On a Clear Day

by Anne Doughty

  Standing in Matron’s office as he wrote out the death certificate, Dr Adams from the Infirmary heard the unexpected sound of children’s voices. Puzzled, he went to the window and saw Clare and William playing on the lawn. He asked who they were and to his amazement received no answer. It was the first and only time in his long association with the Fever Hospital that he had seen its formidable Matron overcome by tears.

  Both the Scotts and the Hamiltons were local families with large connections. Brothers and sisters of Ellie’s parents and of Sam’s had married both within the city itself and in the villages that had grown up in the last century within walking distance of the various Armagh markets. Sam was a respected member of the Masons and had recently been made Master of the Orange Lodge which he had joined when he moved to Armagh. The entire lodge paraded at his funeral, their sashes decorated with large black rosettes. And when colleagues, friends and family took up the formal method of expressing grief by making insertions in the newspaper, the Armagh Gazette had seldom had so many columns of text under any one name.

  But the rituals of funeral and wake did little to mitigate the shock to the whole community that an illness, long-absent from the catalogue of everyday maladies, should strike so suddenly, so unpredictably and so tragically. Nor did those rituals do anything whatever to help the two children who had suffered such grievous loss. They remained in the care of the hospital, carefully excluded from all the public expressions of mourning.

  Clare wept as if her heart would break when the matron herself took on the task of telling them what had happened. But almost before that kind lady had offered her clean handkerchief to the child she began to ask questions. In the long hours of the night and in the small spaces when William did not insist on her total attention, she had feared the worst and had already begun to think what would have to be done.

  ‘I’ll have to look after William now,’ she said quite firmly, ‘but what shall I do about shopping for the groceries? I won’t have any money and I’m too young to get a job …’

  She looked anxiously at William who had gone to the door and would have gone outside had Matron not called him back.

  ‘Clare, would you like me to send Trissey to play with William so that you and I can have a talk?’

  Clare nodded and breathed a sigh of relief when the young nurse arrived to collect him. She had tried so hard to keep him amused because she knew her mother would want her to look after him, but the hours had been so long. Now she thought she’d have to do it forever because Mummy wasn’t there any more. And at the thought of Mummy not being there any more she broke down and wept again on the matron’s starched bosom, appalled by the world that was opening up in front of her, a world full of William and no Mummy, or Daddy, to make it seem worthwhile.

  Matron let her cry, stroked her dark curls with one hand and surreptitiously wiped away her own tears with the other. What was there to say to the child that wasn’t a pathetic platitude? She’d hear enough about the will of God and doing his bidding when the minister got to her after the funerals. What she needed right now was an aunt, or a grandmother, to step into the aching space the loss of her parents had created. So far, her own enquiries about the family had not been very productive. No one had contacted her about the children as yet, but then both families were busy making funeral arrangements and they knew the children were in good hands. Besides, it was unlikely that any of them had a telephone and it was a hard thing to have to use a call box at a time like this.

  ‘Will we be going home now, Matron?’ Clare asked, quite forgetting that she and William could hardly live in an empty house.

  ‘Well you are now free to leave here,’ Matron began slowly.

  She wondered if Clare would understand if she explained about incubation periods and carriers. She liked the child but had had little time to spend with her, for Ellie and Sam were not the only victims to be brought to the hospital during the last week. There had been no other deaths as yet but if the rate of admission continued to increase as it had in the last week, then it was only a matter of time before there were.

  ‘Did you think William and I would get the fever too? Was that why we had to stay indoors?’ she persisted.

  ‘Yes, it was. But you’re both all right now,’ she said reassuringly.

  The small forehead was wrinkled in thought. It was clear that her reassurance had been irrelevant. Whatever was shaping in the child’s mind it had clearly moved beyond the question of being ill.

  ‘Will William and I have to go to Dr Barnardo’s?’ she asked politely.

  Matron smiled in spite of herself.

  ‘No, I shouldn’t think so. Dr Barnardo’s is for children who have no family, but you have lots of aunts and uncles, haven’t you?’

  ‘Oh yes, lots and lots, but we could only go for a week. When we go to Granny Hamilton or Auntie Polly for a holiday Mummy always says that a week is quite long enough. She said you can’t go imposing on people just because they are your own family. It’s just not fair.’

  ‘But I’m sure some of your aunts and uncles would like to have you, Clare. Has Mummy got any sisters?’

  ‘Oh yes, but they have their own troubles,’ she replied promptly.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Clare tried to remember which aunts were real aunts and which were just Mummy’s girlfriends. Sometimes she got a bit mixed up and once at school she’d had a very embarrassing time when she said she had six grannies. One of the other girls in her class said you couldn’t possibly have more than two, so Clare had recited off the names of all six.

  ‘Oh you are silly,’ said the girl who had challenged her. ‘It’s only your mother’s mother and your father’s mother that are proper grannies.’

  This time she would be more careful. Mummy had three sisters and two brothers, but Daddy had nine brothers and sisters altogether and she couldn’t even remember all their names.

  She looked up at Matron and decided that she must be thinking one of her aunts would come and collect her with William and take them away to a new home. That was what usually happened with orphans in books unless they went into an orphanage like Anne of Green Gables. Then you got sent out as a servant to work on a farm when people like Marilla and Matthew needed a boy to help. Anne had been so lucky to get sent to them by mistake. She wouldn’t mind helping people like Marilla and Matthew.

  She took a deep breath and began counting on her fingers; ‘Well, Auntie Polly has a heart of gold, but Uncle Jimmy has a bad back since he fell off the scaffolding at the aircraft factory. He’s on the Boru most of the time and Auntie Polly has to work very hard to pay all the bills. She has three big sons but two of them only think about number one. That’s why she can’t get up to see us very often and we only see her when Daddy borrows Uncle Harold’s car. Auntie Mary is in Michigan and has four children of her own and Auntie Florence is a glamour girl. Auntie Polly says she’s great fun but she lives in London and she says she’s never going to marry.’

  Matron listened, fascinated as Clare continued to list the various members of her family. She discovered that Clare’s Granda Scott was a real gentleman but he had no hands. This might have been alarming had not Clare immediately explained that it meant outside his forge he was no use at all and couldn’t even fry bread without it sticking to the pan. He did his best to help Granny with her jobs because she had bad legs and her chest had never been right after all those years at the Ring Spinners, but he wasn’t much good at it and Mummy worried about the bed linen and the curtains.

  ‘I could go and help to look after Granny Scott,’ she went on, ‘but William wouldn’t like it. There’d be no one to play with him while I was busy and he’d get himself so dirty in the forge. If there’s somewhere to get dirty then William’ll find it,’ she added sadly.

  The strange thing about this child, thought Matron, is that although she’s repeating what she’s heard her parents say, she has thought about it and she understands what she’s saying in her own wa
y. If she makes the Unemployment Bureau sound like the High King of Ireland it’s hardly her fault. That’s what she’s heard so that’s what she calls it. A very sharp ear for what people say, Matron decided, as she listened to Clare’s account of her family.

  The large black telephone on Matron’s desk rang so loudly it made Clare jump.

  ‘Yes, I’ll come immediately,’ Matron said, standing up as she put the receiver back. ‘I’m sorry Clare, I have to go, but as soon as I can we’ll go on with our talk. Why don’t you go and have a wee walk yourself while William’s busy. If you see the gardener he’ll give you some flowers if you ask him nicely.’

  Clare had never seen so many flowers in her life. Formal wreaths in great circular mounds, crosses and emblems with words and mottoes picked out in individual blooms, sprays and posies from local gardens of every colour and hue. In the shady greenness of the Presbyterian burying ground, the spill of colour washed so far beyond the newly-cut graves that from the moment her father’s youngest brother parked his car and opened the heavy iron gates at the end of the long beech avenue to let her and Auntie Polly pass through, she could see quite clearly where her parents lay.

  She walked quickly, her own flowers in one hand, a shopping bag with a jam pot and a tightly screwed up bottle of water in the other. She wondered where she was going to put her bunch of marigolds and asters with all these other beautiful flowers spread everywhere. She looked over her shoulder and found that Auntie Polly and Uncle Jack were now a long way behind.

  Jack and Polly had met for the first time two days earlier, the morning of the funeral, when Jack had met Polly’s train at Armagh station and taken her to the church on the Mall. Now Clare observed that they were walking very slowly, talking quietly, nodding towards other graves they passed, people they both knew though their own lives had been separated by Polly’s fourteen years of absence and by Jack being sixteen years her junior. As they moved towards the double burial, Clare saw Uncle Jack point out to Auntie Polly how the grass for yards around had been tramped flat by the feet of hundreds of mourners.

  The wreaths all had little cards with messages written in black ink in beautiful handwriting, except for some that said Interflora on the back and had messages in ball-point from London and Toronto, Michigan and Vancouver. ‘In loving memory of a valued and respected colleague – The Staff of Harold Mitchell Ltd, Scotch Street.’ ‘Safe in the arms of Jesus – a beloved sister and brother-in-law, Robert and Sadie Scott and family, Ballymena.’ ‘We shall met again on the other side of Jordan – John and Sarah Scott and family, Enniskillen’, ‘With fond memories of Ellie and Sam – Armagh Lawn Tennis and Archery Club’.

  Clare read every single label, puzzling over names she had never heard of before, cousins of her parents from places that were quite unknown to her, both in Ulster and abroad. She had to guess at some words smudged by a light shower of rain the previous evening. All these people, known and unknown, must be very sad about Mummy and Daddy to write such lovely messages. The flowers blurred and she wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her cardigan.

  She heard Uncle Jack’s voice behind her. He was speaking very quietly but in the deep silence that lay under the tall trees it was impossible not to hear every word he said.

  ‘Polly dear, I wouldn’t for the world want to hurry the wee lassie but if ye want to get back to Belfast the night we’d need to be gettin’ a move on for that train ye wanted.’

  ‘Right enough, Jack, it’s after five. Sure I’d clean forgot what time it was. I’m all through meself. I don’t know whether I’m coming or going.’

  ‘Ah sure we’re all the same. But you’ve the hardest job with wee Clare. I don’t think it’s hit her yet. She seems as right as rain.’

  ‘I don’t know. I just don’t know. The matron says she cried a lot when she told her but she seemed to be more worried about William than about herself. D’ye think your mother and father have done the right thing taking him in? They’re not so young any more and he can be a wee handful at times.’

  ‘Aye, he’s a funny wee lad. I don’t know who he takes after but the father said it was up to the Hamiltons to have him. And Mammy agreed, though she did admit to be honest that she’d had her fill of we’eans. Of course, it’s part of what they believe in, the Friends that is, they’re supposed to help each other at times like this.’

  ‘Sure I’d forgot they were Quakers,’ said Polly quickly. ‘When Ellie and Sam were married they went to the Presbyterians. Why did Sam not stay with the Quakers? I’ve always thought they were very good people.’

  ‘They are Polly, indeed they are. I wish there was more like them, but Sam was very keen to join the Masons and the Lodge. Ye see ye can’t join any o’ these organisations if you’re a Friend. It’s against what they believe. There’s none of us boys has followed them to the Meeting House, it’s only some of the girls that still go.’

  Clare unpacked the jam pot and filled it carefully with water. So that was why Uncle Jack had taken them all out to Granny Hamilton and then left William there. Granda and Granny must have consulted their consciences about William. That was what Quakers did. They didn’t sing hymns or say prayers, they just sat quietly and waited for the Spirit to move them.

  ‘Granda, what happens if the Spirit doesn’t move you?’ she’d asked her grandfather one day, as he sat by the window, his finger marking his place in the large Bible he read every day.

  ‘Well, that’s a matter of faith, Clare,’ he said, looking at her very directly. ‘If you believe that there is help for you, then it is likely to come, but if you are weak in faith you may have to wait and try again.’

  Perhaps now if she consulted her conscience God would tell her what to do with her flowers. They seemed such a tiny bunch compared with all these wonderful wreaths. And she hadn’t even got a card. She sat down on the kerb of the grave nearest to where her parents lay and closed her eyes.

  ‘Uncle Jack, can I borrow one of your pens?’ she said, getting up quickly and running towards where they stood, their backs slightly turned away from her. Uncle Jack was a book-keeper at the fruit factory in Richhill and he always carried a row of pens in his top pocket.

  ‘Ye can surely,’ he said, taking out a ball-point and handing it to her.

  ‘Have you a wee piece of paper in your bag, please, Auntie Polly?’

  Polly scuffled in her bag and produced a brown envelope, the latest reminder from the Electricity Board. She removed the red notice from inside and put it in her outstretched hand.

  Clare sat down again on the granite kerb and wrote leaning on her knee. It was difficult for without something flat underneath the flimsy paper it would tear if she pressed too hard. She wrote slowly:

  Dear Mummy,

  You always said it was better if men died first because women manage better but that you’d be heartbroken if Daddy died. It is very sad and I shall miss you but you are with Daddy. That is what you would want.

  All my love to you both,

  Clare

  She placed her message under the jam pot of flowers on the kerb where she had been sitting.

  ‘I’m ready now, thank you,’ she said as she walked back to where Jack and Polly stood and gave Uncle Jack his pen.

  Neither Polly nor Jack felt it proper to go and look at what Clare had written but some days later one of Jack’s brothers, Billy, arrived back from visiting the grave to tell the Hamiltons that the message Clare had written on the flimsy brown envelope was now mounted on some very nice, cream-coloured pasteboard and covered by a layer of clear plastic.

  Billy had wondered who could have taken so much trouble, for the mounting and covering had been beautifully done. He’d turned the board over and found a message written in a very shaky hand. It read; ‘I have taken the liberty of protecting this message that others may read it and pray for this child, as I shall do in the time that remains to me.’

  There was no signature, but for some months afterwards, the jam pot in which Clare had left her flow
ers was regularly refilled with sprigs of rosemary.

  CHAPTER THREE

  There were few passengers on the last train to Belfast that evening so Clare and Auntie Polly had a carriage all to themselves and didn’t have to bother putting all their bags and parcels up on the rack high above both their heads.

  Clare dropped her things gratefully and studied the faded sepia pictures above the long, lumpy seats that ran the full width of the carriage.

  ‘The Glens of Antrim, The Great Northern Hotel, Rostrevor and The Ladies’ Bathing Place, Portrush,’ she read aloud.

  She had seen them before, last year, when she and her mother had gone on the Mall Church Sunday School excursion. The train jerked violently and squealed, preparatory to moving off. On the platform side, the stationmaster strode past banging doors and trying handles to make sure they were really shut. As the guard blew his whistle, Clare hurried across to the other side of the train knowing that in a few minutes time when they got up steam she would be able to see all the places she knew on the Loughgall Road.

  ‘That’s Richardson’s, isn’t it, Auntie Polly, over there?’ she asked, as they gathered speed.

  She pointed to a fragment of an eighteenth-century chimney pot just visible over a planting of mature beech trees and the curve of a low, rounded hill.

  ‘Yes, yes, it must be,’ Polly replied, getting up wearily from the seat where she had subsided just inside the carriage door. She came and joined Clare at her window. ‘And that’s the back of Wileys and Compstons. Look, there’s Charlie Running on his bicycle just going up the hill past Mosey Jackson’s. Maybe he’s going down to see your Granda at the forge,’ she went on, making an effort to be interested.