The morning began with Eleanor Bennett noticing that the hall clock had stopped. Its hands were frozen at five to six. She gave it a shake, held it up to her earonly silence. Probably the battery, she thought, or perhaps a sign. But a sign of what? Everything that was meant to happen in her life had already happened. The children were grown and had left the nest. Her husband, thank God, was alive and well, though he had been staying with an old school friend at his country cottage for the past five days. The solitude she had grown accustomed to felt especially loud and tangible in those early hours.
She brewed a mug of tea and glanced at a box of old postcards shed pulled from the attic the night before while tidying up. Reaching in, she fished out a yellowed envelope at random. Inside was not a postcard but a letter, written in a delicate, almost childlike hand. Dear Eleanor, happy birthday and I wish you The usual wishes followed, but her heart skipped a beat when she saw the signature: Always yours, Michael.
Michael Porterher university sweetheart, the man she had once imagined marrying, but life had taken him elsewhere. He had moved to another town to look after his grandmother. Their letters grew fewer until they stopped altogether. She later met someone else, married, had children. Michael had faded from her thoughts for about thirty years, becoming a ghost from a life that never quite intersected with hers.
Now, holding the letter, a sharp pang of regret struck hernot for a life that hadnt materialised; she loved the one shed built. It was for a thread that had been cut long ago, left hanging in the air, unresolved. What had become of him? Was he still alive?
The thought seemed foolish, conjured by the quiet morning and the stopped clock. She set the letter aside, finished her tea, and turned to the chores. Yet Michaels image lingered. She remembered walking together through an autumnal park, him reciting verses from a poet she pretended to understand just to hear his voice.
The whole day passed in a vague, meditative haze. She straightened rooms, sifted through old photographs, letters, trinkets. The silent clock in the hallway watched her.
The next day she bought a new battery and slipped it into the clock. The hands trembled, then began to move. A soft click, then the familiar ticking filled the hall. In that instant the phone rang.
Eleanor? a painfully familiar voice said. It was the voice shed only ever heard in secret teenage dreams. Its Michael. Sorry to bother you, I I dont know how to explain. Yesterday I thought of you all dayan obsessive idea. I found your number through mutual acquaintances Youve probably forgotten me completely.
She stayed silent, eyes on the nowsteady clock. She hadnt forgotten; she had simply tucked the memory away, deep in the cupboard of the most precious and most unwanted things. And now it had resurfacednot to overturn everything, but to put a period, or perhaps an ellipsis, on it.
I remember you, Michael, she whispered. I was just rereading your letter yesterday.
A bewildered silence hung on the other end of the line.
This cant be, he whispered. You know, I found a photo of us by the river yesterday. We were there together
They talked for more than an hour. He lived three hours drive away, had an adult daughter and a little grandson. His wife had died five years earlier.
They agreed to meet, just for coffee and a chat.
Eleanor hung up and walked to the window. Rain was tapping against the sill, washing away the dust. She didnt know what would come next. Nothing was being decided, nothing broken. The clock that had stopped was now ticking again, and in her orderly, predictable life a faint, new rhythm began to sound.
She made no plans, didnt even imagine the meetingfear of jinxing it, fear of disappointing her own expectations. She simply lived the next few days in a strange, trembling state, as if walking on thin spring ice, feeling it flex beneath her feet, promising to crack at any moment.
Her husband returned from the cottage, sunkissed and smelling of barbecue. He chattered about fishing and fixing the garden shed with a mate. She nodded, smiled, served a bowl of soup, while noticing she was watching him from a slight distancehis familiar, kindly face, the hands that wielded a hammer or a fork with equal confidence. She thought, this is my husband, the man with whom Ive spent a life. Yet just beyond the doorway lingered another life, spectral, embodied in a greyhaired man with a voice from the past.
The day of the meeting, she chose a simple beige dressthe one her husband always said suited her best. She kept makeup minimal, just a faint line of mascara. Why bother? she asked herself. To prove to him that time has been kind? Or to prove it to myself?
He picked a quiet café away from the centre, cosy with tiny tables and the smell of fresh scones. She entered and saw him straight away. He sat by the window, nervously twiddling a napkin, staring into his cup. In that instant she recognised himnot the lanky university guitarist, but the man he was now. Lines crept at the corners of his eyes, his hands rested heavily on the table. He looked up, stood, and his face showed a mixture of surprise and almost fear: Is that really you?
Eleanor, he said, his voice trembling.
Michael, she replied, taking the seat opposite him, her legs feeling suddenly heavy.
The first minutes were small talk about weather, the drive, how the town had changed. He admitted he had rehearsed the journey like an exam, changing shirts three times. She laughed, and the ice began to melt.
Then memories started to flowtentative at first, like dipping a toe in water, then bolder. They laughed at the absurdities of student life that had once seemed tragic. They recalled a dreaded mechanics professor, the night walks through the streets of Oxford, the way the whole cohort had once roamed together.
When the coffee was finished and fresh cups sat empty, a pause settledthe kind that begs for the crucial words.
Ive long regretted, Michael said, not looking at her, turning his saucer. Not taking you with me, not insisting. I thought I was doing the right thing, giving us time. But time wasnt on our side.
She remained silent. What could she say? That she also regretted? That would be a lie. The path shed taken had grown into the life she now livedhusband, children, joys and sorrows. Regretting it would betray all of that.
Dont, she whispered. Dont feel sorry. It was right. We were young and foolish. If youd forced me, if Id gone with you we probably would have fought until we were a pile of ash within a month. You would have become the man who stole my life in London, and I would have been a burden, stuck caring for a grandma.
He met her gaze, surprise mixing with a sad clarity.
You really think that?
Im sure. We idealised the past, Michael. We fell in love not with each other, but with our memories of two people who no longer exist.
He leaned back, sigheda breath that was both relieved and disappointed.
Youre always wiser, he said. I came here I dont know with what. Hoping for a miracle, perhaps. To see each other and turn back time.
Time doesnt retreat, she smiled gently. It just is. It was ours, and that was beautiful. Now its something else.
They left the café together, he walked her to the car.
Thank you, he said. For coming, and for the honesty.
Thank you, she replied. For finding it. It mattered to know.
He gave a tentative hand. She shook itwarm, solid, realand let go.
Driving home she watched the streets shed once raced through as a reckless youth. Nothing had changed, yet everything had. She felt neither sorrow nor emptiness, just a clear, bright quiet inside, like a room after a long conversation when everythings been said and the heart feels light.
At home her husband was watching a football match. Seeing her, he muted the TV.
How was it? he asked simply, not Where have you been? or Who were you with? Hed heard what shed told him the night beforethat shed met a former classmate she hadnt seen in decades.
Nothing special, she said. We talked.
Good fellow? he asked, with no hint of jealousy, just genuine interest.
Good, she nodded. But a stranger.
She walked to the kitchen to put the kettle on. Her eyes fell on a vase of lilacs his brother had brought in from the garden that morningpurple clusters, fragrant and cool to the touch. She brushed the silky petals.
He slipped behind her, wrapped his arms around her waist, rested his chin on her head.
I love you, he said, as plainly as if he were telling her it would rain tomorrow.
I know, she said, closing her eyes. And I love you too.
She realised the hall clock had stopped not to bring the past back, but to cement her firmly in the present, to show that everything that had happened was necessary, and everything that now existed was exactly where it should be in the whole of the universe.
The ticking was no longer a sound she needed to hear. She simply knew it was now moving steadily forward.
