Stephen is a clock mender.

Stephen works in a little shop in a side street of the neighbouring town, surrounded by clocks – carriage clocks, wall clocks, mantel clocks, grandfather clocks.

His customers’ watches, carefully labelled, are in a safe.

They all tick at different rates as a multitude of escapements lock and release their little gear trains and many hands silently advance.

On the hour a tympani of chimes.

Stephen had shown me the escapement mechanism of my carriage clock through the glass aperture on its top.

That carriage clock is one of the few things I inherited. It came from my great-aunt Elizabeth– along with the £7000 for a “university education”.

Stephen is always neatly dressed – sports jackets, grey flannel trousers, ties. Comfortable clothes, respectful clothes. No knife-edged creases. No sporty flourishes.

I have seen him walking to work with his wife, Muriel, her arm in his. She wears a woollen dress except in the summer.

Muriel, is French. Where did they meet? Why did she choose him?

They seem rather private people – I have no idea who their friends are. I know they sent their two children to a local private school. That must have been a stretch. A family business mending clocks in a country town can’t exactly be a money-spinner.

Yesterday was the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton.

I think it would have given Stephen and Muriel great pleasure. Continuity preserved. A joyful event, impeccably managed.

Stephen’s type has been unfashionable for years, like a “conk” when Afro-American hairstyles came in.

It makes some people cautious.

I can picture Stephen on Mastermind. “Mr. Shelley, who invented the deadbeat escapement mechanism?”

“George Graham. 1715”.

“Correct”.