On a Clear Day (27 page)

From the end of the settle nearer to the stove, Clare would observe them closely. Certainly, there was a tension between them, but even if some old antagonism still expressed itself in the continuing banter, she sensed the source of the trouble was long since healed.

‘Sure ye may go up to Stormont and sort them out yerself, man dear,’ said Robert, with a twinkle in his eye. ‘They haven’t the way of it at all. Ye may have to put them right,’ he went on, with a perfectly straight face.

Whenever Charlie launched into one of his regular political diatribes, Clare listened hard. Robert always shook his head at the radical suggestions Charlie made, but after listening to Ronnie, Clare knew Charlie had information Robert would be loathe to acknowledge, even if it did come his way.

Charlie had left the schoolroom by the church on the hill when he was fourteen, like all the rest of the boys and girls in the area, but he had been devouring print ever since. Once he got his first job in Armagh as a junior clerk with the City Council, he beat a path to the library. He went to evening classes at the technical school, sent away for correspondence courses and read everything he could lay his hands on. By the time he had to retire a few years early to look after Kate, he’d worked in so many different areas of local government and stored up so much information in his prodigious memory it wasn’t really surprising Robert thought he was a walking encyclopaedia.

‘Sure is it any wonder that blacksmiths are being put out of work,’ Charlie began, one evening. ‘In 1939, there were over 75,000 horses in Northern Ireland and only 858 tractors. By 1948, the horses were down below 60,000 an’ the tractors was up till 11,222. An’ if I’m not mistaken in the last four years since I studied the figures, the trends have continued. Numbers of tractors and vehicles have continued to rise, the horses are disappearing from the workplace. They’ll only survive where there’s money to keep them for pleasure.’

‘An’ what about the auld blacksmiths, Charlie? What’ll ye do wi’ them?’ asked Robert.

‘Ah tell ye what I’ll do, Robert, if this young lady here will give me permission,’ he said, turning
to Clare with a very serious face. ‘I’ll call roun’ for you tomorra night about seven an’ take you over to Loughgall for a couple o’ pints of Guinness. They do say that older equipment benefits from extra lubrication.’

Charlie had just bought a little car with the money from a legacy Kate had put away for him. It gave Robert the first outings he’d had for years and something to look forward to as the weather got colder and damper and the dark evenings longer and longer. However much he complained to Clare about Charlie’s political views and his way of ‘talking as if he’d swallowed the dictionary’, he always acknowledged how generous and good-hearted Charlie was. More than once, she saw the look of disappointment on his face when the kitchen door opened in the early evening and the visitor wasn’t Charlie.

She enjoyed the regular, quiet evenings when the two of them went off together. She was able to spread her work out on the table under the window in the soft, yellowey light of the Tilley lamp, the comforting glow from the stove all around her and revel in the pleasure of having space and warmth. Usually, as winter came on she had to do her homework sitting up in bed, fully dressed, a board across her knees, a rug around her shoulders in the unheated room, the older Tilley lamp perched precariously on the washstand, which sloped away
from the wall at the same angle as the slope of the floor itself. Often, by nine-thirty, when she emerged to make a cup of tea for whoever had called, her hands were so cold she could barely take the lid from the teapot without dropping it.

She studied hard all through the long autumn term. As the weather got worse, Saturday night visits to the Ritz became few and far between and she saw Jessie only on Sundays, when they rode into Armagh to go to church, a ritual Robert and Mrs Rowentree always insisted on.

‘Have ye heard from yer man yet?’ demanded Jessie afterwards, as they propped their bicycles outside the paper shop and got out their purses.

‘Which one?’ Clare replied unthinkingly.

‘Woud ye listen to it,’ Jessie cried, raising her eyebrows and staring into the heavens. ‘“Which one?”’, she mimicked. ‘How many boyfriends d’ye have these days?’

Clare laughed.

‘Come on, Jessie,’ she said, still grinning. ‘Even you can’t make a boyfriend out of a cousin in Liverpool and boy I met once who’s sent me two postcards in three months.’

‘Well, it’s better than nothing.’

‘I wouldn’t call the Ritz in Belfast and a meal afterwards “nothing”,’ Clare retorted promptly. ‘Especially not when repeated at regular intervals,’ she added slyly.

Jessie blushed and tossed her hair.

‘There’s nothin’ in it, I told you. He’s just at a bit of a loose end, that’s all. He hasn’t been long in the Belfast shop and he’s lonely.’

‘And who’s been getting all their art materials at way below cost and their framing done for nothing?’ Clare added, as they went into the small, front-parlour shop where the Sunday papers were laid out beside racks of wrapped bread, packets of bacon and sausages and trays of eggs from the hen run out at the back.

‘Bet ye a fiver ye end up with yer man Andrew,’ pronounced Jessie, as they put their newspapers into their carrier bags and struggled into plastic raincoats ahead of the heavy shower gathering itself over the cathedral.

‘And if I had it, I’d bet you a fiver on your man Harry. As it is, I’ll make it a prediction. Can I be your bridesmaid?’ asked Clare, as they pedalled out of the shelter of the houses and into the rain.

When they parted at the pump opposite Charlie’s, Clare made sure to look up at the house and wave, but Charlie must have been out at the back with the chickens or the goats.

She watched Jessie disappear at speed towards Tullyard and began pedalling slowly homewards herself. The rain cleared as quickly as it came. The sky opened and through great rents of blue the sun poured down on the wet countryside. In
the hedgerows, the few remaining leaves, tattered fragments of russet and gold, each carried a shimmering raindrop on its sodden, downturned point.

Suddenly and unexpectedly, Clare was overwhelmed with sadness. Jessie would marry Harry. She was quite sure of it. It might be a year, or two years, or even more, but it would happen. It was perfectly clear Harry had fallen for Jessie. He’d taken one look at her bright face, listened to what she’d said about paintings she’d never before laid eyes on and started to teach her about colour and brush technique. Already, she was producing saleable work of her own and his genuine delight in her success could mean only one thing. Everything she’d told her about him spoke of his interest and commitment. Her disparaging comments were only caution. She couldn’t yet believe her good fortune, because Harry was not only tall and good-looking, he was heir to a family art and antique business well-known throughout Ulster.

Term ended so close to Christmas Clare had to work very hard indeed to get everything ready for the annual visits of her uncles, Bob and Johnny. Apart from writing all the letters and cards to the family in Canada, a job she had taken over from Robert many years ago, there was the extra cleaning she felt necessary when the aunts were
due to appear, their cautious glances preceding any descent into a chair or onto the settle by the stove.

With no long-learnt skills in the area of housework, Robert knew he was not much help. As if to make up for this, he regularly exhausted himself clearing up small jobs in the forge or at the front of the house. Just before Christmas itself, after a long afternoon’s work outdoors Robert decided on a lie down before his tea. Charlie called unexpectedly to deliver a crate of stout and one of mineral water, his contribution to their Christmas festivities and she was left to entertain him alone.

‘God bless all here. Erin go brach,’ he roared as he came round the door.

‘Shh.’

Clare put her finger to her lips and saw an anxious look wipe away the grin on Charlie’s face.

‘Is he poorly?’

Clare shook her head. ‘He’s tired himself out clearing up in the forge because he’s excited about Christmas. Will you drink a cup of tea? He’ll probably be up before you’ve it finished.’

‘A cup of tea woud go down well, Clarey. Oh, it’s bitter out there this afternoon.’

The kettle was already boiling and the teapot warm in the rack over the stove. A few minutes later, she poured for them both. Charlie curled his fingers contentedly round the large delph cup.

‘Charlie, what does “Erin go brach” mean? I
went to look it up but there’s no Irish dictionary in school.’

‘No, there wouldn’t be, more’s the pity. Why would a good Protestant school give house room to the language that was driven to the bogs and the mountains?’ he asked bitterly. ‘I wonder how many of yer good, loyal Ulstermen realise that the Gaelic is on their lips day in and day out. If you told them that they wouldn’t thank you.’

‘How do you mean, Charlie?’

‘Tullyard and Drumsollen, Lisanally and Mulladry, Kilmore and Mullnasilla,’ he replied quietly. ‘All places you know, Clarey. But do you know what they mean? And if I drove you and Robert a few miles north of Granda and Granny at Liskeyborough and showed you Derryloughan, Derryvore, Derrykinlough, Derrytrasna and Derrycarvan would you be able to tell me what particular tree dominated the woodland that once covered that whole area down by Lough Neagh?’

Clare’s eyes widened as Charlie warmed to his task.

‘Clarey, what does Robert call that wooden object that keeps out the worst of the draught these cold nights?’

‘You mean the kitchen door?’ she asked, baffled by his question.

‘Now think again, Clarey. I asked you what Robert calls it.’

She grinned broadly as she caught his meaning.

‘You know very well, Charlie. He always says “Shut the do-er”.’

‘Aye indeed. Do-er. And sure what is “do-er” but one pronunciation of the Irish for oak. And isn’t that what doors would be made of? And isn’t that why all those wee townlands up by Lough Neagh are all Derry this or Derry that. If ye have a knowledge of the Irish you can take out a map and read the shape of the land, its nature and condition, its history. Ach, a whole world of knowledge is there in the names that were put on the land in the Irish.’

‘Do you speak Irish then?’

‘I do, I do indeed. And it is not that long ago when there was plenty of Irish spoken in this part of Armagh and not just the Catholic servants in the big houses. And at the same time County Down was full of Scots who brought the Gaelic with them from Scotland and kept it up even when they mastered the English as well. There were Englishmen too who had respect for what they found here. Have ye ever heard of Brownlow?’

She shook her head.

‘Great man was Brownlow. An Englishman from the Midlands, a small fault in a good man, as the saying is. Got a grant of land around Portadown, learnt Irish himself and saw to it that all his workpeople could speak it whether they
were Catholic or not,’ he began, pausing to drink deeply from his tea cup.

Clare watched him twist the cup in his fingers as he stared into the fire, his whole manner more quietly thoughtful than usual.

‘That’s why my father and mother who worked for him, never let their Gaelic drop. They were Scots and good Presbyterians forby and I admit there are differences between the Gaelic and the Irish spoken in Ulster. But it’s no great thing to get over. They taught me Irish from when I was a child. Ye see the world differently if ye can see it through another’s language,’ he added slowly. ‘But ye know that yerself, don’t ye, Clarey, with yer French and German?’

‘Now that you mention it, yes, I do. But I hadn’t thought of it before,’ she admitted. ‘I suppose that explains why people are so sad when a language dies away. So much goes with it.’

‘Aye, a whole world of living and learning by experience. Sure what’s stories and poems but the distillation of what one has picked up on the way through life?’ he ended sadly.

‘Are ye rightly, sir?’ he said turning away and hailing Robert in his usual voice. ‘I hear you were havin’ a rest.’

‘I was,’ said Robert, yawning hugely. ‘But I’m glad to see ye. Stay an’ eat a bite of tea.’

Clare smiled to herself as she went to the
cupboard to see what they had. It wasn’t a lot, but that wouldn’t bother Charlie. And more to the point, it wouldn’t trouble Robert either. To Clare’s surprise, Robert never tried to keep up any appearances with Charlie.

As she laid the table, she thought over what Charlie had said about Irish and how important the language was to him. There was something strange there, as there was about his relationship with Robert. One way and another there were a whole lot of things she’d like to know about Charlie. Perhaps the best time to ask would be when Robert came back from one of their outings. Sometimes after a few pints of Guinness he was more forthcoming than usual.

January was never Clare’s favourite month. She hated the wild, windy weather that always began just as school started again after the Christmas holidays. On the more exposed parts of the road she sometimes had to get off her bicycle and walk until she reached the shelter of trees or the angle of the road changed, so she wasn’t pedalling straight into the eye of the wind. There were sudden sleety showers that stung her face and made the road slushy and dangerous until it melted properly. Whenever the morning bus or an occasional car overtook her, she was sure to get her shoes and stockings soaked with spray.

In fact, everything she did was more difficult in January. It was still dark when she got up in the morning, the candle flickered in the icy draughts under her bedroom door, the lino was as cold as stone if her warm feet missed the thin, rag rug. Although she kept her underclothes in bed with her, there was nothing to be done about her blouse and tunic. They hung on the back of the door and she shivered as she pulled them on. Often she wore an old jacket over them as she cooked breakfast on the smoking stove,
her fingers numb from washing in cold water, the big kitchen only a little less chill than her own icy bedroom.

The wind roared in the chimney pots and sent smoke and soot billowing down around her. Depending on its direction, the wind would blow the fire in the stove so that it glowed orange and burnt itself out while Robert was in the forge, or made it sulk and smoke so much the potatoes took twice the time to boil, the oven was slow and the water in the stove’s tank was only tepid when she had grimy shirts to wash.

Day after day she struggled back from Armagh and hung her school Burberry to dry on the back of the kitchen door. Despite the plastic pixie hood tied over her beret, her hair was always wet. She got soaked so often, it amazed her she so seldom caught a cold. But that was something to be grateful for. What on earth would she do if she wasn’t fit to go to school and couldn’t do their shopping afterwards?

She tried to save Robert the journey into town in the worst of the weather because she was so worried about him. Every time he coughed she felt herself wince. Even in summer he’d had a cough, as long as she had known him, but in January it was always worse. She could hardly bear to look at him when he coughed, his cheeks hollowed as he struggled for air. His whole body shook as he
fumbled for his handkerchief to clear his mouth. She tried to persuade him to go and see the doctor but he only shook his head.

‘Ach sure there’s no point childear. Alfie Lindsay’s a gran’ doctor. If ye break an arm, or need the hospital, he’ll have ye seen to as quick as wink, but he’ll tell ye straight what he can’t mend an’ he told me years ago there’s no cure for this cough. It’s Miner’s disease, he says. It has some other fancy name I can never mind, but it means the same. It’s the coal dust in the lungs. There’s no cure for it.’

‘But he might have something to ease it,’ she protested.

‘Well …’

That was encouragement enough. She made up her mind and went to the surgery the next day after school.

The moment she sat down in Dr Lindsay’s room with its big old-fashioned desk and its bright lights over the work surfaces, she was glad she’d come. Dr Lindsay listened to her carefully. He said a balsam would break up the mucus and make the cough less racking and he’d a tonic he was sure would improve Robert’s appetite. He asked her if they had any whiskey in the house from Christmas and when she said they had, he told her how to make a hot toddy with sugar and lemon and a bit of spice.

‘It may not improve his chest,’ he said, laughing, as he took the bottles from his store cupboard, ‘but if it makes him feel better he may get a good night’s sleep.

‘Now is there anything else you need? I can put it all on the one prescription so it’ll still only cost you a shilling. Thanks be to the National Health. What about some Disprin for headaches? Maybe you might need a couple yourself at certain times of the month.’

She nodded and smiled, touched by his thoughtfulness. She hadn’t seen Dr Lindsay since she was a little girl, but he’d changed very little. He had always smiled at her and made little jokes.

‘I don’t know what we’ll do if ever Dr Lindsay retires, Clare,’ her mother said one day, when they’d been to the dispensary to have Clare measured and weighed. ‘He’s always so kind.’

Suddenly, Clare saw herself walking down Russell Street with her mother pushing William in his pram. Ahead of them, the bright sun reflected from the marble slabs of White Walk, the path that ran between the cricket pitch and the huge circular pond put there for the firemen to use if the German planes came and dropped their bombs.

‘Are we going past the status water tank, Mummy?’

‘No love, not today. We’ve to go and get orange juice and Robeline at the dispensary.’

‘Why is it called a status water tank?’

‘It’s not status, Clare, its static. Say “static”.’

‘Static.’

She’d repeated the word carefully. Her mother went on to explain that ‘static’ meant ‘standing still’, ‘staying in the one place’. Something static was something that didn’t move. She always explained new words to her like this. She loved having new words to remember.

‘Wouldn’t it be funny, Mummy, if it got up and walked away?’

Her mother laughed and said yes it would be very funny, but it wouldn’t be a good idea. Because it might be needed where it was. They crossed the road and walked along under the shade of the trees, until they were opposite the red-brick house where Dr Lindsay used to work before he had his new house and surgery on the other side of the Mall.

That lovely summer’s day must have been before she went to school. So long ago. Her mother took the two of them out every afternoon, William so small he slept in his pram most of the time. Sometimes there was shopping to do, but often they went for long walks. That was when her mother told her the names of all the different trees and flowers they met by the roadside or leaning over the garden hedges. She learnt the names of the places where they walked, Lisanally Lane,
Mullinure, Drummond, Drumadd. She often said them over to herself, or made them into a song when she was playing by herself.

When William got too big for his pram, Daddy bought him a Tansad. Her mother found the push chair much harder to manage than the pram over broken pavements in town and the bumpy lanes they so enjoyed, but she said it wouldn’t stop their walks.

William never liked the Tansad. He cried when her mother lifted him in and did up the straps to stop him falling out. As he got bigger, he just wouldn’t sit in it at all. He wanted to walk too. But then, he’d get tired and have to be carried. However hard her mother tried to persuade him, he just wouldn’t get back in once he’d got out. Time and time again, Clare pushed the empty Tansad home, knowing her mother was exhausted long before they could see the roof of their own house.

Her mother persisted, hoping that William might grow out of his reluctance. Each day she scooped him up and put him in the pushchair, talking to him all the time. Sometimes she winked at Clare, who knew perfectly well they simply couldn’t go for a walk if William wouldn’t sit in his chair. It’d have to be once round the field on the Cathedral Road and even then, he’d probably have to be carried back.

One day they set off well enough, heading along the Portadown Road, to visit the stream at the Dean’s Bridge. Halfway up College Hill, William began to complain. He screwed up his face and started to pull irritably at the restraining straps. He couldn’t talk very well, but he always managed to make his meaning perfectly clear.

‘Wan out. Out, Mummy. Walk. Wan t’ walk.’

Clare’s heart sank. If he wasn’t let out, he’d scream, but if he got tired and had to be carried, it was such a steep pull back the way they’d come. She was so grateful when her mother bent to loosen the straps, for when he screamed she couldn’t bear the noise.

‘Now, William, that’s a good boy, take Mummy’s hand.’

She remembered hearing her mother speak, but what happened next took her entirely by surprise. She heard a screech of brakes. Startled she looked up. A car stood with its back towards her, its bonnet up against the garden wall opposite, and William was sitting in the middle of the road screaming his head off. A man got out of the car, came over and picked him up.

‘That was a near one, Ellie,’ he said, as he brought a kicking, writhing William back to where they stood by the empty pushchair.

It was the first time she had ever seen her
mother smack William. She smacked his legs hard, put him back in the Tansad before he’d got over the surprise and fastened the straps firmly, as he wriggled and twisted to get out again.

‘Tom, I’m sorry,’ she said, tears streaming down her face. ‘You might have killed yourself if you weren’t such a good driver. I just don’t know how he did it, he was so quick. Are
you
all right?’

‘Right as rain, thank God. What about you? You’re white as a sheet. Can I take you all home?’

‘Ach, Tom I can’t trouble you,’ she said, wiping her eyes.

‘Sure it’s no trouble at all for you, Ellie. Wait here an’ I’ll get the car reversed back onto the road. I’ll take it up and turn in front of the Royal.’

Even now, she could still recall the funny smell of the leather seat in Tom’s car and how he’d asked her would she be all right in the back with the folded Tansad wedged behind the passenger seat, a rug over it in case it might bump against her. And she remembered so clearly that that was the last walk she’d had with her mother.

‘How’s your brother, Clare?’ Dr Lindsay asked, as he helped her put the bottles of medicine into her shopping bag. ‘He’s with the Hamilton’s out near Richhill isn’t he?’

‘Yes, he is,’ she said, collecting herself, the memory of that awful day still vivid in her mind.

She saw him lean back in his chair, ready to listen to her as if he had all the time in the world. She made an effort to respond.

‘He goes to Richhill School now.’ She hesitated. ‘I’m afraid I don’t see him very often, though I do go over nearly every Sunday afternoon. But even when he’s there he doesn’t seem to want to see me. William can be very awkward,’ she ended, uneasily.

He nodded and pressed his lips together, recalling the night he had delivered William. The midwife sent for him, because labour had gone on for so long, far longer than she’d expected for a second child.

‘Your mother told me how awkward he could be a few months before she died,’ he began, looking at her very directly. ‘She was worried she mightn’t be handling him the right way. But I’m afraid there’s no right way we know of for boys like William. It’s maybe not his fault at all, but it’s very hard on those who have to deal with him. How does your granny manage?’

‘She says he wears her out. She can’t really stand having him on her own. She leaves him very much to Granda. Billy and Jack do their best, but Granda is the only one can get him to do anything. He just keeps on at him, very quietly. William
never does anything he should do without being told, every single time.’

Suddenly, to her own surprise, she found tears in her eyes.

‘I think if I had to look after William again I’d go mad,’ she burst out suddenly. ‘I could manage it when my mother was alive, but I just couldn’t do it now, not with Granda, and school, and keeping the house going.’

She put her hands over her face and wept.

‘There now, Clare,’ he said, standing up and putting a hand on her shoulder. ‘No one could possibly expect you to look after William. You’ve your work cut out looking after Robert. My spies tell me you’re doing a great job of it too.’ He paused to hand her a couple of squares of gauze to wipe her eyes. ‘Now, have you been worrying yourself about not doing enough for your brother?’

She nodded silently, afraid if she said a word more she’d start crying again. Really, she was being so silly and she was keeping him back. It was long after his surgery should have closed. She’d met him on the doorstep, seeing out the last patient when she’d arrived straight from school. It must be at least half past four by now.

‘Now Clare,’ he said firmly. ‘I want you to listen to what I’m going to say and to remember it. Whatever problems William causes, they’re not
your
problems. Just because he’s your brother, you must not think it’s up to you to cope with him. If all’s well at the moment, put him right out of your mind. If the situation changes, come to me and we’ll see what can be done then.’ He paused a moment to let his words sink in. ‘Is your Auntie Polly still in Canada?’

‘Yes, she is,’ she said, nodding quickly. ‘She’s very happy. Uncle Jimmy’s back is much better and he has a job with no standing or lifting.’

‘So there’s no word of her coming home?’

‘Oh no.’

She wondered why he’d asked about Auntie Polly. She watched him swinging gently from side to side in his swivel chair, rubbing his chin thoughtfully, and waited.

‘I was thinking you could do with a nice auntie to talk to. Is there no one you can tell your worries to?’

She shook her head.

‘No one I can think of.’

‘Well, we’ll have to see what can be done about that,’ he said, nodding to himself. He got to his feet and opened the door. ‘Now you’re to forget all about William, remember. And that’s an order. And the next time you start to worry about something, the first thing you do is come and see me. If I can’t help myself, I have a nice young nurse here every morning. There are times she might be more use to
you than an old fellow like me. But you are
not
to worry. You wouldn’t want to give me extra work, would you?’

Outside, on the Mall, she got on her bicycle and slowly peddled off. For once it was not raining. Stars winked in a clear sky. She shivered in the frosty air after the warmth of the surgery. As she headed out of town and into the velvety blackness of the countryside she began to feel an enormous sense of relief. After all this time there was now someone she could turn to if any of the awful things she could imagine were actually to happen.

Robert’s cough improved very slowly, but his appetite picked up quite quickly and Clare was grateful for Uncle Bob’s Christmas envelope. She added a few shillings to their grocery money, so she could buy extra bacon and butter and anything she could think of that would encourage him to eat more. A week of bedtime toddies rapidly lowered the level in the whiskey bottle, so she made up her mind to refill it. Once it was empty Robert would never hear of buying another just for a bedtime drink, but if she were to top it up every few days, it might be quite a while before he’d notice.