For Many a Long Day (13 page)

‘Rose is a lovely name. I think you grew roses once at Salter’s Grange. I have a little garden in the ruins of the old house and there’s a pink rose I found there run wild.’

‘A rambler, with masses of tiny blooms and wicked little thorns?’

‘Yes,’ said Ellie, her eyes lighting up with pleasure. ‘Could it possibly be what you planted?’

‘I honestly don’t know. Perhaps it’s a great-great-grandchild. I’m not sure how long a rambler like that can go on propagating itself if it’s left to get on with it all on its own. But I have a grand-daughter called Rosie, who might know. She worked for McGredy’s in Portadown. She still gardens though she’d married now with three little ones. I’ll ask her when James next takes me to see her in Dromore.’

‘Is James your son, the gentleman you were walking with on Sunday?’

‘Yes, he is. He’s my eldest. Rather an important gentleman now, so I’m told, though he’s very modest about it himself. He’s in one of the Government Departments. Economic Development, I think it’s called. He’s been very busy moving his office from
the City Hall to the new building up at Stormont. But he’s very good to me, drives me around to visit my family and takes me to the Mournes when I pine for the mountains. You can see the hills from this seat when the leaves fall, but I was born in Donegal and was brought up in Kerry, so these Antrim Hills aren’t quite what I call mountains. Though I am very fortunate to have them and this park.’

‘You can almost forget about the city when you’re sitting here, can’t you,’ Ellie said, looking towards the hills, still hidden by the summer’s growth, a quiet longing in her eyes.

‘Don’t you like the city, Ellie?’

‘I don’t know. I’m always glad to come and see Auntie and my cousins, but I don’t think I’d like to live here. My bedroom is at the top of the house and I can see fields from my window. I think I was missing them this morning. And the little, humpy green hills of Armagh. I’m even missing the ride in and out to work in the town and getting wet as often as not,’ she ended laughing.

‘Where
do
you work?’

‘Freeburns. It’s a drapery business. It used to be quite small, but my boss is very go ahead.’

‘Yes, I think I can remember it. Just round the corner from the marketplace. It almost looks down Thomas Street. Mrs Freeburn used to sew mourning dress. She had a notice in the window … that
was
a long time ago …’

‘Were you remembering something very sad? Ellie asked, as the silence grew longer.

‘Yes, I’m afraid I was,’ she replied, nodding rather sadly. ‘One of my oft-told stories. About escaping with my children from a rail disaster, thanks to my sons James and Sam. But it’s much too sad a story for such a lovely morning.’

She paused and turned to look at Ellie directly. ‘Would it be very rude of me to ask if you have someone you hope to marry?’

‘No, not rude at all,’ said Ellie promptly.

She wondered what to say, or where to start. She couldn’t remember ever having talked to an older woman as lively or as interesting as Rose Hamilton. She found herself wishing they really could be friends, then she could ask to hear her stories. What was it like when she was young? How had she met her husband? And how did she know he was the person she wanted to marry?

She’d love to know about her children, daughters or sons, who they had married, what they’d done and where they all were. It seemed to her that if she were able to listen to Rose talking about her life, she would learn all the things that her mother had neither the patience, nor the wisdom, nor the interest to teach her.

Neither of them was aware of time passing as Ellie spoke of George and their plans, of her sisters and
what she knew of Canada, until a tall figure stopped in front of them, tipped his hat courteously and said with a slight smile: ‘Mother, I was told that you had gone missing without leave.’

‘Goodness, James, it can’t be lunch-time already?’

‘I am reliably informed that it is.’

Rose and Ellie both laughed.

‘James, this delightful companion of mine is Ellie Scott, Robert Scott’s daughter. She’s visiting Annie Magowan, Annie Scott-that-was down on the Lisburn Road. Can you believe it?’

‘To my discredit, I seem to remember pulling that same lady’s hair in the schoolroom beside Grange Church. And you say she lives locally?’

‘Not only that, Mrs Wilson’s been buying our vegetables at Mr Magowan’s shop for years and we didn’t know he was Johnny Magowan from Ballyards.’

‘It is just possible that keeping the shop’s previous name may have confused us.’

Ellie decided that James Hamilton was a nice man. He seemed to be laughing at himself very slightly all the time. His way of speaking was very friendly, even if it sounded a little bit formal to her and his accent was rather posh.

‘My dear, I can’t ask you to lunch, Mrs Wilson would scold me if she thought she wasn’t fully prepared, but please, will you come and see me again? Can you spare the time? What about lunch tomorrow?’

‘Not tomorrow, mother dear. Previous engagement.’

‘Oh what a nuisance,’ she said crossly. ‘When do you go, Ellie?’

‘Saturday morning. Quite early, I’m afraid.’

‘Friday then. Can you possibly come Friday? Come to me here when you can and we’ll have lunch and if you have to run away afterwards I’ll understand.’

‘I’d love to come,’ said Ellie, as Rose began to get awkwardly to her feet.

She found it difficult to watch her struggle and wondered why James merely stood by, holding her stick till she was firmly on her feet.

‘There, I’m perfectly all right, you see,’ she said, smiling up at James. ‘Pleased as I am to see you, I would have come home by myself had I not been having such a happy morning.’

‘Perhaps mother, Ellie, if I may also call you so,’ he began, with a little bow toward her, ‘might need to know the number of our house. Then your meeting may not be prevented if it has the bad taste to rain on Friday.’

Rose stopped, looked from one to the other, and laughed.

‘Yes, we know. Old ladies are forgetful. But why not, when I have far more important things to think about! Thank you Ellie, my dear, for a lovely morning. I shall look forward to Friday. Give my regards to your Aunt Annie, if she remembers me. Goodbye.’

‘Now have you got everythin’, love? Your ticket, your handbag and the carrier with the material, forby your wee case?’

Ellie smiled as Aunt Annie went through the routine she’d heard her use every morning with Uncle John and Ruth and Bobby too on schooldays. Perhaps because her own mother had never bothered to make such an effort, she found it very endearing.

‘It’s a pity you hafta go in to come back out again, but then I suppose it’s only because you know the Armagh drivers that they’ll drop you off here. Time ye were away now and don’t be long till yer back, as the saying is. Tell your Ma and Da I was askin’ for them.’

Annie came to the door with her, gave her a big hug and watched as she walked down the short garden path and disappeared behind the overgrown privet hedge. Minutes later, beyond her neighbour’s more ordered garden, she saw the small figure reappear, her case in one hand, her purchases in the other, her bag over her shoulder. Just as she reached the stop, Annie heard a tram approaching. She closed the door, well pleased her favourite niece had got off to a good start on her journey home.

Ellie could hardly believe how quickly the week had passed and how very varied it had been. As they ran without any hold up past the bakery, past the junction with the avenue leading to the Workhouse and on towards the city centre bus station, she began
to wonder what she would say when asked about her ‘holiday’. People always asked about holidays when you came back.

It would have to be different things for different people of that she was sure. Daisy and Susie would want to know what she’d bought, which of the new styles had most prominence in the windows of Donegal Place and Royal Avenue and what she and Ruth had done together. Mr Freeburn would want a full report on leisure and sports clothing as displayed in the city centre. She might tell him she met Mrs Patterson in Robinson and Cleavers, but she would most certainly not mention her relationship with Miss Walker or what she’d said about Freeburns having such a shrewd buyer.

She peered out of the window and saw the news she’d expected to see on the news boards.
Further Rioting
, said one.
RUC baton charge,
said another. There was no doubt what Charlie Running would want to hear about. She had a lot of questions to ask him too, though not quite as many as she would have had if James Hamilton had not appeared for lunch the previous day.

He’d been to a meeting with the Mayor in the City Hall which had ended earlier than he’d expected and Rose had wanted to know what was going to happen. How did the Guardians hope to stop the rioting without making concessions? What point was there in delay when all the time distress
was increasing and property being destroyed.

Ellie was quite surprised at Rose’s questions, but it was clear she knew a good deal more about strikes and stoppages than she would have guessed. She referred to other labour troubles and asked why the government was still in recess. At one point she asked quite sharply why it had met in September merely to extend the recess to November when there was a full scale crisis on their doorstep.

James was very proper and said nothing that was still confidential, but Rose made very shrewd guesses. When she said that they thought if they weren’t in session they couldn’t be blamed for what was happening James had to admit that ‘she wasn’t far wrong’. But after that, it was Rose herself who changed the subject and asked Ellie about her cousins.

The Armagh bus was not very full and the conductor put all her luggage safely up on the racks out of her way. At least this time she didn’t have to worry about  breaking the eggs.

Once out of the city, the journey went very well. She sat back and watched the line of the hills slip away behind them as they approached Lisburn. Gratefully, she ran her eyes over the trees lining the route. Even a week further on they were showing much more positive signs of autumn. In the main street of Moira, the four large trees that lined the road had spread inches of shrivelled leaves over the
footpaths. Men with twig brooms were sweeping vigorously. Heaps of leaves, like small haystacks were awaiting collection by a horse and cart, a big heavy horse with broad shoulders and gentle eyes. Just like the ones that came to the forge from the surrounding farms.

She thought of Robinson’s next door and then of George. There’d been no letter in the week before she came away, so there should be a letter waiting. Yes, she was glad to be going home, whatever she might find there.

Autumn lingered that year, the weather still fine and pleasant as Ellie settled back into her routine at home and the young staff of Freeburns began the customary preparations for Christmas and the January sale. Susie had her fifteenth birthday in November, invited all her colleagues to a party, which they enjoyed enormously, and began to make real progress with her ambition to get Joe to talk a bit more. Daisy continued to go out with Frank Armstrong, but now no longer blushed every time his name was mentioned. Nor did she try to convince anyone that his asking her out was just his ‘being polite’.

There was no longer any tennis to look forward to, but it seemed that the redeployment of Miss Walker, the arrival of Susie, and Ellie’s own promotion to Senior Assistant had brought about a marked change in the atmosphere in Freeburns. Everyone seemed happier and little treats and outings were now planned every few weeks to help
them keep their spirits up as the days shortened and got much colder.

December came with regular flurries of sleet, snow and chilling rain, as wet as July had been, but infinitely more uncomfortable. As Ellie bent her head against the bitter wind on her journeys to and from Armagh, she tried to keep her thoughts away from her cold, wet legs and the moisture running down her icy face, by thinking of all the pleasant things that had happened in the previous months.

There were small and slightly unexpected events, like the smile on Mr Freeburn face when the items she’d recommended before her holiday had arrived and he’d seen them put on display. There was the success of her new dress. While there might be no opportunity to wear it yet, it was still a great pleasure to have something hanging on the back of the bedroom door that fitted perfectly and suited her so well. She’d never thought she could cut on the bias like the magazines had recommended, but she’d persevered and she’d managed it.

Then there was the big surprise her father had for her when she arrived home. To her amazement, he’d bought a new wireless. He hated buying anything new and avoided it whenever possible, but this time he was so pleased with himself he could barely disguise the fact.

He’d been thinking of buying one for a while now, he explained, though Ellie couldn’t remember
him ever having mentioned it. The Ecko they’d had since wireless’s first came out had taken to crackling in the middle of the news, or even in the middle of one of the few programmes he ever listened to. Just when he’d made up his mind to do something about it Charlie Running had recommended a particular make and had got one for him and one for himself, at a discount. Not out of the way expensive, he thought, and my goodness you could hear every word the man said as if he were standing beside you in the same room.

What had surprised her even more than the arrival of the wireless itself was that her mother had started listening during the day. Now, in the evenings, she complained about the programmes and that seemed to make her happier than complaining about how ill she was and how no one ever paid a bit of attention to her.

Beyond all this, however, was the news from George.

She’d been very upset when she arrived home and found no letter awaiting her. Or rather, there were three letters awaiting her and
none of them
were from George. She was so annoyed, she hadn’t written him her usual letter and she felt badly that she hadn’t when his letter showed up a week later. That letter did change everything.

He apologised at some length for the delay. He’d been working up at the camp when his uncle sent
for him to come down to Peterborough. They’d had a sudden staffing problem in one of the mills and couldn’t get a qualified man for the job for some months. His uncle had arranged a week’s special intensive training for him in the hope that he could make up for the absentee if he was given an experienced man alongside him. It had been terribly hard work at first, for there was so much to remember. The machinery they were using was highly dangerous if you didn’t know exactly what you were doing, but he’d managed to get the hang of it quite quickly.

The long and the short of it was that his uncle was very pleased with him. He would still have to do another season in a different lumber camp to get more of the experience at that end of things, but as soon as the snow came next year, he’d be coming down to Peterborough to work in the mill. Wasn’t that great news?

He also said that he and his cousin Jimmy were going to go down into the States for the winter to see what work they could find until the ice melted. That way, he could really begin saving. In no time at all they’d be together again. He could hardly wait.

If Uncle George in Peterborough, Ontario, was pleased with his nephew’s prospects, there was someone else in that same rapidly-growing city
even more delighted about the sequence of events at Peterborough Lumbering.

Polly McGillvray was now well settled in her small house in Hunter Street, a few minutes’ walk from the entrance to the Quaker Oats factory. Only a week after George’s letter arrived at Salter’s Grange, she received the first happy letter she’d had in months from her little sister. She was so relieved and so excited, she could hardly think of anything else for days afterwards.

She’d hoped getting away for a bit of a holiday would have given her sister a bit of a lift, even if it was just going to Aunt Annie. With all she had to do at home when their mother took to the couch, and with no George to take her out, she didn’t have much in the way of pleasure these days. Aunt Annie was a kind soul and Ruth had always been fond of Ellie, though not as fond of her as her brother, Tommy. She smiled at the thought of her handsome young cousin arriving with his little box of chocolates. He’d always been sweet on Ellie.

But the first letter she’d had after Ellie’s return home had really upset her. Ellie always wrote so clearly and openly, Polly couldn’t fail to see how unhappy she was. She’d not mentioned George at all, which was a bad sign. What she had written about was the people she’d seen marching to the Workhouse and lying on the tramlines. In particular she’d told her about the death of a man
called Sammy Baxter. He was a flower-seller and a Protestant and he’d been shot by the police when he’d been demonstrating with Catholic comrades on the Falls Road.

Ellie had admitted to Polly that when she found there was nothing to help her understand what was happening in Belfast in the Armagh papers she’d walked up to Charlie Running’s house on Sunday afternoon to see if he could explain to her why the poor man had been shot.

After a week of rioting, Charlie explained, the police had orders to clear the streets. They’d been issued with guns and it was common knowledge, the police only used guns in Catholic areas. In Protestant areas, they stuck to truncheons.

Polly knew that Charlie was a very knowledgeable man. She’d heard her father complain often enough he was never out of the Library and sometimes he talked like a book. He always said there was no use him arguing with Charlie for he had facts and figures at his fingertips you’d never even heard of yourself.

She’d read that October letter over and over again. Charlie had tried to answer Ellie’s questions, rightly enough, but in the process he’d had to tell her about the problems unemployment was creating in other countries and maybe that had only made things worse. Apparently there were six million unemployed in Germany, something Polly herself
hadn’t the slightest idea about, and according to Charlie, there was a man called Hitler making speeches and holding great rallies and promising to put the country on its feet. Hitler seemed to be promising everyone what they wanted, jobs for the unemployed, opportunities for businesses to expand, even a husband for every young girl! As Charlie saw it, the man was on the up and up. There was no limit to his ambition and so far no one had lifted a finger to stop him.

Dear Ellie, she had such a soft heart, she’d end up worrying about all those poor people in Germany, just as much as she’d worried about the poor people in Belfast. As if she hadn’t enough to cope with around her own back door.

On top of the letter, Polly had a dreadful week after it arrived. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong. Jimmy was moved to the night shift. Eddie threw a tantrum and said he didn’t like school, so Davy started playing up too because he always did what Eddie did. Even little Ronnie, normally the most amenable of children, reached the next stage of teething and grizzled all the time.

So Polly could hardly believe it when, only a week later, the second letter had come like the sun coming out from behind a cloud. Ellie hadn’t forgotten what she’d seen and heard in Belfast and she did mention again things that Charlie had since told her, but the whole tone of
everything 
she’d written was so very different. When she asked about employment in Canada, particularly how things now looked for Jimmy, you could tell she was concerned, but there wasn’t that awful sense of anxiety coming through what she was writing about, as if everything in her life was going wrong.

Polly read and reread the letter, just to reassure herself. Yes, it did sound as if George was settling down at last and beginning to think a bit more about the future and their plan to get married. Nothing would please Polly more than George not being able to wait to be reunited with Ellie. That was more like the way it should be.

More than once over the late summer when Eddie and Davy were finally asleep and she was waiting for Jimmy to come off the late shift, she’d sat by her own fire and tried to bring to mind all she knew about George Robinson. He’d only been fourteen when she’d married Jimmy and left for Toronto. Nothing wrong with him she could think of at that stage, and likeable enough. She’d never heard of anything he’d done wrong other than the mischief you’d expect from a young lad. No, there was nothing against him, but she did wonder if there was anything positive to be said on the other side. She asked herself if he
ever put himself out
.

She smiled to herself. She hadn’t thought of those words for a long time.
Putting himself out,
was a phrase often used by her grandmother, Selina,
a woman she’d loved dearly. ‘
Putting yourself out
’ was what people did if they cared. About a person, about a task, about anything that mattered. It was a way of showing love and commitment.

Suddenly Polly remembered a particular day, sitting in the forge house with her, when she was a good deal younger than Ellie was now, and asking her how she knew her first husband Jack had been the right man for her, and then Thomas, her own grandfather.

‘You see, Polly, if a man loves you he’ll put
you
first,’ she’d begun. ‘Now, it’s not that you might not always let him do that, but if that willingness is not there, then however much he says he loves you, however much
he thinks
he loves you, that love is not going to be durable. Life can be very hard for women in ways men can’t always understand, but if they’re willing to
put themselves out for you
, then you can do the same for them. They may be strong, and kind, and hard-working, but they have their weaknesses and soft spots just as much as women, though they’re not supposed to show them. A wise woman knows a man’s weakness and protects him from it. But he has to do the same for her and that means he’s going to have to ‘
put himself out.
’ Make an effort it would be far easier for him not to make.’

She wasn’t sure she’d understood at the time. Looking back, she wasn’t sure she’d even thought about what Selina had said when she met Jimmy at
a dance at the Floral Hall in Belfast when she’d had a holiday with Aunt Annie. He’d said he was going to Canada and asked her there and then to go with him.

No, she didn’t regret it. Jimmy was a good man. He’d put his hand to anything she ever asked him to do and done his best for her, though he said he was no good with children, which was a pity. He hated to see her tired, or anxious. When he put his arms round her in bed at night, she sometimes thought those moments were the only comfort she’d ever have in a world so full of work to be done and children to look after.

Unless, of course, Ellie were to come out and marry George. The thought that she might have her sister, her dear, golden-headed little sister, living in the next street, or across the park, or anywhere she could reach on foot, or by bus, was such a joy that even when Eddie shouted downstairs for her to bring him a drink of water, closely followed by Davy, whom he’d wakened, she went upstairs to settle them yet again, smiling and longing for the time to pass.

Time always does pass. It might have slowed down during the dark days of January, but now it seemed to Ellie no sooner had they had a day off work to celebrate Easter than May made a triumphant entrance with glorious sunshine, the countryside responding
immediately with blossom and luxuriant growth.

Although the letters from George had not been very frequent since he’d gone back up to the camp, in every letter he now talked about returning to Peterborough, finding somewhere to live and saving up enough for their immediate needs. Surely by this time next year they would be together again, or, at the very least, she would be making her plans to welcome him home for their wedding, or saying goodbye to her friends, packing up her trousseau and sailing out to join him.

The Tennis Club re-opened and she and Daisy had taken delivery of their new racquets. They were amazed at how much having one’s own racquet improved one’s game. They played at least three times a week and were looking forward to the Annual Tennis Club Dance at the end of the month. Although Daisy would be going with Frank, she had insisted Ellie must come with Susie, Harry and Stanley. She couldn’t possibly let them all down by not going. As Daisy had said often, it was one thing going out with another fellow and quite a different matter going to support your own club along with other club members.

In one of her recent letters to Rose Hamilton, Ellie had admitted she was ‘
looking forward to dancing again although I can’t go with George, especially as I made a new dress last autumn and I haven’t had a chance to wear it yet!
’