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    Grist Vergette's Curious Clock
    Grist Vergette's Curious Clock
    Grist Vergette's Curious Clock
    Ebook145 pages2 hours

    Grist Vergette's Curious Clock

    By David Carter

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    About this ebook

    Johnny Vergette is repairing an old bike in the garage when his mother calls him into the house.

     

    Grist Vergette, his grandfather, passed away a few weeks before, and Johnny’s inheritance has just arrived. It’s a key. The key to Grist’s old garden shed down on the allotments.

     

    Johnny goes outside where he meets Seri, the German neighbour’s daughter, and the two of them set off in the sunshine for the allotments.

     

    They discover the shed is not like other sheds. It’s bigger and better built and immaculately maintained. Inside, they discover a myriad of interesting artefacts dating back to World War II.

     

    Medals, plans, model ships, Morse code equipment, photographs, dusty TOP SECRET plans and files, convoy plotters, old money, vintage engineering magazines, wristwatches, and an old travelling clock that does not work.

     

    Johnny tosses it disdainfully to one side and continues rooting through his newly acquired treasures. Clearly, the main purpose of this shed is not gardening, but what is it?

     

    The alarm on the old clock goes off. Seri jumps. It folds back in on itself and closes with a slick click. It begins to pulse, louder and louder: VUM! VUM! VUM!

     

    Something very strange is happening. The great adventure is about to begin.

     

    David Carter’s “Grist Vergette’s Curious Clock” is out now in paperback and as an Ebook. 175 pages. A compelling read!

     

    Carter, as in all his work, creates solid three-dimensional believable characters and these protagonists are no exception, as with those less attractive characters they meet during their adventure.

    One feels an instant empathy with their youthful curiosity yet Carter generates a fear which cleverly puts the reader one step ahead as this story moves from the seemingly benign merging with a gathering plot gaining rapid nail-biting momentum towards the end.

    This work has been accurately researched and presents a well documented view of the period giving substance to an unusual, very interesting perspective and makes for an exciting, entertaining tale which nicely rationalises itself back to reality.

    David Carter is a gifted writer who can switch genres with ease.

    He has the ability to create context, devise sound characters and clever plots which keep the momentum going.

    This story reflects all that is excellent about his work and I can highly recommend it.

    Margaret Henderson Smith – Author of “Amber” and “The Turn of the Tide”.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTrackerDog Media
    Release dateJul 1, 2015
    ISBN9781513008059
    Grist Vergette's Curious Clock
    Author

    David Carter

    Dr. David Carter taught at several UK universities and Yonsei University, Seoul. He published on psychoanalysis, literature, drama, film history and applied linguistics, and was also a freelance writer and journalist. He had more than 30 years experience with amateur drama, as actor, director and for many years as chairman of a leading group in the South of England. He wrote Creative Essentials on Plays... and how to produce them and The Art of Acting, Pocket Essentials on Georges Simenon and Literary Theory, and Kamera Books on East Asian Cinema and The Western.

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      Book preview

      Grist Vergette's Curious Clock - David Carter

      This one is

      dedicated to my late and

      much missed friend,

      David Halligan

      Chapter One

      Grist Vergette passed away on the two hundredth anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar. He died peacefully, slumped in the armchair, the Daily Telegraph well read and neatly folded at the obituary column, perched on his lap. The importance of the date would not have been lost on old Grist for he was a navy man through and through. He was also a man of many secrets and they all died with him, until now.

      Grandson, Johnny Vergette, was lying on his back in the garage. He was tinkering with an old 125cc motorbike that had once belonged to his father. His hands were splashed with oil that had fed to the red checked shirt that had also once belonged to his dad. Johnny discovered it in the airing cupboard pressed senseless under the weight of clothes above. The shirt was so old fashioned it was now cool. Johnny liked it anyhow. He couldn’t wait to be seventeen when he could ride the bike on the highway, but that was still two long years away. When you are fifteen it can seem an interminable wait to become an adult. You can almost see the Promised Land, practically smell it, but you can’t touch it, daren’t touch it, and sometimes you wonder whether it will ever truly arrive.

      His mother hustled through the utility room and opened the internal door that led to the garage and cooed softly, ‘Johnny, can you come inside a moment, we need to talk to you about something very important.’

      ‘In a minute,’ he replied, just about keeping the teenage angst from his voice.

      ‘Now,’ she said, a little more firmly this time, and he began to wonder what he might have done to upset the old folks.

      He hauled himself to his feet, wiped his hands on a piece of dirty towelling, an action that only served to spread the muck around still further, and loped from the garage and into the house.

      They were sitting at the kitchen table, or at least his mother was. His dad was standing behind her, his hands on her shoulders, like a pose from a family photograph from long ago. Thankfully, neither of them appeared unduly upset, though Johnny still wondered if they had discovered the half dispatched bottle of Scotch whisky that lay beneath his tee shirts in the bottom drawer in his bedroom cupboard. He didn’t particularly like whisky, hated it in fact, but he’d bought it, and hidden it, and drunk some of the content, just because he could. True he was still only fifteen, though he looked much older, taller and broad, and he had little difficulty in buying feisty gear in the off licence. Old Abdul would always serve him in there with a smile and a joke.

      Sometimes Johnny bought stuff for his mates too, but his parents didn’t have to know about that, they didn’t need to know about any of it, about lots of the things he did, they mustn’t. Not a chance. It was none of their damned business. 

      His father comfortingly half smiled, and Johnny smiled back. What was this queer episode all about?

      ‘Sit there will you, son,’ he said, pointing to the chair opposite his mother.

      Johnny languidly sat down and his mum turned her head away and looked up at dad. He nodded, as if she should start proceedings, and then she turned back to face her little boy, who no longer was so little.

      ‘You know your granddad died,’ she began softly, as if suddenly finding something rivetingly interesting on the table in front of her.

      ‘Yeah,’ he said slowly.  Odder and odder, he thought.  ‘We went to the funeral, right? Last month?’

      ‘Yes of course we did. Well, we received your inheritance in the post today. It came by special delivery from his solicitor.’

      She pulled a blue plastic envelope from her pinny pocket and cradled it just above the surface of the gleaming table.

      ‘My inheritance?’ he said, glancing down at the skinny envelope. It didn’t look much, he couldn’t help thinking, but old Grist was always full of surprises.

      ‘Yes,’ she said, and she pulled something from the envelope and laid it in the centre of the table. It was a key, and a large key at that, long, silver, and thin. The handle was a complete oval with a hollow centre, and the business end comprised three quite separate jagged teeth that looked at if they had been yanked from a crocodile.

      ‘A key?’ he said.

      ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘A key.’

      ‘That’s it?’ he said. ‘My inheritance? From granddad? An old key?’

      ‘Yes,’ she repeated. ‘It belongs to his shed, down on the allotment.’

      Johnny couldn’t contain a laugh any longer.

      ‘He left me his garden shed?’

      ‘Yes,’ she confirmed.

      ‘He left me his garden shed in his will?’ he repeated, pulling a face, shrugging his shoulders.

      His mother bobbed her head. ‘He was most insistent that only you should have it, and that you should go there by yourself. Heaven only knows why.’

      ‘I knew he was a bit barmy, but this is crazy.’

      ‘He was your granddad,’ said father quickly. ‘He had his own ways of doing things. Yes, he was a little eccentric sometimes, but he was very good-hearted, as you well know, and very clever too. Don’t think too badly of him, John. We’d like you to go down there and take a look around.’

      ‘Now?’

      ‘Why not? It’s a nice day and there’s no time like the present.’

      Johnny Vergette nodded and grunted and grinned at his parents. They grinned back.

      ‘Okay, if that’s what you want,’ and he reached across and picked up the key and squeezed it into the back pocket of his dirty, black jeans.

      ‘Good! That’s settled then,’ said his mother.

      She seemed strangely uptight about the whole business.

      ‘I have to clean the bird,’ she mumbled, and she fled the room to fiddle with the cockatoo in the conservatory, something she often did when she was nervous or confused, or troubled, or uptight about anything, though it was difficult to tell which applied here.

      Johnny stood up and made his way to the door. He had to pass his father to leave the room. His dad clasped Johnny’s wrist and tugged him closer and whispered in his ear. ‘There’s two thousand pounds for you too, son. Just don’t tell your mother, okay? I thought we could get you a proper bike sometime.’

      The lad glanced at his father and saw the conspiratorial look set on his face like a smirking mask. Johnny nodded and smiled; they both did, as if sharing vital secrets that only the menfolk must know.

      ‘Thanks dad, thanks.’

      ‘Don’t thank me, kid; thank your granddad. It’s all down to him.’

      Johnny grinned again and ambled out through the door.

      ‘No worries then,’ his dad shouted after him. ‘Go on, son, and I hope you find something good,’ and with that his father closed the front door behind him.

      ––––––––

      The Vergette’s lived in a neat red brick Edwardian detached house. It had been built in the 1920’s long before car ownership was commonplace, and it had remained in the Vergette family ever since.

      Garages and drives hadn’t been thought of back then, but between them and the house next door, they had constructed their own driveway that was just about wide enough to let a vehicle pass between the buildings, where they could park in safety around the back. The Vergettes had added their own garage ten years before and the drive itself was shared with the neighbours, the Streckers. They were German, the Streckers, but nice enough for all that. 

      Mister Strecker was a regional manager for a cheap German supermarket group. He was in charge of all their branches in Surrey and Hampshire, but his mother still referred to him as That grocer next door. Grocer or not, it didn’t stop Johnny casting a covetous eye over Mister Strecker’s beautiful silver Mercedes Kompressor sports car whenever he had the opportunity. That day it was missing, the car, because it was Saturday morning and Mister Strecker would probably be fussing over the shoplifting figures in some utilitarian supermarket in the poorer suburbs of town. Business was booming, apparently, at the discount palaces, so they said, credit crunch and austerity, and the car seemed to prove the point.

      The Merc might have been missing but his daughter wasn’t. Her name was Seri, short for Serilda, and she was walking up the drive toward their house beneath the large oak tree that had grown far too big for the road. Seri was fifteen too, and tall, just like Johnny was, and her long blonde hair bounced happily as she walked toward him. He noticed that well enough.

      She smiled at him confidently through her neat blue eyes, and Johnny smiled back. In the sunshine she looked really cool, nothing like her usual image of loose fitting Nike and GAP grey and beige gear, topped with the obligatory baseball cap. That day she was wearing a smart green dress, and that was really unusual. He could rarely recall seeing her wearing a dress before, and he could never remember her looking like that before.

      ‘What’s with the dress, kid?’

      ‘Don’t you like it?’

      ‘It’s cool, but why?’

      ‘Been to have my photo taken. Mutter made me wear it.’

      For a moment they stood awkwardly together, each wondering what to say next, and when they did speak, they did so at exactly the same moment.

      ‘Where are you going?’ she said.

      ‘Must be off,’ he said.

      They smiled awkwardly again and then he said, ‘My granddad left me a key in his will, can you believe it? The old ragamuffin. The key to his knackered shed on the allotment. I’m going down there now to see what treasures await.’

      She smiled politely as if to say, that’s nice, and she wondered if this was an old tradition in England, and then he said, ‘Don’t suppose you’d like to come along?’

      She grinned again, broader this time. ‘Okay, why not? Nothing better to do.’

      ‘Do you wanna get changed or something, it might be a bit dusty down there.’

      ‘Nah. Better not,’ she said. ‘If I go inside mutter will make me stay for lunch and tidy my room.’

      ‘Your mum sounds like my mum.’

      ‘All mums are the same,’ she said. ‘It’s what mothers do, I guess.’

      ‘Come on then,’ he said, ‘it’s not far.’

      They walked along the tree-lined avenue and turned left past the Ring O’ Bells pub and on toward the big red brick

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