Irina threw a steely glare at her older sister, an open declaration of war unless the latter kept her mouth shut. Alicia held her gaze for a few moments and then turned round, sighing with frustration, and walked over to where the porters were loading the luggage into a van. On the way she passed her father, who noticed her red face.
‘Quarrelling already?’ asked Maximilian Carver. ‘What’s the matter?’
Irina presented the cat to her father. The feline, to its credit, purred adoringly. Never one to falter in the face of authority, Irina proceeded to make her case with a determination she had inherited from her father.
‘It’s all alone in the world. Someone’s abandoned it. We can’t leave it here. Can we take it with us? It can live in the garden and I’ll look after it. I promise,’ Irina said, her words spilling over each other.
The watchmaker looked in astonishment at the cat, then at his wife.
‘You always said caring for an animal gives a person a sense of responsibility,’ Irina added.
‘Did I ever say that?’
‘Many times. Those exact words.’
Her father sighed.
‘I don’t know what your mother will say …’
‘And what do you say, Maximilian Carver?’ asked Mrs Carver, with a grin that showed her amusement at what had now become her husband’s dilemma.
‘Well … We’d have to take it to the vet and …’
‘Pleeease …’ whimpered Irina.
The watchmaker and his wife exchanged a look.
‘Why not?’ concluded Maximilian Carver, who could not bear the thought of starting the summer with a family feud. ‘But you’ll have to look after it. Promise?’
Irina’s face lit up. The cat’s pupils narrowed to a slit until they looked like black needles against the luminous gold of its eyes.
‘Come on! Hurry up!’ said the watchmaker. ‘The luggage has been loaded.’
Holding the cat in her arms, Irina ran towards the vans. The creature, its head leaning on the girl’s shoulder, kept its eyes nailed on Max defiantly.
‘It was waiting for us,’ he muttered to himself.
‘Don’t just stand there in a daze, Max. Move it,’ his father insisted as he walked over to the vans, hand in hand with his wife.
Max followed, reluctantly.
Just then, something made him turn around and look again at the blackened face of the ancient station clock. He examined it carefully. Something about it didn’t add up. Max remembered perfectly well that when they reached the station the clock had said half past midday. Now, the hands pointed at ten minutes to twelve.
‘Max!’ his father’s voice called to him from the van. ‘We’re leaving!’
‘Coming,’ Max said to himself, his eyes still riveted to the clock.
The clock was not slow; it worked perfectly but with one peculiarity: it went backwards.
2
THE CARVERS’ NEW HOME STOOD AT THE END of a long beach that stretched along the sea like a blanket of white sand, dotted here and there with small islands of wild grass that rippled in the wind. The town itself, from which the beach extended, was made up of ornate Victorian houses arranged in a long, winding parade of spiky gables and colourful sash windows. Most were painted a soft pastel colour, their gardens and white fences all neatly aligned, reinforcing Max’s first impression that the place looked like a collection of doll’s houses. On their way, they drove through the town, along the main street and past the town square, while Maximilian Carver filled them in about the enchantments of their new home with the enthusiasm of a tour guide.
It seemed a peaceful place, wrapped in that same luminosity that had captivated Max when he saw the ocean for the first time. Judging from what he could see, most of the town’s inhabitants favoured bicycles to get about, or simply walked. The streets were spotlessly clean and the only sound, except for the occasional rumble of a motor, was the soft pounding of the sea on the beach. As they passed through, Max noticed his family’s different reactions to what was going to be the new landscape of their lives. Irina and her feline ally gazed at the neat rows of streets and houses with a calm curiosity, as if they already felt at home. Alicia, predictably, seemed a thousand miles away, lost in her thoughts, confirming Max’s conviction that he knew little or nothing about his older sister. Teenage girls, thought Max, were a mystery of evolution not even Copernicus himself could fathom.
His mother regarded the town with resignation, maintaining a forced smile to disguise the anxiety that, for some reason Max could not decipher, had taken hold of her. Finally, Maximilian Carver observed his new habitat triumphantly, glancing at each member of his clan, who in turn responded with an approving smile – anything else might have broken the watchmaker’s heart, so convinced was he that he had led his family to a new paradise.
As Max surveyed the tranquil streets bathed in warm sunlight, the spectre of war seemed very far away, almost unreal. Perhaps, he thought, his father’s decision to move to this place was an inspired one. By the time the vans drove up the road leading to their beach house, Max had already forgotten about the station clock and the jitters that Irina’s new friend had produced in him. Scanning the horizon, he thought he could distinguish the black silhouette of a ship sailing like a mirage through the haze that rose from the ocean’s surface. Seconds later, it had disappeared.