The bracket clock on the mantelpiece began to chime its strident monotone, shattering the stillness of the room with a suddenness that momentarily startled her. She counted. Nine chimes. Nine? She peered over her spectacles at the clock, in disbelief. Its hands confirmed its sonorous message. Still only nine! She removed her spectacles and let out a small sigh of resignation. It was also a sigh of annoyance, of impatience. Time had broken a wing this morning or its winged chariot had lost a wheel, she thought, managing a wry smile. She had been up for hours and the morning was dragging, endlessly. She felt as she imagined a five-year-old might feel all day on Christmas Eve.

She set down her pencil on the small table and swung her feet to the carpet, tossing the newspaper aside in a disorderly heap. Why wasn’t it already ten o’clock? It felt as though it ought to be. Excited butterflies suddenly invaded her stomach again, for the umpteenth time that morning. Reaching abstractedly for the cup beside her, she took a quick mouthful of the vile contents.

“Ugh!”

She shuddered and grimaced with revulsion as she hastily deposited the cup back onto its saucer and set down her spectacles on the table beside it. She eased herself out of her chair and was already half-standing when the telephone started to ring.

Moving quickly across the room to the mahogany bureau where the telephone stood she lifted the receiver.

“Hello….” she said into the mouthpiece, her voice soft and lilting an upward inflection.

Smiling, she settled herself comfortably on the upright chair near the bureau as she recognised the caller’s voice.