Shadow on the Land

by Anne Doughty

  The sky was darkening as he came to the foot of the hill, a huge black cloud piled up behind Cook’s farm. The pleasant afternoon had turned progressively grey, but now a chill and boisterous wind was whipping the branches of the trees overhanging the road. He reckoned that any minute now there would be a heavy shower.

  As he changed gear and turned up the hill, he was amazed to see a small figure away up ahead on the empty road, a hand clutched to a bright red headscarf that threatened to blow away, a waterproof coat inflating with the gusts of wind and trousers blown flat against her legs. As the figure was carrying neither bag, nor basket, nor wheeling a bicycle, it was a couple of minutes before he realised it was Emily herself.

  He pulled up a little way ahead of her, leant over and pressed the door handle at the very moment the clouds opened and threw a rattle of sleet against the windscreen.

  ‘That was good timing,’ she said, breathlessly, as she pulled the door behind her and swept fragments of sleet from her waterproof.

  ‘What happened to your driver?’ he asked, as he peered through the windscreen, the wiper blades struggling to move the accumulating fragments of ice.

  ‘No driver today, love,’ she said, smiling and rubbing her cold cheeks. ‘Have you forgotten? They’ve gone. All except Chris. But he won’t have any transport till tomorrow, so we were out delivering the cakes and biscuits to the sick and the elderly. Don’t you remember he sent Hank the Tank to warn me last week?’ she prompted, as they turned into the avenue, which was already beginning to look like a Christmas card.

  ‘So how did you deliver all that stuff?’ he asked, puzzled.

  ‘Bicycles. What else?,’ she said promptly. ‘No one has any petrol. But some of the older girls from the Academy came to help us. You can’t carry all that much in a bicycle basket, but there were fifteen of us at one point. After all that cycling around, I couldn’t face pushing my bicycle up the hill, so I left it with Mary,’ she explained, as they came round into the yard.

  ‘And you had it all planned?’

  ‘Well, of course. That was why Chris let me know. We couldn’t not bake in case the picnic went ahead. But if it didn’t, what did we do with all that lovely food? It’s not just cake for teatime. The children get a little bag to take home for their family. So, it does add up, sixty or seventy for tea, then at least thirty take-away bags and a little something for the office staff and the flower ladies who help us to set things up in the lunch-hour.’

  ‘Like doing the flowers?’

  ‘Yes, of course. Can’t have a picnic without flowers,’ she said lightly, as they stopped opposite the back door, now obscured by a further squall.

  ‘Have you seen what’s in the back?’ he asked, as they continued to sit, the sudden, angry fusillade bouncing noisily off the roof of the car.

  She turned awkwardly in her seat, her waterproof catching on the Rexine covered seat.

  ‘Where did you get that?’

  ‘Long story. But I’ll tell all when we’re sitting in front of a good fire. Shall we make a dash for it?’

  Emily laughed.

  ‘I’m so tired, I couldn’t dash to save my life. The hill finished me off. But I’m game to get battered or soaked. We’ve plenty of dry clothes indoors and I would just so love to be home.’

  The house was so cold that Alex plugged in two convectors, one upstairs and one in the hall, and brought the paraffin heater into the sitting room until the freshly-lit fire started to produce some heat. To his great surprise both convectors began to whir and produce the stream of warm air he’d not dared to expect.

  Power cuts could occur at any time, but on a Friday night it was almost predictable. As he hung his suit on a hangar and found a warm sweater to pull over his shirt and warm trousers, he wondered what was so special about Friday night. Was it an extra demand that put up consumption or did output drop? He certainly wasn’t aware that any of the power stations worked other than a seven day week.

  Emily had made Irish stew in the morning and the large saucepan only needed careful reheating. After one of the afternoon gatherings which were now a regular feature of life, it had become a regular thing that they had a supper that could be reheated and eaten by the fire in the sitting-room.

  Tonight they ate in silence, tasty, hot food and the fire burning up brightly creating a smell that Emily loved, easing away the cold, hunger and weariness of the day. She blessed Sam Hamilton. On his last visit, he’d brought them bags of turf he’d managed to buy in Portadown from a man who had a strip of bog at Annaghmore.

  ‘That was great, Emily. I didn’t realise how cold I was till the food began to warm me up.’

  ‘There’s no warmth in a suit, Alex. At least dungarees give you a double layer,’ she added, as she finished off the last of her meal. ‘Aren’t we so very lucky to have food and fire?’

  He looked at her sharply, disturbed by something in her tone.

  ‘What is it, love? Something’s on your mind.’

  She nodded, leant forward in her armchair and held out her hands to the blaze.

  ‘Alex, I know about poverty and I know about old age, but what I saw today really got me down,’ she said honestly. ‘Some of those wee mill cottages have two or even three families in them, maybe seven or eight children and an old granny bedridden in the same room. There’s people that were bombed out in Belfast two years ago still staying with the family that took them in after the Blitz. They’ve nowhere else to go. There’s no new houses going up, only more of the old ones falling down. I’ve seen better old cottages being used to shelter cattle.’

  Alex nodded and said nothing. Sometimes he didn’t notice things and then when he did, he was ashamed he’d not paid more attention. But there wasn’t much time for thinking these days, not beyond the problems in front of him, and there were plenty of those.

  ‘Have they enough to eat?’ he asked abruptly.

  ‘Just about,’ she replied. ‘The W.V.S. are very good. But you should have seen the eyes of those children when the Granny opened her packet of cake and biscuits.’

  Without the slightest warning, he saw himself looking at a table covered with food. He almost imagined he could smell it. It must be Thanksgiving. Turkey on a great decorated platter. Roast potatoes piled high. Small dishes with sauces and little spoons in saucers for putting it on the slices of meat. It was snowing outside and he’d been sent for more logs for the fire. As he went to put them down on the hearth, he caught sight of a great pyramid of fruit on the sideboard, oranges and bananas and something else he’d never seen before, a large fruit with scales on its skin and sharp leaves sticking out at the top.

  Then a hand fell roughly on his shoulder and someone said, ‘Leave them down there and get out,’ and shoved him towards the door.

  ‘Alex?’

  ‘Sorry, something just came into my head.’

  ‘Tell me,’ she said, as she saw the hard lines of concentration ease.

  ‘Nothing very interesting, love, but I will if you want me to. How about a cup of coffee?’ he asked, standing up.

  ‘We haven’t very much left.’

  ‘You haven’t seen the box your friends sent you. It’s in the back seat of the car,’ he replied, beaming at her. ‘Not surprised you missed it with the size of that thing full of daffodils. But if we haven’t enough in the cupboard for two cups, I’ll go out and bring it in, sleet or no sleet.’

  It was as they finished their coffee that Alex suddenly remembered Hank’s letter in the pocket of his suit. He fetched it from upstairs and handed it to her.

  ‘But when did you see him?’ she asked in surprise.

  ‘He came ahead of the column and dropped back in as they passed Millbrook. He’s very nippy in that jeep of his.’

  ‘We met them further out when we were coming back from our deliveries,’ she replied. ‘He spotted me and waved and tooted his horn and of course the whole column saw us then. At least we were able to wave them goodbye, though what the passers by thought of
the racket they made shouting and waving at us, I’d rather not know.’

  Alex saw her glance down suddenly at the crumpled envelope and wondered why she looked so uneasy.

  ‘I wish we knew where they were going,’ she said sadly. ‘No, that’s silly, I don’t mean that,’ she corrected herself. ‘What does it matter where they are going. What matters is that they’ll be safe. And no one is safe anymore, anywhere.

  ‘Maybe we never were,’ she went on, surprised at her own words and close to tears. ‘We only thought we were, but now we know for sure. Death is round every corner. I can manage death, I think, but I can’t manage loss. I can’t bear the thought of Hank, or any of those boys, never coming back, or never going home.’

  ‘It’s hard, love. And its harder for you than for others. You give so much. It’s the way you are, but it costs. That’s why those boys cheered when they saw you. You need to remember that.’

  Emily wiped her eyes quickly with her hanky.

  ‘I’m sorry. I’m probably just tired.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re tired after all you’ve done today, but that’s not what’s making you weep.’

  ‘What is then?’

  ‘Fear of loss.’

  To his great surprise she smiled. A bleak little smile. After which, she seemed steadier.

  ‘The worst thing about you, Alex Hamilton, is that you have a habit of being right,’ she began. ‘I can’t complain that you don’t understand me. Do you realise how irritating that is?’ she asked, her face softening, as she pushed back her hair from her forehead and looked across at him.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ he said, trying to look repentant.

  She looked again at the envelope lying in her lap, took it up, tore it open and pulled out the small, neatly written sheets.

  ‘It’s to both of us,’ she said coolly, ‘Shall I read it to you?’

  ‘Yes, please,’ he said, leaning comfortably back in his chair.

  Dear Aunt Emily and Uncle Alex,

  She paused for a moment only and then went on, her voice steady, her tone clear.

  I hope you will not be upset or disturbed that I should address you thus, but I should regret it so if I were never to have that opportunity again.

  I am neither optimistic or pessimistic about what lies ahead of any of us, I simply accept that now is the only time we can be sure of, so I take my chance.

  I cannot help wishing that the conversation I had last Friday amid the geraniums could have taken place when first we met. But that is a useless regret. Better to say that I have had a whole week in which the picture of my world has changed and a quite unlooked for happiness has come to me.

  I have written to my mother and told her that I think I have found her lost brother, or rather, that her lost brother and his wife have found me.

  This is not a fond hope. I have gone over and over in my mind the fragments that would give weight to my argument and I have listed them on a separate piece of paper for you to check out for yourselves. But I have to confess that the piece of evidence that weighs heaviest in the scales of logic came to me in an extraordinary way.

  When I searched the house for Aunt Emily, finding the door open and believing she would have locked it if she’d been out, I went quickly into every room. Later, when I apologised for what then might have seemed an intrusion, you said … you didn’t intend to steal the family silver or check that I had dusted under the bed.

  Going over and over the evidence in my mind as I have, of course, been trained to do, those words came back to me and suddenly I remembered that I had ‘stolen’ something. I had ‘stolen a glance’ at a picture of a young woman who was so like my mother that at the time I had to tell myself not to be silly. Homesickness can play strange tricks and I thought I had imagined a real likeness when I was simply looking at a picture of a pretty, blonde-haired girl.

  Now, I feel sure the explanation is simple. This girl, whose name I do not know, is most certainly your daughter. She is also my cousin, for my mother was not romancing when she said she had a brother and that his name was Alexander. The mutual arrival date of May 1895 from Liverpool is too much of a coincidence to be other than a fact.

  Time grows short and there is much to do before departure, but I shall find some means of delivering this letter in person to one of you.

  The additional notes are for you both to pursue if you will. Fragments retrieved from my memory of my mother’s stories stimulated by the happiest of thoughts that we may solve some old puzzles, while at the same time rejoicing in the good fortune which chance has brought us.

  I am, happy to be,

  Your nephew,

  Alexander Lachlan Ross

  alias, Hank the Tank.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The sea was as calm as the proverbial millpond, a grey sheet spreading as far as the eye could see, the pale gleams of the setting sun catching the wash of the ship, tipping the white foam with gold. The hills of Antrim were a misty outline, those of Down had already disappeared beyond a light evening mist rising from the cool water after the first warm day of the year.

  A strange journey it had been from the quiet of his own home in the early morning with Emily trying hard not to bother him with questions or reminders. First, to the mill, full of the throb of machinery and the stuffiness that the warmth of summer always brought. Then, to Belfast, through the burgeoning countryside, the May blossom already heavy on the boughs though it was still only the fourth of the month. On through the familiar towns and villages of the Bann valley, till suddenly the city lay before him, a haze of smoke hanging on the air from mills and factories as hard-working as the four he had left behind him.

  Above the city to the north, the hard edge of the hills stood out against a brilliant blue sky, gorse blazing flame-yellow set against the rich green of new grass and the snowy mass of the hawthorn bushes. So, on through the city, its streets full of movement and clatter, Army lorries, and cars mixed up with wagons, drays and horse-drawn bread carts brought out of retirement to help save petrol.

  The office in Linen Hall Street for which he was bound before his night crossing had not changed since before the first war. Some of its staff he had known for twenty-five years or more, since he had come there with the company’s accountant to make arrangements for the payment of sums of money for materials or machinery so enormous he had difficulty then in grasping them.

  Not any longer. He could now speak the language of finance as fluently as he spoke French or German. It was only a matter of familiarity. He sat at the well-polished mahogany table and studied the handsome, gold-framed portrait of the Titanic on the wall opposite while a white-haired man in a dark suit went through the sums requested on the Letters of Credit he’d brought with him and handed him discreetly a neat packet of papery notes for his hotel bill and personal expenses.

  This was something to which he had never grown accustomed, the obligation to stay at a particular hotel, to use taxis, to entertain lavishly, or as lavishly as the circumstances of war now permitted. But, however he might feel about such expense, even that had grown familiar.

  He was glad to be free of the confining atmosphere of Head Office and to sit back in the obligatory taxi, his car now secured in their own small parking space. He felt even better as he strode up the gangplank to board the Liverpool boat, the prospect of the open sea bringing an unexpected delight.

  Clear of the lough, the marked channel far behind, the ship was correcting its course to run east of the Copeland Islands and north of the Isle of Man, its destination Liverpool in the early morning.

  Liverpool. He found himself repeating the name to himself like a new word in a foreign language. It felt as if the name meant something quite different from what it had meant back in March, before Hank had written to his mother. He’d known that the boat which took him to Canada had sailed from Liverpool, but any recollection of it was remote and unreal. In her first letter to them his new-found sister Jane had told them she and Alex had come to
Liverpool from Manchester where they had lived near a big school.

  ‘But Emily,’ he’d protested, ‘why didn’t I remember that? I must be at least a year older than Jane, but she says here she remembers Manchester. She even remembers things about the street where we lived.’

  ‘Alex dear, Jane was a little girl,’ she said patiently. ‘Don’t you remember how worried we were about Johnny, because he seemed so slow compared to the girls, slower to talk, slower to walk, certainly slower when he went to school, until one of his teachers told us it was perfectly normal. Girls move faster at times. They seem to be more aware of what’s going on around them. It’s later on they go dreamy. She said sometimes boys don’t fully catch up till the very late teens.’

  ‘So you think it’s a genuine memory?’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ she said, nodding vigorously. ‘And don’t forget,’ she went on, ‘the Ross’s never stopped Jane talking about what she remembered. They only thought she was romancing about her brother, because she’d invented a couple of brothers to replace the one she’d lost. But they didn’t know much about little girls, they only had boys. While you, my dear love, were not encouraged to talk about anything, never mind your past. The things we remember best are the things we talk about, the stories we tell most often. You didn’t have that possibility, so the things you might have remembered just slipped away.’

  He looked down at the sparkling wash and saw it slip away, rippling outwards until it was finally absorbed into the undisturbed water beyond. Surely he must have looked at the sea on that long voyage. Prompted by the image before him, he did his best, but nothing came to him.

  And then, quite suddenly, there was something, a smell and the sound of fabric flapping in the wind, the deck wet and slippery. Of course, he’d stood on tiptoe, but he still couldn’t see over the tarpaulins that covered the inside of the ship’s rails.

  Startled, he stepped back from where he’d been leaning comfortably above the after deck and sat down on one of the wooden benches attached to the superstructure. He had just calculated that the top of the rail was over four feet above the deck when a woman with two children strolled past in front of him. The children paused, their shoes scuffing against the lowest section of the rails, which were covered with fine metal mesh. They poked their heads through to point to something in the water below. Then they ran on to catch her up.