It’s a gift– or, a gift of sorts– and Neil winds it now, twisting the crown clockwise and counting each rotation in his head. Five. Twelve. Nineteen. Twenty-four. The resistance in this motion begins to mount at his thirty-fifth rotation, and at forty-three, he can no longer wind it further. He pushes the crown back into place, and fashions the watch to his wrist. The minute and second hands get to work.
‘Your father would be very happy to see you wearing it, you know,’ Aunt Jenny says, her eyes still vacant from the wake. ‘I’m just glad we found it before the movers brought it to storage with the rest of his junk.’
Neil says nothing. He watches the second hand tick, tick, tick away at the numbers on the watchface, eating them up.
‘It’s a real one,’ she says quietly. ‘From Dublin. He got it when he was stationed there. An Irish Swish–’ She stutters.
‘Iwish wish–’ she tries again. Her face screws itself up in the way that he hates. “Iwrish wrish… no. Irish wishwash. Irisht… wishwash. Irish. God. An Irish wisht–’
At home, later that night. So late, in fact, that he’s the only one left awake.
Neil’s under the covers. He’s been crying, but the tears have seemed to dry up. He’s holding his father’s watch in his hands, turning it over and over and over again. It’s his first mechanical timepiece, and he wishes that his father were here to teach it to him fully. Will there be any sign that he’ll need to wind it again before it ceases to tell him the hour? Or will its ticking just stop? Without warning?
Irish wristwatch, he murmurs to himself, tracing the smooth face of the watch with his forefinger. The words come out easily, unbroken.
Irish wristwatch, he says. Irish wristwatch. Irish wristwatch.
Irish wristwatch made of red leather and yellow leather