Beyond the Green Hills (30 page)

There was nausea and sickness, as there had been in the first pregnancy, but the medical problems paled beside Jessie’s fears and anxieties. That was the heart of the problem. It was just so unlike Jessie to be fearful.

Clare spent many a quiet night hour trying to think what could have triggered such a change. She talked to Harry, who said all had gone well enough till after Fiona’s birth. He’d asked the doctor about post-natal depression, but the doctor said he didn’t think the symptoms fitted the pattern. That was when he’d suggested they consult their minister of religion. They both knew there was no way forward there. After enduring church every Sunday morning when she was in Armagh, a ‘dog-collar’ was the last person Jessie would ever talk to.

Try as she would, Clare couldn’t see anything that Harry or the doctors had missed. She talked to him about Jessie’s fathers death. He assured her she spoke of her father quite naturally, though not very often. That was hardly surprising, for he’d been away for so long in the war, he’d played a very small part in her life.

Each day, Clare set out hopefully, trying to find
something to fill up the bottomless well of despair. One day, Jessie confessed she was afraid she’d lost her looks and that Harry would go off with someone else, so Clare washed and set her hair, made up her face, insisted she wear a dress instead of a nightie. When her mother came up from Armagh to visit that afternoon, Clare took a bus into town and bought Jessie a bottle of perfume, a box of handmade chocolates and some peaches from Sawyers.

She was so preoccupied with thoughts of Jessie, it was only on the way back from the city centre she registered where she was. The bus had just stopped outside Queen’s. She watched as crowds of students poured across the pedestrian crossing. A moment later, peering out of her window, down Elmwood Avenue, she just glimpsed the bay of her old room, still visible, because the trees here in Belfast were only just coming into leaf, unlike those she’d left behind on the quay by the Seine.

Suddenly and passionately, she wished she were back in Paris, having coffee under the trees in the Champs-Elysées with Louise, or in the Bois de Boulogne with Marie-Claude, or sitting by the window of Robert’s office, under the watchful eye of the chestnut mare.

That was when the solution came to her at last. Jessie was lonely. She’d been lonely since she’d had to leave the gallery. She was sure that was what it was. Harry was Harry, the dearest of men, but beyond him, who had Jessie got to share her
thoughts, or her life?

Then, a more chilling thought struck her. It was
just when Jessie had to leave the gallery, that she and Andrew had parted. They had been Jessie and Harry’s closest friends. A week later, she herself had gone off to Paris and shown no signs of ever coming back.

Pregnancy had taken Jessie out of the gallery, where she so enjoyed talking to customers. Later, illness shut her up at home and little Fiona had to be parked round the corner at her grandmother’s. Who had Jessie to talk to? Who was her Louise? Her Marie-Claude? Her Robert? Who was there with whom Jessie could be the self she’d been before marriage, pregnancy, motherhood and illness had changed her life?

‘What about Jessie’s sketching and painting?’ she asked herself.

It struck her that she’d not seen so much as a pad of paper about the house, never mind watercolours, or oils. She recalled how totally dismissive Jessie had been when she’d mentioned the subject the last time she was over.

Suddenly, the hills appeared beyond the end of Balmoral Avenue. What a joy it always was to look up and see them, the broad strip of ordinary fields and hedges still surviving, sandwiched between the housing estates on the lower slopes and the angular screes and fierce rock outcrops that marked the summit ridge. How often she’d gazed up at them, in sunshine and in rain, old friends and companions that always reminded her of the countryside not so very far away, even when her work kept her shut up in rooms and lecture theatres in the city.

She stood up quickly, laughed at herself, as she picked up her parcels and made her way to the back of the bus. She’d gone on three stops beyond the stop for Jessie’s road.

It was no matter. Her parcels were light and her heels not very high. It would be a pleasure to stroll back under the trees. She felt such a longing for the countryside – Italian countryside, French countryside or Ulster countryside, it didn’t seem to matter which, just so long as it was countryside, with wind, sun or rain. Firmly, she put the thought out of mind as she quickened her step. No thinking about that until Jessie was back on her feet again.

Two weeks after Clare’s arrival, just as she was beginning to doubt the value of all her efforts, Jessie announced she’d love to go out to lunch if they could find somewhere with big holes cut out of the tables. It was the sign Clare had been waiting for. They had an excellent meal. Jessie tackled it like her old self, and by the time they got to coffee she’d even begun to tease Clare in her old way.

Clare sat up late that night, writing a long letter to Robert. She shared with him her feeling that it was the radical changes in Jessie’s life that had almost overwhelmed her. Because everything had gone so well for her from the moment she met Harry, poor dear Jessie just hadn’t been prepared for the unhappinesses and disappointments that had come upon her. ‘Perhaps,’ she wrote, ‘it is easier to face adversity if you know that’s what you’re doing. I don’t think Jessie could see she had a problem. So
she couldn’t begin to deal with it.’

The first week in May was the date given for the birth of Jessie’s child. It was now the third week in April. Doctor and gynaecologist agreed that the longer Jessie could carry her child the better. She’d begun to put on weight and they expected the child to do likewise. Clare rifled through all the cookery books she could find, searching for recipes that would encourage her to eat more. She was actually thinking what she might cook for dinner the following evening, when Harry made a proposal that caught her completely unawares.

‘How would you girls like a little outing tomorrow?’ he said, as they were drinking coffee in the sitting room. ‘I’ve got some calls to do up around Armagh. You could visit home territory, the scenes of your former conquests.’

‘Fine, count me in,’ said Jessie promptly. ‘I’ll produce Number Two tonight, leave it with Granny tomorrow, and be ready for the road by nine. That’s if my lady-in-waiting can have my make-up and hair done by then.’

Harry looked at her blankly, hardly able to believe she could move back into her old self so completely. He laughed and looked sheepish.

‘Sorry, love, I suppose that was silly. The car makes you feel sick, doesn’t it?’

‘Oh, no. I’m grand, but it doesn’t like it. It wants to stay at home. But I’ll be fine on my own. Mrs D’s here anyway. You must take Clare. She hasn’t been anywhere since she came. Are you for Drumsollen?’

Clare was so taken aback at the sudden question,
she nearly spilled her coffee.

In the last week, they’d talked about everything that had been part of their life together except Andrew, till suddenly, one morning, Jessie herself brought up his name.

‘D’you think you did the right thing when you broke it off, Clare? He was desperate cut up, Harry says. I didn’t see him meself at the time. He’s not been up in Belfast much since ye went. Has he got anyone else d’ye think?’

‘I really don’t know, Jessie. He’s working in Armagh now, but that’s about all I do know.’

‘I still think he’s yer man. I always did,’ she said, a look of such sadness on her face that Clare was immediately on the alert. ‘Sure I never thought you’d go to Canada. Or if ye did, ye’d be back in no time and we’d wheel our prams down the road together.’

As the implications of what Jessie was saying dawned upon her, she had a very bad moment. Perhaps that was why Jessie had been so distant, so unwelcoming, a year ago. She blamed her for going away and breaking up that small circle of support she’d been relying on to see her through.

‘Well, I’ll tell you what, Jessie,’ Clare had said, recovering herself and seeing an opportunity. ‘If you do what you’re told and eat up like a good girl and produce another lovely little Burrows, I’ll contact Andrew before I go back and see if we can still be friends. Then we could be godparents to Number Two. How about that? Don’t say I don’t try to meet you halfway.’

‘You’re on. Before witnesses. I’ll tell Harry tonight.’

Harry was much more sympathetic than Jessie when Clare admitted she didn’t want to run into Andrew without warning. She’d really had too much on her mind to think how she wanted to go about a first meeting. Driving up to Armagh, he reassured her that Andrew was never at Drumsollen during the week. Their arrangement was for Harry to call when June Wiley was there and she’d help him pack whatever he’d left out ready. Harry had told June he was hoping to bring Clare up and June had been delighted. It would be a pity to disappoint her.

Thus reassured, Clare sat back and enjoyed the gentle April morning. While she’d been so totally preoccupied with Jessie, spring had finally reached Ulster. The warmth of the last few days had sprayed the hedgerows with green, the chestnuts were fully dressed and even the oaks, always the slowest to wake from winter, were showing tender leaves on lightly-clothed branches in the pale morning sun.

Clare felt her spirits rise. It was such joy to be in her own beloved countryside again, driving along familiar roads, looking forward to seeing such a dear old friend as June Wiley. When Harry said he’d drop her at Drumsollen, come back to collect her and the pictures when he’d done his other calls, she was happy to agree. She wouldn’t let him drive her up to the house, but insisted he drop her off by the gates.

She stood and waved to him as he drove off into Armagh, crossed the empty road and looked down
into the stream, the tiny trickle of water in its deep ravine, where she and Jessie once talked secrets. The willows and alders had grown up too much to see their old sitting place, but the steep slope down to the water’s edge was unchanged. The bustling flow of the brown water was as it had always been.

‘When we’re old we’ll have a whole team of fellas to lower us down on ropes,’ Jessie had once said.

Clare sat on the low wall of the bridge, thinking of her, watching the sunlight filter through the new leaves and reflect back from the rippling water. They may have been country children, but their life was not the idyll celebrated in glowing reminiscences. Growing up hadn’t been easy either. Their paths appeared so totally different, yet in the end, they’d both had to face despair and anxiety and learn to accept that none of us manage very well on our own. As Robert Lafarge had once admitted, if we try, we become distant, withdrawn and closed in upon ourselves.

She sat for a little longer, grateful to be alone, the sun warm on her face, her mind moving between past and present. She let it go where it wished, recalling memories, thoughts, images. The lane to the forge on a summer morning, beaded with dew, the russet of vine leaves on a hillside in France. The sound of cow bells in an alpine meadow. Feeling suddenly such a quiet sense of well being, she stood up and walked across the road to the gates of Drumsollen, standing open and lit up by the bright morning sun.

H
aving always cycled or been driven along the sweeping curve that led to Drumsollen, the walk was further than she thought. But the morning was so still, the sunlight so beautiful, that when at last she reached the wide sweep of gravel before the front door, she was reluctant to go inside. She stood looking around her for a long time. She sensed something different about the house. It seemed less forbidding, more welcoming.

Without pausing to consider, she walked round the back of the house and stepped cautiously down the steep stone steps that led into the basement rooms. She opened the door, caught the smell of fresh paint, saw light reflecting from newly whitened walls. As her high heels echoed on the wooden floor, a door swung open and June Wiley came to meet
her, arms outstretched.

‘Ach dear, it’s great to see you,’ June said, hugging her tightly. ‘I was listening for Mr Burrow’s car an’ then I heard this wee noise at the back, an’ I thinks to myself, “sure no one else woud’ come to the back but Clarey.” Come an’ sit down, I have the kettle on the boil.’

They sat at the scrubbed wooden table and talked as they’d so often done before. Clare thought of all the hours they had worked together, the hundreds of cakes June had baked, the sandwiches she herself had made, the two funeral gatherings they’d shared
and would never forget.

‘Was it a big do for the Missus, June?’

‘Ach, no. It was kinda sad really. I think a lot o’ them older ones must’ve died themselves in the last year or two before The Missus went. Mrs Richardson and the husband came – Mrs Moore she is now, I should say – but Virginia wasn’t home. To be honest, there was only a handful. There’s really no one left now but Andrew,’ she said, looking away quickly.

‘Harry says he’s well,’ said Clare easily, to reassure her. ‘I’m going to get in touch with him next week. I’ve promised Jessie we’ll meet up and see if we can be friends. She wants us to be godparents to the new baby. We let her down on the first one,’ she said matter-of-factly.

‘It was an awful shock,’ June admitted, shaking her head. ‘D’ye think it was the right thing? I suppose I shouldn’t ask ye that.’

‘Ask away, June. Haven’t you known us both since we were children? But I’m not sure I can answer you. I think it had to be, but it was a pity it happened as it did.’

‘Ye were that fond of each other, it was plain to see. Sure, when ye’s come here to arrange for Uncle Edward’s funeral, he coud hardly bear to let ye out of his sight. He couden a done it at all, if ye haden been there at his back.’

Clare nodded, but said nothing. She’d often thought about Andrew’s vulnerability, his difficulty with thinking problems out and making up his mind when things were complicated. ‘You think
about everything, all the time,’ he had once said to her. ‘Sometimes I don’t, when I should.’

‘When did the kitchen get painted, June? Ginny thought the house was being sold.’

‘Oh yes, it’ll have to go all right, but Andrew’s been working on it at weekends for a long time now. Since he got the job in Armagh. If he didn’t have things to see to at Caledon, he’d be here, working away. Did ye see the front steps and the porch? Dangerous with all that green on them, he said, so he got stuff and cleaned it. Made a great job of it. Sometimes John gives him a hand, though of course he works for Robinson’s now.’

Clare was just about to enquire about John and the three Wiley girls when they heard tyres crunch on the gravel. June looked up, saw it was only just after twelve.

‘That’s never Mr Burrows back so soon,’ she said disbelievingly. ‘An’ I haven’t even started to make a bite of lunch yet.’

They heard the front door open and shut with its usual heavy thud and felt the old ceilings of the kitchen vibrate slightly as footsteps strode across the hall and into the big drawing room.

‘Ach, it’s him all right. He’s away in to look at the pictures. Woud ye go an’ tell him I was gossipin’ so much I haven’t even a sandwich ready yet. Away an’ give him a hand to pack them,’ she said, as she took a sliced loaf from the bin and opened the door of the fridge.

Clare went upstairs and paused for a moment in the big hall. There were pale spaces on the wall left
by the pictures that had already gone, but the chandelier she’d always loved still hung in its usual place, sparkling in the sunlight which filtered through the fanlight over the door and tinkling slightly from the passage of air as the door opened and closed.

She heard the sound of movement from the drawing room and went towards the open door. A figure stood with his back to her, looking up at a portrait hung over the fireplace. As she stepped into the room, he turned and spoke her name, his voice tight with surprise.

‘Hello, Andrew,’ she managed to reply, coolly and steadily, amazed at how easily the words came out after all. ‘I was planning to give you a ring next week. Harry thought you were in court today, so I came to see June.’

She watched as his look of pure amazement turned to recognition, then to uneasy pleasure.

‘Are you home on holiday?’

‘No. I
was
planning a holiday in the summer, but Jessie’s been very poorly. Harry asked me to come,’ she explained. ‘She’s much better now.’

She walked across to an armchair by the fireplace and sat down. The last time she’d sat in this room, she had been perched on that terribly low chair beside The Missus, holding court at Uncle Edward’s funeral.

Andrew leaned against the mantelpiece. For a moment, they regarded each other silently. Andrew smiled a slight half smile.

‘To meet here, of all places,’ he said, shaking his head.

‘Where better?’ she replied quietly. ‘Though I certainly didn’t plan it,’ she added more vigorously. ‘Harry said you were never here during the week.’

‘Harry’s quite right,’ he said, grinning. ‘I should’ve been in Belfast today, but the plaintiff decided to settle out of court. I only heard when I went in to pick up the post. Then I got a message at five to twelve to be here at twelve for Mr Burrows,’ he said, opening his hands in a gesture that reminded her of the Gallic shrug he could mimic so beautifully.

‘I can think of one prime suspect,’ she said, as he came and sat down in the chair opposite, the only other armchair in the large, sunlit room that was not draped in dust covers.

She looked at him, taking in the familiar features, his way of stretching out in a chair, of putting his hand round to the back of his neck, of leaning his shoulders against the worn leather. She felt waves of relief flow over her. If it
was
Jessie who’d brought them together, perhaps she’d got it right after all. Here at Drumsollen, the place that had shaped so much of Andrew’s life and so much of their relationship, they had to resolve what had begun at its very gates, in one way or another.

‘How’s life treating you, Andrew? Is the job going any better?’ she asked, meeting his gaze.

The face seemed a little thinner, but the blue eyes had lost none of their candour. His hair was the same thick, wavy and undisciplined mass.

‘It goes. It’s not what I want, but it pays the rent and sometimes I can help someone who’s had a raw deal,’ he replied. ‘I don’t expect too much so I’m not
disappointed.’

‘And the farming?’

‘Fairly unlikely at the moment. Perhaps one day. It’s not a fantasy, but making it a reality is probably more than I can manage. I’m not good with money, though I seem to be more practical than I thought I was,’ he said, matter-of-factly.

‘You’ve certainly done a wonderful job on the kitchen,’ she agreed.

After the first easy words between them, she was now aware of a growing tension. She had not the slightest idea how she might resolve it.

‘And you, Clare? I hear great things from Ginny. I knew you’d be successful whatever you did. Are you having a wonderful time?’

‘Yes, I suppose I am,’ she said, surprised herself at the flatness of her tone. ‘I think I sometimes get homesick,’ she said honestly, ‘though I’m not entirely sure what that means.’

‘Longing,’ he said, promptly. ‘Nameless longing. At least that’s how I see it now. I’ve come to realise I’ve been homesick for Drumsollen most of my life. Now it’s mine, for however brief a time, I still feel the longing,’ he admitted wryly. ‘At least I know Drumsollen stands for a part of what I want. And knowing makes it easier to bear. It came as a surprise to me,’ he said, looking at her very directly. ‘Knowing what you want when you can’t have it is easier to bear than just not knowing what you want. At least it stops you reaching out for things you
think might help, but won’t. Like Canada.’

‘Why was Canada wrong for you, Andrew?’

‘Because I hoped I’d be able to escape all my confusions and make up my mind about things. But when Uncle Edward died and everything was such an enormous effort for me, I was afraid I’d never be able to make the right decisions. I thought I’d only let you down. That’s why I let you go,’ he said, sadly. ‘Was I right?’

‘You were right to let me go,’ she said, smiling bleakly, ‘but not because you couldn’t make decisions. If two people work together, decisions can always be made,’ she said softly. ‘But I had things I needed to find out about me and I didn’t know that till I went. You’d been around, seen things, done things. I hadn’t. I’d felt so limited, so enclosed. I thought I could do it the easy way too: go off to Canada with you and have all the new experiences I needed with the comfort of having you around at the same time. But it wasn’t that simple. I found out I had to do it on my own. Perhaps you had to, as well?’

‘Yes,’ he said simply. ‘I thought if I worked hard, it would all come right, but it’s not like that. No amount of work will solve a problem if you’ve got the wrong problem,’ he said wryly. ‘There was more out against us than we could have guessed.’

He paused, looked around the room as if it would help him to know what to say next.

‘But better things ahead, yes?’ he went on, his tone and manner giving away the fact that he was making a tremendous effort to be positive.

So there is someone, Clare thought, as she saw him move uneasily in the large, straight-backed
wing chair the Missus had always claimed as her own. She felt suddenly overcome with sadness. In the short time they’d sat together, it was perfectly clear they could be very good friends. Whatever bitterness he’d felt at their parting had quite gone. He’d made the best of a sorry situation. Like herself, he’d worked his way through to a better understanding of what had happened between them. Jessie would have her wish. They would be friends. But no more than friends.

‘When are you getting married, Clare?’

‘Married?’ she repeated, utterly amazed ‘Me? Who told you I was getting married?’

‘Well, Ginny did say there was someone in London waiting to take you out to dinner in some frightfully posh place,’ he confessed uneasily. ‘She said he sent in a note to tell you when the car would collect you.’

Clare laughed and breathed a sigh of relief.

‘That was my boss, Andrew. I’m his interpreter. Mostly, I never leave his side, but he’d given me the afternoon off to spend with Ginny. We had a big business dinner in the evening.’

‘Oh.’

She had never before heard a single syllable in any language convey such a wealth of meaning.

‘So you’re not engaged to anyone?’

‘No, I’m not.’

The last few minutes had told her everything she needed to know about her own feelings, but this
time there must be no misunderstandings.

‘What about you, Andrew?’

‘Me? Marrying someone, you mean?’

‘Don’t sound so outraged,’ she said, unable to stop herself laughing. ‘If I might have been about to marry someone, why shouldn’t you?’

‘Do you
really
want to know?’

There was no mistaking the look in his eyes. For one strange and disturbing moment, like a reminder of all the sad and lonely times she’d had since first she’d read Ginny’s letter and thought of Andrew ‘sad and hurt’, she wondered if she really did want the answer she knew he was going to make.

‘Yes, Andrew,’ she said firmly, ‘I
do
want to know.’

‘I’ve never loved anyone but you, Clare. I’ve not much to offer, but I’d do my best not to make a mess of things, if you’d try to keep me straight. If that’s any good to you, then I’m your man.’

Sunlight spilled into the small bedroom at the top of the house as it moved westwards across the weathered stone façade of Drumsollen. It made bright patches on the worn carpet, illuminated the titles on a pile of boys’ annuals stacked on the floor, and spilled over a battered armchair draped with discarded underwear and two business suits, one moss green, one grey. Beneath a shiny pink eiderdown, one of two sleeping figures stirred.

‘Clare, are you awake?’

‘No, I’m fast asleep. I’m having a lovely dream.’

He leaned over and kissed her. When she still didn’t open her eyes, he protested. ‘You’re supposed to wake up when your Prince fights his way through the briar hedge and kisses you.’

She giggled and opened her eyes.

‘Have you fought your way through briar hedges, then?’

‘Yes, I think you could say I have. Very dense they were, too. I thought you might like to see what I’d been up to on the property of which you are presently mistress, if only for a little while.’

She rolled over and propped herself on one elbow.

‘Andrew, why do you want to sell Drumsollen?’

He laughed shortly.

‘Oh, I thought I’d prefer a nice three-bed semi.’

She looked at him severely, then relented and kissed him.

‘Come on, tell me properly. I tried to find out from Ginny, but she’s not exactly the most accurate informant, especially not when she’s in love.’

He smiled and stroked her shoulder.

‘I don’t have much choice, Clare. In fact, when I tell you how bad things are, you may not want to accept my offer for your hand,’ he said, trying to be light. ‘Until The Lodge is sold, I’m up to my ears in debt. Unless I can hang on long enough and get the necessary work done, it’s not going to fetch enough to clear the mortgages on top of the death duties. My partner in Armagh has been a real friend. If it hadn’t been for him, I’d have let it go for what I could get and landed myself in real trouble. I just can’t keep up the work on The Lodge and cope with this place as well.’