by Nina Allan
They passed through an archway into a dining room. The table was already laid. A heated hostess trolley stood off to one side, laden with serving dishes and condiments. The idea of Norman preparing food was somehow ridiculous. He must have a cook, Owen supposed, or else he had hired an outside caterer for the occasion. He took his place at the table where Norman indicated. As he settled himself in his seat, Angela Norman entered the room.
She had a careful way of moving, Owen noticed, as if she were afraid of bumping into something and upsetting it. She was wearing a loose, shapeless dress in a biscuit-coloured jersey fabric, heavy horn-rimmed spectacles and a preoccupied expression. Her dark, frizzy hair was gathered on top of her head in a velvet band. Owen smiled at her nervously.
“Hello,” he said. He extended his hand. “Owen Andrews.”
“I’m Angela.” She smiled, and when she took his hand in hers, Owen noticed that two of her knuckles were grazed. “Don’t worry about that,” she said, seeing him looking. “I scraped it on a rock, that’s all. I was looking for snails.”
“She’s always poking about, seeking out vermin,” Norman said. “You’ll have to humour her, I’m afraid.”
Angela raised her eyebrows, a gesture so slight and so swift that if Owen had not been looking right at her he would have missed it. They were grinning at each other, he realised, as if they had known one another a great deal longer than the approximately thirty seconds that had so far elapsed.
“Let’s eat,” said Lionel Norman. He uncovered a large Delft tureen, releasing the warm and spicy fragrance of mulligatawny soup. Owen’s stomach growled. The soup tasted as delicious as it smelled and Owen found he had emptied his dish in less than five minutes. How uncouth I must seem to her, he mused. He glanced across at Angela but she seemed lost in thought, her spoon suspended midway between her mouth and her half-empty plate.
Morton had abandoned his sherry in favour of red wine. Owen filled his own glass with water from a carafe on the sideboard. He did not want to risk becoming even slightly drunk in front of Angela. Morton’s good mood continued. He seemed unaware both of Owen’s growing dislike of their client and of Norman’s general odiousness, and Owen thought that anyone observing the scene from outside could be forgiven for thinking that this was Morton’s home, Morton’s wine, Morton’s lunch party. Norman himself seemed unchastened by being so volubly upstaged. He was already on his third or fourth glass of wine. Beads of sweat gleamed on his forehead and temples. A section of his slicked-back hair had fallen forward, making him resemble a card sharp in a Roman casino.
“Do tell us about your collection,” Morton was saying. “What gave you the bug?”
“You want me to talk about watches? Don’t get me started.”
Empty rhetoric, as it turned out, as Norman seemed happy to hold forth on the subject with no further persuasion whatsoever. He told them how he had been given his first watch by his father, a Longines Solar Eclipse with a silvered dial and thirteen complications.
“Dad gave me it as a reward for passing my eleven-plus. I was never what you’d call academic, but I knew how to work hard. Dad was a self-made man. The headmaster of my school looked down on him, but I swear Dad taught me more about life than that old bastard ever did.” He leaned back in his seat, brandishing his wine glass. “Of course Dad would never have guessed that most of the money I earned would end up going on expensive watches.”
He laughed loudly, and pushed back his hair. The gesture disarmed him, and Owen was dismayed to discern something of himself in Norman’s story, only in his case it had been his Uncle Henry’s pocket watch that had hooked him. Henry worked as a bookkeeper for a local grain merchant, though his true passion was for history, and his narrow cottage was crammed with books and periodicals and interesting curios. Henry’s pocket watch was gold, with a skull and candle etched into the back of the case.
“It’s called a vanitas,” Henry had told him. “The vanitas shows us that the clock is always ticking, even when the candle burns most brightly.”
The watch had once belonged to a doctor, Henry said. Owen was enthralled by it, by its rotund, golden smoothness, its mellow, patient ticking, most of all by its self-containment, which to Owen seemed more reminiscent of eternity than mortality. He began to save the pennies and shillings he earned doing jobs for his father on site and bought an instruction manual on the care and repair of pocket watches. By studying the manual he learned to draw and name the parts of a watch mechanism, and to understand their function. Gradually it dawned on him that watches were not simply objects to be purchased and admired, they were machines that had first to be manufactured by an expert craftsman. That he himself might design such a machine, much as his own father might design and build a new school washroom, or a stable block.
Owen felt a brief burst of pride in himself that his own instincts had been creative rather than acquisitive, but the emotion felt sordid, unworthy, and Owen recognised it as nothing more than an outburst of his personal animosity towards Norman himself. He asked himself why it was, exactly, that he disliked Norman so much on such cursory acquaintance. It was not as if Norman had done anything to harm him – rather the opposite – and it had never previously been his habit to take against people. He sensed that Norman was a bully, yet he had no evidence. His treatment of Angela was patronising but then Owen supposed he was like that with everyone.
Norman told them he had decided to commission Morton because he had been recommended by a client, and because Norman felt it was important to support English watchmaking. He used phrases like ‘an investment in creativity’ and ‘giving something back to society’, the kind of highfalutin talk rich men were apt to spout when they had a bit of extra money to splash around.
Once again, Owen felt mean-spirited and guilty, but there seemed nothing he could do to banish his misgivings. What it came down to was he simply did not trust the man. As he tried casting around for something more solid to back up his suspicions, all he could come up with was that much as Lionel Norman seemed to enjoy informing them of how he spent his money, he had not said a word about how he earned it.
* * *
They came to the end of the meal. Norman and Morton had polished off three bottles of claret between them while Owen worked his way through the selection of meat dishes and seasoned vegetables in the seemingly endless array of covered platters contained within the hostess trolley. He felt drowsy, piggish, his stomach heavy from overindulgence, discomfited at being so ready to take advantage of Lionel Norman’s hospitality whilst harbouring such rancour against him. He kept glancing towards Angela, desperate to know what she might be thinking. Suddenly she turned to look at him, her eyes behind the heavy glasses golden and clear.
“Would you care to see the garden?” she said.
Her approach was so direct he was taken aback, yet he felt certain he sensed at the root of it the shared desire to get away from her father, at least for a time.
“That would be excellent,” Owen said. “I could do with some fresh air.”
“Don’t let her lead you astray,” Norman drawled, his voice sluggish from the wine. “Her and her ridiculous animals.”
Owen gave a short laugh, not trusting himself to speak. As he and Angela both made for the door, he felt his fingers brush accidentally against the back of her hand. He opened his mouth to apologise but she was already halfway down the hall. He could feel his fury at Norman receding and he put that down to Angela, the calmness of her presence, the otherworldliness that felt simultaneously strange and utterly familiar. He ached to touch her hand again, this time for longer.
The outside air invigorated his senses like a draught of cool water. Owen smelled the sharp tang of seaweed and brine, at once rank and medicinal, antiseptic and corrosive. He recalled stranded flotsam and kelp on the beach at Dawlish, the rotting, barnacle-encrusted breakwater at low tide, and for a second he found he could almost hear the high, outraged shriek of his brother Anthony as the paper kite he had made at scout camp ditched
itself like a shotdown pheasant into the waves. The garden immediately behind the house had been arranged formally, a wide lawn bordered by shrubs. At the bottom of the garden was a low wall. On the other side of the wall were the wilds, not woods exactly but a tract of scrubland, thick with bushy outcrops of tamarisk and dune grass, scattered here and there with stunted trees.
“Trees don’t grow well here,” Angela said. “They don’t like the salt.” She led him through a gap in the wall, presumably where a gate had been. A stony path wound its way through the undergrowth.
“Is all this land yours?” Owen asked.
“It’s my father’s. He bought it because he wanted to put more houses on it, but the council won’t let him. Not so far, anyway. He’s been at war with them for years.” She turned to face him. “I’ve told him that if he ever builds on this land I’ll never speak to him again. Most of this stretch of coast has been developed now, but the land between Goring and Ferring is still unspoiled. My father wants to use it for executive homes.” She paused. “When I was small I called it the Mermaids’ Garden. I used to play out here for hours. Now I’m making a study of the plants and invertebrates here. This land is home to a rare variety of land snail. Not that my father gives a damn about that.”
She stood looking out over the tangled underbrush, loose strands of her hair blown back by the breeze, and Owen sensed a passion in her, a current of feeling so highly charged it seemed to galvanise her. Angela Norman had remained mostly silent through their long luncheon. Here in the open and away from her father she seemed a different person.
“Are you looking forward to Cambridge?” Owen said.
“I’m afraid he’ll find a way to stop me from going,” she said. “I know that sounds stupid, but I can’t help worrying.”
She meant her father, of course, and Owen felt his fury at the man rising in his gut again.
“He can’t. Not once you’re eighteen.”
“You don’t know my father. Not yet.” She smiled and then shrugged, a slow, contemplative gesture, drawing her shoulders up to meet her hair in a manner that reminded him of the ravens he often saw in Merrick Square, just across from the workshop, sheltering from the rain. “I don’t want to talk about him. Can I write to you in London?”
Once again, her question was so direct and so unexpected it was almost shocking, and he wondered what it was she found to like in him, a cripple who had done nothing but slouch at the table and stuff his face with food, all the while dancing attendance on her hated father.
The idea of receiving a letter from her sent a shiver along his nerves. He knew instinctively that Lionel Norman would be vehemently against the idea of a correspondence, would try to prevent it if he could, and the knowledge filled him with glee. But behind the more frivolous emotion was something else, a feeling that had nothing to do with Lionel Norman and everything to do with Angela. When he woke up that morning he had not known she existed, yet already the thought of losing her was unbearable.
“I would like that very much,” Owen said. “I don’t think I’m much good at letters, though.”
“I bet you are,” Angela said. She smiled again, and for a second he glimpsed the child who had played in the Mermaids’ Garden. “Write to me about your work. We’d better go in now or Daddy will begin to wonder where we’ve got to.”
They turned back towards the house, and as Owen moved aside to let her pass through the gap in the wall their shoulders collided. Owen put out his hand to steady her, and in the same moment she flung up her own hand, their fingers intertwining as they came to rest. Her face was so close to his he could feel her breath upon his cheek.
“I’m sorry,” he said. He felt an ache deep inside him that was like homesickness.
“It’s all right.” Angela laughed softly. “Come on.”
They hurried towards the house. Owen sensed the urgency they both felt, to get inside before Lionel Norman began to suspect something and came looking for them. The idea of seeing him appear at the head of the garden was somehow unthinkable. They needn’t have worried. Morton and Norman had moved back into the lounge. The whisky decanter stood on a low table in front of them and they were deep in conversation about the state of the international silver market.
“I hope she’s not been boring you with those snails of hers,” Norman muttered. He raised his glass to his lips, the Rihm clamped against his wrist like a large golden spider.
“Your gardens are very special,” Owen said. “It was kind of Angela to show them to me.”
Lionel Norman gazed back at him steadily with his topaz eyes. He knows, Owen thought, though what precisely he believed Norman knew he could not have said. He glanced down at Morton, slumped in his armchair, and felt annoyed with himself for leaving the old man alone for so long. He was not used to drinking alcohol in such quantity and would be bound to suffer for it later. “It’s getting late,” he added. “We should really be going. We’ve trespassed on your hospitality for too long already.” He thought afterwards that this was when the balance of power in the room shifted, away from Morton and in his favour. It was him and Lionel Norman now, the battle lines were drawn. Morton was an old man. It was Owen’s responsibility to protect him.
Norman too seemed to sense the change. He curled his lip. “I’ll call you a cab,” he said. “It’s been a real pleasure.” He seized Owen’s hand, then Morton’s, crushing his swollen knuckles. Owen saw the old man wince and felt enraged. He turned to Angela to say goodbye and found she had already left the room. He felt his heart clench in panic, then realised it was better this way. He and Angela had said everything to each other they needed to say, for the moment at least. Soon she would write to him. The idea of exchanging pleasantries with her in front of her father made him feel sick.
* * *
Morton fell asleep almost as soon as they settled themselves in the railway carriage. It was getting on for six o’clock. Beyond the windows the darkening countryside slipped by, folding itself into the shadows. By the time they pulled away from Three Bridges it was completely dark. The light in the compartment was a dingy yellow, making Owen think of the paraffin stove his father’s men used for brewing tea when they were working on site. He watched the old man sleeping, glad of his presence yet grateful that he could sit in silence and not be thought rude.
He closed his eyes, thinking of Angela, and knew with absolute certainty that she was thinking of him. The train ran over the tracks, beating out a steady, ratcheting rhythm that put him in mind of a great loom, weaving a cloth of the world, iridescent with miraculous patterns. He jerked awake suddenly just before East Croydon, heart racing, wondering where he was and where he was going.
He shook Morton gently by the shoulder to wake him.
“Time to change trains,” he said. “We’re almost home.”
* * *
For a week following their visit to Lionel Norman, Owen did not go near the workshop. Instead he walked, pacing the streets of Southwark and on across London Bridge into the City. He walked the length of the Embankment from Chelsea to Rotherhithe. He observed the great clocks in their towers, All Saints and St Martin’s and Bow. Constantly and everywhere he thought about time. He felt himself suspended within it, the city swerving and changing about him, mutable as the sea, as the coloured chips of glass inside a kaleidoscope, while he himself remained ageless and immortal.
Morton did not appear to question the changes in his behaviour, offering neither advice nor consolation. He seemed to accept Owen’s withdrawal for what it was: a preparation for the ordeal that lay ahead. And it was true that Owen was terrified at what lay before him, the work by which he must prove himself, or fail.
He thought a great deal about Angela Norman. He had expected her to write to him soon, and when several days had passed without a letter from her he began drafting one of his own, which he destroyed. He went into a cartographer’s store on the Strand, where he bought a large-scale Ordnance Survey map of West Sussex. He traced the route of the
railway line, down through the suburbs of London, on through Purley and Horley and Wivelsfield, eventually arriving at the ragged silhouette of the coastline, the Mermaids’ Garden. He noted that the garrison railways, the spurs of track that no longer led anywhere, did not appear on the map at all.
Ten days after the journey to Sussex, Owen made an appointment to examine the Breguet watches he knew were held at the Guildhall, as part of the collection belonging to the Guild of London’s Worshipful Company of Clockmakers. One of their members, Horatio Lowndes, agreed to show him round. Lowndes was courteous, tall and quiet, and seemed rather shy. Only the watch he wore, a stunning tonneau Paysage with an openwork dial, hinted at his elevated status within the Guild. He seemed to know without being told the watch Owen most wanted to see, the Breguet Chrysothome, bequeathed to the museum by a Russian exile, who some had believed to be the cousin of the murdered Tsar Nicholas.
“Breguet’s son Georges-Louis helped him to complete it, as he did all his later pieces,” said Lowndes. “But it is Breguet’s vision you see, a sure example, and one of the finest tourbillons ever made.”
They were in a small, white-papered side-room leading off Lowndes’s office. Lowndes stood beside him to begin with, but after a while he seemed satisfied that Owen could be trusted and went back to his desk. Owen was vaguely aware of papers being shuffled, drawers being opened, occasionally a phone ringing, but these distractions seemed insignificant, unreal. He studied the tourbillon through his four-loupe for more than two hours, until its pattern of rotation became as familiar to him as the cycling of the blood in his own veins. He grew dizzy with the motion, the breadth of his world shrunk to a space of less than three inches. He thought of the Hurricane, its green and gold lanterns reflected in the waters of the River Otter, Anthony’s cries of delight as the thrust of its momentum rendered him dizzy and finally weightless.
When he arrived back at Trinity Street, he found a letter waiting for him from Angela Norman.