On a Clear Day (9 page)

‘But what about wee Clare?’ she asked him, that evening, after Ronnie had taken her upstairs to teach her how to play Monopoly.

‘Does she not want to come with us?’

‘She says she wants to go and look after her Granda Scott,’ replied Polly, shaking her head.

‘Well, why not, if that’s what the wee lassie wants? Sure she’s no town child, she’s always talkin’ about fields and trees. If you listen to her talkin’ to the teddy bear it’s all about picnics down by the river or up on the hill. That’s what’s in her mind all the time.’

Polly had to admit she was surprised. She’d not expected Jimmy to pay much attention to what Clare said, but now he’d seen something she’d missed completely.

‘Ach, Jimmy, the forge house is no place for a child. To tell you the truth I was ashamed at the
cut of it after the funeral. It’s been that neglected since Mammy was poorly and it’s worse since Ellie went. She did what she could when she coud get out there without the wee ones. An’ sure my father can only use the griddle and make tea. That’s about the height of it,’ she ended, throwing out her hands in a gesture of despair.

Jimmy nodded sympathetically.

‘Aye, that’s all very well, Polly, but don’t ferget when I was a wee lad, tea and bread was about all we got, an’ it did us no harm. Sure she’d have a school dinner,’ he added quietly.

‘An’ who’ll pay for the school dinners, an’ the bus fares, an’ her clothes? My father’s gettin’ on. By the look of things roun’ the house there can’t be much money comin’ in except his pension. There isn’t even the family allowance for Clare. It’s only wee William gets that, more’s the pity, for the Hamilton’s are comfortable enough now with all the family workin’.’

She stopped, aware that Jimmy was deep in thought.

‘Are ye really seriously suggestin’ we should just let her go?’ she asked, her voice full of anxiety.

‘We should give it a try.’

‘How long for?’

He scratched his head. ‘She’ll know very quick if she’s got it wrong. D’ye remember how she cried that first mornin’ here? She was right that time.
She’s done her best, aye, and so have you, but the city isn’t the place for her. Take her up to yer father an’ give her a week or two. If she doesn’t like it, maybe it’ll settle her for Canada. We can’t make a move for a month or more at any rate, till we sell the house. We can only give it a try.’

On a beautiful Saturday afternoon, the August sun warm, the sky a fading blue, Jack Hamilton collected Polly McGillvray and wee Clare from Armagh station and drove them the two miles to Robert Scotts at Salter’s Grange.

Clare was ecstatic. She had never driven out along Loughgall Road before and being used to the more leisurely pace of walking she tripped over herself as she told her Uncle Jack who all the houses and farms belonged to. It seemed no time at all before they pulled up the short hill and turned left into the bumpy lane that led to the low white forge with its high-pitched, dark-felted roof.

‘Not too far, Jack dear. You might pick up a nail in your tyre. Down here will do nicely,’ Polly warned, remembering the slow puncture her brother Bob had discovered after the funeral.

Clare had forgotten how to work the handle of the door so Uncle Jack had to come and open it for her. She stuck out one foot, clutched Granny Hamilton’s shopping bag in one hand and picked up Edward James Bear with the other.

From the forge, she heard the ring of metal on
the anvil. No wonder Granda hadn’t heard the car, he was making such a noise. Like a big bell tolling, slowly and regularly with a funny little tap dance of the anvil in between.

She swivelled on her bottom and stood up, bag in one hand, bear in the other, pushed the door closed with her bottom and began to make her way across to the grown-ups where they stood looking in through the dark doorway of the forge. As she stepped carefully over the scattered bits of metal and wove a path between pieces of machinery, she saw, over on her right by the hedge, dotted through the rusting harrows and the reaping machines that needed new blades, a whole crowd of dog daisies.

They swayed in the slight afternoon breeze, nodding their dazzling white heads, the sun catching their bright golden eyes.

‘Look, Edward James Bear,’ she said quietly, ‘Just you look over there. Daisies. Aren’t they beautiful? You are going to be so happy in your new home.’

Polly would have liked to stay with Clare at the house beyond the forge for a couple of days or more. She reckoned that would give Clare a chance to settle in and herself a bit of time to size up how her father was going to cope. There was no doubt about how much the house needed her attention. It had been looking neglected even before her
mother’s recent illnesses and now, without Ellie’s visits to keep a check on things, it looked as if Jinny who came on Saturdays to do a weekly clean, was doing as little as possible.

But Polly could stay only one night. It was not just the wedding dresses that preyed on her mind, there were all the arrangements for going back to Canada as well, with or without Clare. Preoccupied as she was, she still put in a hard day’s work on the one day she did have. She cleaned out cupboards, boiled up stained and greasy drying cloths and towels, changed both the beds, cleaned the front-facing windows and showed Clare how to wash and rinse her own vest, knickers and socks.

‘You can leave them to dry on the elderberry bush round the side of the house, like Mummy and I always did, but if it’s wet there’s nothing for it but the plate rack above the stove.’

When Polly looked at the rack she found it was thick with grease from Granda’s frying and liberally speckled with flecks of soot.

She brought a basin of hot water and a bar of Sunlight and started rubbing vigorously.

‘When the wind blows back down the chimney on bad days ye get the soot on top o’ the grease, so mind ye wipe it well before ye put yer clean things on it,’ she warned her.

Clare did her best to help. Before Aunt Polly had used up all the hot water from the stove’s own tank
Clare had filled kettles and saucepans to boil on top of the stove. She fetched water for rinsing from the rainwater barrel and held on tight to one end of each wet sheet while Polly twisted to get the water out.

As Polly worked, she explained important things like making sure there was torn up newspaper in the privy in the orchard when you needed to go there and how it was all right just to nip out behind a bush for a wee-wee but not for anything else. On really wet nights you could use the chamber pot at bed-time but you must be sure to empty it first thing next morning and rinse it out with water from the rainwater barrel.

‘Don’t on any account put the chamber in the barrel to rinse it. Use the old cracked mug to bale the water out into the pot. Rinse it round and then throw the rinsing water over the flowerbed,’ she said as she began to wring out the towels she had just washed. ‘Away and see if that old mug is still there in the flowerbed. If it isn’t we may find something else,’ she said wiping her forehead with her sleeve, as she tipped a saucepan full of steaming tea towels into the metal basin on the scrubbed wooden table under the window.

The old mug, cracked and chipped, with the almost invisible words ‘A Present from Belfast’ was still there, exactly where Polly expected it to be, inside the stone surround of the flowerbed. It sat in a small depression between the hooped
wooden water barrel and a great clump of purple aquilegia that was just beginning to drop its petals on the well-trodden path into the orchard.

‘The better the day, the better the deed,’ said Polly as they gathered up all the damp sheets and towels and followed the path along the front of the house round the gable and into the orchard. There, on an area of shorter grass beneath the tiny back windows of the house, they spread everything out in the sunshine.

‘That’s what your Granny woud call “the gypsies washin’,” she said laughing, as she straightened up. ‘An’ rite cross she’d be too if there wasn’t enough room on the clothesline or if it’d blown down. “Dacent people hang out their clothes”, she useta say, ‘“’tis oney gypsies lays them on bushes or the groun’”.’

‘But I can be a gypsy with my knickers and vest,’ said Clare, cheerfully.

‘Ye can. But mind, niver put washin’ out on a Sunday where anyone can see it.’

‘Yes, I’ll mind,’ said Clare agreeably.

‘No, you’ll not,’ said Polly quickly. ‘You’ll
remember
. Just because I drop back into a country way of speakin’ you’re not to do the same. Your mother taught you to speak properly. Now don’t you let her down. It’s one thing talkin’ to your Granda, but when you go back to school you remember your ings.’

‘But I haven’t got any rings,’ said Clare, perplexed.

‘I didn’t say “rings”,’ Polly laughed. ‘I said “ings”. Like walking, talking, running. Not walkin’, talkin’, and runnin’,’ she said cheerfully. ‘The pot callin’ the kettle black, that is, me tellin’ you to mind your “ings”. But just remember, won’t you?’

It was only hours later when she was sitting in the train to Belfast that Polly realised what she’d said. School was still three weeks away and the plan was that she would come back in a fortnight to see whether or not Clare could stay. Polly smiled to herself. She knew Clare had her mind made up. She was a great wee lassie for making up her mind about things. That was all very well, but what about Clare’s Granda? He’d have something to say about taking on a wee girl and him with no idea at all about children or about housekeeping. The more she thought about the whole idea, the more nonsensical it seemed.

‘Are you sure you’ll be all right, lovey?’ Polly asked, for at least the fourth time, as they washed up the tea things and kept an eye through the front window for Uncle Jack’s car. He was coming over from Richhill to take Polly to that same evening train she and Clare had travelled on nearly six weeks earlier.

‘Yes, I’ll be fine.’

Polly hugged her and thought what a little scrap of a child she was to be left alone with an old blacksmith. Not that her father wasn’t a good, kind man but he’d never had the first idea about children. Children were women’s work. He must have loved his own children to have worked so very hard to provide for them, but he’d never found any way of showing it. He was never close to them. Indeed, looking back to her girlhood, Polly sometimes thought he looked quite bewildered when he cast his eyes round his own kitchen at the crowd of young people who laughed and joked with each other as they sat at the table, morning or evening.

‘Now, Daddy, if the wee one is too much for you, get Margaret Robinson or one of the girls to ring me an’ I’ll come up,’ she said as she walked down the path with him. ‘She’s a good wee thing but ye might find it too much. Don’t be afraid te say. An’ if I don’t hear, I’ll be up in a fortnight to see how ye are. Davy might get the loan of a car, t’woud be awful handy, though Jack Hamilton has been more than kind fetchin’ and carryin’ us.’

‘Aye, he’s a good sort, Jack. Like the father. Gran’ people the Hamiltons,’ he said quietly, as he limped along beside her.

Clare was skipping down the path ahead of them, already beyond the most recent pair
of propped up gates and a reaper waiting to be mended. She hopped up and down as Jack got out of his car.

‘I’ve found the place my great-granny had her garden, Uncle Jack, and I’m going to dig it all up and plant flowers. You can come and see it when I’ve finished if you like.’

‘I will indeed, Clare,’ he said warmly. ‘Have you any plants for it yet?’

‘No. I thought I’d better get it ready first so they’d have somewhere to go. Do you think Granny Hamilton could put a few more of her bits in tin cans for me? They take a while to grow, don’t they?’

‘Aye, but some’s faster than others. Yer a bit late this year for flowers, but we could maybe put in the odd wee bush. I’ll see what I can do,’ he promised, as he turned to greet Polly and her father.

‘I see ye have a wee gardener here,’ Jack said looking up at the older man.

Robert nodded and raised his eyes heavenward. ‘It wouden surprise me. Sure all the weemen in this family has green fingers an’ sure whativer I woud put me han’ to, it dies,’ he laughed wryly.

After Auntie Polly had hugged and kissed her, Clare climbed up on the bank by the furthest end of the forge and waved to the car as it turned out of the lane and moved slowly down the hill. Then
she jumped down and ran after Granda Scott as he made his way back to the house.

‘Granda, why do you have a limp?’ she asked as he pushed open the door into the big dark kitchen.

He looked down at her, slightly startled, thought for a moment and replied; ‘Ach, an’ oul horse kicked me, years ago.’

‘Oh dear. Did it hurt badly?’

‘Aye, it did. It gave me gip for months an’ then it just stopped. But I’ve had a hippety-clinch ever since.’

Clare was about to ask what that was, when she saw him look towards the door of the sitting room, beyond which lay his bedroom.

‘If I take haf an hour on the bed, will ye be all right?’ he asked anxiously.

‘Yes, of course,’ she assured him. ‘Anyway, I have the washing to pick up and fold. Auntie Polly said to be sure and do it before the sun dropped too far and the dew fell.’

‘Aye, that’s right,’ he said hastily.

But the way he said it Clare wondered if he really did know about washing and how important it was to have it bone dry and properly aired.

It was the sunshine that woke Clare the next morning. Through the fluttering foliage of the climbing rose that had grown far beyond the wrought-iron arch framing the front door and now
clothed the whole length of the long, low dwelling, a beam of light fell on her pillow, flickered and settled on her pale skin and dark curls. She felt its touch on her eyelids, opened them promptly and looked around her.

She was here. Here, in the bed Mummy had shared with Auntie Polly and sometimes when they were still little with Auntie Mary as well. A big bed with a horsehair mattress. She had thought it rather hard and lumpy when she climbed up into it the first night, but it was all right when you got used to it. She lay now looking up at the ceiling. Its wooden boards had been painted white but she thought it must have been a long time ago for the distemper was flaking. Where tiny snowflakes of paint had already fallen, the previous layer of much-less-white distemper was revealed underneath. As her eyes moved round the whole ceiling above her, she found in different places little suspended white flakes spinning in the draught coming round the door. What could possibly have made the invisible threads on which they spun?

She counted the boards that made up the ceiling. There were twenty-nine and a half by the door but only twenty-nine above the sash window that was set into the thick plastered walls. Some bits of wall were very thick indeed. Just behind the door into the bedroom there was a huge bulge that
ran halfway up the wall. The windowsills were nearly two feet deep.

‘That’s why it’s only twenty-nine over there,’ she said quietly to herself, when she worked out that the walls were not even. She felt so pleased that she had solved the puzzle.

One day, she thought, when I’m old, I shall remember lying here in this bed counting the boards in this ceiling. And I shall remember what it’s like being nine years old. And I promise, absolutely, Brownie’s honour, if ever any child I know asks me what it was like when I was a child, I shall tell them all about it and not just say that I can’t remember, the way so many grown-ups do.

She wondered if she should get up. Beside the bed was a washstand with a delph basin and a big jug. The jug was only half full of water because otherwise it was so heavy she couldn’t lift it. She knew the water would feel very cold because she was lovely and warm, so she snuggled down further under the eiderdown and continued to study her new bedroom.

Across the small linoleum-covered space by the bed stood a large dressing chest, a solid piece of furniture with three big drawers and a dark-starred mirror whose screws had worked loose so that it now tilted either too much or not enough. All the drawers had been empty and had
smelt strongly of mothballs when Auntie Polly had unpacked Granny Hamilton’s shopping bag and started putting her clothes away.

There was another smaller chest of drawers under the window. They didn’t need any more drawers to put her things in because she didn’t have very many things, but Clare pulled open the drawers anyway, just out of curiosity. But it was Auntie Polly who got a surprise. She thought one of the lower drawers was full of sheets and that the other one had a spare bedspread and some material for new curtains she had brought up but hadn’t had time to make. But all the drawers were empty. Completely empty, but for an old newspaper lining one of them.