The Clockmaker's Wife

by Daisy Wood

  ‘By the way, there was a box under the bed, too,’ Beth said. ‘Let me fetch it. This is so exciting!’

  She came back carrying a cardboard box, battered and torn at the corners. A name and address had been written on the front: Mrs F Roberts, Orchard House, Millbury, Oxfordshire. It was lined with yellowing British newspapers from the 1950s, and a collection of baby clothes had been packed inside. Beth hung back, tactfully, to let Ellie examine them first.

  ‘Oh dear. The moths have been having a party.’ The first cardigan she held fell apart in her fingers, and it turned out that none of the knitted sweaters, leggings or mittens had survived. Yet a couple of cotton dresses were unscathed: creased, but still wearable. Ellie held one up. ‘Look at the smocking! So beautiful.’ She examined the seams more closely. ‘This dress is handsewn. Do you think it would fit Morgan?’

  ‘Are you kidding?’ Beth was horrified. ‘That’s a precious heirloom. Morgan would ruin it in a heartbeat.’ Unable to resist, she dived into the box. ‘Oh, my Lord. Take a look at this.’ And she shook out an armful of yellowing white fabric: a long christening gown with a scalloped hem, decorated on the bodice and sleeves with delicate cut work and trails of embroidered flowers. They stared at it for a moment in silence.

  Ellie held the gown up to her face and inhaled, breathing in the past. She turned to Beth. ‘That settles it. I know what I’m going to do next. I’m going to England, to find my family. I want to tell Mom where she came from before it’s too late.’

  Chapter Six

  Westchester County/New York/London, December 2021

  All the Scardinos thought Ellie’s trip to London was a great idea. They were so enthusiastic it occurred to her that being her surrogate family was a burden they might have been ready to share for some time. Perhaps they were hoping a few English relatives would lighten the load. With their encouragement, she took the plunge: booking her plane tickets and an Airbnb for two weeks. Shania, her assistant, was more than happy to look after the store while Ellie was away; she’d decided to go just after Christmas, when things were usually quiet, and her mom was being cared for at the Willows. Turned out she wasn’t indispensable, after all.

  ‘Did my brother give you a call?’ Beth asked. ‘If you need someone to water your plants, I think he’d be interested.’

  ‘Dan?’ Ellie said. ‘Why would he want to house sit?’

  Because Kathleen had been right: he and Lisa definitely were going through a rough patch. ‘We just need some breathing space,’ Dan explained on the phone, sounding mortified. ‘A couple of weeks to get our heads straight would be perfect, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘Of course not. It would be great to have you looking after my place. I’m sorry, though – hope you two can work things out.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure we will.’ He gave an awkward laugh. ‘One way or another.’

  Later, Beth filled Ellie in on the details to spare her brother the embarrassment. ‘Turns out Lisa’s been having an affair with a trauma surgeon for the past year. Can you imagine it? The ice queen herself! Dan’s putting on a brave face but he must be devastated.’

  ‘I’m really sorry,’ Ellie said. ‘Poor guy.’

  She’d had a secret crush on Dan when she was thirteen. It had lasted a year until one morning she’d woken up and realised Beth was right: he really was the most obnoxious boy in the universe. Over the years, their relationship had weathered those two extremes and come to settle somewhere in the middle. She liked Dan and enjoyed seeing him whenever their paths crossed, which wasn’t often – and occasionally, she caught a glimpse of the boy who used to give her butterflies. His wife Lisa, however, was tricky. She had moods, and let everyone know about them.

  ‘Maybe we won’t have to put up with Lisa for much longer,’ Beth said, echoing Ellie’s thoughts. ‘Must admit, I wouldn’t be too upset.’

  Kathleen had invited Ellie and her mom to spend Christmas with them, but Alice didn’t feel up to it. Ellie didn’t mind; she was happy to sit quietly with her mother, concentrating on Alice and preparing for her trip. The Scardinos always had their extended family to stay for the holidays and the house was noisier and more chaotic than ever. Alice would have been lost in the crowd. So Ellie spent a peaceful – if somewhat surreal – Christmas Day at the Willows, playing Scrabble with a ninety-year-old man who never spoke a word and his son who talked all the time, before being entertained by the stony-faced Irish-dancing twins and their bouncing wigs. Alice had moved upstairs to a recently vacated suite (‘I think somebody’s died,’ she’d whispered, ‘but they don’t like to say so,’) with a view of the gardens and a larger bathroom, and extended her stay for another four weeks. That was probably as much as she could afford; Ellie didn’t like to think what would happen after the month was up. For the moment, Alice seemed perfectly content, although she missed watching people come and go in the car park. She was delighted with the photographs of her mother, which were now framed and lined up along the windowsill.

  ‘You never know, I might come back with some more,’ Ellie said.

  ‘I doubt it.’ Alice pursed her lips. ‘Gillian won’t have kept any.’

  It had taken a while to track Aunt Gillian down. Ellie had found her postal address on her mother’s Christmas card list but she had no idea whether it was current. Eventually, the internet had revealed a tour guide named Gillian Spelman, living in London, who seemed to be the right sort of age. Alice had taken a look at the photograph on her website and said it might be her half-sister – and then again, it might not. So Ellie took a chance, which paid off: tour-guide Gillian replied to her email saying she was ‘so pleased’ to hear Ellie was planning a visit to London. Unfortunately, she was having work done in her house and January was always such a difficult month. (In what way? Ellie wondered.) She was sure Ellie would be busy too, seeing the sights etcetera, but perhaps they could meet one morning for coffee. She had signed off, ‘Warmest wishes, Gillian Spelman’. It wasn’t the most encouraging of responses. Ellie had been hoping for a personal tour around the city’s hidden nooks and crannies, ending up at the Palace of Westminster and Big Ben itself.

  ‘What’s Aunt Gillian like?’ she asked her mother now.

  ‘I have no idea,’ Alice replied. ‘I left home when she was eight and haven’t seen her since. She was a whiny child, as I remember, with a runny nose. Adenoidal. Why are you interested?’

  ‘Because she’s part of our family. You have the same father. Doesn’t that mean anything?’

  ‘My father changed when he married Mavis.’ Alice folded her hands together. ‘She didn’t make him happy and things only got worse once Gillian arrived. I couldn’t wait to escape, frankly. But do send her my kind regards.’

  Kind regards and warm wishes: Ellie was already travelling in another land. She had chosen a pair of olive-wood salad servers to give Gillian and written defiantly in the accompanying card – a shot of the New York skyline – ‘With much love, Alice and Ellie’.

  ‘So you’ve left that girl with the tattoos in charge of your shop?’ her mother asked. ‘Well, let’s hope it’s still there when you get back.’

  ‘Mom!’ Ellie protested. ‘Shania’s the best assistant I’ve ever had. All the customers love her.’

  Alice pursed her lips. She disapproved of the store, finding the range of goods on display extravagant and pointless. Any sort of excess offended her. ‘Waste not, want not,’ she always said. ‘It’s because I’m a war child. If you’ve grown up with rationing, you can’t bear to throw anything away.’ Christmas cards were sliced in half to become postcards, vegetable peelings were composted or boiled for stock, socks were darned, tight shoes had their toes cut out for wearing at the beach, bedsheets had an uncomfortable seam running down the centre where her mother had turned them sides to middle to disguise a worn patch.

  ‘I’ll be back before you know it.’ Ellie kissed her mother goodbye. ‘Are you sure you won’t write Gillian a card?’

  ‘Quite sure. I mean, reall
y, what is there to say?’ Alice laughed, lifting up her hands in a gesture of resignation, and Ellie laughed too, although she wasn’t sure why.

  And then Alice’s face had fallen. ‘I hope this jaunt isn’t a mistake,’ she’d said, frowning. ‘You might find out more than you bargained for.’

  She couldn’t explain what she meant, although Ellie pressed her. All she would say was that some secrets were meant to be kept. ‘We can’t change the past, it’s dead and gone. There’s no point bringing up that old misery.’

  ‘But there must have been love, too,’ Ellie said. ‘Isn’t that worth looking for?’

  Alice had only turned her face to the window, rubbing her thumb against her forefinger, and wouldn’t reply.

  The night before Ellie was due to leave for England, Dan came around to see how everything worked in the apartment and collect a set of keys. She felt a sudden pang at the thought of leaving her refuge, the home that wrapped its walls around her when the world seemed a harsh place. The apartment was small but cosy, with one bedroom, a galley kitchen and a couch in the living room for when anyone who wasn’t a boyfriend needed to stay overnight – although guests made her feel as though her sanctuary were being invaded. She had lived there for the past nine years and still felt a jolt of pleasure when she walked through the front door. Why was she abandoning comfort and security to head off on a wild-goose chase?

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Dan said, ‘I’ll take good care of the place while you’re away.’

  ‘I’m sure you will. Don’t spend too much time cleaning, though.’ Dan was famously neat and tidy. ‘And make the most of Manhattan.’ She could imagine him putting a frozen meal in the microwave and eating it by himself in front of the television.

  ‘I’ll be fine. I’m looking forward to some time by myself. Lisa and I were meant to be going on holiday but that’s not happening, so I have ten whole days off work to do what I want. I can’t remember the last time that happened.’ He raised his glass. ‘Here’s to the new year, and a fresh start. We’ve decided to get divorced.’

  ‘Oh, Dan, I’m so sorry. Still, maybe it’s for the best. Let’s drink to new beginnings and happier times to come.’ Ellie chinked her glass against his.

  He’d brought a bottle of wine and they were finishing up the leftovers in Ellie’s fridge to go with it: mushroom risotto, ravioli with tomato sauce, half a stuffed pepper, the remnants of three different kinds of cheese and a stale baguette she’d sprinkled with water and warmed up in the oven. It was a strange sort of supper but one that felt appropriate somehow, and she was glad to be sharing it with Dan; on his own, hooray. He didn’t seem sad about the end of his marriage, quite the opposite.

  ‘I’m weirdly OK about the whole thing.’ He scratched his head. ‘It explains a lot of things I’d been thinking were all my fault. I can’t blame Lisa, frankly. We’re not right for each other – God only knows why we got together in the first place – and it’s a relief to admit that. Besides, I’m the innocent party and she feels guilty so she’s being nice to me. We’re getting along better now than we have done in years.’

  Ellie bit her tongue. She knew the dangers of criticising an ex, only for him or her to come back on the scene; once those words were spoken, they could never be forgotten. ‘I’m sorry, anyway,’ she repeated. ‘Finding out must have been a shock.’

  He smiled. ‘Come on, I know you and Beth never liked Lisa. At least I don’t have to apologise for her anymore.’

  Ellie couldn’t deny it. There had always been a gulf between herself and Dan’s wife which, it had to be said, neither of them had tried particularly hard to bridge. She found Lisa humourless and driven, while Lisa, she suspected, thought Ellie was frivolous. Lisa saved lives every day: she was an emergency-room doctor and brilliant at her job, Ellie imagined, although not someone you’d choose to sit next to on a night out. Whenever Lisa asked what was new in the world of ceramics, she put on a patronising tone of voice that made Ellie’s skin prickle with irritation.

  ‘I don’t like what she’s done to you,’ she said diplomatically.

  Dan pushed his chair away from the table and crossed his legs. ‘Enough about me, I want to hear your plans. Are you excited about the trip?’

  ‘Oh, sure. It’ll be great to have a break. No more chasing up orders or worrying about the inventory for a while.’

  Yet some doubt must have shown on her face. ‘What is it?’ Dan asked. ‘Come on, you can tell me.’

  There was no point pretending with him; they’d known each other too long. ‘Well, I’m not sure Mom really wants me to go. She said something about digging up the past that made me think she’s worried I might uncover some dreadful family secret. And it’s clear my English aunt doesn’t want anything to do with me. And as for my grandmother—’ She shook her head.

  ‘As for your grandmother?’ Dan prompted. ‘Don’t leave me hanging.’

  ‘Here she is.’ Ellie showed him the photographs she’d copied onto her phone. ‘Eleanor Spelman.’

  Dan whistled. ‘That’s amazing! You two look so alike.’

  Ellie got up and went to rummage in her carry-on tote, returning with a padded envelope. Inside was a creased sheet of yellowing paper which she laid gingerly on the table, as though it were dirty. ‘I found this earlier on, while I was packing. It had been slipped inside the lining of her purse.’

  Dan unfolded the leaflet. ‘A Last Appeal to Reason, by Adolf Hitler,’ he read aloud. ‘Well, I can see why you’d want to keep that hidden.’

  ‘I know, it’s awful,’ Ellie said. ‘You don’t have to wade through the whole thing. Basically, it’s a speech Hitler made to the German Parliament in 1940, saying the war was all Britain and France’s fault in the first place, and since Germany had pretty much won already, why didn’t England just surrender now rather than letting it drag on.’

  ‘And why’s it been translated into English? For propaganda, d’you think?’

  ‘I guess so.’ She folded the paper up again and put it back in the envelope. ‘I don’t like carrying this kind of thing around with me, but maybe someone in the family can explain why my grandmother might have kept it. Apart from the fact she was a Fascist, that is.’

  ‘Perhaps she just picked up the leaflet randomly and didn’t realise she had it.’

  ‘Perhaps. But I found this in her bag, too.’ Ellie shook the envelope and a small metal badge fell out, landing on the table with a chink.

  Dan examined it. ‘What’s this, a bunch of wheat? Did she belong to the Guild of Master Bakers or something?’

  ‘It’s a bundle of sticks, bound together: a symbol of the Fascist party, apparently. Maybe both my grandparents were members. My grandfather’s parents were German. Who knows what he did during the war?’

  Dan shrugged. ‘Do you really want to find out?’

  ‘I think so. It’s hard to know where to start, though. I have these photos and Eleanor’s identity card, and that’s about it.’ She passed the card across the table.

  Dan examined it, squinting at the handwritten addresses. ‘So she’d been living in London, at 25 Hathaway Road, and then she moved to Oxfordshire.’

  Ellie nodded. ‘That Oxfordshire address was written on the box of baby clothes we found in Mom’s apartment. Maybe Eleanor and Alice were evacuated to the country because London was too dangerous. Mom said she was killed during the Blitz so I assumed she died in the city, but maybe that wasn’t the case.’

  ‘Well, it’s something to go on.’ Dan stood, starting to stack the dirty plates and cutlery. ‘And I guess if you end up finding some murky family secrets, your mom doesn’t need to know.’

  But Ellie would know, and maybe she would feel differently about herself, and about her mother, too. Maybe she would discover why Alice had left England all those years ago and never once gone back, and maybe she would wish she’d left the past alone. She glanced at Dan. ‘Do you think I’m stirring up trouble?’

  ‘It’s only a holiday,’ he said, smiling,
‘and you can always come home early if it doesn’t work out. I’d tread carefully, though. Other people might not be as keen to uncover the truth as you are.’

  He left soon after, so Ellie could get a good night’s sleep. ‘Promise me you’ll keep in touch. I shall expect daily updates, OK?’ he said, giving her a long hug that left her unexpectedly breathless, her knees weak. ‘And try not to worry.’

  Dear Lord, she thought, closing the door and leaning against it for a moment, I need to get a grip. This is Dan, remember, the brother of your best friend? Who’s still technically married and has only just decided to divorce his wife? The last man she should be developing feelings for. Her talent for screwing things up was truly remarkable.

  Sitting on the plane early the next morning, Ellie wondered again whether she was doing the right thing. Well, it was too late to turn back now; in around seven hours, she would be in London. She’d visited the city once before during the bad days with Wilf, but had been so preoccupied with his tantrums that she hadn’t thought to contact her aunt and cousins. Her mother hadn’t suggested it, either. I don’t have to spend any time with the family, she told herself, I’ll just meet Gillian once and see how it goes.

  She was renting an apartment on the second floor of a mansion block in a long, sweeping road overlooking Battersea Park. Beyond the park lay the river, and beyond the river were the high-end shops and restaurants of Chelsea and Pimlico. Half an hour’s walk in the other direction would take her to Gillian’s house in Clapham; close enough for convenience, but not so close that her aunt would feel she was being stalked. The place was fine: clean and light, with a balcony off the living room that would give a wonderful view across the river when the mist cleared. If the blank rooms were a little impersonal, what did she expect? The location was perfect. An hour’s walk along the river would take her to the London Eye, where the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben and Westminster Abbey stood just across the bridge.