On a Clear Day

by Anne Doughty

  ‘Very likely, indeed,’ said Polly cheerfully, as she produced another less exciting-looking envelope. ‘This is for Clare, from her Auntie Florence in London. “A pair of shoes and a winter coat or whatever she most needs”, she says, and she sends you both her love. Isn’t that nice?’

  Clare couldn’t quite believe it. It looked as if, suddenly, not just one, but two fairy godmothers had appeared. But it struck her then that it was awfully funny that people never talked about fairy godfathers. After all, Uncle Bob was a man. And so was Uncle Jack and he had brought her all those exciting-looking things to plant in the flowerbed.

  ‘I’ll see yez later, then,’ said Granda Scott, as Polly collected them up and got them moving. ‘Don’t buy up all Armagh,’ he laughed as he saw them to the car.

  Clare guessed that after all the excitement he might have half an hour on the bed before he went back to the forge.

  Shopping was hard work and Clare wasn’t much interested in blankets and sheets, but it was nice to be in Armagh again and go into shops that she used to go into with Mummy. Some of the people behind the counters remembered her and she made Auntie Polly promise faithfully they would go down Scotch Street and say hello to Uncle Harry and ask how her bicycle was coming on.

  Buying a winter coat in John M. Wilson’s looked as if it was going to be very easy. The first one she put on fitted perfectly and was such a pretty dark blue that she didn’t want to take it off again.

  ‘Only one problem, sweetheart,’ said Auntie Polly. ‘I may not have enough clothing coupons. I tried to get extra ones for you but they haven’t come through yet. I’ve filled in at least three forms explainin’ what happened your clothes and why you have to have new ones. But there’s such a lot of red tape these days.’

  ‘You mean I can’t have it, even with Auntie Florence’s money?’

  Clare’s eyes filled with tears and she felt quite ashamed of herself.

  ‘Excuse me,’ said the assistant, who’d been pretending not to hear, ‘but are you Miss Scott of the Grange?’

  Auntie Polly laughed and admitted that she was, but not for a brave while now. And the assistant nodded and said she thought she recognised her and forby she knew very few people called Polly.

  ‘Do you remember Florrie Patterson?’ she went on, a broad smile on her face.

  ‘Of course, I do,’ said Polly. ‘Florrie and I served our time together in Thomas Street. How is she? Is she well?’

  ‘She is, aye. She’s gran’. She’s my aunt an’ she useta talk about you an’ some of the jokes you had down in Thomas Street. She works up the stairs here. She’s our alteration hand. Now if you have a word wi’ her about the coupons, an’ she has a word wi’ the boss, I wouldn’t think ye’d have much bother wi’ the wee coat.’

  So they left Jack in the men’s department to buy some socks for Granda Scott and trooped up the narrow wooden stairs to where Florrie was working away on her sewing machine.

  ‘D’ye mind Her Ladyship we worked for?’ asked Polly.

  ‘Could ye iver ferget her?’ replied Florrie. ‘An’ d’ye mind the way her voice useta change on the way from the front of the shop to the workroom. She could curse and swear at us somethin’ ferocious but if you heerd her in the shop or the fittin’ room you’d think she was Lady Muck.’

  Clare thought Florrie was great fun and she’d have sat listening to them talk all day if Polly hadn’t remembered how much they still had to do on their list.

  ‘We must go, Florrie. We’ve left Clare’s uncle in menswear and he’ll think we’ve fell and forgot. We’re away to Leyburns for shoes now. I’ll think of you as I pass the shop. I’m sure she haunts it still.’

  ‘Aye. I could imagine that rightly. An’ never worry, Polly, about them coupons. I’ve got more than I need. I’ll see to it for the wee lassie.’

  She turned to Clare who was already clutching her coat in the parcel the assistant had wrapped up for her. ‘Health to wear, Clare, strength to tear, Clare, and money to buy more, Clare.’ She took a shiny sixpence from the drawer of her sewing machine and gave it to her. ‘Put that in your pocket the first time you wear yer coat and say three times: “May my pocket never be empty”.’

  ‘May my pocket never be empty,’ said Clare solemnly.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Florrie. ‘Don’t ferget.’

  They said their goodbyes, collected up Jack and made their way up into the marketplace. The day was getting very warm and the pavements were crowded. On the steps in front of the Technical School, a nurseryman had laid out his wares, shrubs wrapped in sacking and flowers blooming in pots. Clare wanted to go and look but Auntie Polly said they’d have to go to Whitsitts first. There wasn’t a decent saucepan you could make a drop of soup in and even the old saucepan for boiling eggs looked as if it was ready for the dump.

  ‘Could we buy an egg slice, please?’

  ‘Why d’you want an egg slice, Clare?’

  ‘Well, it would be easier to turn over the bread at breakfast. Mummy used to have one and I remembered it. It’s quite difficult with a spoon and knife though I can manage it now.’

  Clare noticed that Auntie Polly looked very thoughtful as she walked up and down the display stands trying to find an egg slice. Perhaps egg slices were too expensive.

  ‘And it would be nice to have a sharp knife for the scallions. The dinner knives are all very blunt,’ she added, as Polly found what she was looking for.

  By the time they had tried on shoes and found a pair of lace-ups for everyday they were all hungry. Jack said he knew a good place for dinner down in the old horse market and they set off down Scotch Street carrying all their parcels.

  It seemed to be further away than it usually was and Clare was so glad to get there. She sat herself down on the wooden bench and let Auntie Polly stack all their shopping in the corner. The smell of roast meat and cooking potatoes made her feel very hungry indeed.

  ‘Are you still not drinking milk, Clare?’ asked Polly, as Jack prepared to order their meal.

  Clare smiled sheepishly and shook her head.

  ‘Not even the Robinson’s nice fresh milk?’ she persisted.

  Clare shook her head again and then leaning towards her, whispered to her that she needed the lavatory quite quickly.

  ‘Just over there. Through that door and up the stairs,’ said Polly, who knew the place from long ago.

  She turned to Jack, about to say something about how nice it was to come to a place after such a long time and find it had hardly changed at all.

  ‘Does Clare not drink milk?’ he asked, before she’d had time to open her mouth.

  ‘No,’ she said, quietly. ‘I’ve tried my best but it’s no use. Ellie never forced her, so neither have I.’

  Jack looked so very upset that Polly was quite amazed. He had been in such good spirits all morning but now he seemed quite distraught. She’d got so used to his relaxed, easy-going personality that for a moment she was completely taken aback.

  ‘Jack dear, what’s wrong?’ she asked, her voice full of concern. ‘Are ye worried about wee Clare stayin’ with her Granda and not gettin’ the right food? D’ye think I should take her back with me after all? What is it atall, Jack? You look as if ye’d lost all belongin’ to ye.’

  For a moment, Polly thought Jack might be going to burst into tears, but then she saw him make an effort to collect himself.

  ‘Polly, I didn’t know about the milk till this minit,’ he began. ‘That’s why the wee lassie’s still alive and not pushing up the daisies with Ellie and Sam. They’ve only found out in the last week or so. It was the milk that brought the typhoid. This woman from Donegal came to Armagh to stay with relatives. She didn’t know she was a carrier an’ she was helpin’ them with their milk round for that was their livelihood. They had a horse and cart that took the churn and delivered every morning. All the people that got the typhoid was on that one milk round and there was sixty or more people died as well as Ellie and Sam. It’s been kinda hushe
d up, but I heard from the gardener up at the hospital that there was that many ill, they had to send ambulances full to Belfast and even to Dublin. We might well have lost the wee one as well,’ he said abruptly, as he got up and went to fetch them lemonade from the bar.

  Clare was so tired when they finally got back from Armagh that she said she would take half an hour on the bed. She was still fast asleep at teatime but when Auntie Polly woke her she was fine again. She helped to make the potato salad to go with the cooked ham and tomatoes from Armagh and then, when they had tidied up and put the tea things away, they found proper places for the new blankets and sheets and hung her new coat on a hanger on the back of the door with an old shirt over it to keep the dust off.

  It was a lovely summer evening and Auntie Polly wanted to pay a short visit to the Robinsons. It was getting late, but she said Clare could come too for they wouldn’t stay very long. They walked down the lane and across the top of the orchard and Clare told Polly all about her two visits to the Robinson’s, how much she had liked them but how confused she’d been. Could Auntie Polly help her to sort out which were Robinsons and which weren’t.

  The family were very pleased to see Polly and they asked her how she thought her father was. Clare heard old Mrs Robinson say that they’d all been concerned about him after Ellie died, even before he’d lost his wife, but he seemed to them to be well improved recently.

  They’d heard about Jinny from John Wiley’s wife who was the sister of one of their helpers and they all agreed it was no bad thing she was not coming back. If Robert needed some help in the house there were girls and women a-plenty who’d be glad to help out and who could be trusted.

  Margaret told Polly that Clare was a great hand at washing eggs and they were thinking of offering her a job. Everybody laughed at that, but Clare thought it was a good idea. She’d been thinking about how she might earn some money like she had in Belfast in case they might have another emergency.

  Auntie Polly still hadn’t said whether she could stay or not and Clare tried to pluck up courage to ask as they left the farm kitchen and stepped out into the cobbled yard where the white washed farm buildings gleamed in the fading light. They turned out of the farmyard between high white pillars and crossed the gravel at the front of the house where the big monkey puzzle tree stood in the middle of the small, enclosed lawn. It threw long shadows on the path that led up to the front door that no one ever used.

  But Clare couldn’t think what to say. Polly had fallen silent and everything was so still all around them it almost seemed wrong to say anything and spoil the peacefulness of the evening. All she could hear was the distant lowing of cattle down by the stream and the scuffle of birds beginning to roost for the night in the nearby trees and hedgerows.

  They tramped silently past the horse trough and the cart shed and the potato house and the big hay shed already filling up with bales of straw from the harvest. It was as they were about to walk on across the top of the orchard to the forge that Clare suddenly noticed in the fading light that someone had taken a scythe to the nettles on the short cut.

  Where before there had been a narrow track, passable only to people wearing trousers and boots, there was now a broad swathe of dying vegetation just waiting to be raked away. Moments later they walked through the front door which still stood open to the cool of the evening.

  ‘Did you scythe the nettles, Daddy?’ asked Polly as he heard their footsteps and looked up.

  He was leaning over the table, lighting the lamp, the soft glow from the newly trimmed wick showing up his face in the now dark kitchen.

  ‘What nettles?’ he asked absently, as he warmed the mantle and then put back the globe.

  ‘On the shortcut?’

  He thought for a moment and then nodded at them.

  ‘Ach no, I’m no han’ with a scythe. That was Jamsey. After ye went off to town this mornin’ he came and did it and when I spoke to him he said it should have been done long ago for they’d sting the legs off wee Clarey.’

  ‘Wasn’t that kind of him,’ said Polly, as she turned towards Clare, a thoughtful look on her face. ‘I think Jamsey must be hopin’ you’ll stay,’ she added casually.

  ‘Aye,’ said Granda Scott more forcefully than usual. ‘An’ he’s not the only one. Sure what woud I do now without her?’

  CHAPTER TEN

  August 1951

  The morning had been wet. Heavy, thundery rain swept across the front of the cottage, blurring the prospect of fields to a green wash. It sent rivulets of water running down the path to the forge where the trees and shrubs threshed in the blustery wind and released the first shrivelled leaves of the approaching autumn to lodge in the rich grass that had flourished through a warm summer.

  Towards noon the rain eased, the clouds began to lift, and by late afternoon when two figures appeared cycling out of Armagh along Loughgall Road, their arms were bare under the hot sun and their light cotton skirts billowed and flapped with the following southerly breeze.

  ‘Race you to Richardson’s gates,’ shouted the older girl, her words carried off by the movement of air, but her meaning clear from the jerk of her head.

  ‘Right, you’re on,’ replied Clare, as they spun down Asylum Hill and bumped through the bad bit of road at the bottom, where the even more broken and potholed Mill Row joined the main road.

  Along the wall of the asylum, past the mortuary chapel and under the line of sycamores that lay beyond Longstone Lane they flew, pedalling furiously on an open road with neither sight nor sound of a vehicle. Inevitably Jessie drew ahead. Clare made a half-hearted effort to catch her, but she knew of old Jessie’s longer legs always had the advantage of her, even on a day when she wasn’t tired and just starting her period.

  ‘You win, as always,’ she said laughing, as she skidded to a halt, laid her bicycle down on the grassy verge and joined her friend who was already sitting on the low wall adjoining the handsome gates of the Richardson estate. ‘Will we go down to the stream?’ she asked as soon as she’d caught her breath.

  ‘Aye, c’mon, let’s go down.’

  They left their bicycles propped against the wall, crossed the road and climbed through a gap in the hedge. The slope was steep and they had to stop talking and concentrate on finding tufts of grass to use as footholds and handholds, but after a few minutes they were standing on a minute patch of sand beside a tiny, noisy rivulet, well swollen with the morning’s rain.

  Once down into the deep ravine, it was an easy matter to choose a big stone and step across the flow. They made their way to a tree which stretched a branch across the stream and obligingly provided two seats, side by side, completely out of sight of any passers by on the road above.

  ‘I love it here,’ said Clare, swinging her legs and looking down at the threads of vivid green water weed shaped by the strong flow. ‘Do you think we might still come here when we’re old?’

  ‘Why not? Sure, if we’re both in wheelchairs, we’ll be so rich we can hire a team of fellas to lower us down on ropes.’

  Clare giggled. One of the things she loved about Jessie was the way she just came out with things. You never knew what she’d say next. She sometimes wished she was more like her friend, more easy with things, less considered. That way, she’d be much more fun. Sometimes when she was teased for her seriousness at school, she thought it would be such a relief to be like Jessie and take everything in her stride.

  ‘But if we had a whole team of fellows, it’d would defeat the object of the exercise, wouldn’t it?’ she said with a smile. ‘This is where we talk secrets, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, but what’s the chance of havin’ any good secrets when we’re old?’

  The strong sunlight fell through the leaves of the beech tree that provided their seat and dappled their skin and hair. It cast a golden halo on Jessie’s wavy shoulder length tresses and picked up the freckles on her creamy skin. Jessie’s eyes and hands were always in motion and they caught the light, while Clare sat s
till, absorbed in the movement of the water, her skin paler but clear, her hair a mass of dark curls, her eyes distant, but quick to light up and gleam with pleasure whenever she turned to her friend.

  Their meeting had been a strange chance, though they lived not a mile apart as the heron flew, from the stream beside Jessie’s home to the pool in the water meadow beyond the forge.

  Clare had had her new bicycle from Uncle Harry for her tenth birthday as he had promised and on a lovely October day she cycled to school. But despite the new bicycle, the day was no happier than the days of the preceding weeks when she’d travelled into Armagh by bus. Having longed to go back to her old school in Armagh, having thought about it through all her time in Belfast and looked forward to it during the final week of the summer holidays, she had been bitterly disappointed on her first day back.

  Miss Slater had gone. ‘In the family way’, was the phrase she heard the older girls use. In her place was a new class teacher, tall and thin, with a hard face and no sense of humour, who was preoccupied with the state examination for which the brightest pupils in her class would be entered.

  She had written to Margaret Beggs, her best friend, to tell her she was coming back but Margaret was not one bit interested. She’d moved house and wanted to forget she’d ever lived in Edward Street. Her new friends all lived on the Portadown Road and Clare’s company was no longer wanted.

  As if this were not bad enough, Clare found herself utterly bored by the work they were doing for the benefit of those wanting to take ‘The Qualifying’ and go to the local Grammar School. She came to dread the blue textbook with the medical cross on the cover. ‘First Aid in English’ it called itself. Inside, there were long, long lists of things to be memorised. The adjective from eagle is aquiline, the female of monk is nun, the opposite of ingress is egress. Learning by heart, spelling tests and practice in copy books left her miserable and frustrated. There were no more stories, no more geography lessons, no more nature table or library box times. It was all English and arithmetic, spellings and sums. She couldn’t bring herself to learn her spellings each evening, so she ended up at the bottom of the class.