On a Clear Day (23 page)

When Clare woke next morning to the quiet of a summer Sunday, Andrew Richardson was the first thought that came into her mind. Twice now he’d come to the forge and she’d been away. It did seem such bad luck. Apart from going to school and the occasional outing with Jessie, she was almost sure to be at home, studying or cooking or doing housework. Why couldn’t he have come then?

‘Third time lucky, perhaps,’ she said to herself, as she slid out of bed and poured rainwater into her basin.

But the first week of the holidays passed without a further visit from the rider on the chestnut mare.

‘Stop being so silly,’ she muttered, when she caught herself glancing out the kitchen window as she scrubbed the table, peeled the potatoes or washed dishes.

‘He’s not going to come, you know,’ she told herself severely when she’d been lingering at the front of the cottage, slowly dead-heading the flourishing perennials over by the water barrel, the spot which gave her the best possible view of the road beyond the forge.

Before she set out to scrub the floor, she made
sure her blouse was clean. She took care that she didn’t wipe her perspiring face with a grubby hand when she was doing dirty jobs. Her dark curls were combed much more often than her usual once a day and a tumbler from the corner cupboard in The Room had been brought through to the kitchen cupboard and was left well polished in case Robert should send the visitor up to the house for a drink of spring water.

When she went to look after Margaret’s children on Saturdays, she took them to play in the small field in front of the forge. With the main road on one side and the lane to the forge on the other, there was no possibility of missing a visitor. But none of her efforts were of the slightest use. No one came. She just knew the more she watched and hoped, the less likely it was he would appear.

‘He won’t come now,’ she told herself sadly, as a new week began and there had been no sign of him while she’d been at home and no teasing word from Robert when she came back from the expeditions Jessie had planned for them.

To make matters worse, John Wiley hadn’t come to the forge for nearly a fortnight. Normally, he turned up every two or three days to tell them about the comings and goings at Drumsollen House. Just when he might have news of Andrew Richardson, John was enjoying one of those rare periods when none of the Drumsollen vehicles
broke down and not even one of his tools needed a repair.

The weather was heavy and sultry, the dense foliage of the trees and shrubs hung dark and motionless by the roadsides. In the deep shadows, myriads of insects rose and fell in the warm, still air. The last of the early summer flowers had gone and, although the cottage gardens were a blaze of colour, the countryside itself was dull, weary with heat and growth, dim under the pearly skies when the cloud was high and sodden when the continuous warmth generated heavy, thundery showers.

Clare felt restless and impatient. She was thoroughly irritated with herself for spending so much time on her vain imaginings. Thinking about an encounter with Andrew Richardson only made the unexciting character of her life yet more obvious. Each day, she made up her mind she’d not waste another moment wondering if he might turn up, thinking what they might say to each other, or asking herself why he’d come in the first place. But it was not until a letter arrived from her cousin, Ronnie, that she was able to put Andrew Richardson to the back of her mind.

Letters from Ronnie were frequent enough and always welcome, but taking the slim envelope from the postman one Monday morning in late July, Clare felt apprehensive. Ronnie’s letters were
usually long, often enclosed newspaper items he thought would interest her. Recently, he’d put in his own articles about the state of agriculture and industry in the Province. He’d spent hours in the Central Library looking up material and then he’d cycled out into the countryside to talk to farmers and visit factories. She couldn’t remember when she’d last had a letter from him in an ordinary sized envelope.

She tore it open hastily. As she’d guessed, there was only a single sheet of note paper. Carefully folded inside it were two very battered pound notes.

She stood in the laneway, the torn envelope and the pound notes in one hand, the single blue sheet in the other. She read it a second time as if reading it again would make it easier to grasp. But it didn’t. She’d grasped it perfectly well the first time.
Ronnie was going. Her dear cousin was taking the Liverpool boat and he wasn’t coming back. She’d seen him only twice in the last six years, but he had been a comforting presence through all that time. Tears sprang to her eyes.

She couldn’t possibly blame him. He’d worked so hard and got a good degree but he’d still not been able to find a job. He’d had to work weekends at his uncle’s butcher’s shop on Beersbridge Road, a job he hated, just so he could go on paying his rent to Mrs McGregor, for the room he’d had as a student. He’d done all sorts of temporary jobs while trying to find something on a newspaper, but there’d been so many disappointments. In his position, she reckoned she’d have ended up doing just the same.

But the thought of his going made her feel desolate. She shivered as she went back into the dark kitchen even though the morning was warm and the room steamy from the soot-streaked shirts she’d set to boil on the stove in the biggest saucepan they possessed.

She was surprised to find Robert so philosophical when she told him about Ronnie’s plans.

‘Sure that’s the way, chiledear,’ he began, ‘it’s always been the same as long as I’ve heerd tell. There’s young ones that’ll niver be able to settle. If their minds are fixed on somethin’ they want to
do, or if they have an ambition to make money, sure there’s no stoppin’ them. An’ why woud one stop them? Haven’t we all to make our way with what’s given to us?’

He dropped off his cap by the side of his chair and waited till she set his midday meal in front of him.

‘Boys, that looks good,’ he said, as he made a hole in the middle of the pale green mound of champ and sliced a knob of butter from the dish to put in it.

‘Did you ever think of America, Granda?’ Clare asked as she pulled her own chair up to the table.

‘Aye, ah did. I was all for it at one time. My brother William went out to Montreal and started up a business, got on his feet in no time and sent back saying he’d have any o’ the family that was interested out t’ help him. The ticket woud be seen to if we just said the word.’

He nodded to himself and took a deep draught of his buttermilk.

‘My mother was always the one that wrote the letters an’ she says to me “Robert, are ye for off. We’ll not stan’ in yer way. Will I send word to William that you’d like your ticket?” An’ I says to her, “I’ll tell ye the night, Mam.”’

He paused again and made hungry inroads into his champ, mixing the melted butter with the well-mashed potatoes and chopped scallions. Clare
waited, watching the flickers of memory touch his eyes and lips with the faintest of smiles.

‘I went back down to the forge, for I was my father’s helper in them days, an’ as I was goin’ in the door I sees this white mare comin’ up the loanen with a neighbourin’ man. So I went to meet him an’ give him the time o’ day. An’ as I was standin’ there the mare nuzzled up to me and blew down me neck. They do that sometimes if they like ye. An’ I thought to meself. “What woud ye be doin’ behind some counter in some shop in Canada, Robert? Sure ye’d be far better makin’ shoes for a mare.”’

He finished his buttermilk in a long swallow and laughed a short, hard laugh. ‘Did ye iver hear anythin’ so daft in your life?’

He pushed back his chair and began to undo his bootlaces. As he tramped across the kitchen in his stocking feet, Clare turned from the table and answered him.

‘I don’t think you were daft at all,’ she said firmly. ‘And where would I be if you were in Canada?’

He stopped on his step, turned and laughed again.

‘Aye, well …’ he said, looking pleased, as he headed for his lie-down leaving Clare to her thoughts and her plans for going to see Ronnie.

As she stepped down from the worn and shabby carriage of the Armagh train two days later, Clare decided that the Great Northern Station hadn’t changed much in six years. She walked briskly along a platform as noisy, crowded and dirty as the one she remembered from the evening of her arrival with Auntie Polly.

The brilliant sunlight that had drawn out the rich greens in the passing countryside and cast lengthening shadows from the higher points of steeple, farmhouse and barn all the way from Armagh, now struck the worn brickwork and the soot-covered pillars and accentuated the shabbiness of the high-arched train-shed with its handsome wrought-iron work and leafy decorations.

She strode along, aware of the crisp rustle of Auntie Polly’s dress. Already far ahead of the other occupants of her carriage, she remembered the struggle she’d had to keep up with Auntie Polly’s hasty trot, the way suitcases and porter’s trolleys loomed up in front of her, major obstacles to be negotiated.

The thought of the child she had been cast a shadow over the excitement that had grown
steadily as the miles passed and the time of her arrival drew closer. Even after all these years, thinking of Ronnie still brought back the awful memory of her weeks in Belfast after her parents died and how desperately unhappy she had been.

Suddenly, she felt overwhelmingly grateful for the life she now had. However hard it might be, however dull and boring, at least she was free to try to make things better. She did have choice in her life and choice was something the unhappy child she’d been could never have had. Children might have good luck or bad luck, but they had never had choice. She had just been very lucky.

She spotted Ronnie almost as soon as she set foot on the platform. Standing beyond the barrier, his hands in his pockets, his dark eyes appraising the people who streamed by, his face seemed thinner than she had remembered, his hair thicker and darker, his eyes more strikingly brown.

‘Hello,’ she said, coming up beside him as he craned his neck to scrutinise the last few passengers now making their way down the platform.

He stared at her in amazement, put an arm round her and kissed her cheek.

‘You’ve grown,’ he said accusingly.

‘Well, what did you expect? A wee cousin with a teddy-bear?’

He grinned broadly and looked her up and down.

‘On balance, I think I rather fancy this one,’ he said, as he took Jessie’s new weekend case from her hand and propelled her towards Great Victoria Street. ‘Come on, or we’ll be late for our tea.

‘Mrs McGregor has taken a fancy to you,’ he began, as they queued at the bus stop. ‘She said you sounded “vairry pleasant” on the phone.’ He raised his eyes heavenwards. ‘How do you do it, Clare? My father always said you could charm ducks off water.’

Clare blushed. She blushed even more as Ronnie took her hand and led her upstairs and she saw the bus conductor eyeing them. He winked at Ronnie and said something she just couldn’t catch. She wondered if he thought she was Ronnie’s girlfriend.

‘Shaftesbury Square, Clare. Do you remember? We passed through it on our way up and down to Smithfield to find books.’

‘I don’t think so,’ she replied doubtfully, as she looked down at the crowded pavements. ‘I remember Ormeau Park and the bridge over the river and the smell of the Gasworks,’ she added more confidently.

‘That hasn’t changed. Still stinks.’ His voice changed and a bitter edge crept into it. ‘The immediate environment has the highest incidence of bronchitis and chest complaints in the British Isles. And bronchitis is one of the areas of research
that can’t get funding. It’s too unglamorous.’

She turned to look at him, startled by his tone, but before she could say anything he grabbed her hand again, pulled her to her feet and hurried them back downstairs.

‘What about this?’ he asked, waving his hand at an extensive red-brick building set beyond impressively smooth lawns and a flourishing line of trees.

‘No, I don’t remember it,’ she said, as she stepped back on to the pavement, ‘but I know it’s Queen’s University. When you asked me to your graduation you sent me a postcard. I have it stuck in my mirror, so I see it every morning.’

‘Good, I’m glad to hear it. My Alma Mater as they say. Yours too, I expect. Unless you head for Oxford or Cambridge.’

‘Oh Ronnie, don’t be silly. How could I ever go there?’

‘Perfectly well, if you get a scholarship,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘But you mightn’t want to be so far away from Granda,’ he added thoughtfully.

‘I couldn’t possibly go to England,’ she said firmly. ‘I’m not sure I could even manage Belfast unless I travel every day,’ she went on, surprised that she had even thought of the possibility in the first place.

‘No, you can’t travel every day. You’d miss too much. You have to be here. As near as possible.
That’s why I’m so pleased you’ve charmed Mrs McGregor. Now what do you think of the outward appearance of this dwelling?’ he asked, stopping under a lime tree opposite the garden gate of one of the tall terrace houses on Elmwood Avenue.

Clare ran her eye along the row of red-brick dwellings with their tiny walled-in square of shrubs and flowers. The fluttering leaves of the mature trees cast dappled shadows on the brickwork and stroked the projecting roofing and sills of the first floor bay windows. Despite all the comings and goings of this late afternoon hour, the avenue seemed to have an air of quiet about it, as if nothing could disturb the solidity of either these long-established buildings or their accompanying trees.

The house Ronnie was regarding with such concentration had roses trailing along the garden wall and a clematis by the front door. It had been newly painted. The window frames, a startling white, stood out in contrast to those of its neighbours, which might once have been green or brown but were now indistinguishably peeling and dingy. The front door, a dense, shiny black, looked as if it had been polished as thoroughly as the brass knocker and letterbox which decorated its solid shape.

‘Very smart, indeed,’ she said enthusiastically. ‘Is this the house where you live?’

‘Yes, this is where I reside, as journalists are wont to say. This is my domicile, my fixed abode, my pied-à-terre. Until Saturday, that is. I painted it myself. Two weeks freedom from rent and a fortnight’s evening meals. What I lost in sweat up the ladder I put back at six o’clock tea. Wait till you try Mrs McG’s scones and cake,’ he laughed, as he pushed open the tiny gate and took out his doorkey.

Clare decided that Ronnie had been very fortunate indeed to find Mrs McGregor and not just because of her cooking. In person, she was exactly as Clare had pictured her after their brief conversation on the phone, warm, friendly and direct, one of those sensible and kind-hearted women who take a real pleasure in caring for others. Over tea, it emerged that her husband was a merchant seaman who was away for months at a time on the South America run. Mrs McGregor used her time and energy to visit the elderly housebound people who still lived in the avenue and ensure that the six students who occupied her upstairs rooms were as well fed as rationing and the vagaries of her ancient gas cooker would permit.

‘But how
do
you manage to get the sugar and butter, Mrs McGregor?’ Clare asked, after she and Ronnie had done justice to both the scones and the cake.

‘Well, ye see, I do a bit of a Robin Hood,’ she replied, with a wink as she poured more tea for them. ‘These old folk o’ mine, poor dears, they canna’ eat a lot. I take them wee bits an’ pieces of home baking an’ then whin they offer me their points, I say thank you and use them to feed up my hungry wee students.’

After their meal, Ronnie took Clare up to his bed sitter.

‘My goodness, isn’t this posh?’ she gasped as he opened the door.

She stepped into the spacious first floor room and ran her eye round the decorative mouldings on the ceiling, the worn but still handsome furniture, the framed prints and pictures which filled the wallspace not already occupied by bookcases.

Beyond the bay window with its faded velvet curtains, the heavily leafed trees broke up the sunlight so that it flickered and fell in dappled patterns on the scarred leather surface of a large desk. The desk was piled high with books and papers. There were books everywhere. Some carefully arranged on bookshelves, others neatly stacked in small piles on the floor. A small group had been packed already for a pile of boxes stood in a dim corner, tied with string and labelled. ‘Store, Ronnie McGillvray – July 1952 until further notice!’

She moved between a well-polished table and
a huge sofa to stand by the handsome marble fireplace and finger some of the smallest books in the room. Propped between heavy wooden bookends on the chill, white surface of the mantelpiece, the slender volumes had gold lettering on faded leather covers. As she twisted her head to read the titles she suddenly found herself thinking of Saturday, of the Liverpool boat standing by the quay below the Queen’s bridge, its gangways still in place, just like the travel advertisements in the window of the
Guardian
office in Armagh.

‘Goodness, Ronnie, what are you going to do with all your books? These are so lovely. But you can’t take them all, can you?’

‘That depends on you,’ he said firmly.

‘On me?’

‘Yes, you. The one and only, original Clare Hamilton.’

She giggled.

‘You wouldn’t have a sixpence by any chance?’ he asked, after a search of his pockets had proved unsuccessful. ‘It can be a bit chilly in here even on summer evenings.’

She found one in her purse and watched him while he fed it into the gas meter. She studied him carefully while he turned knobs and struck a match. In so many ways he was still the cousin to whom she had been so devoted as a little girl. He still teased her and made her laugh. But he had
changed in some way she couldn’t quite define. There was a tension and a sharpness about his face. There was something different, too, in the way he moved and the way he sometimes spoke, almost as if he were quoting from a text book or a political manifesto.

When he put the match to the fire it hissed and plopped in protest, but after a moment or two it settled down to a comfortable roar. As Clare studied the broken, cream-coloured honeycomb of the gas fire, the flames changed slowly from blue to orange. Soon the roar subsided to a gentle, soothing murmur.

When they settled in the two ancient armchairs in the now shadowy room, Ronnie began to talk about his books and about his time at university. He said a little about his hopes for the future and went on to talk about the two days that remained before he returned her to the Armagh train and departed himself in the opposite direction to begin the longest journey he had ever made.

Yes, he agreed, there did seem a lot to do, but he had made some contingency plans. Mrs McGregor had been most helpful. She’d said he could store his books in a small box room at the top of the house for as long as he liked. It would be a shame to have to sell them, especially if his little cousin could use them.

Clare was just about to ask which of his cousins
he meant, for all the McGillvray’s were tall, when she realised he was thinking of her. She opened her mouth to protest.

‘Now Clare,’ he interrupted, ‘as your only relative with intellectual pretensions on this side of the Atlantic, I think I ought to make clear what you ought to do about your future. Just in case you hadn’t thought of it for yourself, that is,’ he began, as he stretched his long legs out comfortably over the fender.

He outlined briefly the advantages of going to university and then pointed out the further advantages of making up her mind now, even though it would be two years before she had her scholarship. If she decided now, then she could take over this room in two years time, bring his books back down from upstairs and be within walking distance of all the main lecture theatres. Mrs McGregor herself had suggested it when he had talked to her about Clare’s exam results last year. Now, she’d gone so far as to say that the quiet young man on the next floor would be a good person to use the room until Clare was ready to come, as he still had two years to do.

‘But me no buts, tonight, Clare,’ he said, when he saw she was about to protest again. ‘I won’t say another word about it till tomorrow’s morrow, as they say in the best of the old romances. I’ll give you a guided tour of the environs first thing
in the morning and then I thought I’d take you up to Stormont. Uncle Harry is one of their bouncers. He’s about to retire, so he’s offered a tour on the quiet before he goes. You can tell me what you think of my plan while I’m packing my suitcases on Saturday morning.’

To her surprise, he stood up, turned towards her with a dramatic gesture and launched into song. His light baritone voice was so tender and full of feeling as he sang
The Leaving of Liverpool
that she was hard pressed to keep tears from her eyes.

‘That was lovely,’ she said quietly, when he finished and strode across the room to draw the curtains and put on the lamps. ‘I didn’t know you could sing.’

‘Neither did I, till I had a few too many one night at a friend’s stag party,’ he said laughing, as he dropped a pile of newspaper cuttings into her lap.

‘Beauty begins with cleansing,’ she read aloud. ‘The importance of moisturisers? By Doris McGilloway?’

She looked at him in amazement, knowing from the sparkle in his eyes that he was teasing her and was delighting in her puzzlement.

‘Who
is
Doris McGilloway?’ she asked sternly.

He clutched his hand to his heart.

‘I cannot tell a lie. It is I,’ he began. ‘But I
got the idea from you,’ he went on. ‘Don’t you remember Doris Gibb and the beaten eggs to put on your face?’

She nodded silently. Eddie and his
Picturegoer
magazines, Uncle Jimmy and his piles of newspaper, the copies of fashion magazines the customers brought, the battered books from the library van, all came into her mind simultaneously.

‘You used to read everything you could lay your hands on, even the beauty hints. It was all a bit advanced for a nine year old. Well, I have news for you. The Doris Gibb who wrote those beauty hints was a man. I met someone at the
Belfast Telegraph
who knew him. He had a whole collection of nom de plume. Which one he used depended on what he was writing. He used to do household hints as Dorcas Something-or-other. “How to look after your fur coat”, “How to remove iron stains from your marble work surfaces”, “How to make your own beeswax polish”. You name it, he did it. So, I thought, “McGillvray, you need to eat. If he can do it, you can do it.” So I did. I used Doris in memory of our past inspiration and McGilloway to conceal my real identity.’