And then it came to me:the watch.
A few hours later, I’m standing at the counter in a small jeweler’s shop in town, a little backstreet place with two reinforced window displays filled with rings, necklaces,bracelets, earrings—and watches. There’s an outer door and inner door to the shop, a cramped “airlock” of sorts between the two with cameras scrutinizing your arrival. More cameras, contained within half-spheres of clear plastic, are discreetly mounted in each corner behind me; another behind the main counter that points its lens directly at the front door out onto the street. There is no way of entering this shop without being caught on at least two of them.
I’ve been here once before to get Jess a gift after Daisy was born, a platinum eternity ring set with three small rubies. The owner, then and now, still seems to run the place almost single-handed. Finally, she takes out the eyepiece and lays the Rolex watch back down on a cloth pad on the counter.
“Four,” she says finally. She’s a slight, fiftyish woman with a cloud of wiry graying hair and half-moon spectacles on a gold chain around her neck.
I wait for her to elaborate but she doesn’t say anything more.
“Four… what?”
“Thousand,” she says tersely. “I can give you four thousand for it.”
For a moment, I’m thrown. A quick look on eBay in a Starbucks this morning had suggested it might be worth a bit, but I hadn’t reallybelievedit, hadn’t really believed this was the same type, same model. Because four thousand pounds seemed like a ridiculous amount. And why would anyone leave something so valuable behind; why would they leave it in a drawer like so much junk?
“Right,” I say. “OK.”
Four. Thousand. Pounds.
A flare of shame accompanies the next thought: perhaps I won’t trytoohard to track down the previous owner after all. Itwas mine, in any case. It was in my house—so legally it belonged to me, right? At least I’d been honest with the little phone; I’d done the right thing to try getting in touch with the previous owner. I had tried and that was that.
My original plan had been to give the watch back too.
Or at least mention it, when—or if—we ever got a call back from the mystery number. Although it can’t have meantthatmuch to the previous owner if they left it unworn, unwound, unloved in a forgotten drawer for God knows how many years. I’m reminded of something else the estate agent said to me:People are as honest as they can afford to be. What was it about moving house that brought out the worst in people? Money, I supposed. More money than they would ever spend on anything else.
The jeweler takes my hesitation for reticence, fixing me with a weary stare over the top of her glasses.
“You might see more for a piece like this online and if you think you can get more for it elsewhere, take your chances on eBay or wherever, be my guest.”
“I actually didn’t realize—”
“The inscription on the back.” She flips it over, indicates the engravingEJS 11–29–75in the gold casing. “Any kind of personalization, as a rule, will tend to decrease an item’s value to a general buyer.”
“Of course,” I say. “I understand.”
“So: four thousand,” she says again. “Cash now. Yes?”
“Yes,” I say. “That would be great, thanks.”
“Family heirloom, is it?”
I nod. “Something like that.”
She slides the watch off the counter and disappears into a back room. In her place a blonde teenager appears, presumablyto keep an eye on me while her boss is busy. She’s wearing black jeans and a white blouse, a chain around her neck with the wordHollyin swirling silver script. We exchange tight smiles and I let my eyes wander over the displays beneath the glass countertop. Prices range from ninety-five pounds to three thousand five hundred for a gold bracelet inlaid with pale blue stones.
The manager reappears with a thick square book of carbon-copy forms, pink copy on top, yellow and blue copies beneath. She hands me a pen to fill in the blanks. Name, address, phone number—landline and mobile—email, date of birth, date of sale, date of acquisition, agreed sale price, and so on and so on. A tick box that reads: “I declare this is my property to sell.”
I hesitate, pen hovering over the thin carbon paper. “Didn’t realize there would be so much paperwork.”
“Provenance,” she grunts, writing out a separate receipt longhand on another sheet of paper. She has gold rings on every finger, a gold bracelet on one wrist, and a gold watch on the other. “In case any queries arise in the future over the origin of the item.”
“In case it’s stolen, you mean?”
She shrugs as if the answer is obvious. “These are the rules.”
“Are they strictly necessary, all the details requested on this form?”
She stops what she’s doing, peering at me over her half-moon glasses with unblinking eyes.
