The Senior Common Room at St Anselm's: X. The Clock

The discussion began with a chime.

The old grandfather clock in the corner announced the hour with quiet confidence.

Mr Blottisham looked up.

"There."

Professor Quillibrace raised an eyebrow.

"There what?"

"The clock has informed us."

"Has it?"

"That it is four o'clock."

Quillibrace smiled.

"Has it informed us..."

"...or have we agreed to believe it?"

Blottisham looked suspiciously at the clock.

"I've always trusted it."

"So have I."

"But why?"

"Because it keeps good time."

Miss Stray stirred her tea.

"Or perhaps because we do."

Blottisham frowned.

"I'm afraid that's one of those sentences that sounds wiser than I immediately understand."

Quillibrace picked up the latest essay.

"Our anonymous author proposes that clocks do not primarily manufacture time."

"I should hope not."

"They manufacture agreement."

Blottisham looked at the clock again.

"I was rather expecting gears."

"The gears are quite real."

"But the agreement?"

"The agreement is where the interesting work happens."

There was a brief silence.

Quillibrace continued.

"Imagine a village with no clocks."

"Breakfast would become uncertain."

"Indeed."

"The baker begins when dawn seems sufficiently advanced."

"The farmer when the weather permits."

"The schoolmaster when enough children have arrived."

Blottisham nodded.

"It sounds remarkably civilised."

"It was."

"So what changed?"

Miss Stray answered.

"The strangers."

Blottisham looked at her.

"The strangers?"

"Once people who had never met needed to cooperate..."

"...they needed something more precise than 'after lunch.'"

Quillibrace smiled.

"The railway rather encouraged this."

"I suppose it did."

"A train cannot very well leave at 'when everyone feels ready.'"

Blottisham laughed.

"I've attended committees that attempted precisely that."

"They're still in session."

For a moment the room dissolved into quiet amusement.

Then Quillibrace asked,

"When someone says, 'What time is it?'..."

"Yes?"

"...what are they usually asking?"

Blottisham answered immediately.

"The time."

"Are they?"

"Well..."

Miss Stray came to his rescue.

"They're really asking something else."

"What?"

"What can still be done."

Blottisham looked thoughtful.

"If it's half-past four..."

"...the library may still be open."

"If it's ten past midnight..."

"...perhaps not."

"So the clock isn't really describing time."

"No."

"It's describing possibilities."

Quillibrace looked delighted.

"I had hoped someone would say that."

Blottisham sat back.

"I've just realised something."

"What is it?"

"When I look at my watch before leaving the house..."

"Yes?"

"...I'm not wondering what time is."

"No."

"I'm wondering whether I'll miss the train."

"Exactly."

"The clock answers practical questions."

Miss Stray looked towards the old pendulum.

"I've always thought waiting was curious."

"In what way?"

"The clock says five minutes."

"But?"

"Sometimes it feels like an hour."

"And sometimes an hour feels like five minutes."

Blottisham nodded vigorously.

"I once spent an afternoon with old friends that disappeared completely."

"What happened to it?"

"I suspect we talked it away."

Quillibrace smiled.

"Which suggests..."

"...that lived time and measured time are not quite the same thing."

Another thoughtful silence settled over the room.

Blottisham looked towards the window.

"I wonder whether we've been slightly unfair to clocks."

"Oh?"

"We often accuse them of making us hurry."

Quillibrace nodded.

"But they don't."

"They merely tell us what we've agreed."

"The rushing is our own contribution."

Miss Stray smiled.

"Poor clocks."

"They've been blamed for rather a lot."

The Professor folded the essay.

"There is something rather beautiful about them."

"What is that?"

"They allow people who will never meet..."

"...to keep appointments with one another."

Blottisham considered this.

"The baker."

"The stationmaster."

"The surgeon."

"The orchestra."

"The postman."

"They're all quietly cooperating."

"And most of them..."

"...have no idea who the others are."

The room became still.

Outside, students crossed the quadrangle in every direction, each apparently intent upon a different destination.

Miss Stray watched them for a while.

"I suppose every one of them has looked at a clock today."

"Almost certainly."

"And yet..."

"Yes?"

"...they have all become participants in the same invisible rhythm."

Blottisham followed her gaze.

"I've never thought of a timetable as a kind of friendship."

Quillibrace smiled.

"Not friendship."

"No?"

"Courtesy."

Blottisham looked puzzled.

"Courtesy?"

"We agree to inhabit the same hours."

The old clock ticked quietly into the silence.

At length Blottisham stood to collect his coat.

"I suppose I ought to be going."

"An appointment?"

"Yes."

He glanced at the grandfather clock.

"I used to think that fellow was telling me the time."

"And now?"

Blottisham smiled.

"Now I rather suspect he's introducing me to everyone else's afternoon."

For a moment nobody spoke.

The pendulum continued its patient journey from side to side.

Then Quillibrace reached for his hat.

"My dear Blottisham..."

"Yes?"

"The finest clocks do not divide our days."

"No?"

"They quietly persuade separate lives to keep one another company."