The Clockmaker's Wife

by Daisy Wood

  ‘Oh dear.’ Ellie couldn’t help smiling. ‘Mom isn’t very happy.’

  Gillian leaned over to see the picture. ‘That’s how I remember her. Always rubbing against the grain.’

  ‘So you two didn’t get along?’

  ‘Oh no, I worshipped Alice. She seemed so glamorous and exciting. I probably drove her mad, trailing around after her all the time.’ Gillian sipped her tea. ‘Although I was a little afraid of her, too. She used to have the most furious rows with my mother. Neither of them would back down and my father would always take my mother’s side. Alice was a radical, always going off on marches to protest about something or other – banning the bomb, or the Vietnam war, or factory farming – and my parents took it personally. Why couldn’t she be grateful for the sacrifices their generation had made? I used to think Alice caused all the trouble in our family, until she left.’ She hesitated. ‘Has she been happy, do you think?’

  ‘By and large, I guess,’ Ellie replied. ‘She and my dad had a good marriage, so far as I knew. We were never rich, yet there was always food on the table and enough money to get by. It’s been tougher for Mom since he died but I don’t think she has any regrets. Did you ever meet my father?’

  Gillian shook her head. ‘My parents wouldn’t have him in the house till he got his hair cut, so he never came.’

  Ellie laughed. ‘That sounds like Dad.’ She went back to the album, turning over the thick card pages to see the Spelman family history playing out. They had moved from Kentish Town to St Albans, Gillian told her, where Arthur and Mavis had lived until they died; Arthur first, and Mavis five years later. There were various photographs of the new house in the suburbs: Arthur mowing the lawn and Mavis picking raspberries in a fruit cage, and the Morris Minor they had bought in 1952 parked proudly in the drive. Alice hardly ever featured. An elbow or foot that might have belonged to her was sometimes included at the edge of the shot, but she was never centre stage. One picture showed Arthur beaming as he washed the car; above him, Alice’s small, wan face looked out from an upstairs window.

  Arthur grew leaner and greyer year by year, while Mavis became steadily plumper. She was almost spherical by 1954, and then Gillian was born. From then on, Alice made a more frequent appearance: pushing the pram, helping to bath her baby sister in the sink, pulling Gillian along in a toy cart. Much later, there was even a photograph of Alice and her father alone. She must have been about seventeen or eighteen, showing a first hint of the beauty she’d become: dark slanting eyes, high cheekbones and dazzling skin. Her face wore the mischievous, defiant expression that Ellie knew well. Arthur was looking back at her warily, as though anticipating her next move.

  ‘Can I take a picture of this one on my phone?’ Ellie asked.

  ‘You can have it.’ Gillian slipped the photograph out of its triangular corners, studying it for a few seconds before handing it over. ‘Alice meant everything to my father. He loved her far more than he ever did my mother or me. It broke his heart when she moved to America. And she never came back, not even for his funeral.’

  ‘My mother isn’t cruel,’ Ellie said, her blood rising. ‘She must have had a reason for behaving that way.’

  ‘Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter now.’ Gillian took another biscuit and snapped it in half. ‘All water under the bridge, as they say.’

  ‘What was Arthur like?’ Ellie asked, turning over the album pages.

  ‘Very much a man of his time. Saw himself as head of the family, didn’t like talking about his feelings, believed expressing any sort of emotion was a sign of weakness. I don’t know whether he’d always been like that, or if it was a result of losing his first wife in the war.’

  Ellie found a folded sheet of card at the back of the album: an order of service for the funeral Alice hadn’t attended. A photograph of Arthur on the front showed his hair still thick but completely white, his heavy-lidded eyes sombre behind black-rimmed glasses. Dates were printed under the picture: 3 June, 1910 – 12 January, 1992. He’d had a long life, although maybe not a happy one.

  ‘Why are you looking at that?’ Gillian reached forward to snatch the sheet out of Ellie’s hands.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I thought – I mean, I didn’t realise it was private.’

  ‘That’s enough ancient history for one day.’ Now Gillian was cross again, her jaw set and her lips clamped in a tight line. She put the order of service back in the album and hugged it against her chest.

  ‘Of course,’ Ellie said. ‘Sorry.’ Although why was she apologising? Arthur was her grandfather; why shouldn’t she know about his funeral? But Gillian was ill, she reminded herself, and obviously the slightest thing would set her off.

  Her aunt stood up. ‘Well, I mustn’t keep you. I’m sure you’ve heard enough of my tale of woe.’

  Ellie pushed back her chair. ‘If you’re really not going to tell your kids for the time being – about the cancer, I mean – maybe I could help. Do you have a treatment plan? If you like, I could come with you to the hospital.’

  ‘Oh, there’s really no need for that,’ Gillian said quickly. ‘I wouldn’t dream of putting you to any trouble.’

  Two steps forward and one back, Ellie thought, but still, this was an improvement on their last meeting.

  ‘And you promise not to say a word to Max about all this?’ her aunt said, walking her to the front door.

  ‘Of course not. I won’t tell anyone. You have my number – just text me if you need anything and I’ll come over right away.’

  ‘Thank you, but I’ll be fine.’ Behind the glasses, Gillian was retreating into her shell. ‘I don’t know why I burdened you with my story in the first place. Obviously, I’ll be taken up with medical appointments and so on for the next little while, but do give me a ring before you leave.’

  Ellie stopped once she’d walked around the corner, to text Nathan her grandfather’s date of birth before she forgot it. She would call her mother that evening. The image of Alice staring out of an upstairs window like a pale, unhappy ghost would stay with her for a long time.

  ‘Aunt Gillian’s highly strung. You have to be careful not to say the wrong thing, and you have no idea what that wrong thing might be until you’ve said it, so it’s all pretty difficult.’

  Alice snorted. ‘Neurotic. I could have told you she’d turn out like that.’

  ‘She said she worshipped you.’

  ‘Well, she had a funny way of showing it, always running to Mavis if I so much as looked at her the wrong way. When are you coming home, dear?’

  ‘In another week. Not too much longer.’ Ellie was talking to her mother as though Alice were a child, she realised. ‘How are you, Mom? I miss you. It was great, seeing all those photos of you growing up. You were quite the looker.’

  ‘I was, wasn’t I?’ Alice agreed. ‘Your father said I had the most beautiful breasts he’d ever seen, and he’d seen plenty. We used to take off our tops at the drop of a hat back then.’

  Ellie tried hard to dismiss that image from her mind. ‘Mom, Aunt Gillian mentioned your father’s funeral. Didn’t you want to be there?’

  ‘Oh, I would have gone,’ Alice replied, ‘but Mavis made it clear I wasn’t welcome.’

  ‘You mean, you weren’t invited?’

  ‘Well, she wrote to tell me the date but she didn’t put a stamp on the envelope. By the time the letter reached me, it was too late.’

  ‘I guess anyone can make a mistake. She was probably getting forgetful by then.’

  ‘Oh no, it would have been deliberate,’ Alice said, very matter-of-fact. ‘That’s the kind of woman she was.’

  Ellie sighed. ‘So how’s life at the Willows? Beth told me Kathleen called by the other day.’

  ‘Oh, I haven’t seen Kathleen for ages,’ Alice said cheerfully. ‘Do you know, I can hardly remember what she looks like.’

  ‘Mom, I have to go.’ Ellie’s phone told her Dan was trying to get through. ‘Take care of yourself, OK? I’ll call again s
oon.’

  Dan cut straight to the chase. ‘So, are you and Gillian friends now?’

  ‘It’s a long story.’ Ellie felt drained. ‘Let’s wait till I can tell you face to face.’

  ‘Sure. As a matter of fact, that might be sooner than you think.’ He sounded pleased with himself. ‘I’ve done it!’

  ‘Done what?’

  ‘Bought a plane ticket to London. I suddenly thought, well, why not? Your plants can manage for a few days and I’m just kicking my heels here. If you’re still happy for me to stay, that is.’

  ‘Of course.’ What else could she say? ‘It’ll be great to see you.’

  And yet, she thought as she headed for the shower, Dan was a complication she could have done without; entertaining him on his birthday only added to the pressure. He reminded her of the girl she used to be – easy and carefree, with her whole life ahead of her – but she was too old now to bounce back from her mistakes. And definitely too old to make a fool of herself with her best friend’s brother. Dan was strictly off limits.

  Chapter Thirteen

  London, January 2022

  Ellie might have been closing in on Alice, but her grandmother hovered tantalisingly out of reach. The few facts she’d discovered so far about Eleanor Spelman only added another veil of confusion. Why had Eleanor been in London at the height of the Blitz? Had she brought her baby or left her behind in Oxfordshire? If so, who was looking after Alice? And Eleanor’s political leanings remained a puzzle that might never be solved. In her quest to find some answers, Ellie had made an ally in the Imperial War Museum research rooms. The librarian looked younger than her but dressed like an old fogey in a three-piece suit with a collar and tie; he’d waxed the ends of his moustache into tiny points. ‘Grant Collins,’ announced his name badge. ‘How may I help?’

  Ellie had looked on the museum’s website and located some files relating to the British Fascist movement: letters, photographs and transcripts of interviews with suspected Fascist agitators. That seemed as good a place to start as any. She’d given the reference numbers to Grant Collins, who’d brought her stacks of dusty folders to look through, but she needed someone to give her an overall picture. So, taking Grant up on his offer of help, she told him the reason for her investigation and showed him the photographs of Eleanor on her phone, followed by the disturbing contents of her grandmother’s handbag. His eyes lit up behind the horn-rimmed glasses. It was a romantic story, if you were that way inclined: the grandmother who looked so like Ellie, tragically killed in the war, and her own elderly mother waiting thousands of miles away for news. Except for the fact Eleanor might have been a Fascist – which was unfortunate, to say the least.

  Grant held the badge carefully, as though it might burn his fingers. ‘Of course, the British Union of Fascists had been disbanded in May 1940 and their leader, Oswald Mosley, thrown into jail.’ He had a precise, pedantic turn of phrase. ‘No one would dare wear an emblem like this in public, but there was still plenty of Fascist activity going on under the radar. A lot of people thought it was only a matter of time before the Germans invaded England, and some homegrown Fascists were jockeying for position, so to speak, waiting for their day to come.’

  ‘And what about the leaflet?’

  ‘Fairly standard propaganda. German planes would drop these alongside their bombs.’ He smiled encouragingly. ‘Not every Fascist was a pantomime villain, you know. Someone who’d lived through the previous war might have been desperate to avoid another one.’

  ‘You’re not reassuring me,’ Ellie said. ‘People must have known by then what Hitler was like. They could see the way that Jewish people were being treated.’

  ‘Oh, yes. But anti-Semitism was rife, remember, in all sections of society. “The Jew problem” was a commonly accepted phrase.’

  ‘How awful.’ Ellie gathered her shameful memorabilia. ‘Oh well, I guess I’ll never find out.’

  ‘Keep looking, you never know what might turn up.’ He picked up the file she’d returned to his desk. ‘Are you ready for the next one?’

  Ellie glanced at the clock. ‘I guess so. But that had better be the last.’

  She’d spent so long looking at page after page of close-typed transcripts that her head rang with disjointed, meaningless sentences. According to the files’ cover note, an undercover MI5 agent was pumping suspected Fascists for information. As far as she could make out, he wasn’t getting anything particularly interesting.

  For heaven’s sake don’t tell them it’s gone there yet, you see, wait until they’ve … gone (?) … (2 words). I’ll tell you, I promise … You can trust me by now, can’t you?

  There’d been a lot of inconsequential chatter and references to places in England and Germany that she’d never heard of. It took her a while to work out which set of initials belonged to the agent, as everyone seemed to be asking questions and the dialogue was full of ellipses and indistinct words. Eventually, she decided K was in charge of the proceedings. The person referred to as EP seemed quite mad, going off at a tangent on rambling anecdotes that seemed to bore even the transcriber:

  discussion of Goldman’s black-market business and properties, ‘5 beastly houses, living in absolute squalor he is … Whitechapel or somewhere … and a girlfriend in Austria … Yes, and his wife … (3 words, inaudible). Horrid little man, waving his legs about like a spider … He ought to be exterminated.’ (laughter)

  She was looking through the last file without any great expectations when a name jumped off the page to make her sit bolt upright, as though a bucket of cold water had been emptied over her head.

  Mrs SPELMAN arrived at 3.20 p.m. and was introduced. She stated that BT had told her to come and that she was looking forward to ‘meeting like-minded souls’.

  K: So tell us about yourself, Mrs Spelman. What brings you here?

  ES: Well, I suppose you could call me disappointed, really. I’m a disappointed woman. You see, I married my husband and his parents are German. I thought we were going to live in Germany and I should have liked that. I like the way they do things over there. But he wasn’t what I expected, not at all. He’ll lie down and let anyone walk over him. Now he’s been arrested so I can do as I please, and I got talking to Mr Talbot in the pub and he said I should come and see you, to offer my services.

  CD: My husband’s been interned, he’s in Brixton. They might take your husband there too. That’s where Mosley is, you know, but he doesn’t fraternise with everyone … seems to think … (they all speak at once).

  They went on to talk about Mrs Spelman’s father who’d worked in a bank and had been passed over for promotion …

  ES: Because his name wasn’t Rothschild or Sachs, that’s why. The Jews have got everything wrapped up. They’re the ones who started this war in the first place, after all, to make money. There are no prospects for honest hard-working people in this country and I want to do something about it.

  K: In what way? What do you mean, exactly?

  ES: Well, I’m not sure what action you have in mind but I can keep my eyes open and pass on any information I pick up. You see, I have access to the Houses of Parliament. If you have plans in that direction, which Mr Talbot seemed to think, then I could help.

  EP: Where is Bill, anyway? I haven’t seen him for ages. No offence, Mrs Spelman, but I can’t imagine why he should be saying these things to you in a pub, you being a virtual stranger. How do we know you can be trusted?

  ES: Oh no, Mr Talbot worked with my husband. So I knew of him, and he knew of me.

  K: Well, that’s very interesting, Mrs Spelman. Thank you, and welcome.

  The discussion went on for another few pages but ES didn’t have much more to say; EP dominated the conversation until the meeting ended with vague promises to meet again after Christmas.

  Ellie closed the file and leaned back in her chair. Too late now to wish she’d never started digging into the past. No matter how widespread anti-Semitism might have been, it was depressing to see her g
randmother, her own flesh and blood, revealed as a mean-minded bigot. Lovely Eleanor was ugly underneath, trotting out the old prejudices that had never gone away, and she had died with those beliefs still intact. Ellie was disappointed, too. Thanking Grant Collins for his help, she picked up her coat and headed outside. She had an appointment to keep: Aunt Gillian had managed to find her a place on a trip up the clock tower to see Big Ben. The tour guide was a friend who owed Gillian a favour and, following a last-minute cancellation, had agreed to squeeze Ellie in.

  ‘Just give my address if you’re asked and everything should be fine,’ Gillian had said on the phone. ‘It’s a little irregular but, given our family history, they made an exception.’

  Ellie was ashamed of her family history now; it felt like a dirty secret. Her grandmother had been a Fascist and her grandfather must have been, too, otherwise why would he have been arrested? He had worked at the Houses of Parliament but he had been a traitor – although, of course, she could never tell her aunt about her father having been arrested. Regardless, she had to take up her place on the tour, given the trouble Gillian had taken to arrange it. Renovation work on the clock tower and the clock itself had recently been completed, so that was worth a look, and she might get a good view of London from the top. She would forget about Arthur Spelman and tell herself this was just another sightseeing trip. All the same, it was hard not to imagine her grandfather climbing the spiralling limestone steps beside her – over three hundred of them leading up to the belfry – his hand grasping the iron banister she held now.

  She was part of a group of ten or so. The tour guide was a cheerful woman with a seemingly inexhaustible fund of information and the enthusiasm to match, although she must have given the same talk hundreds of times before. She took them first into the clock room, home to the original Victorian machinery. The clock ran by gravity, the guide explained: the clock hands, the bells and the clock mechanism itself being controlled by three weights which dropped down the tower’s central shaft. These weights would have to be wound up again; two by means of an electric motor but one by hand, even today. Two clockmakers still had to wind the going train, as it was called, three times a week.