by Daisy Wood
The plan had so nearly succeeded, Miss Coker wrote. The police and security services had been fed false information and were assembled elsewhere. Only one woman had realised what was about to happen and tried to alert the Ministry. Her name was Eleanor Spelman, and she had been killed by a bomb in St James’s Park on New Year’s Eve at five minutes past nine in the evening. A watch recovered from the site of the explosion was presumed to have given the time of her death.
‘It appears,’ Miss Coker had written, ‘that Mrs Spelman had towed the searchlight away from Parliament Square to a place of safety, despite the risk to herself. It is a matter of lasting regret to me that her warning telephone message was not taken sufficiently seriously to be acted upon.’
‘Something of an understatement,’ Dan said, topping up Ellie’s glass. ‘Do you know how it all came out?’
‘They arrested Lord Winthrop’s chauffeur the next day and he told them everything.’ Tears came to her eyes; these days, her emotions always seemed to be spilling over. ‘I can’t bear it for Nell, yet I’m so proud. Everyone ought to know what she did.’
‘So what happened to this Winthrop guy?’
‘He was shot by a British agent in France, a few days later. Presumably he’d been trying to make his way overland to Germany, or maybe he wanted to join the German high command in Paris. The test pilot didn’t make it that far: he drowned in the English Channel when his boat was torpedoed. They’d already found the Mosquito, abandoned at an RAF station in Kent. It was painted bright yellow, you see, and would have been far too conspicuous in daylight.’ She took a sip of wine. ‘Of course, the theft was hushed up. It was a terrible breach of national security.’
‘And what about your grandfather?’ Dan asked. ‘Did you find out how long he was kept in jail?’
‘Apparently he was released without charge shortly after Nell was killed. Who knows whether Miss Coker had anything to do with it? He was declared a low risk, with no previous convictions or links to the Fascist party. Maybe they wouldn’t have detained him much longer, anyway.’
Their spaghetti had arrived, fragrant with garlic and chilli. Ellie concentrated on eating; love had made her incredibly hungry, as well as emotionally unstable. ‘I’m just so glad,’ she said eventually, wiping her mouth, ‘that I’ve been able to tell my mom the story while she can still make sense of it.’
‘Do you really think she’s declining that quickly?’ Dan asked.
‘I talked to the staff at the nursing home today. They think Mom’s been covering up her memory loss, but it’s significant and getting worse. She can’t live on her own anymore.’ She put down her fork, suddenly losing her appetite. ‘She knows what’s happening, I’m sure of it. She was glad I went to England, she said, because now the Spelmans can look out for me when she’s gone.’
‘And you have me, too,’ Dan said, reaching for her hand. ‘I’m not going anywhere. It’s like you said, we’ve wasted enough time. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, and maybe’ – he hesitated – ‘maybe try for kids, if that’s what you want, too. Lisa never did, and I was fine with that, but it would be an adventure, wouldn’t it? Having a family of our own.’
‘I’m thirty-eight, though,’ she replied. ‘We might not be lucky. Remember how hard things were for Beth?’
‘Then I guess we’d better start trying right away,’ he said, with a grin. ‘Eat up and I’ll ask for the check.’
Epilogue
London, July 2024
After the ceremony, they all pile back to Gillian’s house in a couple of cabs: Max and Nathan, Gillian, Lucy and her husband Richard, Ellie and Dan and little Ali, who’s fallen asleep on her father’s shoulder. Everyone agrees she’s been amazingly well-behaved; it’s almost as though she could tell something important was happening. Now they’re sitting around the kitchen table, having a cup of tea and a debrief.
‘Of course, we knew about Dan and Ellie before she did,’ Max is telling Lucy. ‘It was written all over his face, poor man. Those puppy-dog eyes, that look of hopeless devotion … Though goodness knows why he had to wait until she’d left the States to tell her.’
They all laugh, and then Ellie yawns. ‘Sorry. It’s been a long day. Dan, maybe we should get going.’ Because Gillian looks exhausted, too. She’s put on some weight, which suits her, and her hair is silvery grey now, which suits her as well, but there are dark circles under her eyes and she could probably do with a rest. She’s had another round of chemotherapy recently, and it’s taken a toll.
‘Let the poor man finish his tea,’ Lucy says with a proprietorial air. Ellie tries to suppress a flash of irritation – Lucy’s bossiness is annoying – and Max catches her eye and smiles.
She and Dan ought to be leaving fairly soon. They’re driving to Millbury tomorrow to visit Brenda MacDonald, who’s still going strong at ninety-four. She’s aiming for a hundred, she’s told Ellie, hanging on for her message of congratulation from Buckingham Palace. Ellie wants to show Brenda her daughter: Alice Eleanor Elizabeth Scardino. Quite a mouthful for a nine-month old, so just Ali for now. She settles the baby on her lap and buries her face in the nape of her neck, then blows on Ali’s curls to make her laugh.
‘She really is the jolliest little thing there ever was,’ Gillian says. ‘So sad that Alice never got to know her.’
‘Mother! You’ve said that at least three times already,’ Max exclaims. ‘Change the record, please.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Gillian’s not offended; Max can still get away with murder.
‘But I think Mom does know her on some level,’ Ellie says. ‘In fact, I think she’s with us right now.’
It’s coming up for a year since Alice died. It was a peaceful passing, and somehow not what anyone had been expecting. She had softened, seeming to conquer the fear of losing her mind and enjoy the limited life she led. To Ellie’s huge relief, Arthur’s legacy had come through, so her mother could stay at the Willows without any financial worries. She spent her last months in a happier place, sleeping more each day and talking less. Occasionally she would recount some story from her childhood, but the memories didn’t distress her. Even when she was no longer talking at all, Ellie felt her mother always knew who she was. She would pull up a chair beside Alice’s bed, take her hand and place it on her stomach so that her mother could feel the baby kicking.
‘See?’ she would tell her. ‘This is my child, Mom. I’m going to be fine, I promise. You don’t have to worry.’
And Alice would smile with a tender, secret expression that might have shown she understood, or might have meant nothing at all.
They had all been hoping her mother could hang on to see the baby born, but a week before Ellie’s due date, Alice had gone to sleep one night and not woken up in the morning. She had simply drifted away. Ellie was glad her mother had been spared any suffering. She had gone into labour the same day – probably because of the shock, they said – and baby Ali had been born that afternoon. Only after the birth had Ellie been able to tell Dan how much she’d been longing for a girl. She hadn’t dare pray for anything other than a healthy baby, yet a daughter seemed a direct link to Alice, and to Nell. Ali had been baptised in the gown Ellie had found in Alice’s apartment, and today she was wearing one of the hand-smocked dresses, in honour of the occasion.
‘I’ve been thinking about Alice all day,’ Gillian says. ‘She would have been so proud of her mother. A plaque in the belfry, no less!’
That morning, there had been a small ceremony conducted by the Keeper of the Clock to unveil the memorial. ‘To honour the courage of Eleanor Spelman,’ read the plaque, ‘who gave her life during the Second World War to save this monument for the people of London and all around the world who cherish it. Her valour will never be forgotten.’
‘It would never have happened without your help,’ Dan says. ‘Thank you for everything.’
‘A pleasure.’ Gillian smiles, and Ellie smiles too. All of her English family like Dan, she can tell; they hav
e great taste. When he catches her eye, her heart gives a fluttery leap. She’s still besotted, still in the honeymoon phase although they’re not married yet. They’ve just never gotten around to it. One day soon, though.
‘Before everyone goes, Nathan and I have some news,’ Max says. ‘Not to steal the limelight or anything, but we’re getting hitched. After fifteen years together, we thought it was time.’
Now everyone’s laughing and talking at once, and Gillian produces a bottle of champagne from the fridge, which Lucy opens. She twists the cork, not the bottle, Ellie notices, though she knows better than to point out the mistake.
She looks around the table at these faces who have become so dear to her, despite their imperfections (and heaven knows, she has plenty of those herself). Like Gillian, she’s also been thinking about her mother all day. She often talks to Alice in her head and Alice invariably answers back. They’re linked to each other, inextricably and forever. Nell is bound up with them too, and Rose before her; a web of connections stretching back generations, its strands made up of love and desire, birth and death, failure, success, jealousy, forgiveness, and a hundred other emotions besides. Meanwhile, Arthur’s grandfather clock ticks in the hall, counting out the seconds that make up a life.
Acknowledgements
I’m grateful to the following people for their encouragement and expertise: my agent, Sallyanne Sweeney at MMB Creative; the fantastically professional and creative team at Avon Books, including Phoebe Morgan, who first broached the idea for this book, and editor Molly Walker-Sharp; copy editor Laura McCallen, and proofreader Linda Joyce; Caroline Young and the HarperCollins design team who produced such a stunning cover; Catherine Moss and Lindsay Schusman from the Parliamentary Estate; my American family, Mary-Kate Serratelli and Gillian Weiner, who advised on all things transatlantic; Michael Stallibrass and Philip Walters, for their help with knotty plot points; Andrew Walters, formerly of the RAF, for his knowledge of aircraft during the Second World War. Any remaining errors are all my own work.
Last but not least, I should like to thank my husband, to whom this book is dedicated, and my sons, whose help comes in the vital form of making me laugh and reminding me not to take myself too seriously.
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About the Author
Daisy Wood worked as an editor in children’s publishing before she started writing her own books. She has a degree in English Literature and an MA in Creative Writing from City University, London, and is the author of several works of historical fiction for children. This is her first published novel for adults. She divides her time between London and Dorset, and when not lurking in the London Library, can often be found chasing a rescue Pointer through various parks with a Basset Hound in tow.
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