barney shrugs. ‘Might have been. It would explain a missing building, and there must have been twelve at some stage – otherwise, like you said, why would it be called Clockmaker Court?’
‘But how can we find out without physically knocking a hole in the wall of one of our shops?’ Adam asks.
‘Don’t look at me.’ I shrug. ‘I was quite happy with my shop until you brought all this up. Now it’s suddenly become this big mystery.’
‘But how can you not want to know? It’s interesting. It’s history .’ Adam raises his eyebrows. ‘You love history, you told me so yourself.’
‘I love the history of objects, not buildings,’ I say, folding my arms. But I have to admit I am a little intrigued.
‘Think about all the people who have been in these shops and buildings previously …’ Adam says, trying to sound mysterious to pique my interest. ‘All their stories … Aren’t you at least a tiny bit interested in what the people inhabiting these buildings have got up to in the past?’
Barney laughs. ‘He knows you pretty well already, Eve!’ Barney winks at Adam, and Adam smiles.
‘All right!’ I agree mostly to shut them both up. ‘We’ll see if we can find out. But exactly how we do that, I’m not too sure.’
‘If we could view the original plans,’ Barney says, ‘that might help. I wonder if they even kept architectural plans back when Clockmaker Court was built?’
‘They might not have back then, but any more recent updates over the years would have to have planning permission. I guess we could try to have a look online.’
‘Customers!’ Barney says, wheeling himself back to our doorway. ‘See you in a bit.’
‘I’d better go too in a minute,’ I tell Adam. ‘I’ll take a look online later if I get a chance. You need to get on with sorting your shop out if you want to open next week.’
‘Next week? I want to be open by Monday if I can.’
I look behind Adam at all the boxes of books still to be unpacked. ‘Good luck with that! You’ll have to go some today and tomorrow to achieve that goal.’
‘Ye of little faith,’ Adam says, grinning as usual. ‘Just watch me!’
I smile and leave him to it, heading back to my own shop. But I can’t help looking at the brick wall between our two shops as I pass and wondering what might be behind it …
With a busy bank holiday Saturday, and an even busier Sunday, the shops on Clockmaker Court have been full of customers, and even better, all our tills have been constantly ringing too.
So my fellow shopkeepers and I are hopeful for once that we might actually make a profit this weekend if the good weather continues into tomorrow.
‘It’s looking great,’ I tell Adam as I call in at his shop late on Sunday afternoon to find him still working away. ‘You’ve done really well.’
Although Adam has completely overhauled and redecorated Gerald’s quite dated second-hand bookshop, he’s not gone too far.
He’s managed to retain the look of a traditional old bookshop with dark wooden shelves and a delicate neutral wallpaper.
But he’s added touches of green and red in the form of Tiffany-style lampshades and a few green bankers’ lamps with brass bases perched on little side tables, to allow people to browse the books with ease in comfy leather chairs, and I’m actually quite impressed.
‘Not well enough to open up tomorrow, though,’ Adam says, his back to me as he empties a box of books onto the shelf in front of him. Unusually for him, he sounds quite deflated.
‘But that might be for the best,’ I say, trying to find a positive spin. ‘You want to open when you’re properly ready, not when you’re still in a bit of a pickle.’
Adam puts the final book from his box on the shelf and turns around, and I’m shocked to see just how exhausted he looks.
‘Gosh, you do look tired,’ I say without thinking.
‘Thanks. You might as well say I told you so.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘You told me I wouldn’t be ready to open on Monday and you told me it would be harder work than I realised. You were right on both counts.’
‘Why don’t you stop for today and carry on tomorrow?’ I say gently, realising this is not the time to agree with his statement. ‘You really do look exhausted.’
‘Why are you being so nice?’ Adam looks at me suspiciously. ‘It’s not like you at all.’
‘Gee, thanks! Any more of that and I will say I told you so.’
Adam grins. ‘There it is.’
‘Fine, if you want to be like that.’ I turn towards the door and I’m about to stomp out of the shop when I catch my foot on a yet-to-be-emptied cardboard box. I stumble and topple to the floor.
‘Are you all right?’ Adam asks, rushing over.
‘Yes, yes, I’m fine,’ I reply, humiliated.
‘Let me help you up.’ Adam offers me his hand.
I’m about to take it when I notice something. ‘What’s that?’ I ask, squinting across the floor.
‘What’s what?’
‘On the wall over there. Some of the wallpaper has peeled away under the shelves. It looks like something metal.’
‘I thought that decorator had finished quickly. If the paper is peeling away already, he must have done a shoddy job. Where exactly are you looking?’ Adam bends down to try to see where the paper is peeling.
‘He might have done us a favour, actually,’ I say, pointing. ‘Look, under the shelves just above the skirting board. It looks like there’s several layers of wallpaper that are all peeling off, not just the latest one. But behind them it looks like there’s some metal.’
‘So?’ Adam is now down on his hands and knees, trying to see what I can see.
‘So … it’s on the wall between our two shops. There shouldn’t be metal there – there should be either brick or board, or even plaster, depending on when the wall was erected. Why would there be metal?’
‘I don’t know,’ Adam says, sighing as he sits down on the floor next to me. ‘I’m too tired for trivia questions tonight.’
‘It’s not a trivia question, it’s a genuine one. There shouldn’t be metal there. Not that sort of metal, anyway. I’m not talking a metal pipe, I’m talking a heavy, thick piece of metal like you’d get on a safe or something like that.’
Adam looks wearily at me. ‘You’re not going to let this rest, are you?’
‘Considering what we were talking about yesterday, I’d say this is a rather interesting development.’