Beyond the Green Hills (19 page)

‘I should so like to make love to you. Would that be grown-up and sensible?’

‘I don’t know, but it would be nice.’

Clare opened her eyes and saw a Spitfire dipping its wing in a brilliant summer sky. She knew it was a Spitfire, because Uncle Jack’s friend who worked in the aircraft factory during the war made models of Spitfires on polished metal stands. The one he’d given Uncle Jack had sat on the mantelpiece at Liskeyborough for years.

Clare moved her head to look at the other pictures in Charles’s bedroom, but she didn’t recognise any of the other aircraft, nor the pictures of mountain peaks, some of them iced with snow.

‘Tea, my lady?’ said Charles, coming in with a tray and two china mugs. ‘No cake, it might spoil your dinner.’

‘Goodness, what’s the time?’

‘Time to get some clothes on, though I must say you look delightful without. Not quite the thing for Andoni’s.’

‘What’s Andoni’s?’

‘I hope you’ll like it. I took a chance while you were asleep and booked a table. It’s a Greek restaurant. Not posh at all, but the food’s good and the waiters are fun. You said you and Louise were going on holiday to Greece in the summer, so I thought you might enjoy it.’

‘What a kind thought. I’ve never had Greek food.’

‘And never made love to an Englishman?’

Clare was quite taken aback. To begin with, she wasn’t sure whether it was a statement or a question. She’d only ever made love to Andrew. Did he classify as an Englishman, when he was born in Ireland and was passionate about Ulster?

‘What makes you say that?’ she asked, hoping he wouldn’t notice she was blushing.

‘I’ve been told the only way to make love to an Englishman is to lie back and think of England.’

She laughed and put her free hand out to touch his cheek.

‘You’re teasing me again,’ she said easily.

‘I wish I was,’ he said, his eyes flickering away from her gaze. ‘I know I’m no great shakes in bed.’

‘Charles, what
are
you talking about? You were lovely. I was so sad and you were tender and passionate … what
do
you mean?’

She sat up in bed, put her mug on the bedside table.

‘Now tell me what makes you think that, or can I guess it in one?’

‘After today, I’d say you’d guess it in one.’

‘Well, she’s wrong, completely wrong.’

He smiled, put down his mug of tea and kissed her gently.

‘Bless you for saying so. Time we were going,’ he reminded her.

‘No it isn’t,’ she said, shaking her head vigorously. She put her arms around him and kissed him. Moments later, he dropped his dressing gown on the floor and came back into bed.

‘How do you like your coffee?’ Charles asked. ‘Sceto, metrius or glika?’

Clare caught the hint of laughter in his eyes and laughed too.

‘Sugar. No spoonful, one spoonful, two spoonful,’ the waiter said helpfully, as he brushed crumbs from the tablecloth and wiped perspiration from his forehead. ‘Real Greek coffee. Ess strong.’

‘He’s right,’ agreed Charles. ‘Take the skin off your mouth if you’re not careful. I go for the two spoonful.’

‘Right then, I’ll try that too. Glika,’ she said, smiling at the waiter. ‘And the others? Sceto?’ she asked, counting on her fingers.

‘Sceto, metrius, glika,’ he repeated, with a broad grin. ‘I teach you speak Greek.’

‘I bet he would,’ said Charles, as soon as he was out of earshot. ‘He’d teach you more than Greek. And I wouldn’t blame him.’

He reached for her hand across the small candlelit table.

‘I don’t know how I’m going to part with you.’

‘It’s been such a lovely day, Charles. I don’t think I’ll ever forget it,’ she said, looking at him steadily.

He smiled wryly and shook his head.

‘What you mean is that you don’t really fancy me.’

‘No, that’s not what I mean,’ she said vigorously. ‘It’s not a question of fancying you. I think you’re the nicest man I’ve met for a long time. I really enjoy being with you. It would be very easy to fall in love with you.’

‘Then why not?’ he asked, looking distinctly
brighter.

‘Because I know it wouldn’t work out and I just couldn’t bear to hurt you. Not after what happened with Caroline.’

‘But why shouldn’t it work? We get on well, don’t we?’

A sudden pulse of anxiety touched his mouth and eyes.

‘We do, don’t we?’ he said, urgently.

‘Yes, we do. But getting on well isn’t enough. I’ve learnt that the hard way,’ she said softly. ‘Don’t be cross with me,’ she went on, putting her free hand on top of his. ‘I don’t think I can explain, Charles, but I can imagine the sort of girl who really could make you happy. I’d be so delighted if it was me, but it’s not.’

‘You really don’t think it ever could be?’

‘No, I don’t. But we can be a lot closer than “just good friends”,’ she said honestly. ‘If you wanted to, that is.’

‘You mean we’d see each other sometimes?’

Clare looked at the clear grey eyes watching her. For one moment, she felt such a tenderness for this dear, uncomplicated man and such a weariness with the effort of her own singular life she longed to say words that would make him happy, words that would move her into the protective warmth he was offering her.

‘I’d love to see you. Of course I would. As often as I’m
over here or you’re in Paris, we’ll meet. We’ll share our secrets and encourage each other.’

‘But you won’t let me carry you off here and now
and live happily ever after,’ he said, managing a wry smile.

She beamed at him, shaking her head, relief mixed with pleasure as she saw his spirits lift.

‘I think happy ever after is going to take us both a bit longer. But it’s worth a try, isn’t it?’

‘Y
ou have your wish, my dear,’ said Robert Lafarge, as they walked out of the hotel to the waiting car. ‘It will be beautiful for your homecoming.’ He looked up at the almost cloudless sky, while they waited for their cases to be loaded into the boot.

‘Yes, it will be a lovely evening here, but the clouds may come to meet me,’ she said, laughing. ‘On any sunny day in Ulster you suddenly see great clouds in the west. The next thing you know, it’s pouring with rain. And all the time London basks in the sun. Sometimes it might as well be two different worlds,’ she said cheerfully.

‘You are excited about your journey? Or is it the attentions of the handsome Monsieur Langley? Something is making your eyes sparkle even more than usual,’ he observed dryly, as they settled themselves comfortably in the chauffeur-driven limousine.

‘I don’t know,’ she admitted honestly. ‘It seems such a long time since I left Belfast, though it’s not even a year ago till July. So much has changed. I don’t know how I feel. Perhaps I’m more agitated than excited,’ she said easily.

‘You will come back, won’t you?’

‘Robert!’ she exclaimed, amazed by the edge of anxiety in his tone. ‘What on earth are you thinking of? Why would I not come back?’

He looked sheepish, gazed out of the window at the boarded-up houses below a newly built flyover.

‘Perhaps an old love will claim you,’ he said flatly, without looking at her.

‘If something like that happened, you’d be the first person I’d come and tell.’

‘Eh bien.’

She smiled to herself. When Robert said ‘Eh bien’, it meant that he was satisfied, content, at ease, a meaning not to be found in the dictionary. It reminded her of the first Robert. The way he used to say, ‘Well …’ It had taken her quite a while to work out this was his own way of saying, ‘Yes, so be it.’

Outside the Domestic Terminal, Robert insisted on getting out to see she had a trolley for her cases.

‘Bon voyage, chérie’, he said, kissing her on both cheeks. ‘Come back safely.’

She hugged him and said nothing, because she thought she might cry if she did, and stood watching him drive off to the International Terminal for his flight to Paris, waving to the car even though he probably couldn’t see her through the crowds of passengers. Partings were so painful, even when they were only for a short time.

She stood on the escalator and looked down at the pattern of moving people below. All rather different from Auntie Polly going off to Canada with Uncle Jimmy when they were newly-weds. Grange band
had turned out in force for them on the morning of their departure. Marched them into Armagh Station with all their family and friends, then lined up on the platform to play ‘Auld Lang Syne’ as the train steamed out.

‘The captain and crew of Vanguard flight
VA
five, two, three, eight, welcome you aboard …’

Clare smiled. The voice was using a prepared script, but the careful pronunciation had done little to modify the stewardess’s accent. It had more than a hint of Scots, but that ‘eight’ was a particular old friend. As her fellow passengers settled themselves, she heard the short vowels and rapid delivery of Ulster voices all around her. Her homecoming had already begun.

The sky stayed clear as they corrected course over the Chilterns and flew north towards Liverpool. The only cloud was over the Lancashire coast. It looked like puffs of smoke from a bonfire. The sea beyond lay still, its clear blue darkening to navy as the sun went west, the slanting light still strong on the long May evening.

She sat looking out of the window, her book unopened on her knee.

‘An old love may claim you.’

Robert’s words came back to her as the wing dipped and they crossed the County Down coast, flying north-west towards Belfast, where the lough gleamed in the sunlight, the air so clear she could see both the hills of North Down and the Mournes, sharply outlined against the southern sky, now turning to pale gold as the light faded.

With the city below them, she picked out the curves of the Lagan. On the edge of the city, it flowed between patches of woodland. The whole broad, green lowland that led into the heart of Ulster appeared briefly as they flew inland, following an arcing curve that swung them north over the darker, hard-edged hills that bounded the city. Suddenly, the vast mass of Lough Neagh appeared, as they began to lose height, glistening and sparkling in the evening light. All around it, as far as the eye could see, in every direction, rich with the green of summer, edged with hawthorn hedges, white with blossom, the small, irregular fields lay side by side, as well fitted together and as comfortable as the patches in a quilt.

Looking down, anxious not to waste one moment of this extraordinary experience, able to make a map of her world unlike any map she’d ever had before, she saw how ambiguous Robert’s words had been. There were more loves that could claim you than the love of a man.

The landing at Nutt’s Corner was smooth, but it took her slightly by surprise. One moment there was nothing below the wing but the lough with a fringe of water-loving trees. Next, the hares that had been feeding quietly on the rich grass fringing the runways twitched their ears and scattered in all directions, as the plane touched down and the engines roared into reverse. They taxied slowly towards a long, low building. She had arrived.

‘Clare, you’re looking powerful well, as they say. Did you have a good flight?’

Harry hugged her, completely disregarding the flow of passengers trying to move through the small, dilapidated building that constituted the reception area.

‘It was great. I just wished I’d had longer. I could see for miles. I think I saw the hills of Donegal as we turned over Lough Neagh.’

‘Oh you would have. On an evening like this, you’d see most of the north. Come on and we’ll see what they’ve done with your case.’

‘New car, Harry?’ she asked as they turned out of the airport, between the same hawthorn hedges she had looked down upon.

‘D’you like it?’

‘Very posh. Is business good?’

He nodded vigorously as they cleared the handful of cars leaving the airport and headed for the city.

‘How are Jessie and Fiona?’

‘They’re grand,’ he said, less convincingly.

She looked at him sharply, saw lines around the eyes that she was sure had not been there a year ago. But then, they were both a year older. Harry must be nearing thirty and Jessie was twenty-four in June.

‘It was awfully good of you to come for me. I could have got the bus and had a taxi from Victoria Street.’

‘Sure, it’s a chance to show off,’ he said lightly. ‘Jessie and I don’t go out much, though my mother’s happy to babysit,’ he went on uneasily. ‘You’ll see Jessie changed,’ he said honestly, ‘but then I suppose we all change, whether we like it or not.’

Harry fell silent and Clare studied the pattern of fields and hedgerows till the road bent in a steep horseshoe and began to run rapidly downhill towards the city. The sun was going down into grey-purple cloud. Across the lough, the hills of Down looked more remote now, as the light dimmed towards dusk. They drove through shabby suburbs, where children played on pavements and men stood on street corners.

The rows of back-to-back houses that turned their gable ends to the main road had not changed, the open spaces where weeds grew high were still there – a legacy of bombs that had missed the docks, or had been dropped on the roofs of weaving sheds that shone in the moonlight in mistake for the regular targets, the aircraft factory and the machine sheds of the shipyard.

Here and there, with windows boarded up, an empty house peered blindly across a street, once quiet, now full of traffic. Dwarfing these tiny houses, a red brick chimney towered above a solid four-storey mill, its windows alight with sudden gleams of gold as the sun slipped from under the cloud and dropped further towards the horizon.

Sadness crept over her as they moved on, down into the heart of the city, past the end of Linenhall Street where two summers ago she’d lived and worked. Up into Shaftesbury Square, on past the front of Queen’s. She barely glimpsed tree-lined Elmwood Avenue where she’d worked so hard for four long years. To her surprise she found herself thinking of the roads to Salter’s Grange and
Liskeyborough, equally familiar when she was a little girl, when she called out the names of farms and houses, places her father had taught her. What she’d expected to feel driving these last two miles through streets and roads she knew so well, she didn’t know. What she did feel was a sense of loss, of disappointment. There was no welcome for her from the city she knew best.

‘Ach sure there ye are. I thought ye’d a’ been another half hour. I say, the style’s crushing.’

Jessie turned at the bottom of the stairs, Fiona in her arms, as Harry opened the front door and stepped back to let Clare go ahead of him.

‘Hallo, Jessie. It’s great to see you.’

She’d have liked to give her old friend a hug, but she couldn’t hug her with Fiona in her arms.

‘Hallo, Fiona,’ she said quietly, touching the baby’s arm with her finger.

‘Say hallo, Fiona,’ said Jessie softly, as the child wriggled shyly in her arms. ‘Mind you, we’d get an awful shock if she did, an’ her not eight months yet. Say Da-Da.’

Harry held out his arms for the baby, but Jessie seemed not to notice. She went on talking to her while Clare and Harry waited.

‘I’ll just bring your cases in, Clare,’ said Harry, who was beginning to fidget.

‘Cases? How long did ye say ye were stayin’?’

Clare laughed for the first time since she’d arrived. This sounded more like the old Jessie.

‘I’ve been working in London for three days, so I
have all my stuff from that. Two suits and an evening dress. And all the bits.’

‘Listen to it,’ Jessie said, addressing the baby, ‘an’ I’m like a tramp.’

‘No you’re not,’ Clare protested.

‘Yer just sayin’ that,’ she said sharply. ‘Come on up an’ I’ll show you yer room. It was where we used to keep the paint.’

Clare climbed up the wide carpeted stairs behind her, remembering the noise their feet had once made when the whole house was bare boards. The room where they had kept paint, brushes and dustsheets, was now equally transformed. A pretty rose-patterned wallpaper matched curtains and bedspread, the carpet was a paler shade of rose, and white paintwork picked out the deep-set window and the built-in wardrobe below the slightly sloping ceiling.

‘What a lovely room, Jessie. Did you choose this paper?’

Jessie shook her head and bent towards the baby.

‘No, Harry got it. By the time Fiona came, I’d had enough of decoratin’.’

‘Well, it looks lovely, really lovely.’

‘You like it then?’ said Harry, coming up behind them.

He put down her suitcases under the window and looked pleased as he ran his eye round the room.

‘I’ll away and put Fiona to bed.’

Jessie disappeared along the landing without a backward glance.

Clare watched her go. When she turned towards
Harry she saw him gazing after her. She caught a look that made her heart sink. For a moment, she could think of nothing to say. Then it came to her. Standing in the hall, waiting for Jessie to move, she’d smelt food cooking.

‘Can I give you a hand with the meal, Harry,’ she said gently.

He nodded sharply as if he didn’t trust himself to reply. As they moved back out on to the landing and headed down the stairs, he turned on his heel and smiled at her.

‘That would be great,’ he managed. ‘It sometimes takes Jessie a while to settle her.’

Next morning, Harry brought Clare her breakfast in bed. He’d made her a pot of tea and toasted some soda farl. She loved soda farl, but these pieces had curled up in the toaster and come out burnt at the edges and pale in the middle. Just like old times, she thought, as she removed some of the burnt bits. A pity he’d forgotten the marmalade.

She sat up in bed and munched unhappily. Although it was Saturday, Harry was wearing a suit and hurrying to get away. In another life, he’d once done a Saturday to give her a day out with Andrew, but she’d a feeling that Saturdays were now a regular event. She wondered how much time Harry spent at home. She wondered more if Jessie noticed his presence even when he was there.

‘Sure, tell us all about Paris,’ Jessie had said, last evening, as she served the roast chicken.

‘Well, I have a lovely wee apartment,’ began Clare.
‘It looks out over the Seine. I can sit and watch the barges at night, all lit up.’

‘Are ye not out enjoyin’ yerself? Shure I thought Paris was supposed to be romantic.’

‘Don’t forget Clare’s a working lady,’ said Harry, as he helped himself to the vegetables they’d prepared and cooked together.

‘Have ye found yerself a Frenchman yet?’ Jessie went on.

‘Oh, the place is full of them. They’re not hard to find.’

Clare was pleased that Harry laughed, but Jessie was not amused. She picked irritably at the very good roast chicken and ignored the wine Harry had brought out with such enthusiasm.

‘There’s not much point bein’ in Paris if yer sittin’ in every evenin’.’

‘Oh I’m very seldom in. I’m often away. And sometimes we have visitors at the bank and they have to be entertained.’

‘In evening frocks?’

‘Yes, has to be. The bank takes its visitors to the Opéra. It’s very posh. All red and gold. Big marble staircase and chandeliers. Paintings and statues everywhere. Harry would love the décor. You’d enjoy the style, Jessie. Some of the women are very elegant.’

‘Ach, sure there’s no being elegant once there’s a baby.’

Clare abandoned the soda bread, poured another cup of tea, looked around the pretty bedroom and wished she hadn’t come.

The morning that followed did nothing to improve her spirits. A fine mizzling rain was falling steadily. It brought out the rich greens in the garden, where rolling lawns and new shrubs had replaced the weed-infested space and dank rhododendron shrubbery she remembered so well, but it filled the house with a grey light that the new carpets and beautiful polished furniture did nothing to offset.