by Anne Doughty
‘Yes, I have. Except about my exams in February,’ she said laughing. ‘I think that’s normal, isn’t it?’
‘Indeed it is. I wouldn’t attempt a cure. Good luck with them,’ he added, as he watched her lower her shopping bag carefully into her front basket and wheel her bicycle out onto the roadway where the wind whipped at her coat tails and the rain blew in her face.
As she pedalled slowly along the wet road, she wondered how she could possibly feel so cheerful when she was getting wetter by the minute and had nothing to look forward to at home except an evening’s revision and a pile of washing that would have to be dried indoors.
On a mild and bright Saturday morning, a few weeks later, she was washing the breakfast dishes when she spotted the postman coming up the path. Drying her hands quickly, she ran down to meet him.
She felt the colour drain from her face as he handed her an envelope without a word or a smile. It was a perfectly ordinary blue envelope of the kind Ronnie had been using for years, but it was crumpled, the black ink of the address a smudgy grey. Rubber stamped across it in bright blue was the message: Damaged by sea water.
She ripped it open. Inside, all she found was a brief note.
Dear Clare,
By the time you get this I shall be on the high seas. I had nowhere near managed to save my fare, but I’ve been keeping my ears tuned and I’ve managed to get a working passage on a ship to New York. They were short of a bar steward, so my experience in Belfast has paid off.
Hope all goes well with you. I’ll write again when I can.
In haste,
Much love,
Ronnie
‘The high seas,’ she said aloud, clutching her hands to her face as she hurried back to the house.
Her mind leapt back to very last day of January. She’d arrived home in the fading light to find smoke rising from the chimney of the forge and stepped in to say hello to Robert. There were four other men there and to her amazement they were all standing or sitting in complete silence.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asked hurriedly, turning from John Wiley to Robert and back again.
One of the older men sitting on the bench inside the door shuffled his feet and looked up at her, his face mask-like in the glow of the fire on the hearth.
‘Bad news, Clarey. Robert’ll tell ye,’ he said, uneasily, his eyes going to her grandfather as he spoke.
‘The sea-doors is broke on the Larne ferry an’ they say she’s goin’ down. The weather’s that bad they can’t find her t’ get any help t’ her.’
‘An’ there’s weemen wi’ young childer coming back from England on her,’ said John awkwardly, as if he had a lump in his throat. ‘What chance woud they have in a lifeboat in weather like this?’
The answer came soon enough. Within the hour, as darkness fell and the wind rose yet higher, Robert turned on the radio for the six o’clock news. There had been no radio message from the Princess Victoria since two o’ clock. Lifeboats and ships were searching for survivors.
By the following morning, it was certain there were no women or children among them. Only forty of the strongest and fittest of the men from the crew survived. One hundred and twenty eight people were lost. Clare read the newspaper reports to Robert each evening and tried to hide her tears as the stories of heroism, loss and grief unfolded.
With the damaged envelope in her hand, the full horror of the loss of the Princess Victoria swept over her again. Ronnie had decided against the £10 assisted passage, so she’d been sure it would be months before he could save up enough to go. Besides, from what he’d hinted in his letters, she really thought he meant to see her before he left.
But now he was gone. He was ‘on the high seas’. If only he hadn’t used that particular phrase. ‘Mountainous seas’ had breached the doors of the car deck on the Princess Victoria, flooding her and crippling her. ‘Mountainous seas’ prevented ships coming to her aid, swept survivors from life rafts, or carried them beyond the helping hands that tried to catch at their lifejackets with boat hooks.
In that narrow stretch of water between Larne and Stranraer, with both coastlines perfectly visible on a clear day, the sea had destroyed a well-made, well-manned vessel. And Ronnie was crossing the storm-ridden Atlantic in winter.
Totally distraught, she ran into her bedroom and sat weeping on her bed.
‘What am I to do? What am I going to do?’
As her tears diminished, she shivered violently. Slowly, cold reality took shape. There was nothing, absolutely nothing whatsoever, she could do. What made it worse, the only person she could have told was Jessie, but she worked alternate Saturdays since she’d got her job at the gallery and this was her weekend in Belfast. If she told Robert, he’d be upset for her sake and she couldn’t bear that. She would simply have to bear it, try to put it out of mind and behave as if she didn’t care at all, because there was nothing else she could do. Except hope all would be well.
With an effort of will, she gathered herself, filled her bucket with hot water and prepared to face her least favourite job of the week, scrubbing the mud from the lane off the kitchen floor’s well-tramped surface.
Ronnie’s next letter arrived a week later. His crossing had been unexceptional, he’d made some useful contacts, and he was writing on his knee in a long-distance bus heading towards the Canadian border. He expected to arrive in Toronto in two days’ time. He already had the address of a newspaper which might be interested in someone with an Ulster connection.
Clare was torn between relief and pleasure and furious anger at the way she’d upset herself. Since that damaged envelope had arrived, she’d slept badly. She’d not been able to concentrate on her work, despite all her efforts. Once or twice, she’d even caught Robert looking at her as if he were going to say something, but thought better of it.
‘Let that teach you a lesson, Clare,’ she said firmly, as she added Ronnie’s latest letter to the pile she kept at the back of the drawer behind her clean underwear. ‘If you’d gone on like that much longer you’d have upset Robert and you’d have made a right mess of the exams as well. No matter what happens you’ve got to keep steady. If there’s no one to help you, you’ll just have to learn to help yourself.’
After all the bad weather at the beginning of the year, Clare could hardly believe it when March produced such unexpectedly warm, still days. They brought springtime in a glorious rush of unfurling daffodils and leafing trees. As always, her spirits rose as she looked hopefully at the fuchsia cuttings in the deep windowsills of her own room and the boys’ room and began to plan how she’d put together this year’s window boxes once the risk of frost was past.
With the evenings now light till after tea, she had time to walk up through the orchard after school and bring back posies of primrose and wood anemone for their table. She cut sprays of forsythia and budding spindleberry from the shrubs on the path to the forge and put them in a jar on the hallstand. As she stood looking at the bright flowers and the tiny leaves, she breathed a sigh of relief. The really bad weather was over. Life would be easier for a while.
Robert was so much improved that he spent most of his day in the forge. He visited the pub in Loughgall regularly again and he enjoyed hearing all the talk about the plans the village was making to celebrate the coronation. When Clare read him a newspaper report about some thread produced by silkworms kept in the village being accepted by Buckingham Palace, he threw up his head and laughed.
‘So much for them makin’ the dress singlehanded. Coud ye be up to people? The stories they put about that place. They’d try to tell you they was goin’ over for the day themselves if you were fool enough to believe them.’
Despite all her work for the examination, Clare listened to the news from the pub and the forge. When she heard Robert shuffling the newspaper he’d already read, she knew he was at a loose end. She’d always come and sit with him and try to entertain him when he felt the time long. But many an evening she was grateful when she he
ard Charlie’s step at the door and his greeting booming into the kitchen so that she could go back to the books laid out in the boys’ room.
At the time, all the talk was of the Coronation, the grand preparations going on in London and the many events being organised locally. Try as she might, she could not get excited about any of it. When the day finally came she listened to the broadcasts from Westminster Abbey with Robert during the day and went gratefully back to her work when Charlie arrived to take him out that evening.
The day passed quietly enough for Clare, but it ended with an event that had far reaching consequences for her. Early in the evening, Robert’s landlord for the last fifty years, Albert Nesbitt, complained of indigestion and went off to bed early. Next morning, his daughter found him dead. By the time Clare arrived home after a three-hour paper, Robert had already shaved and donned the white shirt and collar from the bottom drawer.
‘Oh dear, who is it this time?’ Clare asked, as she came into the kitchen and took one look at his scrubbed and polished appearance.
‘Ach, it’s oul Albert Nesbitt. Very sudden. Sure he was up here last week to collect the rent to save you the bother of goin’ down with it. Said he knowed you were workin’ for the exams and sure the walk woud do him good, forby a bit of crack in the forge.’
‘Is Eddie going to the wake?’
‘No, Eddie doesn’t know the Nesbitts very well, though he’ll go to the funeral, of course. But our friend Charlie used to work for Albert’s father at weekends after he left school. He’ll be going for sure and he’ll pick me up on his way.’
‘You’re sure you don’t want me to run up on the bike and ask him?’
‘No need, no need at all,’ he said firmly. ‘Sure Charlie and Albert were comrades. It was Albert Nesbitt got Charlie Running to join the IRA. They were in the same unit.’
‘The IRA?’
Clare was so amazed, she hung her blazer on the end of the settle and dropped down beside it.
‘Aye surely. Whenever there usta be trouble round these parts, didn’t the police, or the B-specials, come and collect up the pair of them. They used to get put inside regular. They’d plenty of time to get to know one another.’
‘You mean Charlie was a Republican?’ Clare asked, not sure she could really believe her ears.
The problem was Robert’s tone. It was so matter-of-fact, she couldn’t rightly take in the enormity of what he was saying.
‘Aye certainly. Still is, to the best of my knowledge. D’ye niver notice the “Erin go Bragh”?’
‘Yes, of course, but I thought that was just because he speaks Irish.’
‘Ach no. It’s a signal. Like the way the Masons shake hands. It lets others know where he stan’s.’
The wag on the wall gathered itself, the throaty whirring warned them it was about to strike the hour.
‘Goodness, it’s six o’clock and you’ve had no tea yet,’ she said, concerned that Charlie would appear before she could get it on the table. ‘Will you tell me about this another time, Granda? I really do want to know.’
‘He’ll likely tell ye himself,’ said Robert easily. ‘He thinks yer a great girl. Especially since ye started listenin’ to Radio Eireann and comin’ out with the Irish. Maybe he’s hopin’ to get you into the movement,’ he added with a broad grin.
Clare picked up her blazer, pulled the kettle onto the heat and said she’d be back in a minute. As she hurried into her room and tugged her tunic over her head, a possible explanation for Robert’s manner came to her. He must have helped Charlie in some way when he was mixed up with the Republican Movement. But it was all very strange. Robert was so very loyal, she’d have thought he wouldn’t even speak to a Republican, yet he and Charlie were dear, close friends. It was all very strange.
Clare’s exam results were good, so good it seemed there was little doubt she’d get her scholarship the following June if she were to try for it. She was relieved and delighted. She’d been back at school only a few days when the bad news came.
A letter from a solicitor in Armagh informed them of the sale of the late Mr Albert Nesbitt’s farm, landholdings and other property to Mr Edward Hutchinson of Portadown and pointed out that, as sitting tenants, they were entitled to remain as tenants of the aforesaid Mr Edward Hutchinson. The rent could be forwarded to the Armagh or the Portadown branch of the above mentioned firm of solicitors. As from 3rd inst, the date of completion of the conveyance of the property, the amount payable would be increased to ten shillings.
‘Ten shillings?’ gasped Clare, as she came to the critical figure. She knew they’d never be able to scrape together ten shillings every week.
‘But they can’t do that. That’s a hundred percent increase. I’m sure that’s illegal.’
Robert shook his head.
‘Sure Albert hadn’t put the rent up for twenty years, Clarey. It’s maybe reasonable enough if we did but know it.’
‘But the new Taylor houses down in Eddie’s front field are only seven and six,’ she protested, ‘it was in the Armagh Guardian last week.’
‘Aye, but that doesn’t include rates. Albert paid the rates on this place and I did all his bits of mending and welding no charge, so he wouldn’t be out of pocket. It works all right with someone ye know. But this new man doesn’t know us an’ maybe has no work I coud do fer him,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Or maybe he just wants the money,’ he added more sharply.
Clare saw the strained look on his face and regretted her outburst. She didn’t want him to be worried about it. It was up to her to find the money.
‘You’re probably right, Granda. I’ve been reading too much about wicked landlords and the Land League for history. But I don’t know what Charlie’s going to say when we tell him. I don’t think it’ll be popular.’
To her surprise, Robert laughed heartily. The strained look disappeared and he was perfectly cheerful again.
‘Charlie was all for shooting the landlords at one time,’ he said, still grinning. ‘If we’re bate we’ll send him down to Ballybrannan and see if he can get rid of yer man for us,’ he added, as he threw on his cap and headed for the forge, leaving Clare with the stiff, white sheet of paper still in her hands.
She thought about the new rent every time she cycled to or from school or whenever the routine, everyday jobs left her mind free. Over and over again, she went through the details of their tiny budget and tried to see how she could cut their expenses. But she knew perfectly well she couldn’t. Even before this latest blow, the rise in food prices had begun to make things difficult. No, there was no doubt about it, the extra money for the rent would have to come from somewhere outside.
She thought of Uncle Bob who had always been so generous and Uncle Johnny, who would be generous were it not for his dear wife. And Auntie Polly, who was so generous by nature she seldom had any money in the first place.
Night after night, Clare lay awake doing sums in her head, considering the letters she might write. In the end, she decided she needed to save Uncle Bob and Uncle Johnny for real emergencies and somehow solve this one herself. What she needed was a Saturday job that paid considerably more than Margaret’s five shillings a week, but few women could afford help and there were no shops in Armagh so busy on a Saturday they’d pay for an extra pair of hands.
She had still not solved her problem when an envelope arrived with a London postmark, the address written in a large, flowing, quite unfamiliar hand.
‘Andrew Richardson,’ she said aloud. It had to be. She laughed as she tore it open and hastily read the friendly message.
In the year or more since they had stood together on Scrabo Tower, he’d sent her twenty postcards and a Christmas card. Admittedly, when he sent a postcard, he chose a very interesting or attractive one, covered the whole space on the back in tiny writing and put it in an envelope. But he had never written what Clare would call ‘a proper letter’. This was the first time he’d even written her a note.
He had been apologetic
, explained that letters intimidated him, that he couldn’t face the empty pages. He promised he would try but, please, in the meantime, would she forgive him and go on writing, he so enjoyed her letters. They were his only real contact with home.
This time his note said he’d be spending the rest of the long vacation in England and would not be visiting Drumsollen House in the immediate future. She wasn’t really surprised, as he’d hinted this might happen. He congratulated her on her splendid exam results and said he was sure she’d get her scholarship next year. He was now off to Norfolk to stay with his Great-Aunt Mary, a formidable lady who’d run a field hospital in France during the First World War and now ran her north coast village through her chairmanship of the Parish Council. He was looking forward to getting away from London where he’d been staying with his uncle’s family. He hoped to do some bird-watching out on the marshes but his main objective was to paint Great Aunt Mary’s kitchen, which looked very sorry for itself. It had been flooded to a depth of six feet when the sea defences gave way earlier in the year.
Clare wondered where Great-Aunt Mary had been while the sea was busy flooding her kitchen. As she added the note to the small pile in one of the two tiny drawers below the mirror in her room, a thought struck her. June Wiley was now full-time housekeeper at Drumsollen House. She would go and see if she needed another pair of hands.
‘Aye, right enough Clarey, it was a good thought,’ said June warmly, as she sat them down at her kitchen table. ‘There’s that much work up at Drumsollen I could do with half a dozen girls. An’ I’d be right glad to have a sensible one like you at the weekend when these visitors come. But between you an’ me the money’s tight. There’s times John says he’s seen old man Richardson clear out his own wallet to make up the wages for the staff on a Friday. An’ sure even that’s cut down t’half what there used to be when I first went there as a maid.’
