by Daisy Wood
She was due to arrive in London around lunchtime, the day before New Year’s Eve. ‘Are you sure you won’t be lonely?’ Beth had asked. ‘All on your own at midnight?’
‘I’ll be OK,’ Ellie had reassured her. ‘I have to record Big Ben ringing in the new year for Mom.’
The guy who owned the apartment showed her around and left his phone number in case of any problems. He was a world-weary fifty-something, who was clearly hoping she’d leave him well alone. Ellie sat on the bed after he’d gone, her head thumping. She hadn’t slept for long on the plane but if she took a nap now, she’d never adjust. Some fresh air and a pit stop for coffee would wake her up. She decided to walk around the edge of Battersea Park, cross Chelsea Bridge and do the tourist thing: take a sightseeing tour around London from Victoria Station. It was a cold, sunny day. Sitting on the upper deck of the open-topped bus, she drank in the city, wide-eyed and glad to be alone. She could jump on and off the bus whenever she wanted to explore the narrow, crooked streets or wide avenues, with no one to please but herself.
The juxtaposition of old and new entranced her. The Shard rose up on one side of the river, a gleaming vision of chrome and glass; on the other stood St Paul’s Cathedral, built over three hundred years before to replace an even more ancient church that had been destroyed in the Great Fire of London. She gazed at the fabulous Christmas window displays of Fortnum & Mason, the store that had sent hampers to the suffragettes imprisoned for smashing its windows, strolled through Green Park and took a selfie at the railings of Buckingham Palace, with the guardsmen in their red jackets and bearskins marching up and down behind her. The marks of history lay everywhere: on the blue plaques set into house walls commemorating the famous people who’d lived there; in the beams of Tudor buildings and the signs and store fronts of St James’s, selling hats and boots and shaving brushes to the gentry since Victorian times; even in the sudden appearance of a single modern building standing out among its neighbours which, according to the recorded tour commentary, was a sign of a gap being filled after bomb damage from the Second World War.
Her grandparents must have walked these streets, although no doubt they would have looked very different then. Ellie ended her tour at the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, which she was saving for last. She’d explore them on foot, then walk across Westminster Bridge and back to her apartment. Her head was buzzing by this point with too many facts she was struggling to remember. This huge building stretching along the bank of the Thames, its sandy-coloured stonework seeming to rise straight out of the water, was home to the Houses of Parliament. It was also known as the Palace of Westminster, but could only be called that when Parliament was sitting – or had she got that the wrong way round? And the name Big Ben referred to the great bell that chimed the hours, not the clock itself or the tower, although most people called the clock Big Ben anyway.
She craned her neck to look up at the huge clock face, its paintwork restored to the original Prussian blue after recent renovation work, the gold leaf dazzling in the bright winter sun. Could her grandfather really have been responsible for keeping it running? Both he and Eleanor seemed very far away, lost in the past. Walking across the bridge, she had to elbow her way through the milling crowds: teenagers with backpacks, harassed parents shepherding fractious kids, tour guides holding up umbrellas for their meandering groups to follow. When she stopped on the other side to look upward for a better view of the Elizabeth Tower, she was jostled off the pavement. Exhausted, she decided to take a cab back to the apartment. Things would be different tomorrow, once she’d had a proper meal and some sleep.
After an early night, Ellie woke before dawn the next morning, full of energy; she had a plan and it was time to put it into action. She put on her running shoes and jogged along the deserted streets, skirting the park and heading for the river. The rising sun set the water gleaming with a fiery glow. She ran on, trying to imagine a time when the city had truly been on fire, the air full of smoke and panic, and the sky crimson not with the promise of a new day, as some had thought, but from flames as the docks burned. Catching sight of Westminster Bridge in the distance, she found it reassuring to gaze across at the clock tower, so solid and unchanging; already she was beginning to think of it as a familiar landmark. Then, following the map on her phone, she turned away from the river and headed south towards Hathaway Road, constructing a story in her head as she ran. Number 25 would turn out to be a quaint Victorian house, owned by a charming couple with an interest in local history. They would invite her inside, once she had shown them Eleanor’s identity card, and tell her that in the course of their sympathetic renovation work, they’d happened to discover a suitcase full of possessions – or, better still, a diary – and over a pot of tea and maybe a full English breakfast (by now she was hungry again), she would come to know her grandmother.
There were quaint Victorian houses in Hathaway Road, but the gap between numbers 21 and 27 was filled by a dilapidated modern apartment block, its paint peeling and the featureless windows obscured by net curtains. She stared at it, one hand on her heaving chest. What could have happened? Had the houses been demolished by a developer to make way for apartments, or was she looking at an example of bomb damage from the war? Perhaps this was the reason Eleanor had moved to Oxfordshire. Gillian might possibly know. If not, there had to be records somewhere that could tell her which streets had been bombed in the Blitz. She’d already tried browsing the internet, but it was hard to find a way through the mass of information. She needed someone to point her in the right direction.
Ellie jogged slowly back to her apartment, taking the time to notice everything that struck her as different and exotic: rows of chimney pots on the tiled roofs of terraced houses, bright red letterboxes set in the wall, double-decker buses and the odd black taxi driving past.
Before she could lose courage, she dialled her aunt’s number and left a message on the answerphone, inviting Gillian to lunch the next day at a pub of her choice. A long shower cleared her head and by the time she emerged, there was a message in reply on her phone, requesting that Ellie come instead to Gillian’s house for lunch, at one o’clock. So that was progress. After a couple of hours’ wandering around the antique stores in her new neighbourhood, and brunch in a nearby pub, she was sitting on a bench in Battersea Park when her phone rang. It was Dan, calling to see how she was and pass on some news.
‘Hope you don’t mind, but I’ve been doing some investigating myself.’ She could hear the excitement fizzing in his voice. ‘So, I joined this family history website – you get a month’s trial for free, and it’s amazing what you can learn. Anyway, I’ve found out something. About Eleanor.’ He paused.
‘What?’ she demanded. ‘Come on, Dan, don’t keep me in suspense.’
‘Look, I want to tell you but I’m also worried I might have overstepped the mark. This is a sad thing to hear, and you’re all alone and miles away.’
‘Just tell me! I can deal with it, whatever.’
‘OK.’ He took a breath. ‘I found out where and when your grandmother passed away. She died in Westminster, on the 31st of December, 1940. So today is the anniversary of her death, eighty-one years later. Ellie? Are you OK?’
‘Of course,’ she said slowly. ‘Thanks, Dan. It’s good to know – makes her more real, somehow. And now I need to think things over. Talk to you later.’
She walked back to her apartment in a daze and lay on the bed, holding the watch with the cracked face that Alice had given her for luck, thinking about the woman in the photographs on her phone. Might she have been a Nazi sympathiser, working against the government? A beautiful spy, perhaps – a Mata Hari whose husband had links with Germany and worked in the heart of the British establishment. She and Arthur might both have been traitors. Maybe that’s why Alice had been worried about Ellie digging up the past. She drifted into sleep, waking hours later from confused dreams: her grandmother strolling arm in arm with Hitler down an English country lane; passing
her a gun from the brown-leather handbag and telling her she must protect Alice at all costs; climbing up the outside of the clock tower in that elegant hat and high heels, then slipping and falling down, down, towards the river—
She woke up with a gasp, her heart pounding. It was a while before she could calm down and tell herself not to be so ridiculous; she was taking a few facts and letting her imagination turn them into a story. She had a sudden craving for a cup of tea – must be some strange kind of auto-suggestion, but she’d been longing for tea ever since she’d touched down in England – and after she’d made a pot and drunk it, with sugar, even, she did indeed feel more like herself. No matter what Eleanor might or might not have done, she was Ellie’s blood relative; probably younger than Ellie was now when she’d died, with a baby who would never know her mother. It was desperately sad, and all she could feel was compassion. She also felt that Eleanor was reaching out, calling to her down the years. It was a call she had to answer.
Hours later, Ellie was still thinking about her grandmother as she joined the crowds near Westminster Bridge. She was too emotional to risk calling her mother; besides, getting through to Alice on her antiquated cell phone was tricky, since she was always forgetting to switch it on, let alone charge it. She looked up at the glowing clock face on her right, unchanging and mysterious. It had witnessed history for over a hundred and sixty years, from epic catastrophes to the smallest personal tragedies, and Ellie felt a connection to the past, simply by standing in its shadow. The faces around her were flushed with alcohol and excitement. Music blared from nearby cafés and bars, while a man on the balcony of an apartment across the river was playing wistful jazz on a saxophone. Her grandmother had died somewhere near here, on a very different New Year’s Eve at the height of the war. Ellie felt as though she could reach out, pierce the skin of history and touch her. The clock’s vast minute hand edged towards midnight. She popped the cork of her mini champagne bottle, slipped in a straw and waited for the famous sound of Big Ben striking midnight. How powerfully those chimes would have resonated in December 1940, when London was being torn apart in the Blitz and the whole country’s future lay in the balance. Her grandmother had died on the final day of the year, not knowing how or when the war would end.
Ellie held her breath – until the notes of the great bell rang out, and fireworks exploded over the water, and the crowds burst into wild cheers and applause. A kind man nearby gave her a pity hug, but she didn’t feel sorry for herself. The women in her family were made of strong stuff. She was thinking of the courage it must have taken for her mother to leave England at the age of twenty-two and embark on a new life in a foreign country. It struck Ellie suddenly that it wasn’t only Eleanor she had come here to find: she was also looking for Alice. Her mother, the beloved stranger.
Chapter Seven
London, January 2022
Aunt Gillian in person didn’t look much like the photograph on her website. She had jet-black hair cut in a bob, perfectly-arched eyebrows that gave her a permanent look of surprise, startlingly blue eyes, pale skin and a beaky nose. She was so thin that her clavicles stood out like the bones of a gnawed chicken leg.
‘Hello, there,’ she said, looking Ellie up and down. ‘You made it, then.’ As though she had come from deepest Africa by canoe, rather than on the bus from Battersea.
Gillian was wearing a pair of wide black trousers with a grey silk shirt, and Ellie immediately felt at a disadvantage in her skinny jeans and roll-neck sweater. There was an awkward moment on the doorstep as they decided whether to hug or shake hands, but the greetings were fumbled through somehow and her aunt stood back to let her inside.
‘You’d better come on through. Filthy day, isn’t it?’
The terraced house was a handsome red-brick building with white-framed bay windows and an ornate fretwork porch. The front yard, paved in grey slate and enclosed by black railings, was laid out with a rose bed and neatly-clipped bay trees marking each corner. A black-and-white tiled path led to the front door, which was inlaid with stained glass in intricate patterns: flowers and leaves, and birds hidden among the twining foliage. From the outside, it could have been the home of a Victorian bank manager, or a shop owner whose business was doing well. Inside, however, everything was plain and minimal. The hall floor was made of pale wood and the walls were dazzlingly white, decorated only by a few artistic black-and-white photographs of sand dunes, a spiky plant, a derelict warehouse in the snow. The only splash of colour came in the shape of a grandfather clock standing in the far corner, its golden-brown oak case and brass dial gleaming in the stark surroundings.
‘What a beautiful thing!’ Ellie laid her hand on the smooth polished wood. She could hear the quiet, steady tick-tock of the pendulum inside: a reassuring sound that reminded her why she was here, and that she shared a connection with Gillian, even though they might not initially seem to be kindred spirits.
‘It is, isn’t it?’ her aunt agreed. ‘High-maintenance, though. My father was always tinkering about with it.’
‘Was he?’ Ellie’s heart leapt. ‘You must tell me more.’
‘Must I?’ Gillian gave a short laugh. ‘Well, the feet have to be absolutely level otherwise the pendulum won’t swing evenly, and you have to wind the clock up with a key which is always getting lost. Rather a nuisance, really, but I’m fond of the old thing. Come into the kitchen and let’s have a drink.’
The kitchen was all white, and clean as an operating room. There was no sign of any work being done here, or anywhere else in the house that Ellie could see. She handed over a bottle of wine and the olive-wood salad servers. ‘Oh, these are rather nice!’ Gillian exclaimed in surprise. ‘Thanks. You shouldn’t have, though.’
‘I run a kitchenware business,’ Ellie said, by way of an apology.
‘Fancy that.’ Gillian opened a drawer and stowed the salad servers inside. ‘Now, wine, beer or gin and tonic? It’s the simplest of meals, afraid I don’t have much time for cooking. My son and his partner will be joining us. You’ll like them, they’re more your sort of age. Well, Max is, anyway.’
She rattled out the sentences without waiting for a reply: the verbal equivalent of a ‘Keep Out’ sign, Ellie thought. She sat on a chrome stool at the marble-topped kitchen island, drinking white wine and eating pistachio nuts, looking for a chance to break through Gillian’s defences.
‘Are those your children?’ she asked when her aunt paused for breath, nodding at the only personal photograph she’d spotted so far on the wall: a brother and sister, clearly, with the same dark hair and dramatic eyebrows. The girl was looking into the camera with a truculent expression as if to say, ‘And what are you staring at?’ while the guy standing at her shoulder had an easy, ironic smile. Great teeth, Ellie noticed, especially for an Englishman. They both seemed aware of how very good-looking they were.
‘That’s right. Max and Lucy, taken a few years ago. I’m afraid Lucy’s in South Africa at the moment, catching some winter sun, but Max should be here any minute. With Nathan.’ She glanced at her watch, the mask slipping for a moment. ‘Where on earth are they?’
‘I’m so excited to meet everyone,’ Ellie said. ‘Thanks for inviting me, Aunt Gillian. I really appreciate it. You see, I’m trying to find out about—’
But she didn’t get the chance to continue, because at that moment they heard the front door opening and footsteps coming down the hall. ‘At last!’ Gillian said, with evident relief. ‘Now we can make a start on lunch.’ She obviously wanted to get the meal over and done with as soon as possible.
Max was every bit as charming as Ellie had anticipated. He was in his early thirties, she guessed, immaculately dressed in jeans, a cashmere sweater and suede loafers. He was still handsome but no longer as striking as the young man in the photograph: his face a little more puffy around the eyes, his hair thinner, his jaw less well-defined.
‘A mystery cousin from America,’ he said, taking Ellie’s hands. ‘What a wonderful start
to the new year!’
‘All right, darling,’ Gillian said. ‘Don’t overdo it.’
‘Play nicely, Mother,’ he replied, with an edge to his voice. ‘We shouldn’t frighten our guest when she’s only just arrived.’ He sat at the table and pulled out a chair for Ellie. ‘So tell me everything. I want to know what brings you to London and why it’s taken so long for us to meet.’
‘Gosh, Nathan, champagne!’ Gillian exclaimed as he handed her a bottle. ‘What a treat. Would you be a love and open it?’
‘As a matter of fact,’ Ellie began, taking the seat next to Max, ‘this isn’t just a sight-seeing trip. I’m looking into my family history, and—’
Gillian groaned. ‘Isn’t everyone these days? I blame these television programmes with weeping celebrities discovering their great-great-grannies were kitchen maids. Didn’t you work on one of those once, Nathan?’
‘That’s right,’ he said, twisting the champagne bottle while holding on to the cork – the correct method, Ellie noticed with approval – ‘only we had ordinary people on the show instead of celebrities.’
Gillian wasn’t listening. ‘I’ll fetch some proper glasses. Flutes or coupes, Ellie? Which would you recommend, with your kitchenware experience?’
‘Kitchenware?’ Max’s face lit up. ‘How intriguing.’
Were they making fun of her? Probably, but then perhaps she deserved it, interrogating her relatives rather than getting to know them and teasing out whatever information they might have. She tried to act less like a crazy person for the rest of the meal, which was delicious in an elegant, understated way: sourdough baguette, smoked salmon, a green salad, French cheeses and the most amazing zucchini soup.
‘Brown butter, added at the last minute,’ her aunt replied when Ellie asked what was the secret. ‘Deepens the flavour.’ She had hardly eaten anything, just picked at a sliver of cheese and torn some bread into pieces, most of which she left on her plate.