Bella owned a collection of watches that each told her the correct time when she checked them. If anyone else checked the watches they lay there lifeless, telling a fixed time, irrelevant until Bella herself selected one and then smiled as she recognised the right moment.
The time variance reminded Bella why she was different. What seemed wrong and broken to others seemed curiously right and original to her. Ten watches. Ten times to be right now. Ten times to be now otherwise. Time was a mind map for Bella and even the poor woman lying dead with cupped hands yesterday lived on in Bella’s head at 8-15pm. It was just a question of discovering why this was so.
Her visitor that day was uncomfortable. An inside and out awkwardness , a prickly feeling as if everything was stretched over her skin, like something passed down to her in a grim Victorian novel. She could barely move. Too hot inside this room. The cerise notebook sat on her knee untouched.
She had once read the theory that we each have so many words each day and that according to our time clock these diminish as they are used up. Bella looked like the sort of person who could recharge her word count; her eyes danced, her breath warm peppermint and soft lilt as she talked of her Curiosity Workshops and the Be curious Consultancy. Yet nothing changed; Eleanor remained in a dull place, where all the words about her slumbered on, or skulked about antisocially in corners.
She bit the end of her pen, tried to taste the red plastic, imagining strawberries, red Ferraris, even blood. Nothing stirred, her mind stayed on in its private pit of a retirement home. This was no good. Try something new tack, anything please God extract me from this dullness.
She should question Bella about curiosity. A smile would buy her time. She asked for a glass of water. The heat, my age, perhaps a sore throat.
Maybe Eleanor needed a holiday. A printed brochure rested in the special private pocket of her work bag. As Bella talked, Eleanor dipped into her bag, tracing the maps with their golden lines and red boxes where Mysteries would be unveiled as each client enjoyed this post 20th C Grand Tour. Friends could be made as they journey from red box to red box. Eleanor loved her dog and mother but very little else and the small crystal figures in her grey and black apartment each testified to the shining fragility of a successful life.
The first red box promised so much of the mysteries of the past that the travellers could camp there under the stars. How about that. Under the stars, watching constellations of lights playing out stories whilst a few metres away human stories lay buried in elaborate edifices dedicated o those who dared to dream of their immortality.
The weather would be true too. Not like this country where you read the paper and they offered you some hope with your breakfast so you spent all day brightly expecting the impossible.
Bloody hell, this woman in front of her thought she could see the Bethlehem star. Eleanor’s Aunty-who-was-no-more used to go all hopeful too each Christmas when the Simms family would meet around a round table in Manchester. The tea was so milky everyone would politely offer to the next one and the cups would end up back with Aunty Pauline, puzzled to be reunited with 15 cups of undrinkable tea.
Bella had stopped talking. One eye in particular seemed amused. Nicely amused. Eleanor smiled. If in doubt smile and meet the client’s eyes. Reassure them with your open body language and easy way with compliments. Be present to your client’s world. The training was instinctive. Eleanor was at the height of her profession. Talented, assured and yet, so incisive.
Very intrguiing and exciting writing – is it part of a longer piece. I like the sentence ‘ What seemed wrong and broken to others seemed curiously right and original to her.’
This has made me curious for more…
Jennifer