Skull, roses and pocket watches on a calf

The snow has closed the Cross Keys since Thursday, and Father has finally stopped pretending the road will open before Sunday. I am writing at the back parlour table with the lamp turned low, because the guest in number four has been awake since midnight winding his watches, and I would rather not hear the clicking through the wall.

He came in off the moor with one coat and two pocket watches, both stopped, and asked whether a room could be had against them until the thaw. Father said no, then yes, then kept the smaller one against the bill. The larger he would not part with. Its dial has two little hands that never agree, and its case is worn so smooth at the edges it looks like river stone.

This morning I found a rose pressed between the pages of the guest book, dry and the colour of weak tea. Beneath it, in pencil, he had written: For the one who keeps the time. I do not know who he meant, unless it was the hall clock, which Father has not wound since Christmas.

So I wound it. The clock took a full minute to catch, then ran as if it had only been waiting for someone to ask. Upstairs, the clicking stopped. I went up with a candle and knocked. He opened the door holding his big watch open in his palm, and both hands had moved to a quarter past eight, the hour the snow thinned to nothing.

Write soon. Tell me the roads are open in Leeds.

Lizzie