The Clock Winder (8 page)

“Oh, is it time?”

“But it wouldn’t hurt to put a dress on.”

Elizabeth shrugged and uncoiled from the couch. “All right, back in a minute,” she said, and padded out of the room in her rundown moccasins. She left behind her a silence that spread and hardened, until Mrs. Emerson came to herself and sat straighter in her chair.

“I was just thinking,” she said. “This is the first Christmas we’ll be spending without your father.”

“That’s true,” said Timothy.

“He always did love Christmas so. Just like a child.”

“I remember he did.”

Matthew said nothing at all, although he was the one who had been closest to their father. Sometimes Timothy had trouble even picturing what their father had looked like. He was a forgettable man. He had come up from nothing, from nowhere, married a Roland Park debutante and made a fortune in real estate—a line of work so beneath notice that no one had ever thought of suggesting it for his sons, least of all Mr. Emerson himself. Only strangers considered him important. “At the settlement on our house,” Timothy had once heard someone say, “things got so tangled I thought they
never
would
straighten out. Fortunately I happen to know Billy Emerson personally. I just popped in his office and said, ‘Billy—’ “—as if Billy Emerson were a name worth dropping. That conversation had made Timothy stop and think. Was there something about his father that he had overlooked? Something he should reconsider? But his father’s only talent, after all, was for making money. Money sprang up around whatever he touched, a fact that he seemed to take for granted. He never mentioned it, at least not to his family. “Money is essential,” Mrs. Emerson said, “but not important.” Her children had no trouble understanding her.

“When you were all little,” Mrs. Emerson said now, “he used to take you to visit Santa Claus. Do you remember that? Urging you all to make lists beforehand, practically sitting in Santa’s lap himself just to overhear what you asked for. And all of you so hard-headed you never believed in Santa for an instant, not a one of you. Remember, Matthew?”

But if Matthew remembered he didn’t say so. He was slumped in one corner of the couch, examining the helmet Elizabeth had left behind. He straightened the chin-strap, tucked the ear-flaps in, pulled them out again and then held the helmet up on the tip of a finger to frown at it.

“He would have had that yard lit up like the Fourth of July, if I hadn’t begged him not to,” Mrs. Emerson said. “Always so fond of Randolph. Rudolph. The reindeer. I don’t know why. And birthdays! How he loved birthdays!” She narrowed her eyes at Timothy, who shifted his weight uneasily. “I don’t suppose you remember what day it is tomorrow,” she said.

“It’s my birthday,” said Timothy.

“It’s your birthday. Andrew’s and your birthday. Will you be spending it with us?”

“I don’t think so, Mother.”

“Andrew
likes birthdays.” She pulled off a ruby ring and twisted it in the firelight. “He always sends me a dozen roses, thanking me for having him.”

“How do you know? Maybe he’s congratulating you.”

“You
would be.” She shoved the ring back on. “I used to give you double birthday parties, remember that?”

“Yes,” said Timothy, and remembered Andrew, thin and frantic and overexcited, aiming a sputtery breath at his side of the cake, suffering even then from some jerkiness of mind which Timothy had feared a twin could catch like a cold.

“I sent him his presents in plenty of time,” said Mrs. Emerson. “How is school going, dear?”

For what
she
feared was that twins had to split a single share of intelligence between them—something she had read in a long-ago ladies’ magazine and never forgotten, even after the twins had turned out to be the brightest of her children. Timothy had spent too long assuming she was right to be able to laugh it off. “You asked me that
yesterday,”
he said.

“Oh, did I?”

“Do you imagine you should still be signing my report cards?”

“Timothy, dear, I was only interested.”

“That’s more than I am,” Timothy said. “I think it’s all a bore.”

“Oh, how can you
say
that?
Medical
school?”

“It’s a bore.”

“Well, it was your decision, not mine. I was never the kind of mother to interfere in her children’s lives.” “Oh, Lord.”

“Now, let’s just sit and enjoy the fire. Shall we? You’ve done a very good job with it, Matthew. I believe the last time you built a fire you left the flue shut.”

The last time Matthew had built a fire was when their
father died, in June, and their mother kept insisting the house was cold. Oh, everything she said nowadays was attached to other things by long gluey strands, calling up other days, none of them good, touching off chords, opening doors. All he could do was tip his head back against his chair and sink into his own private tunnel while she pattered on.

“I’m ready,” Elizabeth said.

She had changed into a bulky wool dress that fit haphazardly, and nearly all of her hair was caught up by one flaking gilt barrette. Her nylons were wrinkled at the ankles and her squashed-looking black pumps curled at the toes. She swung her vinyl handbag like a waitress just getting off work. Mrs. Emerson looked up at her and sighed, sharply. But Matthew gave Elizabeth a happy smile, and she stood in front of him smiling back until Timothy rose abruptly and took her hand. “Come on, come on,” he said. “We’re late already.”

“Elizabeth, dear, your hair is falling down,” Mrs. Emerson said.

They had a long drive ahead—past the city limits, out on a superhighway filmed with slippery snow. Elizabeth had to keep clearing the mist off the inside of the windshield. When she wasn’t doing that she was switching radio stations—from one song to the other, in the middle of a note, which was something Timothy rarely did himself. He felt an obligation to hear songs through to the end, even if he didn’t like them. He also finished books that bored him, and had never in his life walked out on a movie. The fact that he and Elizabeth were so different, even on this small point, deepened the sense of uneasiness that had been growing in him all evening. Here they were out on a snowy road, probably driving to their deaths, and he didn’t know anything about this girl. Everything
he asked her was batted back at him, or turned into a joke. “Elizabeth,” he said, “why is it we never have a serious conversation?”

“Why should we?” she asked.

“You never say anything you mean. Never talk about your family, or that place you’re from—what’s-its-name—”

“Ellington.”

“Ellington. Have you got something against it?”

“Oh, no. I liked it,” said Elizabeth, and she smiled at a lone house swaddled with blue Christmas lights. Then she began tracing spirals on her window, and just when he thought the conversation had reached a dead end she said, “I probably would be there still, if my father didn’t get so het up about reincarnation.”

“About what?”

“He doesn’t believe in reincarnation.”

“Well, who does?”

“I do,” said Elizabeth. Then she giggled and said, “This week, anyhow.”

“You couldn’t possibly,” Timothy said.

Elizabeth only sat back in her seat, tucking her hands in her sleeves for warmth.

“Do you?” he asked.

“Oh, well. It was one of those last-straw deals,” she told him. “I was enough of a thorn in his side not being religious. Reincarnation was the end.”

“What do you want to go and believe in a thing like
that
for?” Timothy said.

“I just think it’s a nice idea. You can stop getting so wrought up about things once you know it’s not your last chance. Besides. It gives me something to say when old ladies tell me I shall pass this way but once. ‘Oh, well, or twice, or three times …’ I tell them.”

“How far do you carry this business?” Timothy asked. “Do you think you were once a high priestess in Egypt? Do you feel we knew each other in Atlantis?” He was hoping for her to give some crackpot answer, something that would disenchant him, but it wasn’t that easy. “Who knows?” was all she said. “What would it matter, anyway?”

“You just thought this up to irk your father,” Timothy told her.

“Well, maybe so,” she said cheerfully.

“And he wouldn’t have started a fight over a little thing like that.”

“Of course he would. Besides, he didn’t like this boy I was seeing.”

“Oh,” said Timothy. “What was wrong with him?”

“He just considers me a trial. Always has. You can’t really blame him.”

“No, I mean the boy.”

“Oh. Well, nothing, to the naked eye. He was just a State College student. Then he got arrested for robbing laundromats.”

Timothy swerved to avoid an abandoned car. “You certainly know some funny people,” he said.

“Why do you say that?”

“Did he tell you what he was doing? Did you know?”

“Oh, no, just that he was working. I wondered what at.”

“You could have guessed, if he wouldn’t say. I could have guessed. You could have been a little more curious, and maybe stopped him.”

“I would never change someone else’s affairs around,” Elizabeth said.

That kept him silent for a full five minutes; he couldn’t think of a thing to say. He concentrated on driving, which was growing more difficult. The road felt like cotton beneath
his wheels. The few cars he met were barely creeping along, shapeless white igloos eerily glowing beneath a white sky. “How can you see? I can’t,” Elizabeth said, and Timothy said, “I don’t understand you. Fighting with your father! And here I thought you were Miss Easy-Going. Miss Fix-It. I wondered how your family was managing without you to patch the plaster.”

“At home I break things more than fix them,” said Elizabeth.

Then she rolled the window down with a jerk, which was unnecessary. Their breaths seemed likely to freeze in front of their faces. A new wave of mist fogged Timothy’s vision and he hunched forward, peering for the turnoff. “Can’t see a thing,” he said, but he found it, anyway—an overhead sign swinging and whipping in the wind—and turned blindly.

“I thought they had snowplows up north,” Elizabeth said.

“Well, this burglar,” said Timothy. “Are you supposed to be visiting him or anything? Waiting until he gets out?”

“Waiting for what?”

“Well, to get married, maybe.”

“He wasn’t going to be in
that
long, it was only laundromats.”

“The reason I’m asking all this,” Timothy said carefully, “is that you and I seem to be going out together a lot. I wanted to know if you were committed in any way.”

“Committed?”

“Not tied to this burglar or someone.”

“Why do you keep calling him a burglar?” Elizabeth said. “He was a chemistry major. We hardly even knew each other.”

Timothy gave up. “Would you like to go out to dinner tomorrow?” he asked.

“I can’t. I’m going to see Matthew’s house.”

“Matthew?” He turned to stare at her. “How did
he
get into this?”

“Why not? I like him.”

So this was where all the uneasiness had been going: Matthew. “Break it, can’t you?” he said.

“No,” said Elizabeth. “I want to see his house. Besides, I never turn down an invitation.”

“Do you
have
to keep
telling
me that?”

Then he slammed into the Schmidts’ driveway and cut the engine and piled out. He didn’t open the door for Elizabeth. She followed on her own, calmly swinging her handbag and shuffling up the narrow groove of cleared sidewalk. Timothy waited on the front porch with his back turned, ignoring her. She didn’t seem to notice.

It was Ian Schmidt who opened the door—a classmate of Timothy’s. He said, “Oho! We thought you weren’t coming. This is Elizabeth, isn’t it? We met one night at a play.”

“That’s right,” Elizabeth said.

He showed them into a living room papered with travel posters. Guests sat around in clumps, not yet at ease, and a small, square baby was being passed from lap to lap. “That’s Christopher Edward. Our son,” Ian said. “Today’s his six-month birthday.” He was so proud of that that he kept them standing in the doorway, fully wrapped and shedding snow-flakes, while he scooped the baby up and brought him over. “Say hello, Christopher, say hello.” The baby stared, poker-faced, at Elizabeth. She stared back. “Hmm,” she said finally, and began tugging her boots off. Lisa Schmidt appeared to show her where to put her jacket. As they passed each group of guests she stopped for introductions, and Elizabeth nodded
gravely once the names were said. The profile view of her, with her chin-strap dangling and her stiff, cold hands clutching her purse, sent a sudden stab of love through Timothy that left him feeling tired and puzzled. He bent toward the baby politely and let him clutch an index finger.

The party was a small one, only five couples. Others had been kept away by the storm. People sat on floor cushions and canvas butterfly chairs, with spaces between them that seemed reserved for absent guests. There were spaces in the conversation, too. When Elizabeth had returned from a back room, stripped of her jacket and helmet, a silence had fallen. Timothy still stood in the doorway with Ian, carrying his coat draped over his arm. He ignored Elizabeth (let her manage for herself, if she was so independent) and she settled right away beside a boy with a mustache. “I rode down here with you last fall,” she said. “You gave me a ride from Philadelphia, remember?”

The boy brightened; up till now he had been glumly snapping his watchband. “Oh, Mike’s friend!” he said. “I didn’t know you with your hair up. How is Mike?”

“Fine, I guess.”

“Did you find a job all right?”

“The very first day,” Elizabeth said. “I miss Philadelphia, though.”

“Take it from me, there’s nothing to miss about Philadelphia.”

“I thought there was. I might never have left, if they hadn’t fired me.”

Timothy wanted to hear who had fired her, and for what, but now other people had pounced on the subject of Philadelphia. Conversation started darting around the room again, with Elizabeth at the center of it looking perfectly comfortable.
She didn’t need Timothy at all. He went off to find a drink.