Fine line cursive script on a forearm

The rain came in off the river at eleven, and by half past the stall with the blue awning had sprung a leak over the tins of marmalade. I stood under the eaves of the fishmonger's with your letter folded in my coat, the one you wrote in green ink because you said black made you sound like a solicitor. I have read it four times now. Your loops still climb off the edge of the page as if they want to get away from the bills.

Mr Okafor from the pottery stall came over with two mugs of tea he had not paid for and said the man who sells second-hand brass had been asking after you. He wanted to know whether the carriage clock with the broken hour hand was yours to sell or your mother's. I told him neither, that it belonged to the house, and the house had been sold last spring to a couple who painted the front door yellow. He laughed and said that was the most honest thing anyone had told him all week.

The turn came when the market bell rang for close and I found the brass man folding his cloth over a box. Beneath it lay the clock, its hand fixed at a quarter to four, and tucked behind the face was a card in your handwriting that I had forgotten you ever wrote. It said only: keep the time you were given. I walked home with the clock under my arm and the rain running into my collar, and I did not bother to correct the hour.