My latest historical novel, At The Stroke of Midnight, is a spin on that wonderful 90s classic film – Groundhog Day. We’ve all seen it – Bill Murray’s character is forced to live the same day over and over, with thought-provoking and amusing consequences. There have been several films and books over the years that have played with this premise, and I thought it would be fun to write one of my own.
Although there is never a reason given for the loop in the Groundhog Day movie, other films have offered creative explanations. In Palm Springs the main character wanders into a portal in a cave, and in the futuristic Edge of Tomorrow it is contact with alien blood. When planning my story, I wondered what might trigger my repeating afternoon, until a friend suggested a water clock (or clepsydra) and the idea of something linked to time really appealed.
The ancient Greeks called their water clocks klepsydra (KLEP-suh-druh) which literally means “water thief” and comes from kleptein (to steal – think kleptomaniac) and hydōr (water). I love learning new words and thought this sounded far more exotic and mysterious than a plain, old “water clock”.
Measuring time was tricky for ancient civilisations. Sundials were all very well but not much use at night, so water clocks came into being. Vessels were either filled or emptied through a small aperture, and the time it took for the water to drain (or fill) was measured by a row of markings. The Chinese were using such devices from around 3000 B.C. and, over the centuries, they have become more sophisticated, using floats as indicators, siphons to recharge the source vessel, bells, hour hands, and even elaborate gears. The possibilities were endless, but it was my discovery that Galileo had used a mercury clepsydra to time his experiments with falling bodies that really fired my imagination.
The clepsydra that Pearl stumbles across in a cave on the Dorset coast comes, of course, entirely from my imagination. I spent a lot of time thinking through the science of how it might work and loved the visual of a silver-coloured liquid metal running through the machine. It is by disturbing the clepsydra that Pearl is forced to endlessly relive that Saturday afternoon in the summer of 1923, and by understanding the nature of it she is finally able to free herself.
I hope you enjoy Pearl’s rather unusual adventures.
Jenni x