The Little Clock House on the Green

‘So how long are you back for?’ Aunt Cheryl asked, sectioning off the front of Kate’s hair and proceeding to back-comb it to within an inch of its life.

Back.

Home.

Ignoring the fact that they were both four-letter words, Kate concentrated on answering truthfully. Confidently. Brook-no-argument-ly. ‘I was thinking… permanently?’ She winced as she heard herself. Okay, so she still had a little work to do on sounding convinced.

You could hear a pin drop.

Literally, because the one in Aunt Cheryl’s mouth fell out as her jaw dropped open and it made a tiny ping as it hit the floorboards Juliet had painted white in an effort to make the room appear bigger.

As her aunt bent down to retrieve the pin, Kate’s panicked eyes sought out Juliet’s in the mirror and she was grateful for the double thumbs-up of encouragement, before her cousin tactfully went back to the crafting magazine she’d been leafing through.

‘Back permanently?’ Aunt Cheryl asked, reclaiming the pin and shoving it back into her mouth along with a few others. ‘As in you’ve come home, home?’

‘Mmmn,’ Kate fixed her smile into place. The one she’d practised all the way over on the plane. Back two days and already she was discovering that, apparently, Kate Somersby coming back to Whispers Wood permanently had been one of those beyond-the-realms-of-possibility things.

‘And have you let your mum know?’ Aunt Cheryl wanted to know.

Kate shifted uncomfortably on the chair she was perched upon and avoiding the question, put a hand up to her hair. ‘I thought this year prom hair was sort of romantic half-up, half-down affairs?’

‘And, see,’ Aunt Cheryl nudged Kate’s shoulder until she was looking in the mirror again, ‘isn’t that what I’m doing?’

Kate stared at the half-up, half-down beehive that had some sort of fishtail plait going on at the back. Apparently, Look No.3 was a party-in-the-front and party-in-the-back affair.

It wouldn’t be fair to describe Aunt Cheryl as a novice when it came to hair. She was a perfectly acceptable and qualified mobile hairdresser, who for the last twenty-five years had been dispensing opinions she’d gained from her first-class honours degree in sear-you-to-your-bones honesty along with a good set and blow-dry. If you were a certain age, you really had no complaints. If you were from this millennia, though, you knew to ask Juliet to do your hair.

Juliet was amazing with hair and, privately, Kate always wondered if it was loyalty to her mum or shyness that stopped Juliet from striking out on her own.

‘So have you, then? Seen your mother, that is,’ Aunt Cheryl repeated.

Kate began singing Abba’s ‘S.O.S.’ under her breath as once again her gaze sought her cousin’s in the mirror.

Fortunately Juliet spoke ‘awkward’ and with a gentle smile, stood up and crossed the room to pass her mother the hairspray. ‘Give it a rest, Mum. She’s only been back a couple of days.’

‘Well, she can’t hide out with you forever, can she? Where’s she sleeping? You can’t even swing a cat in here, although God knows, you’ve got enough of them.’

‘It won’t be for forever. Although,’ Juliet turned and put a reassuring hand on Kate’s shoulder, ‘You know the sofa’s yours for as long as you want it. I love having you here.’

‘Thanks, lovely,’ Kate said.

‘Because, honestly,’ Aunt Cheryl demanded as if neither had spoken, ‘What’s Sheila going to say if she bumps into you?’

That was actually a tough one.

Kate had been worrying more about if her mum was going to react, rather than how.

‘Is she going to bump into me, though? I mean, does she actually leave the house now, then? Other than to pop out for something one of her beloved guest’s might need, I mean?’

‘Kate,’ her aunt reproved.

‘Sorry. Sorry. Habit.’

‘A bad habit.’

‘Yes,’ Kate whispered. ‘Bad habit.’

Kate wanted to add that it was a habit she hadn’t wanted to learn, but now that she had it was one she seemed incapable of unlearning. But if she was back to stay she was going to have to. Being back meant seeing Sheila Somersby. Talking to Sheila Somersby. Trying to have a relationship with Sheila Somersby.

At least she was pretty sure it did. In the quagmire of grief after Bea dying, Kate had begun to refer to her mum as The Shell because when Bea died she’d, rather unhelpfully, in Kate’s humble opinion, taken their mum with her, leaving behind only a hulled-out shell of skin and bone. Any energy her mum was able to drum up was spent on keeping her B&B guests comfortable.

In the moments Kate could apply perspective, she got that – she really did. Her mum had a business she needed to keep going. A business she’d started after Kate and Bea’s dad had upped and left. A business that had enabled Sheila Somersby to block out the humiliation of his leaving and operate under a super-polished veneer of stoicism.

Back then, Kate and Bea had had each other to soften the fallout and share their concerns their mum would never rekindle the sharp wit and curiosity for life that she’d used to share with her sister, Cheryl.

But after Bea had died…

Well, there was just Sheila.

And there was just Kate.

Separated by a wall of grief Kate wasn’t sure could ever be knocked down. Wasn’t even sure her mother thought either of them was entitled to.

‘I do understand, you know,’ Cheryl said gently. ‘But think about it from her point of view. How would you like it, the whole village knowing your daughter was back and you the only one not to have been told.’

‘Has she… Is she–?’ She shook her head to silence the questions threatening escape and marvelled slightly at the fact that not one hair on her head moved as she did.

‘You’ll never know if you don’t go and see her, will you? I think you’ll be surprised by what you find. Good surprised.’

Hope took a breath.

Fear that she’d be responsible for setting her mother back extinguished it.

She couldn’t do it.

Not yet.

She had another visit she had to make first.

‘Maybe I’ll go now,’ she said, shooting to her feet the moment Aunt Cheryl reached for the next can of hairspray.

‘Oh, but I haven’t–’ but as if she could sense Kate’s wings threatening to take flight, Aunt Cheryl nodded her head. Reaching out she pulled some of Kate’s long brown hair over her shoulder and tipped her head to the side in consideration. ‘Yes. I think this look will be received well at Wood View High.’

‘I’d say definitely if your motivation is to help curb teenage pregnancy,’ Kate said, thinking no one in their right mind would find this look attractive.

Cheryl winked. ‘With great talent comes great responsibility. Give your mum my love and tell her I’ll pop over on Friday, usual time, to take her to bridge.’

Juliet waylaid her as she was sticking her feet into Juliet’s bright, happy, purple-skulls-and-orange-daisy covered festival wellies. Kate hadn’t exactly unpacked, yet. Not that there was much room to in Wren Cottage. At least, that was her excuse.

‘Sorry,’ Juliet muttered, pulling the front door shut behind her. ‘She just wants the two of you to–’

‘It’s okay,’ Kate answered, cutting her off with a, ‘And I know. Your mum’s been completely Switzerland about all of this, which I know must be hard. It’ll get better. I’ll get better at dealing with it.’

‘You’re going to have to if you’re staying.’

‘I know. I just–’

Juliet gave a brief nod of understanding. ‘Didn’t need this all in your face from the moment you walked through the door? I’m sorry I haven’t been around since you’ve got back. It’s wedding season and I’ve been flat out. But I promise we’ll talk tonight. Hey,’ she looked down, her red hair falling over her shoulder as she noticed Kate’s foot attire for the first time. ‘It’s a little hot for boots – you want to borrow something else and take the car?’

‘No. The walk will do me good. And where I’m going I don’t need to dress up.’ Kate’s denim cut-offs, buttercup-yellow gypsy top and festival wellies would be perfectly acceptable for where she was going.

‘You’re not going to visit your mum?’

‘Nope.’

‘Then, where – oh,’ Juliet flushed scarlet. ‘You’re going to see Oscar?’

‘Nope. God, Juliet, if I can’t pluck up the courage to see mum, you can be damn certain I haven’t got the balls to see my brother-in-law, yet.’

‘Right. But, well, you’ll have to see him eventually. Tell him you’re back and what you’re planning to do.’

‘Why?’ Kate asked, her bottom lip poking out sulkily.

‘What do you mean, why? Don’t you think he’s going to notice if you buy The Clock House and open it up as a spa?’

‘No… yes…’ Kate looked around for something handy to hang her subject-change on and looked right into Juliet’s flushed face. ‘What’s with the red face?’

‘What?’ Juliet swallowed.

‘You,’ Kate answered, waving her hand in her cousin’s face, ‘and the blushing thing you’ve got going on.’

‘Hello?’ Juliet pointed to her ginger hair. ‘Daily occurrence, with this mop, isn’t it?’

‘I suppose,’ Kate said, not sure whether to delve deeper or leave Juliet to her poor excuse.

‘So, if you’re not going to meet Oscar, where are you going then? Oh–’

‘Yep.’

‘Do you want me to come with you?’

‘Nope. And don’t look so worried. This madness was your idea, remember?’

‘I don’t know what I was thinking,’ Juliet ran her hands down the front of her pretty white embroidery anglaise dress and gave Kate a rueful look. ‘Well, yes, I do know what I was thinking. It had a kind of two-birds-with-one-stone sort of symmetry.’

Should’ve delved deeper, Kate realised. ‘When I get back we’ll have a cuppa and you can tell me all about the birds and the stones, okay?’

‘Okay,’ Juliet said, sounding not okay, at all.

Leaning over, Kate gave her cousin a quick reassuring kiss on the cheek. ‘Hey, it’s going to be fine. Promise.’ And before Juliet could say something else heartfelt that would stop her from getting her first look at the whole reason she’d come back, she waved cheerio.

Turning left, she walked down the path that would take her to the cut-through into Whispers Wood and allow her to emerge onto the village green. In a bid to settle the butterflies she took a deep breath and inhaled a lungful of freshly mown grass and early summer flowers.

The scent helped her feel happier. Less weighted-down. Until she started thinking about how she’d have to walk past the little parade of shops on the other side of the village green. Well, she said parade – there were five units and two of them were permanently empty these days. The other three consisted of the Post Office, a dentist and Big Kev’s corner shop.

Should she pop in and say ‘Hi’ while she was out and about? Casually mention that she had re-entered the Whispers Wood atmosphere and had touched down permanently?

Her pace automatically slowed at the thought.

She was such a coward.

It was only going to get more difficult if she kept letting herself off the hook, wasn’t it? Maybe if the first person she’d bumped into as she was heaving her rucksack and wheelie-case out of the taxi after it had pulled up outside Wren Cottage hadn’t been Sandeep, the postman. And maybe if he hadn’t looked agog at her when she’d told him she was back to stay…

And maybe if she wasn’t secretly smarting from every one of the staggered-disbelief expressions she encountered when she went all ‘full-disclosure’ she could keep it up.

As she entered the woods she exchanged the scent of freshly cut grass, with its hint of creeping roses and honeysuckle for the smell of dry, dusty, musty earth and trees. Here, she automatically followed the well-beaten dirt track right through the centre and noticed that street lamps had been installed either end since she’d last used the cut-through.

She wondered how long the village meeting about street lamps versus the existing wildlife’s quality of life had gone on for, because she was betting Whispers Woods’ unofficial ‘mayor’, Crispin Harlow, had called a meeting to discuss the issue.

Crispin Harlow had become the unofficial village head-honcho ten years ago, when he’d moved in, promptly formed the Whispers Wood Residents’ Association, and Aunt Cheryl and Aunt Cheryl’s best friend, Trudie McTravers, had used the AOB section at one of his meetings to present him with ‘robes’ they’d run up from leftover material from the nativity play Trudie had helped put on at the local primary school. Crispin didn’t really do irony and, you know that Shakespeare saying: ‘clothes maketh the man’? As far as Kate was aware he’d been unstoppable ever since.

If Old Man Isaac still allowed Crispin to use The Clock House for ‘all things village-related’ meetings, Kate wondered how she’d deal with Crispin when it was time to tell him she owned the building and meetings would need to be booked through her.

Kate stopped mid-stride.

She mustn’t start thinking of it as hers.

Not yet.

Chapter 6

Voice of the Beehive

Kate

Kate emerged from the cut-through into brilliant sunlight and couldn’t understand why there was a lot of shouting going on. As her eyes adjusted, there, under the shade of the oak trees lining the right hand side of the green was her answer… Someone had gone and let the army in to train on the green.

Her first thought was, did Crispin know about this?

Her second thought, as she looked closer, was that the army would probably be full of fitter, younger individuals, who wouldn’t give away their position by training in varying eye-watering shades of neon Lycra.

So the noughties had truly arrived in Whispers Wood. Prior to this, outdoor exercise in the village was usually of the T’ai Chi pace, rather than full-on, cardiac-arrest-inducing (by the looks of some of the participants), sergeant-major-style-y circuit-training.

‘Kate? Kate Somersby? Sweetie, is that you?’

Kate looked over in the direction of the voice, a smile breaking out over her face. ‘Hi, Trudie – looking good.’

‘Oh, thanks, sweetie. Trying to lose these last fifteen pounds is killer,’ she puffed out as she lunged not so much gracefully as disgracefully across the green towards her.

‘I see that,’ Kate replied.

Kate always thought of Trudie McTravers as the Eddie to Aunt Cheryl’s Pats because whenever they got together and alcohol was involved, mayhem wasn’t usually far behind.

Wonderfully larger-than-life and the self-appointed creative director of the local Whispers Wood am-dram society, rumour had it that during the eighties Trudie had starred in several Alan Ayckbourn plays in the West End.

Rumour also had it that before quiet and reserved bank manager, Nigel, had snapped her up she’d also starred in several films of an adult nature. Trudie never confirmed nor denied the rumours and as her Twitter ID was: @AFlairForT‌heDramatic, Kate suspected she wasn’t only the star of such rumours but the source as well.

‘You just get back?’ Trudie puffed out.

Kate nodded. ‘A couple of days ago.’

Trudie’s gaze strayed to Kate’s ‘do’ and grinned. ‘Cheryl?’

‘Cheryl,’ Kate confirmed.

‘How long are you back for?’

‘Oh, this time I was thinking,’ she leaned forward conspiratorially and whispered, ‘of forever’.

Trudie’s laugh took on a braying quality before she brought herself under control. ‘Okay, but actually, that’s got me thinking… How long are you back for really, because we’re doing Midsummer Night’s Dream again, and you always made a fabulous Titania.’

Kate winced at the disbelieving laugh and determined not to gently remind Trudie that it had been Bea, not her, who had played Titania, to everyone’s delight.

Some years Trudie ‘encouraged’ (begged and bribed) so many of the Whispers Wood inhabitants into her production that she had to rope in the residents of Whispers Ford to make up an audience. But the year Bea had played Titania and Oscar Matthews had played Bottom, everyone had agreed it had been Trudie’s most inspired production yet. Of course, that was the year that Bea had finally got Oscar Matthews to notice her, so…

‘McTravers, are you chatting or exercising?’

Kate glanced over in the direction of the booming voice. ‘Oops,’ she whispered out of the side of her mouth to Trudie, ‘I don’t think Private Benjamin is allowed to talk.’

‘I’m a woman,’ Trudie shouted back at the fitness instructor, ‘I can talk and exercise.’

‘Prove it,’ ordered Mr Sergeant Major, ‘and give me fifteen star jumps while you’re standing around chatting the day away.’

‘Is he for real?’ Kate asked in equal parts scared and impressed as Trudie duly obliged.

‘Trust me, he is definitely for real,’ Trudie puffed out. ‘Last week, he caught Crispin chatting to Sandeep and made him drop and give him twenty.’

‘No! And Crispin did it?’

‘Managed twelve before he passed out.’

‘Oh my God, that’s barbaric.’ Although, darn, because she would have loved to have seen that.

She looked over at the rest of the class, hanging out in the shade of the trees, doing burpees. Burpees! On Whispers Wood green. It defied all village logic. Or maybe she’d been away too long. ‘Trudie, are you sure this guy isn’t violating your civil rights or something?’

‘Sweetie, I can’t afford to care if I want to lose the fifteen pounds. Besides,’ she gasped mid star-jump. ‘Have you seen the way his butt looks in those shorts?’

Kate couldn’t help it – she looked over at the fitness instructor and, yes, checked out his butt encased in the kind of white shorts last seen in an eighties Wimbledon final. ‘Wow. Um. Very Magnum P.I.’

‘Such a shame that the face was made for radio.’

‘Trudie,’ Kate admonished.

‘At least I get to spend one hour three mornings a week doing a little butt-staring,’ Trudie wriggled her eyebrows appreciatively.

‘And what does Nigel have to say about this new hobby of yours?’

‘Oh he’s far too busy reaping the rewards to complain.’

Kate screwed up her face. ‘Euw! T.M.I.’

‘What can you possibly mean,’ Trudie said, adopting an innocent expression. ‘I’m talking about having the stamina to help Nigel out in the garden – what are you talking about?’

Kate laughed.

‘Now all I have to do,’ Trudie added, her attention on the fitness instructor, ‘is to convince Mr Butt that after helping out backstage at the summer play, he really wants to be in the Christmas one.’

‘Playing what? The back end of the pantomime horse?’

‘Trudie McTravers, do not make me come over there,’ came the voice from the other end of the green.

‘Help,’ Trudie said, not very convincingly.

‘Run!’ Kate advised. ‘Run like the wind.’

Trudie finished her star-jumps and turned to give Kate a mock salute. ‘Back for forever, you say?’

‘Uh-huh,’ Kate murmured, saluting back, convinced she heard Trudie mutter a, ‘well, just when you think you’ve heard it all,’ under her breath as she sort of yomped back to the rest of the class.

Kate’s smile faltered when she realised she had nothing left to distract her from what she’d come to see.

She blew out a breath to prepare for her first proper glance… and turned to face The Clock House.

There it stood.

Rising up from the far end of the village green. Strong and straight and true.

Her gaze roamed greedily over it.

The three-storeys-high, Georgian red-brick building with the ornate clock perched proudly on top was finished off with a lead dome and brass weathervane.

The sash windows still had their white trim, and the matching double doors, gleaming in the sunshine, looked as if they’d only recently been re-painted. In the brick space between the second and third floors, simple, no-fuss, wrought-iron lettering spelled out ‘The Clock House’.

Her gaze sought out the face of the clock.

Without even being conscious of it, her hand moved to stroke over the locket watch she wore.

All this time, and, incredibly, a part of her had still expected the time on The Clock House clock to state 1:23pm.

She squeezed against the cool metal in her palm, the chain cutting into her neck slightly.

So selfish to think that here time would have stood still for four years.

Bold roman numerals in the same material as the signage, reigned stately over the white face of the clock and the fact that after more than a hundred years it kept good time at all was a testament to Old Man Isaac’s family of clock-makers.

Kate stared and breathed.

Deeply and evenly.

Right up until she clapped eyes on the For Sale sign staked to the low brick wall in front of the building. For the second time in twenty-eight years her little world came to a grinding stop.

So this was how it felt to be blown apart that the building she’d grown up loving was up for sale.

Thank goodness that pebble had landed vein-side up.

Because maybe she really wanted this building… maybe she really needed this building… She took a shaky step forward, and then another, and then another, so that by the time she’d hopped over the low brick wall and stepped onto the gravel drive, her heart was pounding clear out of her chest.

She hesitated and then rallied. She’d come this far, hadn’t she? Silly to turn away now.

With trembling hands she reached out to the key-safe Old Man Isaac had fitted years ago. Everyone in Whispers Wood knew the combination because everyone used the building for village events. Flipping open the cover to expose the keypad, she entered the code her mother used before she had started the B&B, when she’d been responsible for cleaning the building, and prayed it hadn’t been altered.

Seconds later and the key-safe opened to reveal a set of brass keys.

In for a penny in for a pound.

Kate put the largest of the keys in the lock, turned it, pushed open the door and stepped across the threshold.

The shouting from the exercise group was drowned out by the whooshing in her ears as mine after mine dropped into her field of memory and exploded. Too quick for her to check for injury – too sharp to doubt she would escape unscathed.

The Somersby Sisters.

Bea and Kate.

Five years old and wearing summer school dresses of green and white check. White ankle socks with frills and scuffed black shoes. Chasing each other round the building. Screeching with glee as they cartwheeled across the parquet flooring. Collapsing in a fit of giggles when they were told off for being too loud, too happy, too exuberant.

The Somersby Sisters.

Bea and Kate.

Fifteen years old. Their school uniform skirts rolled up short, their long socks rolled down. School ties shoved into their bags. Lying in the gardens behind The Clock House, bitching about Gloria Pavey and whispering about boys.

The Somersby Sisters.

Bea and Kate.

Twenty. In the main foyer, clearing up after Bea and Oscar’s engagement party. A little drunk and talking nineteen to the dozen about how, one day, they were going to open their own business – a little day spa that would use only the best organic treatments and would be set in the most perfect premises. Premises as perfect as The Clock House.

A Somersby Sister, 15th October 2013.

Kate.

Twenty-four and staring up at The Clock House.

Dressed in black.

Blind with tears.

Filled with rage.

And completely and utterly finished with dreams.

The sound of a door closing brought Kate back to life. She whirled around, the echoes of memory so strong she half expected to see a replay of a five-year-old Bea disappearing around a corner. But there was no movement. No sound. Nothing.

Heaving in a breath she realised she’d been so caught up she’d been moving through the building by rote and now she was standing in the largest of the main rooms on the ground floor – the one that Trudie used for productions because you could erect a stage at one end and still have space for at least twenty rows of seating for the audience.