For Many a Long Day (8 page)

He glanced anxiously at his watch, untwisted the legs of his dungarees, straightened his tie and ran his pocket comb through his dark hair, sweeping it back from his broad, high forehead. He brushed his shoulders with a quick, practised flick of the hand.

As he bent down to look in the mirror, he smiled. The mirror was large and new and always kept spotlessly clean, but it had been adjusted to suit Wee Sam. Everyone else in the workshop had to bend their knees to see anything in it at all.

He removed the grease streak he spotted on his cheek with a corner of his handkerchief. As he hurried out across the yard and into the showroom, the thought came to him quite unbidden that the face he’d seen in the mirror looked a bit happier than it had done a couple of months back.

‘Ah, good man, Sam,’ the boss said briskly, waving one hand to the Lagonda before turning back to a small, smartly-dressed gentleman with a neat toothbrush moustache and a soft black hat.

Army man, perhaps, thought Sam, noting the upright bearing as his passenger climbed briskly into the front seat beside him.

‘General Slessinger was interested in the
performance
of this model, Sam. Take your time and find a quiet bit of road.’

Sam nodded and caught his boss’s eye. As Wee Sam had commented the other day, ‘
It’s amazin’ what ye can say without sayin’ anythin
’.’ Clearly what the General wanted was a turn of speed. Well, he’d see what could be done.

Given that he rode the six miles between Armagh and Richhill back and forth everyday on his recently acquired motorbike, there wasn’t much about the road he didn’t know. There were a few bad patches where the surface needed attention and a couple of sections where the camber, or lack of it, meant you had to keep a very steady eye on the verges. The worst bend on the whole road was the left-hander just past the Post Office at Woodview.

His father knew the woman who lived in the small house with a high-pitched roof just before the bend itself, one of the gate-lodges to the Leader estate. She’d told him that the family got Christmas cards from young men they’d pulled out of the hedge and the deep ditch beyond. They made tea regularly and phoned for the doctor from the Post Office. For the lucky ones, that was. She admitted that over the years there’d been just a few who wouldn’t be drinking any more tea.

The June morning was fine, the air so clear the stone steps and pillars of the Courthouse looked as if they’d been freshly cleaned, so brightly did they gleam in the sunshine. He took it easy till they were beyond the Royal School and the busy junction at
the Dean’s Bridge, then he allowed the speed to rise in a slow curve. Even on the bad bits of road he had to watch, for on the bike the Lagonda sailed smoothly on as if the surface were perfect.

By great good luck, the last stretch of road into the village was empty so it was not until they reached the main square that he had to reduce speed. He went up the left-hand side past his uncle’s shop, turned right across the front of Richhill Castle and stopped halfway down the far side of the square, the bonnet pointing back towards Armagh.

Throughout the drive his passenger had not uttered a word.

‘You enjoy driving, young man?’

The tone was short, almost brusque, but the look on the General’s face was not unfriendly.

‘Yes, sir,’ he replied honestly. ‘Particularly this model.’

‘D’you have a vehicle?’

‘No, sir. Motorbike,’ he replied, adding the make and model.

‘Had an early one of those myself. Nearly broke my neck once,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘Too old for that sort of thing now, more’s the pity.’

‘Would you like to take her back yourself, sir, and see how she handles?’

‘No, no. No need for that. You’ve convinced me,’ he said with a short laugh. ‘D’you get commission on sales?’

‘No, sir,’ said Sam, smiling. ‘But I’ve a good boss. He’s very fair.’

The General grunted and looked him up and down.

‘What’s he pay you then?’

Sam told him.

‘I need a young man like you. My chauffeur’s getting past it. Time he retired,’ he went on. ‘I live in County Down, visit a lot, both parts of Ireland. I’ve a house in London. Keep a Bentley there. Like to get about. Daughters, you know, since my wife died,’ he explained abruptly. ‘I’ll double your salary. Good time off when I’m visiting them. Use of the motors now and again. What d’you say?’

For one moment, Sam thought he was dreaming. Here he was sitting in the middle of Richhill almost outside Lizzie and Hugh Loney’s new shop and he was being offered a job that would take him all over Ireland and across to London as well. Driving a Lagonda
and
a Bentley. What an offer. He could hardly believe his ears.

‘Thank you, sir,’ he said slowly, his mind still dazed. ‘I can think of nothing I would enjoy more, but I’ve only been three months with Mr Sleator. He’s been very good to me when I had a … wee bit of a personal problem. I couldn’t let him down now I’m over it.’

‘So the answer is no.’

‘I’m afraid it is. But I’m most grateful to you for asking me, sir.’

‘Pity. Great pity,’ said the older man sharply. ‘You’ve a great feel for a motor. But loyalty is an important thing too. Not much of it about these days,’ he said, nodding to himself. ‘Lucky man, Sleator. Do you think we can do it faster on the way back?’

‘We can try, sir,’ Sam replied, beaming.

He was just about to start the engine when he saw the sun glance off metal. Almost on the edge of vision, a mile or more away on the road leading into the village, he saw the glitter of a black, highly-polished motor. Seconds later he saw that there was a second vehicle behind the first. Unusual. Not one, but two, and both Rolls-Royces. Not motors he knew of belonging to any of the local gentry or landowners.

They could be bringing visitors to the Castle, but hired vehicles were more likely, perhaps a funeral, but surely he wouldn’t have missed seeing the hearse turning across the foot of the square towards the Presbyterian churchyard or the Quaker burying-ground.

‘I’ll just let those motors through, sir. It’s rather narrow on Red Row,’ he explained. He leant forward to get a better look at them as they swung into the square.

Moments later, all his speculation was resolved. The Rolls were two he’d seen often enough parked outside Loudan’s in the Seven Houses. Father and son were driving, but this was no funeral. Sitting
in the first car were two bridesmaids, the pink tulle of their dresses matched by ribbons in their piled up hair. He didn’t recognise either of them but the figure in the second vehicle was unmistakable. Sitting in solitary state on the back seat, looking somewhat uncomfortable in a very large hat, heavy with artificial flowers, was Marion’s mother, the woman who had shut the door in his face only three months ago.

He took a deep breath, put the car in gear and let in the clutch. Accompanied by her father, the bride herself, would be following. The thought of seeing her in all her wedding finery was more than he could bear.

He slipped the Lagonda neatly out of the square and accelerated down Red Row to the junction with the Armagh road. The briefest glance towards Portadown revealed the third vehicle approaching. Instantly, he spun the wheel, turned out in front of it and accelerated so fast the driver had neither time nor necessity to modify his own speed.

To the obvious delight of the General, the journey back to Armagh was achieved in an appreciably shorter time than the outward journey had taken.

Sam had a bad afternoon. Whatever job he put his hand to managed to produce some complication or other and he blamed himself for his poor concentration. Had his father been there to observe
his work, he could have comforted him. There were times when problems clustered. It was mysterious, but it happened to everyone, no matter how good they were nor how long they’d been doing the job.

As it was, Sam was puzzled as well as upset. Even in the dreadful weeks after Marion had first broken it off, he’d been able to do his work quite normally. If his colleagues knew he was in a bad way, as he now suspected they did, it was probably only the fact that they couldn’t make him laugh that had given him away.

The afternoon wore on and Sam spoke to himself severely. His mother had told him there was someone else. He hadn’t wanted to believe it, so he’d put it down to rumour and the gossip of neighbours. His mother brought home all the gossip there was to be had and you couldn’t believe the half of it, but he remembered now that one evening in the workshop his father had asked very quietly if he thought there might be someone else involved. He’d denied it vigorously. Whatever he might feel about Marion and what she’d done, he’d never think that of her. If there’d been someone else, surely she’d at least have had the courage to tell him.

His father had just nodded to himself and said that maybe however bad it was just now, it was better now than later. There was many a man had married with the greatest of hope, thinking he knew the woman he’d chosen, and then found out she
wasn’t at all the woman he’d imagined.

He hadn’t paid much attention at the time, but now he knew for sure. Well, whoever it was she’d lined up for the June wedding she’d always wanted, he’d a lot more money than he had. Marion’s father had made it clear when they’d told him of their engagement that their wedding would be ‘a family affair’. There’d have been no wedding cars from Loudan’s if it had been him and Marion. No doubt his mother would be able to provide the details of the day even before it went into the newspapers. Bride’s dress, bridesmaids, number of guests, reception and
honeymoon venue
, as the Portadown Times always called it.

Hardly a week in Newcastle, or Portrush after all that style, he said to himself bitterly, as the bell rang in the yard for quitting time.

‘Boss sez to call upstairs afore you go,’ Peggy informed him, as she collected the keys of the Austin he was working on and put them back in the safe.

‘D’ye know what he wants?’ he asked abruptly, a sudden wave of anxiety sweeping over him.

‘Maybe yer for the sack,’ she said pertly, as she closed her handbag and waited for him to remove his large frame from the entrance to her small office.

‘Ach, I was only foolin’ ye,’ she added, relenting, when she saw the look on his face.

Nevertheless, Sam felt anxious as he tramped upstairs. The only time any of them ever went to
the boss’s office was to collect their pay packets on a Thursday.

‘Sam, come in. Sit down a minute till I finish this receipt, will you.’

Sam settled himself, looked out the window, and waited patiently while the older man carefully transferred the Lagonda’s details from its logbook to the bill of sale. It took him a good five minutes and when he finally applied the sheet of blotter to the completed document, he shook his head wearily.

‘Every job has things you dread. I can’t stand filling in receipts,’ he admitted, ‘despite the fact that that’s what keeps me in business,’ he added, smiling for the first time and handing Sam a brown envelope across the desk. ‘Go on, open it,’ he said, ‘I think I know what’s in it, but I want to see your face,’ he went on, grinning at him.

Sam’s large fingers caught at the sealed envelope, managed to tear off a small corner and finally ripped it apart. As he pulled out a large, white banknote, a small card fell from the envelope and dropped on the threadbare carpet at his feet. He picked it up and looked at John Sleator in amazement.

‘Is it a fiver?’

Sam nodded and stared at the flowing italic script on the banknote and the fine silver line running through it. Then he focussed his attention on the business card. There was something written on the back.

‘
If you change your mind in the next year, let
me know. Thank you for the drive.
’ There was a squiggle by way of signature, but the author’s full name, rank and addresses were clearly laid out on the other side.

‘It seems I might have lost you,’ John Sleator began. ‘He told me he made you an offer. Do you not think it was a good chance?’

‘Oh yes, it was a great offer,’ Sam replied, his face lighting up. ‘He has a Bentley forby the new Lagonda.’

‘But you said no?’

‘I did,’ Sam said, nodding. ‘If I’d been here a couple of years, or if you hadn’t given me time off I wasn’t entitled to, I might have said yes.’

‘I appreciate that, Sam. I know from Harry it’s not been a good time for you, but you’ve kept up your work and never let your workmates down on the job. The General was right. He told me I was lucky to have you,’ he said firmly. ‘Now what are you going to do with your fiver? Something for the bike or something for yourself?’

Sam smiled and shook his head.

‘No, I think what I’ll do is take my colleagues out for a meal and maybe the pictures. A night out for the boys and Peggy and the two young lads. Sure I mightn’t have another fiver dropping into my lap for many a long day.’

Along with all the other young shop assistants in Armagh, Ellie looked forward to the extra day’s holiday July always brought. On Tuesday, the Twelfth, she would spend the day with Daisy going to the demonstration field just outside Armagh to hear the bands and watch the annual Orange procession. But apart from this brief day’s respite from the Great Summer Sale, there was little to recommend the month of July. As she admitted to Daisy, while drying their hair one morning before work after cycling through a cloud-burst, it was her least favourite in the whole year.

To begin with, Freeburns itself was hot and airless. The extra bales of cloth and piled up garments for the sale made the narrow aisles even narrower and closed up completely any unused space. Even with the front and back doors propped open and all the upstairs windows thrown wide in the hope of creating a through draught, it was stuffy as well as claustrophobic. The assorted fabrics gave
off a strange musty odour, not exactly unpleasant, but pervasive. At times Ellie felt desperate for fresh air, but even when she managed to get away from the shop in her short lunch break, she found the air so warm and humid outdoors there was no freshness to be had.

Half a dozen times in the course of the month, setting out from home under an overcast sky, she’d watched the heavy clouds darken as she cycled along. Large, sixpenny-sized spots of warm rain would drop on her shoulders so suddenly, she’d have barely a minute to find shelter before the clouds opened and cast their burden in dancing spires on the road in front of her. More than once she’d been caught in just that part of her daily journey where there were neither trees in the hedgerow nor a neighbour’s house near enough for her to drop her bicycle by the front gate and run for the shelter of the porch.

On the third Monday of the month, standing under a large chestnut in the line of dark-canopied trees that overhung the footpath on the edge of the Asylum grounds, she watched the sudden downpour blank out the small houses in Mill Row and the tall, brick mass of Drumcairn Mill beyond. Within moments of leaning her bicycle against the hedge, she watched sheets of water pouring off the surface of the road and filling up the gutter. Little fragments of torn leaf, brown sepals and tiny twigs were swept along in the sudden flood. Immediately she
thought of the rivers in the Canadian forests where the logs jostled and rolled on their way down to the sawmills, tossed by the churning flow as easily as these little fragments.

As suddenly as it had begun, the rain stopped. The sun appeared and within minutes the road began to steam, swirling around her like a November mist as she pedalled faster to make up for the time she’d lost. However damp and sticky she might feel, she could hardly complain when she thought how much worse it must be for George.

His letters now arrived more regularly, although she had to admit they were still short nor did they tell her very much. In most of them, he simply said there wasn’t any news, because every day was like every other day and it was only once a fortnight they had a break when they went north for two nights to a mining camp, so much larger than their own modest lumber camp it had a saloon and a boarding house.

It did sound a bit like the Wild West, the sort of thing they’d seen together in the Ritz Cinema, with cowboys and gunslingers and battles with the Indians. She’d asked him if there were Indians in his part of Canada or if that was only in the States. He’d said he hadn’t noticed any and then went on to tell her about the heat and the insects.

She felt she could hardly complain about the Armagh temperature being in the seventies when
George said where he was it was in the nineties or even more. He hadn’t told her exactly
where
he was, though she’d asked several times, nor was the address any help. All it said was: Box 32, Lot 7, Peterborough Lumbering Company and added the number and street of the Head Office in Peterborough, a street not very far from where Polly and Jimmy lived.

As she pedalled on feeling sticky and uncomfortable she wondered anxiously how she would cope with the temperatures he talked about when she found the summer heat difficult enough here at home. She’d told Polly about her worry in a recent letter, and Polly had been a comfort, explaining that Peterborough itself wasn’t as humid as it would be in the forest where George was working. Polly admitted she herself had found the higher humidity difficult to begin with, but she said you did get used to it. Sometimes you felt washed out when it got really bad, but then so did everybody else. It wouldn’t just be you.

As she made her way into the city, Ellie reminded herself that one of the good things about the month was that Miss Walker took her annual leave during the second fortnight. It made such a difference knowing there was no one watching the clock to see if you were even a moment late, delayed by rain or traffic. Harry, Stanley and Joe, the three young men in the Gentlemen’s Department all had digs in
a boarding house only two doors down from the shop while Mr Maginnis, the senior man, lived in Ogle Street, a short walk away. They knew Ellie had to cycle two miles and Daisy more like three to get to work. None of them ever minded if they weren’t there on the dot of eight-thirty to share the jobs in the early morning routine.

‘Hello, Ellie. How did
you
miss it? I got wet
again
,’ Daisy greeted her cheerfully, as she emerged from a towel, wisps of hair sticking to her damp cheeks.

‘I was quick on the draw,’ Ellie replied promptly. ‘Saw it coming and got under a tree. We’ve had plenty of practice this month, haven’t we?’

‘Sure have, pardner,’ Daisy replied, laughing.

Daisy loved the cinema, Westerns in particular, and often lapsed into a very good mimicry of the minimal exchanges between her heroes, even though she’d seldom been able to go to the Ritz in the last two years.

She dropped the towel over the back of a chair, took out her comb and swept her damp hair away from her face. It was when she turned back from the mirror that Ellie saw her smile, her brown eyes sparkling, her pleasant face transformed to prettiness.

‘Something’s happened. Something good has happened, Daisy. Tell me. Tell me quickly before we go down.’

‘Sure there’s no hurry. Doesn’t Harry just love doing your jobs?’ she said, teasing.

‘Go on, Daisy.’

‘Well, I told you Uncle Sam knew this doctor over Banbridge way. He’s married to one of m’cousins. Anyway, Uncle Sam said he was goin’ to ask him to come and see Ma. Dr Stewart. D’you mind?’

‘Yes, of course I do. You said your uncle thought a younger man might be able to help more. Anyway, he thought Dr Stewart was a very good doctor. Has he been?’

‘Aye, he came on Sunday of last week, but I wasn’t sayin’ anythin’ till I saw if there was any improvement. The doctor we have kept givin’ her different things and said they’d do the job, but they never made a bit of difference. I can’t believe it, Ellie,’ she said with a great sigh as she dropped down on the chair, knocking the towel unheeded to the floor. ‘He talked to Ma for an awful long time an’ then left her some wee pills and a bottle of tonic. She’s took them three times a day for the week and on Saturday mornin’ she’s out feedin’ the hens. She looks about ten years younger. She says it’s a miracle, all that sick feeling that made her so miserable has gone. She was complainin’ yesterday that there was no flour. She was lookin’ for it to bake. Sure we haven’t tasted anythin’ other than baker’s bread since Da died.’

‘Have you any idea what was wrong?’

‘Apparently he said there were two things, one makin’ the other worse. One was simple enough, the other was more difficult, but he hoped what he was going to prescribe might help. Well it did. An’ that’s not all,’ Daisy went on, pausing as she bent down and rubbed fiercely at her wet shoes with a piece of rag.

Ellie waited impatiently until Daisy straightened up again and caught her breath.

‘Uncle Sam came over again yesterday to see us. He works for Irish Road Motors in Portadown and he’s got a place as an apprentice for Jimmy … and him only out of school two weeks. He won’t earn very much, but they give their apprentices a bicycle and a midday meal and work clothes and that’s worth a queer bit.’

‘Oh Daisy, Daisy, I’m so
very
glad,’ said Ellie, as Daisy stood up and hugged her.

Ellie felt her eyes misting over when she looked at her friend and saw her eyes shining, her shoulders and the whole set of her body full of a lightness she’d quite forgotten. She wouldn’t have minded how often she’d got wet if she could have brought about this amazing change herself.

Although preparations for the sale made a lot of extra work in June, the sale itself did not make the shop itself busier. People came knowing what they wanted, especially bed linen and towels, and
although the day’s takings regularly made Mr Freeburn nod with gentle satisfaction, there were quite long periods when there were no customers in the shop at all. It was the one time in the year when the assistants could be sure of catching up on everyone’s news and sharing whatever jokes were being passed around.

In fact, so lively were the days that followed Daisy’s good news and the absence of Miss Walker that Ellie almost forgot her dislike of the month. Though he seldom took part himself in the talk and banter, Mr Maginnis had no objections to the young people chatting to each other when there was no work they could usefully do. Indeed, he made no secret of the fact that he thought Miss Walker created quite unnecessary tasks for Ellie and Daisy, just to keep them busy.

It was Harry, a tall, pale-faced young man with a flame of red hair, who announced one morning when mugs of tea were being circulated at the back of the empty shop that he had some good news for Ellie and Daisy.

‘Are ye gettin’ married then, Harry?’ demanded Daisy. ‘Someone rich I hope, so you won’t have to work here and bother us anymore?’ she continued, as Harry pulled faces at her and pretended to be annoyed.

Seventeen years old, Harry was from a large family in County Tyrone and was one of those
young men who had a genuine good-nature about him. He appeared incapable of being unpleasant and even the most difficult of customers usually capitulated to his easy manner and ended up saying ‘Thank you,’ and smiling at him. His regard for Ellie was obvious to everyone. Being teased about it was a pleasure to him, a small comfort for knowing that not only was she spoken for, but, being younger and poor, he could never hope to pay court to her anyway.

For her part, Ellie was fond of the young man and never minded the teasing. Unlike her brothers, who had never had much time for her, Harry would talk to her about his family, the long walks he did on Sundays with friends from the boarding house and his hopes for the future. Had it not been for Miss Walker’s disapproving eye, Harry would have ensured that Ellie never again lifted anything heavier than a box of silk stockings.

‘As I said, I have great news for you two ladies,’ Harry repeated, as he and Stanley propped themselves against the back door leaving the folding chairs for Ellie and Daisy.

‘Stanley and I joined the RUC Tennis Club this year,’ he began, nodding to his friend, ‘and we’ve had a great time. Met a lot of nice people. A few girls, though not as nice as present company,’ he added bowing to them, ‘forby the tennis. They’ve a lovely court with big stone walls around it so you
don’t keep losing the tennis balls like some places I’ve heard of.’

‘Aye,’ said Daisy, raising an eyebrow. ‘Are ye for Wimbledon then?’

‘I think I’ll wait till next year, Daisy. My backhand needs just a bit more work.’

‘His front hand’s not great either,’ Stanley added soberly, ‘but he can fairly put away the sandwiches when there’s a match.’

Undeterred by interruptions and his friend’s comments, Harry went on to explain that the club wanted to recruit new members. Particularly lady members. Given that the season was so far advanced, the evenings dropping down already, they were offering free membership for the rest of the year, with a special session on early closing day for newcomers.

‘Now what about you two ladies coming with Stanley and me on Wednesday. We’ll see you’re properly looked after and introduced to everyone. I’m sure you’d both be very good,’ he said encouragingly.

‘Given I’ve never had a racquet in m’ hand in m’life I’m sure you’re absolutely right,’ Daisy commented cheerfully.

‘Did you ever play rounders at school?’

‘Aye.’

‘With a bat or with your hand?’

‘Both.’

‘Well, sure it’s the same thing. It’s only keeping your eye on the ball, like cutting a length of cloth and keeping the line straight,’ said Harry persuasively.

‘Ellie’s the one for that,’ commented Stanley thoughtfully.

‘Why don’t you
both
come on Wednesday? There’s spare racquets for those who haven’t their own and you only need shoes that are flat and kinda soft.’

‘You mean we don’t have to wear whites? Oh dear, an’ I fancied myself in whites.’

At that point the shop bell sounded and they dispersed with practised ease without another word being spoken.

‘I think we
should
go, Ellie,’ Daisy said firmly, as they sat under the trees on The Mall some two hours later. ‘My Ma said las’ night that I never went anywhere but work an’ it wasn’t right at all. I’d had a lot to put up with when she wasn’t well, but I should be gettin’ out an’ enjoyin’ myself now that she was better. An’ sure you’re just the same. You go nowhere either. An’ don’t be tellin’ me that George thinks you should sit at home. Doesn’t he go with his friends to this saloon you were tellin’ me about? Joinin’ a tennis club isn’t like goin’ out with some other fella.’

Ellie had to agree there was no harm in it, but she confessed she was afraid she’d be no good at tennis and would be embarrassed in front of people she didn’t know.

‘But that’s the whole point. If we go with Harry and Stanley on Wednesday, we can have a bit of a laugh, an’ if we’re hopeless there’s no harm done. Ach, Ellie, I promised Ma I’d start goin’ out, but I don’t want to go somewhere on m’own. Don’t let me down.’