On a Clear Day

by Anne Doughty

  Clare ran round behind the counter and held up her arms to him.

  ‘You are an awfully nice Uncle Harry,’ she said, as he picked her up so she could kiss him. ‘Just wait till I tell Auntie Polly that I’m going to have a bicycle. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I can’t quite believe it. Do you think you might be a fairy godmother in disguise?’

  ‘Well, you never know, Clare. It’s something I hadn’t considered,’ he said, laughing to himself, as he put her gently back on the floor again.

  ‘What time’s the Loughgall bus?’ he asked, looking at his watch.

  ‘Ten past five.’

  He shouted to the boy out in the yard that he’d be back in twenty minutes and came round from behind the counter.

  ‘We’ll away down to the bus and I can make myself known to your Granda. I’ve often heard tell of him but we’ve never met. Is he a nice Granda?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Clare, ‘though he has no hands. He really needs someone to look after him.’

  Harry Mitchell was quite happy to listen, and listen he did, all the way back to where the Loughgall bus sat under the trees slowly filling up with Saturday shoppers ready to go home for their tea.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Breakfast was later than usual on Sunday morning and it was not long afterwards that Clare discovered Granda Scott didn’t like Sundays. To begin with she noticed he said even less than usual. He sat in his chair and shuffled through the previous day’s newspaper which he had already read. As the morning wore on and he had no fire to light in the forge and no Jamsey to greet, he became increasingly fidgety.

  Clare was sitting at the table below the orchard window and had just completed her painting of the Canadian prairies when she heard him sigh. She pushed the painting away, stirred the dirty water in the jam jar with her brush and wondered what she could paint next.

  ‘Sunday’s a long old day,’ he said, as he sat back in his chair after making up the stove.

  That settled it. Granda Scott was at a loose end. This was a regular state of affairs with William, who was forever at a loose end, but there were so many games you could play with William it was only a matter of deciding which one. But you couldn’t offer to play ‘Snap’ with Granda Scott. She couldn’t suggest taking the dog for a walk when poor old Blackie had been dead for months and hadn’t been able to walk very much anyway. And she couldn’t suggest feeding the hens, because they too had disappeared, though she hadn’t yet found out what had happened to them. For the moment she couldn’t think of anything she might suggest.

  She began to wonder what Granny Hamilton did with William when he came looking for someone to play with. All their card and board games had gone and she had a feeling that Quakers didn’t approve of playing cards, so they couldn’t even play ‘Snap’ with those. She couldn’t imagine Granda Hamilton playing football with William, and Uncle Jack and the other uncles and aunts who still lived at home all had their jobs to do on the farm. On Sundays when they weren’t at work they often went off to visit their married sisters and brothers. The trouble was if you didn’t do something quite quickly about William when he was at a loose end he would cry and work himself up into a real temper.

  While she was still thinking about William, she saw her grandfather scuffle around among his boots and shoes under the side table where the radio sat. She saw him pull on a very old pair and watched as he limped across the floor, stepped out into the sun-filled hallway, pick up a spade from behind the front door and disappear across the front of the house.

  She knew perfectly well he wasn’t going to dig the garden. Apart from the overgrown flowerbed along the front of the house and the huge tangle of rose that had run wild over by the old ruin, there wasn’t a garden any more. If he had a spade in his hand then he must be going to clear out the privy in the orchard. Perhaps that was why he didn’t like Sundays. It wasn’t a very nice job to have to do.

  Just then she remembered Jinny and the chamber pot. She had seen her throw the contents into the ash pit instead of taking it to the privy as she should have done and then she’d dunked the empty pot up and down in the rainwater barrel. Tonight, before dark, they would both have to fill their wash jugs from that water barrel.

  ‘Oh dear,’ she said aloud, as she slid down from her chair and went to the door. He had been so very cross yesterday about Jinny that she really didn’t want to mention her name again and bring it all back. And it might sound like telling tales as well. But something would have to be said. Auntie Polly had been so precise about the rainwater barrel.

  She tidied up her paint box and washed and dried her brush. Perhaps it could just emerge in conversation.

  ‘Granda, what would we have to do if something nasty fell in the rainwater barrel?’ she asked, as he came back into the house.

  ‘What like?’

  ‘Like a dead bird. Perhaps one that was just flying past and fell in. Or a mouse,’ she added, thinking that perhaps a bird wasn’t very likely to be flying over a water barrel that stood so close to the house.

  ‘Ye’d lift it out an’ throw it in the bushes.’

  ‘Or perhaps some nasty mud fell off the roof in a storm,’ she went on, hopefully. ‘You couldn’t just lift that out, could you?’

  ‘No, but it would settle to the bottom, it wouldn’t do any harm.’

  She frowned and tried again.

  ‘What would you do if someone just accidentally forgot and put their chamber pot in to rinse it?’

  He laughed shortly.

  ‘Sure ye’d have to drain the whole thing out and hope that it might rain again soon to spare Jamsey bringing two buckets instead of one.’

  He turned on his step as if he was about to go down to his room and then changed his mind.

  ‘Ye didn’t ferget, did ye?’ he asked sharply.

  ‘Oh no, I didn’t …’

  ‘Are ye trying to tell me that that … wuman put my chamber pot in the rainwater?’

  ‘I’m afraid so. I didn’t want to tell stories, but Auntie Polly was most strict about it. She said people could get ill if water wasn’t looked to.’

  ‘Aye, an’ she’s right there.’

  Without another word he went to the press and lifted out the rainwater bucket. He limped across the front of the house and, by the time Clare had caught up with him, he had started to bale out the water. Bucket after bucket he poured round the roots of the climbing rose and the trees and shrubs that lined the path to the forge until, the barrel half-empty, he was able to tip it over and drain out the rest of the water and the muddy remains at the bottom.

  Clare watched and saw the beads of perspiration break on his brow. It looked like very hard work.

  ‘Would you like a mug of tea, Granda?’

  ‘Can ye make tea?’ he asked, looking surprised.

  ‘Oh yes, I can do quite a lot of things but I didn’t want to be a nuisance. You might rather do things the way you’re used to.’

  ‘Never worry about that. I know I’m no hand in the house. Tear away. A mug of tea would go down well. And put more water to boil while yer in the house, we may scald out the barrel while we’re about it.’

  The path to the orchard was very wet after they’d finished the job of scalding, so Clare fetched the yard brush and he swept the water aside into the long grass and the nettles. While he was clearing the path Clare pulled out a large weed from the flowerbed. With all the water he had poured onto the dry soil it came away quite easily.

  ‘Look, Granda, it just popped out,’ she said, waving a huge head of groundsel towards him. ‘Do you think we could get them all out?’

  ‘Aye.’

  By the time all the weeds were gone the soil in the flowerbed showed up soft and dark. It looked very tidy but empty.

  ‘Do you like flowers, Granda?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘We could plant flowers, there’s plenty of room now the weeds have gone.’

  ‘Where wou’d we get them?’

  ‘You just ask your
friends for cuttings. That’s what Daddy did and he had our whole back yard full of lovely things. Do you mind?’

  ‘Aye, I mind. Yer mammy was mad about flowers,’ he said, walking off abruptly to wipe the mud from the spade and the brush on the long dewy grass of the common.

  Clare smiled to herself. Last Sunday, Auntie Polly had scolded her for saying ‘I mind’, but she knew she wouldn’t be cross as long as she didn’t say it at school. Mummy had explained a long time ago that there were things you could do at home, like licking the baking spoon, that you must never do anywhere else. It was all a matter of remembering when you could say things like ‘I mind’ and which people you could say it to.

  By the time they had walked up the orchard and filled their wash jugs from the well, it was time to put the potatoes on and fry up the chops that Granda Scott had brought from Armagh.

  ‘Can ye fry a chop?’ he asked, as he brought them from the glass fronted cupboard in the sitting room, the coolest place in the house.

  ‘Oh, yes. Ronnie showed me how. I can do a whole mixed grill if ever we’re in the money.’

  He laughed to himself and then became anxious again.

  ‘Ye won’t burn yerself?’

  ‘No, I’ll be very careful,’ she reassured him as he pulled back the rings on the stove and swung the heavy griddle onto the fire.

  The chops were tender and sweet and there was some gravy to pour over their mashed potato.

  ‘Yer a great wee cook,’ he said as he finished his meal with a draught of buttermilk and wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

  She giggled and felt pleased as he tramped off to his room for half an hour on the bed and left her to clear the table.

  Clare was sitting on the settle by the stove reading his abandoned newspaper when she heard the throb of a car engine. It was seldom enough a car passed on the road below the forge, but this one sounded as if it was much nearer. Before she had even put down the newspaper she heard it stop. Just as she opened the kitchen door she caught sight of Uncle Jack striding up the path.

  ‘Shhh,’ she said as he reached the door and bent down to give her a kiss. ‘Granda’s having half an hour on the bed … come on in,’ she whispered.

  ‘How are ye, Clare, are ye rightly?’ he asked quietly as he sat down opposite her.

  ‘Oh yes, I’m very well and so is Edward James Bear, though we’ve had our adventures,’ she said equally quietly.

  ‘Oh have you now? What’s been happening?’

  Clare told him all about Jinny and showed him her scratch and explained how his handbag had got them out of a pickle. She was just telling him about Uncle Harry and her new bicycle when Granda Scott appeared looking sleepy and rather startled.

  ‘Hello, Jack, is it yerself? Ye’ve caught me in my dishabels,’ he said awkwardly, as he stepped barefoot into the kitchen and held out his hand.

  ‘Never worry, man, sure if we can’t do what we like in our own place, what use is it atall?’ he said easily. ‘I came over to see if you an’ Clare would come over for a bit of tea. There’s wee ones up from Stonebridge for her and William to play with.’

  ‘Ach no, Jack, thank you all the same. I’m not dressed,’ he said uneasily. ‘But take wee Clarey and welcome, she’ll be glad to see her brother.’

  ‘Sure there’s no dressin’ to go to Liskeyborough. Weren’t two of m’ brothers in overalls takin’ their motor bikes apart when I left, an’ m’ father only in a suit long enough to go to meetin’. He’ll be in his old boots walkin’ the land by the time we get there,’ he said encouragingly.

  Granda Scott smiled and jerked his head upwards.

  ‘Well,’ he began, ‘could ye wait till I put on a collar?’

  ‘I’ll wait all day so long as ye come. The father had a mind to ask you about the mare an’ I’ll not be popular if I come back wi’out you.’

  While Granda Scott struggled with the clean collar he felt necessary for his first visit to the Hamilton’s farm, Clare collected her grandmother’s shopping bag from the bedroom.

  ‘Might ye not need that again, Clare?’ Jack asked quietly.

  ‘What for?’

  Jack looked at the small, bright face and thought of what Polly had said to him about her staying with her grandfather. He could see it was hardly the place for a child, but she seemed remarkably settled and not troubled at all by the awkwardness of the old man.

  He just nodded.

  ‘Maybe you should pop in your socks and dress for Granny to look at. We might need some Thawpit to get the black marks out. She knows about these things more than I do,’ he said laughing.

  Clare was absolutely amazed by the drive to Liskeyborough. To begin with she thought Jack was going the wrong way. Always when Mummy and Daddy had taken her to Liskeyborough they had gone on the Portadown bus or walked out the Portadown Road, hoping someone would give them a lift before her legs gave out. But Uncle Jack turned left towards Loughgall, and not towards Armagh, which was where the Portadown Road began. At the foot of the hill he turned right, drove along past Grange School, through Ballybrannan, under a railway bridge, round the foot of a high hill and in no time at all, there they were, driving into the familiar wide farmyard from quite the opposite direction to the one they usually came. What Clare found even more extraordinary was that the distance was so short.

  She was still asking Jack questions and trying to understand how her grandparents had seemed to live so far apart when really they lived so very close to each other, when the Hamiltons all stopped what they were doing and came out or over to greet them.

  As well as Granda and Granny, there were two uncles whom she did remember, Billy and Charley. They were the ones with dungarees and oil on their hands. There was another one whom she’d never seen before who worked in some remote place called Larne. His name was Bobbie and he had a rather plump wife called Mary who kept saying that everything was ‘ni-ice’ in a most peculiar way. They didn’t seem to have any children, but there was another of Daddy’s sisters who had come from Stonebridge with three boys, the youngest about the same size as William. Her name was Molly and she was rather soft and smiley, but Clare never managed to sort out the names of her boys because they never kept still long enough for her to attach the right name to the right boy.

  ‘Come and say hello to your sister, William,’ called Granny Hamilton after she had given Clare a hug and a kiss.

  Clare watched as Granny called down the farmyard to where William and his cousins stood eyeing each other. But William didn’t hear or didn’t choose to hear. Granny Hamilton seemed concerned and called again, but still William didn’t respond. Clare knew he wouldn’t. If he had someone else to play with he never bothered with her.

  ‘Don’t worry, Granny, William’s always like that. Mummy told me to pay no attention, it’s just the way he is,’ she said reassuringly, as they went into the house together, leaving Granda Hamilton heading over to the stable with Granda Scott limping cheerfully beside him.

  ‘I’ve brought your bag back, Granny. Thank you for lending it to me, it was very useful.’

  ‘What’ll ye do when ye go back to Belfast? Has Polly bought ye a suitcase?’

  ‘I’m not going back, Granny. Granda Scott has no one to look after him. I know I’m not very big and I can’t lift heavy things, but I can do quite a lot of jobs. He let me cook the chops today, so they weren’t burnt.’

  ‘Are they usually burnt?’

  ‘Yes. He doesn’t seem to have the knack of cooking. I was going to ask you about making stew and champ. You always give us such nice dinners when we come to see you.’

  So Granny Hamilton sat down at her well-scrubbed kitchen table and explained how to fry soda bread without burning it round the sides, and how to prepare scallions to mash with the potatoes for champ and how to cook fish from the fish man slowly in the oven dotted over with a bit of butter and a shake of pepper.

  ‘Childdear, that’s enough for one lesson,’ she said, stopping abruptly, though Clare had neve
r taken her eyes away from her for one moment. ‘Are ye really sure ye want to stay with yer Granda? He’s a good man but it’s a hard life for a girl or woman in the country. It’ll maybe get a bit easier now the war’s over, if we could just get rid of the bread rationing. There’s talk that maybe the electric’s coming, but sure there’ll always be the heavy work, the stove to clean, an’ the water to carry. Ye’d have an easier time in Canada you know and Polly would take you as quick as wink. Ye’ll need to make up your mind about that on a clear day.’

  Clare had always thought Granny Hamilton loved the country and liked being with the animals. She had often helped her to feed the hens or make up the feed for the calves. Sometimes, when she’d come to stay for a day or two there’d been a lamb by the stove in the kitchen who had to be fed from a bottle like a baby. But now she looked at Granny’s face and thought that it seemed not only lined with wrinkles but marked with sadness and weariness.

  ‘Would you have liked to go to Canada, Granny?’ she asked gently.

  ‘Aye, ah would. I very nearly did. I’d just saved up enough for my ticket when I met your Granda. So I bought a wedding dress instead,’ she said, with a regret that made Clare feel very sad indeed.

  ‘It’s all very well, Clare, however good the man ye might get, it’s hard labour unless yer born gentry with people to fetch and carry for you and nothin’ to do but ride about in a carriage or a car, like the Cowdys or the Copes or the Richardsons. For an ordinary girl, there’s a better life in the town. At least it’s clean, it’s not scrubbin’ and cookin’ and feedin’ animals all the time. An’ if ye do well at school sure there’s a whole lot of things ye can do these days. Ye needn’t even get married at all,’ she said leaning on the table, as she pushed herself awkwardly to her feet.

  Clare remembered that Granny had arthritis in her hips. The doctor had said there was nothing he could do for it. The only thing he could suggest was that she rest. Granny had told Mummy and Daddy what he’d said one Sunday when they’d come out to tea.