Rob had booked a week at a luxury golf resort in Portugal, complete with ‘his and hers’ spa treatments and a couple’s golf lesson scheduled for eight a.m. on day one. Pippa didn’t even own golf shoes, nor did she want to. The idea of spending seven sun-drenched days pretending to be interested in swing technique while Rob monologued about his handicap filled her with existential dread.
She’d suggested Rome or Vienna. Somewhere with heart, history, and a respectable standard of pastry. Somewhere she could lose herself in a side street, wander into a clock museum, and marvel at eighteenth-century timepieces. But Rob had wrinkled his nose and said Vienna was‘a bit old-fashioned, babe’, which, looking back, should have been another neon-lit red flag she ran from. Preferably with a cuckoo clock under one arm and her dignity under the other.
‘It’s a shame you missed out on that clock convention thingy,’ said Rose, finishing off her packet of Wotsits. ‘Didn’t you say this year’s one was being held somewhere out of the ordinary?’
Pippa sighed. ‘Puffin Island.’
‘That’s a real place?’
‘Yes, it’s off the Northumberland coast. It’s all cliff paths and sea air and very limited WiFi. Heaven.’
It was also, more importantly, the birthplace of horological legends.
Instead of spending her week surrounded by golf carts and people named Alastair and Penelope, she could’ve been at the main event of the horology calendar. The annual Clockmakers’ Convention was like Glastonbury, but for time nerds. People travelled from all over the world to attend lectures, trade rare pieces, showcase antique pocket watches, and argue passionately about escapement mechanisms over warm conference coffee and biscuits shaped like clock faces.
This year, there was a special talk being given by Horace Vale, who was in his late eighties and something of a living legend. ‘Horace Vale’s speaking,’ she went on, her eyes lighting up despite the trauma she was currently going through. ‘I’ve been fascinated by his work for years.’
‘You were obsessed with the Vale Brothers even at primary school.’
‘Their partnership dissolved decades before then, but I was still obsessed with their designs. They were two geniuses. They started out making clocks together in a renovated barn on Puffin Island Farm, which belonged to the parents of Agatha Turner– she later married Walter Vale– and they were on the cusp of greatness, the most famous partnership British horology had ever seen. Then… BAM! Something happened, and they never spoke again.’
‘Oooh,’ said Rose, now completely invested. ‘What happened?’
‘No one knows. It’s rumoured they fell out spectacularly. Walter stayed on Puffin Island, where he lived with Agatha, and Horace moved to London. It appears they never met or spoke again, and now Walter’s dead and Horace is basically the Dumbledore of clocks. And…’
‘And?’
Pippa smiled. ‘There’s a rumour, total clock-geek hearsay, that Horace is going to talk about the rift, though I can’t see it. Either way, people are buzzing.’
‘And you’re not going why?’
‘Because I was supposed to be getting a massage in Portugal while Rob practised his swing.’ Pippa rolled her eyes.
‘You’ve definitely taken the more exciting option,’ Rose said, grinning. ‘There’s nothing stopping you going now.’
‘I probably need to stay here and face the music.’
‘Do you? If this was me, I’d keep running. Chase down the mystery of two feuding brothers.’
Pippa raised her mug of Prosecco like a toast. ‘Honestly, it sounds like self-care,’ she laughed.
‘You’re free now. No husband. No honeymoon. Just you, a suitcase, and a bunch of old men in waistcoats arguing over pendulums.’
‘You make it sound irresistible.’
‘You’ve done the dramatic church exit; you might as well go full romcom and escape to a windswept island.’
‘There is no way there would be a spare cottage or B&B room to rent at this late stage. The convention starts tomorrow morning.’
‘We can have a look. I may be stating the obvious, but this would be the ideal opportunity to gather your thoughts before you have to face anyone. Here, use my phone as I’m sure you don’t want to go anywhere near yours.’
Pippa took the phone and tapped‘Puffin Island clock convention accommodation’into Google. She scrolled, her expression increasingly grim.
‘Told you. The pub on Puffin Island is fully booked. So is the B&B. One hotel in Sea’s End– the nearest town– has a single room, but it’s a box above a fishmonger with a shared bathroom, which is… not my vibe.’
‘What about Airbnb?’
‘Even worse. Someone’s trying to rent out their garden shed for £250 a night and it’s got a composting toilet. I have limits, Rose.’
