The Clockmaker's Wife

by Daisy Wood

  He had a point. And it was relaxing to be driven through a changing landscape, the clogged city streets giving way to a three-lane freeway for a stretch, and then a cross-country route that Dan had planned. He’d brought some snacks for the journey – potato chips, peanut-butter cups and cans of soda – which surprised her, as he and Lisa had always been so strict about their diet. They sang along noisily to the radio while she ate with her feet up on the dash, feeling like a kid on spring break. It was a sunny winter’s day and the future suddenly seemed full of promise, rather than all the wrong choices she was bound to make and spend years regretting. Dan would be going back to the States on Monday and she’d managed to control herself. She could carry on their easy, relaxed friendship and there would be no romantic entanglements to get in the way of her relationship with Beth, no embarrassment when Dan had to admit – as he inevitably would – that he thought of her as a sister and besides, there was no way he was ready to start dating again.

  ‘Do you remember that time Beth and I came to visit you at Lehigh and I sneaked off to a party with your crazy roommate?’ she asked him, out of the blue. ‘And you went to every hall on campus trying to find us?’

  ‘I do. And I also remember washing the floor and sheets and your clothes after you threw up on them. You were like Vesuvius; it just kept on coming.’

  She laughed. ‘Sorry.’ He had seen her at her worst, that was for sure.

  They’d been getting along fine, despite her initial reservations; it had been good to have someone to hang out with, especially now she’d given up her search into the Spelman family history. Dan had thrown himself into the task of finding interesting things to do. He’d queued up early for tickets to the theatre, found the best Chinese restaurant in Soho, got her up at dawn for a visit to the flower market, and discovered the oldest riverside pub in London, down by the docks, where smugglers and sailors used to drink. She would miss him when he went back to New York in a few days’ time. She might even have considered travelling with him, but she’d promised to take Gillian to her next round of chemotherapy and stay at her house overnight. She’d felt awful the last time, and the side effects of the drug were cumulative so the next dose would be worse. After that, her daughter Lucy would be back from South Africa and she could take over.

  ‘But you really ought to let Max know,’ Ellie had said. ‘How do you think he’s going to feel when he finds out you’ve been keeping this secret?’

  ‘Relieved, I should imagine,’ Gillian had replied. Ellie hadn’t dared ask why she wouldn’t give him the chance to be kind, although she’d very much wanted to.

  ‘You look very serious all of a sudden.’ She turned away from the window to find Dan glancing at her. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Oh, nothing much.’ She forced a smile. ‘Just wondering what I’m going to tell Mom when she asks me about the trip. It’s strange, I thought somehow I was meant to come to England, like my grandmother was calling me, but now I’m not so sure.’

  ‘But you’ve made friends with your aunt, and Max and Nathan,’ he said. ‘So that’s a plus. You don’t have to say anything about Eleanor. It’s not as though we know for certain what she was up to.’

  ‘I guess not.’ Ellie sighed. ‘I’d like to be proud of her, that’s all. Although why should it matter whether she was one of the good guys? Maybe I only wanted to feel better about myself, to know that I might not have amounted to much but my grandma was amazing.’

  ‘That’s deep. I’d say you’ve not turned out too badly, all things considered.’ Dan was blushing, she noticed. He added, ‘Well, at least you’re through the vomiting drunk phase.’

  Ellie laughed, reminded not to take herself too seriously. She felt warm and comfortable, and dangerously tempted to confide in him. That was an impulse she would have to control. They stopped for lunch in Oxford at a hotel with a huge log fire in the bar, ate steak-and-kidney pie and treacle tart, despite all the snacks in the car, and talked about inconsequential things: whether the Mets would beat the Yankees, which was the country they would most like to visit, what had happened to various people they’d known at high school.

  After she’d finished a glass of red wine and they were drinking coffee, she said, ‘If I tell you something, will you swear to keep it to yourself?’ Because the knowledge was, after all, too much of a burden to carry alone.

  ‘Go on.’ Dan leaned back and folded his arms, his face flushed from the heat of the fire and all of his attention focused on her. A hundred butterflies beat their tiny wings in Ellie’s stomach. Focus, she told herself.

  ‘I’ve found out why my aunt thought I came here,’ she began, ‘and I’m not sure what to do about it.’

  It had taken Gillian a while to come to the point. Ellie hadn’t liked to press her; she’d looked so frail, lying back in the chair with her eyes closed while her body was flooded with drugs that would probably make her feel worse than the cancer. Eventually, she’d confessed that her mother, Mavis, had lied to Alice almost thirty years ago. Mavis had said that Arthur hadn’t left her any money in his will, that his whole estate had gone to her and Gillian.

  ‘She made sure Mom couldn’t make it over in time for the funeral, and she told the solicitor she’d lost touch with her stepdaughter and no one knew where she was.’

  ‘And your mom just accepted that?’ Dan asked. ‘Without making her own enquiries?’

  ‘Ridiculous, isn’t it? But you know what Alice is like – she’s the least materialistic person in the world. And proud, too. Maybe she thought she didn’t need or want her father’s money. Apparently, Gillian knew what was happening but didn’t do anything about it.’ Ellie remembered what her aunt had said: ‘I was angry with Alice. It might sound ridiculous but I hadn’t forgiven her for leaving. She’d turned her back on me, too.’

  ‘So what’s happened to the money?’

  ‘That’s the thing. Apparently if a legacy isn’t claimed, it’s kept by the UK Treasury Department. It wasn’t as though Mavis got Mom’s share; she just didn’t want her to have it.’ Ellie drained her coffee cup. ‘My aunt thought Mom had got wind of her inheritance somehow and sent me over to fetch it.’

  ‘You mean, the funds are still available?’

  ‘There’s a chance, but we’d have to hurry. You have thirty years to make a claim, and it’ll be thirty years at the end of this month since my grandfather died. That’s why Gillian was rattled – she was sure we’d found out, that me turning up when I did wasn’t a coincidence.’

  ‘So how much money are we talking about?’ Dan asked, steepling his fingers.

  ‘Not millions, but a tidy sum. Forty thousand pounds initially, which was earning interest for some of the time. It would mean Mom could stay in her nursing home for a while longer.’

  ‘Then what are you waiting for?’

  ‘My mom already doesn’t think much of Gillian. If she knows that Mavis lied to her and Gillian did nothing to put things right, she might not want anything to do with her English family. And what if the money doesn’t come through?’

  Even if the claim were successful, Gillian would have to face up to her complicity when she was already going through so much – although Ellie couldn’t tell Dan about that.

  ‘Look, you owe it to your mom to go after that legacy,’ he said. ‘Your grandfather’s wishes ought to be respected, and Gillian should do what she can to help. Alice can decide whether or not she wants to keep the money if it comes through. But maybe don’t tell her any of this until you know for sure that’s going to happen.’

  ‘Good idea.’ Ellie waved at the waiter to bring their bill. ‘Thanks, Dan. And happy birthday, by the way.’

  ‘Now for the next excitement.’ He pushed back his chair. ‘Millbury, here we come.’

  ‘Can’t we explore the city instead? It looks so beautiful. We could visit one of the colleges, maybe, and then find a café for afternoon tea. Buttered crumpets? Scones with jam and cream?’

  Ellie was familiar with these del
ights by now. She could see the two of them gazing at the medieval buildings, whose history Dan would probably know, soaking up the beauty and romance, then maybe taking a punt down the river and—

  ‘Actually, you’re right. Let’s make a move.’ She pushed back her chair. ‘I guess we won’t starve if we don’t eat for a couple of hours.’

  They left Oxford and drove along back roads into the country. The scenery was lovely even in the depths of winter, with leafless trees spiking fields of corrugated brown earth.

  ‘This is too much,’ Ellie murmured, as they passed through yet another storybook village. ‘Can we stop? I want to see if it’s real.’

  Cottages of golden stone were set around a duckpond, smoke rising from their chimneys into the still air. A design had been carved into one of the thatched roofs: rats chasing each other up the slope past an attic window set into the eaves. She had to take a picture, although the people who lived there were probably sick of tourists.

  ‘OK,’ she said, climbing back into the car, ‘we can turn around now. I’ve had my fix.’

  ‘It’s only another few miles to Millbury.’ Dan started the engine. ‘You don’t even have to knock on the door. We’ll take a look at the house and then go home. What are you so afraid of?’

  ‘Surprises,’ Ellie said, yawning. ‘I don’t like them anymore.’

  She fell asleep then, waking up with a start when he stopped the car. Orchard House wasn’t at all picturesque: square and forbidding, it loomed at the end of a short gravel drive with dank rhododendron bushes on either side. It was built of red brick in the mock Tudor style, with a lot of insistent, heavy black beams. Dan got out of the car, stretching his back. Ellie didn’t want to take a photograph; this house would mean nothing to Alice and it wasn’t even quaint.

  A woman they hadn’t noticed approached Dan, wearing gardening gloves and holding a trowel. Ellie climbed out of the car to join him in explaining why they were there. She took her grandmother’s identity card out of her purse, but the woman only glanced at it briefly.

  ‘I can’t help you, I’m afraid,’ she said. ‘We moved here just five years ago and the house has changed hands several times in the past twenty years or so. Sorry.’

  ‘Of course. No problem,’ Ellie said. Maybe now Dan would agree they could go back to London.

  She had her hand on the car door when the woman called after her, ‘There is someone you might want to talk to. Mrs Macdonald, in the middle of the village. She lived here when she was a girl and she’s in her nineties now. Sharp as a tack, though, and quite the character. She might remember your grandmother. Millbury’s a small place, after all.’ She gave Dan instructions on where to find the apartment and wished them luck.

  ‘All right, all right,’ Ellie said, when they were back in the car and he’d turned to her, raising his eyebrows. ‘We’ll go there, for all the good it’ll do.’

  With any luck, this woman wouldn’t have realised the sort of person her grandmother was, even if she had known her and could tell them anything at all, eighty years later. Anyway, it was getting dark; an elderly woman wasn’t likely to open the door to two strangers calling out of the blue.

  Mrs Macdonald lived on the ground floor of an apartment block overlooking the village green. There was a bench in the front garden, and geraniums in pots, still flowering despite the cold, and a tabby cat washing its fur. Ellie could imagine her mom being happy in a place like this. Dan rang the doorbell and they stood back.

  ‘She’s not answering,’ Ellie said after a few seconds. ‘C’mon, let’s go.’

  But Dan put his hand on her arm. ‘I can hear footsteps.’ And now they could see a blurred shape approaching behind the frosted glass.

  Mrs Macdonald was leaning on a walker, which must have been why it took her a while to open the door. She wore a pink velour tracksuit with the word JUICY picked out in diamanté across her chest, lipstick to match, and large turquoise-framed glasses. Another pair hung around her neck, along with a three-strand pearl necklace, and her white hair was scooped up with various tortoiseshell combs. This is how I want to look when I’m old, Ellie decided instantly.

  ‘Who are you?’ she said. ‘If you’re collecting for charity, you can bugger off. I donate by standing order.’

  ‘We’re so sorry to disturb you,’ Ellie said, biting back a smile. ‘This is a long shot, Mrs Macdonald, but is there any chance you might have known my grandmother, Eleanor Spelman?’

  ‘Never heard of her.’ Mrs Macdonald began to close the door. For all of her reservations, Ellie felt a pang of disappointment. But then it slowly swung open again, and the old lady was staring at her. ‘My God!’ she said. ‘You mean Nell, don’t you?’

  Ellie’s heart leapt. ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Good heavens.’ Mrs Macdonald swayed, gripping the walker so tightly that her knuckles turned white. ‘Well, I’ll be damned. Do you mean to tell me you’re Alice’s daughter?’

  ‘Yes, I am.’ Ellie found there were tears in her eyes. She blinked furiously. ‘Did you know her, too?’

  ‘I’ll say.’ Mrs Macdonald shuffled a few steps closer, gazing at Ellie as though she were drinking her up. Then she manoeuvred the walker in a semi-circle. ‘You’d better come in,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘You’re letting out all the heat, standing there with the door open. The place is a mess but you’ll have to put up with that. I’d have tidied up if I’d known you were coming. Possibly.’

  They followed her down the narrow hall and into a living room that overflowed with papers and books, covering every surface and stacked in heaps on the floor. ‘I’m sorting out my library,’ Mrs Macdonald said, sinking into a chair, ‘but I keep getting distracted. Find a seat where you can. Would you like a cup of tea?’

  ‘I’ll make it,’ Dan offered. ‘Just point me in the right direction.’

  Mrs Macdonald looked at him doubtfully. ‘You can have a go, I suppose. But use the kettle, not the microwave. I’ve seen Americans making tea on the internet and it’s not pretty. Follow your nose and it’ll lead you to the kitchen.’ She turned back to Ellie. ‘Well, well, well. Who’d have thought it? Now, tell me all about yourself, and Alice too. Is she still alive? So many of us have gone and here I am, plodding on.’ She laughed, lifting her glasses to dab her eyes with the tissue. ‘What’s your name, dear?’

  When Ellie had introduced herself, she nodded. ‘You’re the image of your grandmother – I should have realised straight away. And named after her, too. How lovely.’

  Ellie had to contain her impatience while she gave Mrs Macdonald a brief history of her family and showed her pictures of Alice on her telephone. ‘How did we all get so old,’ she said, staring at the photograph. ‘I’ll always think of your mother as a five-year-old. That’s when I last saw her.’

  ‘Please, tell me everything,’ Ellie begged, perched on the edge of the sofa. But then Dan arrived with the tea tray, and there was a lot of toing and froing with milk and sugar, and the clearing of side tables.

  ‘Not bad,’ Mrs Macdonald said, having taken her first sip. ‘I was fearing the worst but this is perfectly acceptable.’ She settled her cup back on the saucer. ‘Now, where to start? At the beginning, I suppose. So, I first came to this village in 1940, when I was nine. We were evacuated from Coventry in the nick of time, my sisters and my brother and me, a few months before it was bombed. I know a lot of children suffered terribly, having to leave their families and live with strangers, but it was the making of us. She was a decent woman, you see.’

  ‘My grandmother?’ Ellie asked.

  ‘No, I’m talking about her mother, Mrs Roberts. She took care of us all, in a way no one had done before. Our real mother was an alcoholic and pretty much a dead loss. We were dreading the thought of her fetching us back at the end of the war but, thank goodness, she simply disappeared. We never found out what became of her. Our father had left years before, so Rose Roberts fostered us and put our lives on the right track. My sister trained as a midwife
and I ended up at grammar school and then university, would you believe. I became a history teacher, and it was all because of her and the wonderful teachers at our village school. And now I’m retired and widowed and living back here, where I started.’

  ‘But what about Nell, Mrs Macdonald?’ Ellie couldn’t contain herself.

  ‘Do call me Brenda, dear. We’re virtually related, after all.’ She wiped her eyes again. ‘I met your grandmother only a few weeks before she was killed so I didn’t know her long. Yet she made a great impression on me. I can picture her clearly, even now.’

  Ellie found the photos of Nell on her phone. ‘There she is, bless her.’ Brenda sighed. ‘I remember her being driven away that last time. She and the baby came to live in the village because they’d been bombed out, you see, but her husband stayed behind in London. And then for some reason, she went back to join him in the middle of the Blitz. Goodness knows why. I’ve no idea how she died, either. Children weren’t told anything in those days. “Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies,” that’s what people used to say.’

  ‘So what happened to my mother after that?’ Ellie asked.

  ‘Alice stayed with us at Orchard House for the rest of the war, and then her father came and fetched her back when it ended. It was terrible.’ Brenda shook her head. ‘Alice was all Rose had left by then, in the way of blood relations. First Nell was killed, and then Harry – he was Nell’s brother – died a year later in a prisoner of war camp. He was shot, trying to escape. But Arthur was Alice’s father, so Rose couldn’t very well refuse. She poured her energies into us and I think that helped, but we all missed the baby terribly. Sparky little thing, she was. And still is, I imagine. I don’t suppose she’ll remember me now.’

  ‘She’s getting forgetful,’ Ellie admitted.

  ‘As am I. It’s strange, though: I’ve no idea what happened yesterday but those childhood days are as clear as a bell. I remember Nell saying to me once that if anything happened to us children, she and Rose would never get over it. That was the first time I’d ever felt of any value. Up until then, I thought there was nobody in the world who cared whether we lived or died. It was a turning point for me, really.’ Her hands shaking a little, she handed the phone back to Ellie.